Hugo threatens $200 oil

Hugo Chavez, left wing dictator of Venezuela, warns the United States of oil reaching $200 per barrel if the US attacks either Iran or Venezuela.  However let’s look at a few facts on the subject of oil in Iran and Venezuela.

Both Iran and Venezuela are economically isolated countries, Iran’s economy is in shambles, it’s infrastructure for pumping oil is not well maintained and it is controlled by the Iranian government.  If Iran would modernize (or allow outside companies to do it for them) then more oil could be pumped.  Venezuela has had socialism thrust upon them and Chavez is taking every nickel he can squeeze from oil and fund social programs.  The problem with this is that he to is not maintaining his ability to pump oil.  He has taken over all the oil interests for this country and doesn’t allow private companies to invest in the needed upgrades to bring more oil out of the ground.

So with both of these large oil producing countries so screwed up how can we avoid $200 oil anyway?  Shouldn’t we work to remove these thugs that run these countries so that the oil that drives the world economy can be pumped from the ground?  Yes I know a war would drive the price up in the short term but fixing the infrastructure would allow both countries to produce two or three times their output today and this would bring the price of oil back down to the $35 or $40 range.

Granted this only solves half the problem.  We also have to remove the socialists from power in the US.  The environmental movement, and current far left wackos in congress are probably a greater threat to the United States than Hugo or Mahmoud could ever hope to be.  All the oil in the world means very little if it can’t be refined and our refining capacity hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years.  We import roughly 3.5 million barrels of refined product every day.

So I say fine, let’s remove both dictators and get on with the war.  The sooner we do it the sooner we restore balance to the world, the sooner that we will see added growth in the world economy, and oh the byproduct that no one seems to care about the sooner that millions more people in Iran and Venezuela will be free from tyrannical dictators.