Oil, Asses and Terrorists

Corrine showed me an email she received telling people to boycott Citgo. Citgo, it said, is owned by Venezuela, home of Chavez the wonder ass. Chavez has been taking verbal shots at the U.S.simply because he is an ass. But being an ass and being a terrorist are two entirely different things. Here is how I explained it to Corrine.

By boycotting Citgo, you WILL harm the United States. Here is how it works.

Although Citgo may be owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, it is a formerly American company which is still headquartered in the U.S. (in Houston, Texas), employs 4,000 people, and supplies 14,000 independent retailers with gasoline and other petroleum products — Americans with no substantive connection to Venezuela who would be economically harmed by such an action. (Citgo also provides free or discounted heating oil to low-income communities and tribal reservations within the United States.) And, of course, in today's oil market Citgo could likely find alternative buyers for its products far more easily than the U.S. could make up the shortfall created by a cut-off of Venezuelan oil.

So even though the top of the Citgo chain is in Venezuela, the money spent at U.S. Citgo stations stay in the U.S. for the most part. 4,000 U.S. citizens are working at the Houston headquarters. 14,000 U.S. gas stations employing many times that number of U.S. citizens are benefiting from every dollar you spend at Citgo.

And now for the lesser of two evils. All of the oil we use is imported (Note to those who are asking, "What about the oil we drill in Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska? We sell that, we do not use any of it). The little bit of money that does go to Venezuela is fine with me. Why? Becase the money spent at other gas stations goes to the middle east. Yes, the home of the terrorists. Chavez is an ass, no doubt there. But he is NOT a terrorist!

So who is circulating this nonsense? That's right, the terrorists who would rather see your money go to them, which it does at most every other gas station. At least the large majority of money spent at Citgo stays in the U.S. And NONE of it goes to the middle east.