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Venezuela -- Thomas L Friedman recently argued that "the price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions." It's his "First Law of Petropolitics." Indeed, rising oil prices work as a psychotropic drug on the minds of petro-state leaders. Here's a corollary to Friedman's First Law: the price of oil and anti-American bullyism move in the same direction.
Venezuela -- Replace the UN with FIFA? Just think of the "oil-for-food" deals in Iraq and then imagine how a UN-sponsored World Cup might turn out. Frightful. But as a leading economic indicator, the World Cup tells us to buy!
Caracas, Venezuela -- Despite his inflamed campaign rhetoric, Lopez Obrador is both a populist and a mainline PRI politician, so don't expect his electoral victory to affect the rest of Latin America in any decisive way.
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