Is it possible that OPEC is trying to sink a few economies?

[KevK]

Originally Posted by mbuszu

I recently read about how much particular Middle Eastern economies (the oil countries) are growing and remember hearing the leader of Dubai in an interview state something to the effect that "I want to see my country be number one at everything, from industry, healthcare, education, etc... everything" when questioned about incredible growth he's facilitated over just the past 7 years. With those things in mind, I pose the following. Could the Arab countries (perhaps through OPEC) be purposefully squeezing the economies of other world powers to help make themselves more globally powerful/economically influential, right now?

I suppose they might not need to resort to economic sabotage to accomplish their goals (they simply have a product everyone else needs no matter what they set their price at), but it is a topic I'd like to learn more about since Oil has been headline news for everyday over the past year. Your thoughts anyone?

EVERY country on Earth including this one uses whatever they can to gain advantages over other nations and to make other nations do what they want them to do. Why do you think the USA has such a huge military (hint- it ain't to defend the USA from attack)? For the OPEC nations, their weapon is not military but oil and they use their oil to their political and economic advantage. You cannot fault them for that. But you can fault YOUR country and its leaders for allowing it to fall into OPEC's trap by not having the political guts to have a sane energy policy such as getting rid of monster gas eating SUVs, building decent public transit systems (funny that the Washington Metro in D.C. is one of the best- why not other places?) and by developing new technologies for powering cars with electricity, natural gas and hydrogen. And sternly discouraging urban sprawl.

[KevK]

Originally Posted by BLAZER PROPHET

I don't think so.

They are clearly on the downhill side of oil reserves and their ultra cushy lifestyle is going to end- at least so far as income from oil is concerned, not their substantial investments.

They are trying to milk the oil they have left for the next 15-25 years. I suspect we'd do the same thing if we were in their shoes.

Yer damn right we'd do the same thing!

[KevK]

Originally Posted by tallrick

If they are I say good for them. The US has been a bully for too long, and deserves high oil prices in return. Instead of pushing around the middle east, we should have spent that money to build algae farms and develop more efficient nuclear power and reverse the national debt. Our military should be all volunteer and not used until this nation is directly attacked. If the "bad guys" threaten us we threaten to nuke them, that's it. But if oil demand was falling they would be too poor to care. We squandered our vast oil reserves and now have to beg for the Saudis to pump more oil. This is so disgusting that I am amazed more people are not angry. The real fun would be if world oil demand drops and the middle east needs more food production. Without oil, what exactly can OPEC do?

I honestly thought that, after what we went through in 1973 when the Arabs cut off the oil, we would have learned something. I thought that we, as a country, would collectively say "we will NEVER be put in a situation where we are at the mercy of another country again". I would have thought that the President would have called GM and Ford to Washington and told them "These are our goals for MPG in one year, five years and ten years and I expect you to meet them". I would have thought that state and local leaders would have said "we need to quit allowing sprawl into exurbs 50 miles away and encourage high density building closer to town" and then draw a line 20 miles out and say no water, sewer, gas or highway exits beyond here. In fact I would not have opposed rationing. I thought we would have improved bus and subway service in metro areas. If we had done all this in the 70s, we would all be better off today. Much better off. Now we are coming to a point where the MARKET is going to make these choices for us that we could have made ourselves with a lot less pain.