Erika Barris

The Concorde?

Wait, what was the Concorde doing there?

A new company, Petróleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, would be in charge of all the oil.

Venezuela said, we're the boss now.

So under this new arrangement, Chevron and Exxon and all these big oil companies remained.

But they were more than ever beholden to Venezuela and sharing more profits than ever.

Saudi Venezuela.

Like Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Venezuela?

Terry told us that a close personal friend of the then president was flaunting the tools of oil extraction.

Over the next couple of decades, what she saw?

A near-nationalized oil industry that was rife with corruption, waste, inefficiency.

It's not habitable.

It was full of crocodiles.

And the president at the time told her they had this major infrastructure project there to make it habitable and fertile and all kinds of exciting stuff.

So Terry wanted to go check it out.

I'm glad you're still with us, Terry.

I'm glad you're still with us.

She couldn't have known.

One way to understand the impact of Venezuela's resource curse is that it wasn't only the government that became corrupt.