Venezuela, Oil, & the Investments Set to Benefit

Summary

Earn Your Leisure Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode: Venezuela, Oil, & the Investments Set to Benefit
Date: January 7, 2026
Hosts: Rashad Bilal & Troy Millings (with team of regular EYL market and geopolitical analysts)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Earn Your Leisure team takes a deep dive into the recent upheaval in Venezuela, the global and financial repercussions, and the investment opportunities that may arise from this geopolitical shift. The hosts and guest analysts examine the latest regime change, the role of U.S. oil interests, implications for the petrodollar, and the ethical line between profit and principle in global finance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Venezuela’s Political Upheaval: The Arrest and Its Repercussions

• Recent events: Venezuela’s ousted president faced a court hearing in New York on the day of the recording.
  • “He pleaded not guilty in New York Southern District’s Federal Court. They got him in MCC, I believe Brooklyn.” [04:20]
• The former president is now held in Brooklyn; the move signals serious international involvement and raises questions about U.S. motives.

2. Making Money Off Geopolitical Crisis

• The team acknowledges the uncomfortable truth that investors, markets, and governments quickly assess financial upsides during international crises.
  • “People want to know how they can make money [off this] situation. It shouldn’t be, but it is. And it’s the world that we live in.” [04:50]
• Classic dilemma: Ethical investing vs. opportunity.

3. Oil Markets and Potential Winners

• “We talked about this on Market Mondays before this happened… Schlumberger, Chevron, and ExxonMobil… The part that people should be asking is how long will this trade be relevant?” [05:27]
• Chevron and ConocoPhillips highlighted as key players. ETFs such as XLE and ITA, and companies like Haliburton, Baker Hughes, and Phillips 66 are named as likely beneficiaries. [11:00–11:20]
• The spike in oil-related assets is expected to be short-lived—“Nobody will care about this oil trade in three months.” [05:27]

4. The Challenges with Venezuelan Oil

• Venezuela’s oil is thicker and harder to refine compared to Saudi oil, coupled with years of sanctions and outdated infrastructure.
  • “A major part of that is because they haven’t been able to refine their oils efficiently and their oil is a lot thicker than Saudi Arabia.” [06:55]
• If sanctions are lifted and efficiency improves, there could be a meaningful increase in supply and revenues.

5. Geopolitical and Economic Implications

• Comparisons drawn to past US interventions (Iraq, Libya), but there are notable differences:
  • “It doesn’t seem like they’re looking for a regime change in a typical way… It seems like they’re looking for a new leader that is easy to work with, not a whole new regime.” [12:00–13:07]
• The US may prioritize stability and ease of cooperation over complete government overhaul.
• Venezuela still owes significant settlements to US oil companies (e.g., ConocoPhillips’ $10 billion lawsuit).

6. The Petrodollar and Resource Control

• The panel discusses how controlling Venezuelan oil also plays into the longevity of the US dollar’s international dominance.
  • “Trade that for petroleum dollars, which is US Currency, and now you force the rest of the world to use that currency to get the oil.” [11:20]

7. “Friendly Extortion” and Economic Hitman Tactics

• The concept of friendly extortion is introduced—where cooperation is extracted less overtly, yet with real pressure.
  • “There’s a thing called friendly extortion. Sometimes you get extorted from a real aggressive standpoint. And sometimes you get extorted from a friendly, friendly extortion.” [14:58]
• Reference to the classic "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" playbook—a mix of economic and political pressure, rather than outright force.

8. Future Hotspots & The Cycle of Intervention

• The team speculates about possible next targets (Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Greenland):
  • “Colombia is on the clock. Cuba’s on the clock. He said Mexico. He said Greenland.” [15:38]
• Concern over the normalization and acceleration of foreign intervention.

9. Ethical Investing: Opportunity vs Morality

• The hosts wrestle with the morality of profiting from political and economic instability:
  • “Do we invest in those companies?” [16:05]
  • “It’s a fine line… Sometimes there’s opportunity to make money. We gotta make it.” [16:17]
  • “Morals is a tricky thing. It’s not really black or white. A lot of times it’s gray… A lot of Venezuelans are happy that this happens… I’ve even heard Venezuelans say that I’d rather be an American colony than under his rule.” [16:33–16:51]
• The complexity and subjectivity of “moral” investing—sometimes, locals may prefer foreign intervention to previous regimes.

