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Guaido and the Venezuelan pretenders have pretty much kept their mouth's shut about their plans to "save" Venezuela's economy, but that does not mean that they have not been planning. Guaido, Lopez and the Cisneros family consigliere is name Ricardo Haussmann, a Venezuelan who is an econ professor at Harvard. (You can read all about him here). Here is the Haussman plan to save Venezuela: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/ricardo-hausmann Haussman is correct about two things: Venezuela must default AND Venezuela needs a big injection of cash from the outside. Whether he can sell this plan to the bankers is another question. Haussmann would like imperialism to make a long term investment in Venezuela to bring it back into the fold of third world appendages of US imperialism, and make himself into the country's savior in the eyes of its middle class and economics professors everywhere. Aside from the political benefits, US imperialism would get Venezuela's oil wealth back. The problem is that Venezuela's oil is important only in the medium term and long term. Venezuela's oil is heavy and expensive to take out of the ground, expensive to transport, and expensive to refine. As long as the fracking glut lasts, Venezuelan oil can be ignored. And, fracking is being extended into other countries. Colombia is drilling its first 12 fracked wells in a pilot project. Even though the British have suspended fracking for now, fracking is being discussed everywhere in Europe where it is technically feasible. China, too. India, also. IMHO, the big oil companies are afraid that too much fracking could destroy them by leading to a much greater collapse of prices than that which occurred at the end of 2014. The Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy uses this fear as an argument to frack now rather than later, because the prices may be too low to make any money. On the other hand, even if most of Venezuela's debt is held by China and Russia, there could be serious opposition to default by the New York and London bankers because they are worried about a new financial crash, and especially worried that it could be triggered by a Chinese financial crisis. Haussman may not get his big bail-out for the same reason. If Venezuela defaults, but there is no bail-out, the economic situation within Venezuela will get worse, not better. Then the new Guaido government will have to rule with armed force just like Maduro, only with even less popular support and even greater austerity. Since this is not too difficult to figure out, neither the banks, the State department nor the pentagon are likely to be very enthusiastic about regime change in Venezuela. Anthony T _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
