…everywhere a bil bil, old McChavez had a well…

On hearing that oil prices took another serious beating today (think they are below $60 a barrel, so happy times are coming to a pump near you) I clicked onto El Universal to see if there was any reaction from Venezuela’s oil-drenched supremodomo Hugo Chavez, who’s openly sought oil at $100 a barrel to finance his “revolution.”

Nothing. The vases are being thrown in the palace in private, I suppose.

But I was struck by the pattern I was seeing. Another $1.2 billion was missing from the state coffers. Late last week, I recall some $3 billion was missing. And this is the missing money they know about. Hundreds of millions in bridge money was missing last week, and Miguel reported this week that a huge sugar project’s millions in funding disappeared in Barinas state too.

Tell me how this state stays afloat? These are massive amounts of money turning up missing, and with growing frequency. The money is going somewhere, there are reports that some of it may have gone to buy back Argentine debt, into campaign vote-buying schemes, or condos in Miami. In any case, it’s not stopping.

If it’s not stopping, it’s surely growing. One corrupt creature sees how easy it is to steal unpunished and don’t think he doesn’t get it into his head to take his cut.

But there’s only so much you can spend till it’s all gone no matter how high the price of oil goes.

So much worse for Chavez now that the price of oil is now going down. This may be stealing on a scale never seen before. Chavez’s “revolution” isn’t called the robolucion for nothing.