23 minutes ago, nauseus said:

Your originality and wit - it's just so delightful!

Oh dear! 😃

I just read ...

McKinley tried the same tactic as Trump.

He imposed huge tariffs on Canada hoping Canada would agree to be annexed to the US.

On 9/2/2026 at 12:29 AM, CallumWK said:

Nope. You're the one who said, they are there already, but you so far you have failed to prove your claim.

Here's some more info about Schlumberger, which you avoide to add.

https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/08/27/the-worlds-largest-oil-reserves-are-opening-their-data-to-slb-should-investors-trust-venezuela-to-pay/

Published August 27, 2026, 3:25pm ET

SLB just secured access to Venezuela's prized oilfield data and may reactivate up to 15 rigs in a country that previously defaulted on billions owed to the company itself. Whether 97 years of institutional memory justifies the collection risk is…

The story of Venezuela is also a payment story. Financial terms remain confidential, and PDVSA previously defaulted on billions of dollars owed to service companies, including SLB itself.

The narrower question is whether a 97-year presence in-country gives SLB institutional reasons to accept collection risk that a shareholder, seeing only a spreadsheet, would not.

That's the "sunk cost fallacy".

AKA, spilt milk.

Besides, SLB won't be dealing with PDVSA. They'll be making their decisions based on the future, not the past. More accurately, based on their best guess at what the future will look like. Their investors would run SLB management off if they missed out.