Today’s New York Times offers not one but two stories about oil and power. The first, on the front page, delves into Iran and the ways the Revolutionary Guards have become, as the article says, “a vast military-based conglomerate” with a multi-billion dollar business empire centered around construction, oil and gas. Over in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez’s family exerts an unusual amount of control in the state of Barinas, where the president’s eldest brother is the governor (the previous governor was his father) and another brother is a mayor and yet another sibling is a banker who does business with the state. The story notes that Baranas, reflecting the high levels of violent crime in Venezuela, has a kidnapping rate that is higher than Mexico’s or Colombia’s. One of the offshoots of oil booms in countries like Iran and Venezuela is that while incomes might rise, democracy and transparency can decline.