10. Fast-Track Regime Change and Its Dangers

• The analysts express concern about the swift action:
  • “Within 48 hours you already said that there’s no opposition that’s going to come into power. And then you automatically just start working with the same regime that you say you didn’t want anymore.” [19:00]
• Points raised about precedent, propaganda, and unchecked executive power.
• The overall mood shifts to caution: “New age imperialism is so there.” [15:53]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It shouldn't be, but it is. And it’s the world that we live in.” (on profiting from crisis) – Geopolitical Analyst [04:50]
• “Trade that [oil] for petroleum dollars… now you force the rest of the world to use that currency…” – Investment Commentator [11:20]
• “A lot of Venezuelans are happy that this happens. I’ve even heard Venezuelans say that I’d rather be an American colony than under his rule.” – Geopolitical Analyst [16:46]
• “Friendly extortion… Sometimes you get extorted from a real aggressive standpoint. And sometimes… [it’s] friendly extortion.” – Geopolitical Analyst [14:58]
• “Colombia is on the clock. Cuba’s on the clock. He said Mexico. He said Greenland.” – Panel Discussion [15:38]
• “It feels like he’s been in three years already. If he does this to Colombia, then it’s the issue in Nigeria…” – Market Analyst [16:58]
• “Within 48 hours you already said that there’s no opposition that’s going to come into power. When they said the opposition won 78% of the vote…” – Geopolitical Analyst [19:00]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 04:20–05:00: Background on the Venezuelan situation, court hearing, and global intrigue
• 05:27–06:55: Oil investment plays, specifics about companies to watch
• 06:55–07:52: Refinery issues, sanctions detail, and impact on global markets
• 11:00–11:43: Discussion on oil ETFs, petrodollars, and US currency strategy
• 13:07–14:36: Regime change discussion, Nobel Prize-winner in exile, and American company interests
• 14:58–15:56: Friendly extortion, economic “hit man” maneuvers, and next geopolitical targets
• 16:05–17:59: Investing ethics and the morality/ambiguity of profiting from international crises
• 18:29–19:14: Speed of regime change, doubts about true power shifts, and comparison to a Hitchcock story

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Tone & Style

The discussion throughout is frank, dynamic, and incisive, blending pop culture references (e.g. Hitchcock, sports analogies, Nike tech jokes) with sharp market commentary and political insight. The panel balances world-weary realism with desire for deeper analysis, making the episode both informative and engaging.

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Summary

This episode provides an accessible yet nuanced look at how global finance, politics, and ethics collide during moments of geopolitical upheaval—specifically in the context of Venezuela’s sudden regime change and the potential windfall for American oil interests. The hosts dissect which investments might benefit, question the sustainability of the oil trade, and challenge listeners to consider not just the financial upside but also the greater moral implications of their choices.

Listeners leave with a sharper sense of how quickly world events shift markets—and the gray moral space in which those profits are often found.

Transcript

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[Geopolitical Analyst]

Venezuela, obviously everybody already knows what's going on with Venezuela at this point in time. Actually had a court hearing today for the ousted president and he pleaded not guilty in New York, in New York Southern districts Federal court. They got him in mcc, I believe Brooklyn. Is it Brooklyn or Manhattan?

[Investment Commentator]

They have in Brooklyn. They put him in a helicopter, went to Manhattan for the court and then I think they brought him back to Brooklyn. He being held in Brooklyn?

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Okay. Yeah, I thought it was McC Man Correctional. But regardless of anything, interesting times that way. And to say the least, I did make a video about this. So if you're interested in the whole geopolitical thing, you can check Instagram. But you know, one of the major questions is how can. And I hate that this is actually even one of these things. But it's a real thing. Yeah, people want to know how they can make money situation. It shouldn't be, but it is. It is. And it's the world that we live in and it's the world that will always. It's the world that will always.

