Random Thoughts

With world oil prices at all time highs, one would expect an OPEC nation would be wallowing in high cotton. Turns out, the good people of Venezuela are waiting in long lines for basic foodstuff which seems to be in critically short supply. It seems that due to the Chavez government's strict price controls on basic commodities like milk and eggs, coupled with the country's high rates of inflation, producers are faced with the prospect of selling their products at a loss and are holding products off the market. In addition, prices are un restrained in neighboring Colombia, so merchants are shipping their goods to markets across the border.

Since no one in Chavez's government ever took Economics 101, they have dealt with the food shortages as a political problem and have taken to stopping shipments of food and threatening to nationalize the food companies.

"Anyone who is distributing food ... and is speculating, we must intervene and we must expropriate (the business) and put it in the hands of the state and the communities," Chavez said during the inauguration of a new state-run market in Caracas.

So as those Citgo (owned by the people of Venezuela) tankers sail into Boston Harbor with discounted oil, it makes one wonder how and why a governemnt would be so generous while its own people are undergoing hardships. Maybe these dots don't quite connect, but after all, money is fungible and there should surely be a way for the foregone oil revenue to be recaptured and used for the country's own people.

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On a different topic, it seemed to many of us that when the Clintons left the White House with a few truckloads of home furnishings that may or may not have belonged to the taxpayers, we concluded that whatever the value of the merchandise, it was well worth the price to see the last of this dynamic duo.

Well as we are now learning, he's baaaack, campaigning for the Mrs. And he hasn't lost a step in his ability to split infinitives. As he famously once said to Bob Dole, "You gotta do what you gotta do." Or put another way, say what you gotta say.

It's hard enough trying to get a straight answer out of Hillary as to what she might or might not do as president. We are now realizing the extent to which old Bill might play a prominant role in a Clinton II administration. The concept of a "Third Term" is starting to emerge out of the murk like the shark in Jaws.

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Closer to home, Massachusetts Governor, Patrick, who is high up on the Barack Obama bandwagon is blaming his administration's lack of accomplishment on the recalcitrance of the Democratic Legislature. If Barack gets elected, I suspect Deval will be on the next shuttle to Washington. Should Hillary and Bill get themselves elected, Deval will be doomed to stay in Boston and try to make nice with Sal DiMasi and Therese Murray. Of course, if the Republicans prevail, all bets are off.