while i agree with nobear that the author is far removed from "impartiality" i think hugo's main motives are "sanction related".

if nothing else the gold move is telling countries/companies that hugo is not going to make it easy to confiscate ven assets and probably heightening the will to "settle" rather than play hardball.

imo, in the end russia and china will end up having to be the "heavy" here. they'll have no choice... straight confiscation of ven assets is going to be difficult because at the rate hugo is going he wont be selling any oil to western countries and every ship full of oil that leaves port will already be owned by china/russia...

in reality the gold move makes hugo's settlement position stronger and makes it more difficult to confiscate what is going to be a huge amount of ven assets if necessary. i think the whole thing will end up in massive sanctions "like iran", hugo will get tossed and the world bank will get stuck with the bill in the form of loans to venezuela...

hugo puts too much faith in his current "largest worlds oil reserves" status..i dont think he actually realizes how much oil is still out there and how much trade russia and china do with the west...either that or hugo is just planning to take the gold with him to cuba when he gets tossed next october...