[Market Analyst]

Well yeah but if they had listened to. So we talked about this on market Mondays before this happened. You gave a whole breakdown of what could happen. Kudos to Bloomberg, Nicole and Shelly we talked about in stock club probably two or three months ago. The obvious players here are write it down Schlumberger, Chevron and ExxonMobil. Great. That's that. The part that people should be asking is how long will this trade be revelant given the circumstances of what they're facing? Nobody will care about this oil trade in three months. It's a good move for today. It's the first official trading day of the year in terms of volume wise makes a great story because of what Trump is doing now we can get into the nefarious part of well let's do it now. If a country books have not been properly managed Troy going back to that watch the paper every morning, right. Wouldn't it behoove you to maybe ascertain some oil so that the petrodollar trade stays afloat while the dollar is being devalued and on top of that Potentially go snatch 600,000 bitcoins from a government and silver. Now we see why that silver trade panned out so well prior to the new year. Don't forget the gold trade in combination.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

And gold was up today and that's also another benefactor of the situation. So I definitely think that yeah, like you said that was one of the questions how long is this going to last? Because I mean it does make up I think like less than 1% of the world's oils. But a major part of that is because they haven't been able to refine their oils efficiently and their oil is a lot thicker than Saudi Arabia. So it takes more, it takes more efficiency to refine the oil. So a lot of that, a lot of the reason why they haven't and they have sanctions obviously as well. So you lift the sanctions, you get more refined oil and and you can start to see some level of of change. Now Saudi Arabia already said that they could potentially strike back on this situation if for sure if it goes against them. But it's interesting from a geopolitical standpoint because. Okay, okay before we get to that so investments earnest, what's up?

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[Investment Commentator]

Yeah.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Ex exon mobile.

[Investment Commentator]

Conical con.

[Financial Advisor]

Yep.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

The ETF XLE.

[Financial Advisor]

Yep.

[Investment Commentator]

We were on that. ITA is another one.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Halberton for sure.

[Market Analyst]

Yeah. Tertiary. Yeah. And slumber.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Slumber. Slumber.

[Financial Advisor]

Yep.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Baker Hughes.

[Financial Advisor]

Yeah.

[Investment Commentator]

I, I think it was well documented.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

I think every Phillips 66.

[Investment Commentator]

Yeah, it's, it's well documented. Right. Like I think, Ian, what you, you touched on is the, this, the real story. It's, it's the UCS. The oil. We're talking 3 billion barrels, right. You trade that for petroleum dollars, which is US Currency and now you force the rest of the world to use that currency to get the oil. Right.

[Market Analyst]

And I'm not saying he was a great leader. Not, not to cut you off.

[Investment Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, we're not here to discuss that.

[Market Analyst]

But just the parallels between the Hussein and Gaddafi issue here.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

But, but it's actually not the same though because if you look at it like I said from a geopolitical standpoint, the interesting thing about it, which is kind of a curveball to some people is that, okay, classic regime change, you take the, you take the president, you, you know, you, you take the, the resources, you put a new regime in place. But they haven't, they haven't hinted that they wanted to do that because there isn't, there is an opposition that allegedly won the election. She's in exile right now. She actually won the Nobel Peace Prize and she gave her Nobel Prize Prize to Trump in an effort to favor him. But Trump says she, Trump says she's, she's not qualified to run the country. She doesn't have the support that actually looks, looks like they're actually backing the vice president who was a long time socialist. She was around with Hugo Chavez was around. So it doesn't really look like they're looking for a regime change in a typical way that it was in Iraq and it was in Afghanistan and it was in all these other countries that they're not, it doesn't seem like that's what they're looking for. It seems like they're looking for a new leader that they, that is easy to. Not a whole new regime that takes, that takes a lot of time. A new leader, already infrastructure in place and they can just, that is in.

[Market Analyst]

Alignment with the vision of or, or.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Or, or will get in alignment with the vision.

[Investment Commentator]

I think it's interesting too that point, but I think the other part is like if you listen to the US Companies, the Oil companies, they're not saying like, hey, we're actually going to do this. Like, we don't want to go to Venezuela. It's not something that it's like, all right, we want to go spend billion dollars and build infrastructure. Yes, Chevron is there and I'm sure y', all, y' all probably cover that, but it doesn't look like, hey, oh, 3 million, 3 billion barrels of oil.

[Financial Advisor]

Our country seized it.

[Investment Commentator]

Let's get in there, get infrastructure, let's refine it. It's, it's interesting.

[Financial Advisor]

I don't, I don't trade oil.

[Investment Commentator]

So like, for me to give investment advice on oil would be. It was just out of my lane.

[Financial Advisor]

Right.

[Investment Commentator]

It's not something I do, obviously. I think it was well documented from everybody today and all the companies that we named here make a lot of sense. But yeah, it's.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Well, I definitely think that there's interest from American company. I mean, I think it just happened.

[Market Analyst]

Two days ago, right.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

And it's still a sensitive situation. So I don't think they could just raise their hand and say, look, I want to be the first one to just exploit your country and take all the oil now.

