Since June 18th, we have been saying that the development of alternative energy sources and becoming not only energy independent but also becoming an oil exporting nation is a matter of national security. On that day, we predicted that oil would be at $20 a barrel by 2020.
If there was ever any doubt in your mind as to the accuracy of our statements or the true nature of OPEC’s place in the world, today’s news should clarify it once and for all time. As oil was heading north toward $140 a barrel and beyond, the OPEC nations said they weren’t trying to make it that high. This they said as they were relishing with glee at all the income that was flowing into their coffers as we simultaneously found ourselves being economically weakened as a country by the outflow of petro dollars.
We watched at an enriched Iran thumbed its nose at the world’s attempt to divert their intention to build nuclear weapons. We watched as Russia found itself able to once again flex its military might thanks to its new found petro wealth. We also watched as Hugo Chavez, a two bit thug dictator used the power of his rising petro fortune to try to buy some legitimacy on the international stage while building his military prior to beginning his imperialistic exploits.
Now as oil is hovering in the $70 range, higher than it was even last year and a far cry from the $42 range we saw in 2004, the major oil producers of the world are meeting to plot how to get the prices back to the levels where the power of industrial nations will be significanly diminished and they will be able to once again bask in the largess of that which conicidence and nature has blessed them. No longer satisfied to simply be rich by sucking from nature and without creating anything of value, these tyrants,despots, madmen and power hungry former KGB types find the rate at which they are amassing their wealth has fallen to from grotesque to merely obscene and they aren’t going to take it lying down.
The 13-nation global oil cartel — which includes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela — will hold an emergency meeting in Vienna Friday to discuss the steep and rapid decline in oil prices.
“The era of cheap oil is finished,” Iran’s Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari boasted on Tuesday. When asked what price Iran would want for its oil, Nozari declared, “The more the better.”
“A few member nations have voiced their intentions of pushing for a cut in production, including Qatar, Iran, as well as OPEC’s president Chekib Khelil, who said that output could be slashed by as much as 2 million barrels a day,” analysts for Raymond James & Associates told MarketWatch.com.
This is war, make no mistake about it and Iraq, with massive oil reserves will no doubt play an imporant role in this war. What side they will come down on is anyones guess but being their liberators, we stand a better than even chance they won’t be wholly against Western society.
To win this war we must drive oil prices down, way down. We must cripple Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Russia before they cripple us. With cheap oil, the people of Iran can overthrow Ahmadinejad. Without his petro dollars, Chavez will be an impotent dictator and will soon be replaced by someone who can inspire the Venezuelan people to begin to build a country supported by the labors of its people.
Without massive oil revenues Russia will once again be forced to confront their own corruption and decay and necessity will allow a new government to blossom, one more responsive to the talents and dreams of the Russian people.
I Need You!
To win this war, America must continue and accelerate our drive to develop petroleum free transportation. Between compressed natural gas, hybrid and plug in technologies and fuel cells we can completely transform the transportation industry and reduce our need for oil to the point where we will be able to start exporting both oil and the technology to free European and Asian countries from their dependence on oil as well.
In the interim, I do see opportunity for good fortune. A trait among OPEC and other oil rich countries is that they are very self serving. OPEC has stuck together just fine in good times because there was no need for anyone to break rank. Now, with some petro budgets being stretched thanks to a human failing I call the “arrogance of wealth,” you can expect to see one or more of the OPEC countries agreeing but not living up to pledges to cut production. Nothing like the need for a little extra cash to cause a price fixing cartel to crumble. There are no friends among OPEC nations, just willing co-conspirators. Watching Russia continue to pump oil and others while they are supposed to be honoring a pledge to reduce production will display to the world just how little character these pimps of mother earth have.
Look for speculators to take the price of oil back up a bit following the OPEC meeting if production limits are placed but don’t look for it to hold.
For now we Americans need to maintain our focus and our resolve. Gasoline under $3 a gallon is no excuse to relax the imperative we felt when it was pushing toward $5. We’ve got the little bastards more than scared and even on the run. Think of this as the surge and push onward with “all of the above.” We can win this war, we will win this war, we must win this war.
