Are oil companies really that dumb?

Hugo Chavez is opening oil fields to Western private oil companies to try and increase his contries oil production He nationalized all the oil fields in 2007, what makes them think he wouldn't do it again once they get the oil flowing?

CARACAS: President Hugo Chávez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is quietly courting Western oil companies once again.

Until recently, Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with tax authorities and imposing a series of royalties increases.

I think the most telling paragraph,though, is this one:

In recent years, Chávez has preferred partnerships with national oil companies from countries like Iran, China and Belarus. But these ventures failed to reverse Venezuela's declining oil output. State-controlled oil companies from other nations have also been invited to bid this time, but the large private companies are seen as having an advantage, given their expertise in building complex projects in Venezuela and elsewhere in years past.

So, private industry does a better job than Governments can. How interesting.It amazes me that they would admit that.

Nationalizations in other sectors, like agriculture and steel manufacturing, are fueling capital flight

Time and again data has shown that private industry is more efficient and less costly than governmental programs,and Government regulations cause investment and industry to go to a more hospitable location, yet people continue to push to have OUR government control more and more of their lives. Welcome to our future. No worries though, there is a light at the end of the tunnel...

Chávez is already looking beyond the end of his current term in 2012

There is that pesky number is again, maybe the Mayans are right....;)