[Market Analyst]

Well, the one I was already exploiting got the call.

[Investment Commentator]

First one got exploited.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Well, they never left.

[Investment Commentator]

They never left. But one got exiled and they, oh, they won a lawsuit, right? Like Conoco Phillips won a 10 billion dollar lawsuit that they haven't got a dollar from. Right. So part of it is like, yes, we're coming to seas, but yes, there's a debt that is still owed to American company from oil that was yours, which makes it even crazier.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

But yeah, I think anytime you have 300 billion barrels of oil, even if it's not the best refined, even if it's thick, I mean it's opportunity for sure, definitely. And especially if the government is cooperating. Is there. There's a thing called friendly extortion.

[Investment Commentator]

This is.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Yeah, there's a thing called friendly extortion. So some, sometimes you get extorted from like, like a real aggressive standpoint. And then sometimes you get, you get extorted from a friendly, friendly extortion.

[Market Analyst]

Like from both versions of economic hit. Like we're seeing confessions of the economic hitman play out like a video game. My second concern, for any of you who ever play ball, your coaches ever give you like the game against the team that, you know, has no chance, this to me was a war game to set up the other takeover that he wants to for another country. I won't Say it here.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Well, he said, he said Colombia. He said Colombia is on the clock.

[Investment Commentator]

Cuba's on the clock.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Cuba's on the clock. He said Mexico.

[Investment Commentator]

He said Greenland.

[Financial Advisor]

He said we need it.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Oh, Greenland. He's just going, we need it. That's the annex. That's the annexation of. That's going to happen with that.

[Investment Commentator]

He said, we need it. Yeah, we need it.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

New age, New age imperialism is so there.

[Investment Commentator]

And there were a couple people and I saw a few posts and this is when I put the phone down this afternoon. You kind of alluded to it when you started. It was like that moral fabric. Right.

[Financial Advisor]

Like.

[Investment Commentator]

Knowing that, you know, oil probably or some of these companies would have a, a slight spike today. Do we invest in those companies?

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Is.

[Investment Commentator]

It's a fine line. Right. Like there's that part of, like that moral investing that people will stick to. Or some people just say, yo, there's opportunity to make money. We got to make it.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Well, also a thing with morals. Is that it? Morals is a tricky thing.

[Investment Commentator]

No, go ahead.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

For the most part because it's, it's not really black or white. A lot of times it's gray. So a lot of Venezuelans are happy that this happens. Is true. I've even heard Venezuelans say that I'd rather be an American colony than under.

[Market Analyst]

His rule and leadership.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Yeah. So see that?

[Investment Commentator]

Yep.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Hey, I mean, they're not crying about it, so.

[Market Analyst]

But he's had a good point too. What about even though the people may have unrest, it doesn't mean that the regime change is absolutely right. Like, I agree Maduro could be nefarious at times, but I don't like the start of this cycle. This is year one. It feels like he's been in three years already. If he does this to Colombia, then it's the issue in Nigeria. They're setting a propaganda and it's always the same. It's cartel, narco terrorism or Christians being killed as a way to invade. And that now in government there's no checks and balances. And the ones who will check him are too afraid of that administration to even do anything. So it's a very scary thing to see be pulled off so quickly. And the other part is like, how did they get him so easily?

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Well, also, you know, I hate, I hate to be that guy. Not only that, not only how did they get him so easily? All of a sudden now we, we want the vice president to stay in office. She's cooperating. Look, if your best friend gets hit and you, and you, because you find and dandy if you become friends with the person that got your best friend hit. Well, the best friend has to look at you.

[Investment Commentator]

Yeah, I thought, I thought she was going somewhere else. I thought she was going to say the Nike tech.

[Geopolitical Analyst]

Well, the Nike tech. Was that even real? Because he had three different outfit changes. But from a, from a serious standpoint, like, what of. Of this. This is an interesting thing because I'm like, damn, this is like a, this is like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Like, you take somebody in the middle of the night, you just, you just abducting presidents now and his wife. You just abducting presidents. And then within 48 hours you already said that there's no opposition that's going to come into power. When they said the opposition wants 78 of the. And you say like, no, no, she doesn't have. She doesn't have the majority of the people. And then you automatically just start working with the same regime that you. You say you want a new regime, but you start working with the same regime that you say that you didn't want anymore.

[Market Analyst]

The new regime is a regime I can have interest in.

[Financial Advisor]

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