Reply #44: The tap was off for more than a week last year and the US economy survived [View All]

Do the arithmetic. Assuming the market price of oil is some reflection of its value, one can easily calculate what Venezuela loses on a percentage basis versus what the US would lose. It no contest -- Venezuela craters long before the US.

Venezuela's GDP was $132 billion in 2002 or 1/80 of the US GDP of $10.45 trillion. The US takes about one-half of Venezuela's oil exports or about 1.3 million barrels per day. A one month suspension of Venezuelan exports to the US (by throttling back exports) costs them about $1 billion dollars (31 days x 1.3 millon bbls x $25/bbl) or 0.8% of their annual GDP (ignoring multiplier effects). The same $1 billion dollars would be 0.01%, a miniscule portion of the US GDP (the US economy would suffer, not so much from a lack of crude, but from higher prices needed to entice more production from other suppliers).