Re: Destroyed Worldviews
November 24th, 2008 by Nick SaintThat is pretty surprising. It’s also a bit misleading. For one thing, the post’s author seems to think this graphic in some way undercuts the notion that our economy is extremely vulnerable to goings on in the Middle East. Nonsense. We use a lot of North American oil because we live in North America, and shipping is more of a drag than ever, what with all those pirates running amok. But the price of oil, wherever we get it, is affected by overall worldwide production, since oil is fungible. The Arab League alone produces about a third of the world’s oil. Add Iran to that total, and you have more than twice the oil production of NAFTA. We would be ‘dependant’ on Middle Eastern oil even if we never used a drop of it here. Don’t take my word for it; listen to the woman who “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America”:
Of course, it’s a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, you know, the molecules, where it’s going and where it’s not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first.
You betcha’!
