Ludicrous Proposal By Venezuela’s Maduro To Combat Oil Price Damage

With oil prices having crashed by more than half over the course of the last two years, this means that the economic value of the oil industry to Venezuela is likely around $25 billion. Not all of that economic impact will hit Venezuela though since some of the revenues went to foreign firms. That percentage of value sent abroad for foreign goods and services that are directly tied to the oil industry is rather low though since Venezuela famously nationalized everything they could that was related to the industry. A very generous estimate suggests that Venezuela’s annual loss from the collapse in oil prices is $20 billion or about $650 per person (around 5 percent of total income). For the government itself, the loss has probably blown a hole in the budget equal to around 20 percent of the government’s revenues More…