Word: oil
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...bureaucracies to pursue tax scofflaws. Every person would pay 23% on every new car, suit, pair of shoes, radio or home. In return, individuals and companies would pay no income tax. With no disincentives to earning more, investment would boom. The stronger dollar would also deflate the price of oil, killing two birds with one stone. John P. Kuchta Jr., VIRGINIA BEACH...
...returning the motherland to world football's highest ranks. Zenit boasts a side of national stars, including Andrei Arshavin and Pavel Pogrebnyak, whose dizzying salaries are financed by energy giant Gazprom, the team's owner. Moscow clubs Spartak and Dynamo are sponsored by their corporate patrons - also from the oil and gas sector - Yukos and Lukoil, respectively. The war chests that such firms bring to the game have led to galloping salary inflation, says midfielder Alexei Smertin - who is leaving London's Fulham for a fatter contract with Lokomotiv in Moscow. Enormous sums are also being spent to build...
...only 4% of national budgets are currently spent on agriculture, and investment is hampered by precolonial land rights that still prevail in most of sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile the cost of fertilizer has risen even more dramatically than the cost of fuel, leaving farmers facing a triple whammy: oil- and food-price rises, plus a lack of credit. Aliko Dangote, a Nigerian businessman and Africa's richest man, said small farmers are not supported by governments. "Farmers would have to grow gold" to make a profit, he commented...
...Chavez controls the hemisphere's largest oil reserves, but an equally valuable commodity - the one that shields him from U.S. accusations that he's a dictator in the mold of Cuba's Fidel Castro - is his democratic legitimacy. Despite his authoritarian bent, Chavez has been fairly elected three times, and he can't afford to forfeit that cachet. That's why he surprised his critics by respecting the will of the electorate when he lost last year's referendum. The need to maintain his democratic credentials is also the reason why, in the face of howls from civil rights groups...
...reason may well be that Chavez "realizes his long-term political survival is at stake," says Larry Birns, head of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. "Right now, being a radical is not where the votes are" in a country that, despite its vast oil wealth, is wrestling with high inflation and even higher rates of violent crime. Chavez suffered a rare but stinging defeat last year in a referendum on constitutional amendments that would have broadened his socialist agenda and eliminated presidential term limits. Now, he appears determined to prevent his once feckless opposition from dealing...