Tami and I were talking the other night and she happened to mention how she makes sure to go to Citgo gas stations when she’s at home. Citgo gets it’s oil from Venezuela either mostly or totally. I cringed visibly and expressed my hatred for Chavez and his policies. I really do believe that Chavez is going to run that country into the ground and cost millions of people their lives or at least the chance to climb out of poverty. She had a response that was very straightforward, logical, and surprisingly I had never thought of it before. “So it’s better to give money to the Saudis?” Hmmm, now that’s an ugly choice, a Marxist dictator or an autocratic monarchy. Come to think about it, none of the major suppliers of oil are exactly upstanding places. Venezuela, KSA, Iran, Nigeria, Iraq, Russia, etc.
If there were a way to pick where you were going to get your oil from, and there’s only one place, Citgo, that allows you to do that, I’d have to go in the following order. From best to worst I’d say it’s Iraq, Russia, Nigeria/Venezuela, Iran, and then KSA bringing up the rear. I still think that Chavez is awful, and dangerous, but he’s not as evil as some of the other options I suppose. Talk about a complex decision strategy, do you shoot for the middle evil in order to exclude the worst, or do you take your chances of funding the worst in order to have a chance of funding the better options? I think I’d have a tough time choosing a Citgo on purpose, but I wouldn’t feel as bad about it now if I had no choice.