That's not happening here. We can't even persuade all liberals and leftists to back carbon taxes.
> $50 is still quite a high price by recent historical standards.
Still too low to motivate people to make serious efforts to conserve or do anything about climate change.
> Unlike Venezuela, Iran isn't using its oil windfall for much of
> anything decent.
I very much doubt that, if you inherited the same social forces, economic structures, and international circumstances, you would run Iran's economy better than Iran's own power elite. :->
Venezuela still has a long way to go to abolish poverty. It suffered a setback in 2002-2003, due to the opposition's sabotage, and it has had to make up for that. It's only in 2005 when Venezuela managed to get back out of the hole and come back to the 1999 level (when Chavez assumed presidency). Besides, more nationalizations to come will spook some investors. I submit that Venezuela can very well use $60+ per barrel.
<http://www.cepr.net/publications/venezuelan_poverty_rates_2006_05.pdf> Issue Brief • May 2006 Poverty Rates in Venezuela: Getting the Numbers Right MARK WEISBROT, LUIS SANDOVAL, AND DAVID ROSNICK
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TABLE 1 Venezuela: Poverty Rates, 1997-2005
Year Time Households People
Period Below Below
Poverty Poverty
Line (%) Line (%)
1997 1st half 55.6 60.94
2nd half 48.1 54.48 1998 1st half 49.0 55.44
2nd half 43.9 50.40 1999 1st half 42.8 49.99
2nd half 42.0 48.69 2000 1st half 41.6 48.31
2nd half 40.4 46.34 2001 1st half 39.1 45.51
2nd half 39.0 45.38 2002 1st half 41.5 48.13
2nd half 48.6 55.36 2003 1st half 54.0 61.00
2nd half 55.1 62.09 2004 1st half 53.1 60.15
2nd half 47.0 53.90 2005 1st half 42.4 48.80
2nd half 37.9 43.70 -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>