Posted on 01/28/2011 9:00:43 PM PST by unseen1
Via Eric Bolling of Fox News:
The Suez Canal and the Suez Canal pipeline transport about 4.5 million barrels of oil per day between the two, so when oil investors/traders see protesters on tanks in the Suez, it creates panic because they’re concerned about the delicate balance between supply and demand on the world’s oil.Any disruption in oil supply spikes prices, and these events are certainly cause for disruption.
Also very important is the geographic location — just across the canal is Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest producer of oil. If this unrest spills over into Saudi Arabia, prices could double to $200/barrel!
The effect on the U.S. economy would be disastrous and hamper the economic recovery.
I am not as pessimistic as Bolling (yet), but the situation in the Middle East is explosive, and the potential is certainly there for economic disaster. If the Mubarak regime is overthrown and replaced by a fundamentalist group like the Muslim Brotherhood, anything is possible up to and including a shutdown of the Suez Canal. If, as Bolling suggests, this unrest spreads into Saudi Arabia, all bets are off. There are already reports that the unrest in Egypt is spreading to Jordan and beyond. Some worry that the instability could spread further to other OPEC countries such as Libya and Algeria. And, if we throw a newly nuclear-armed Iran into the mix, Bolling’s prediction of $200 oil may be on the low side.
None of this is good news for the fledgling economic recovery struggling to gain steam in the U.S. If oil prices rise to even $125 and stay there, a double dip recession becomes more likely than not, and anything north of $150 virtually guarantees it. Meanwhile, our clueless president keeps his suicidal drilling ban in place while he dreamily muses about solar shingles and windmills. Fantasy is no substitute for an actual energy policy, yet that is all this administration offers.
What, precisely, is it going to take for the Obama Administration to wake up from their ideology-induced stupor and realize that we need to drill here and drill now? We need to be developing all of our domestic energy supplies (e.g. natural gas, oil, nuclear, coal, etc. ) with all deliberate haste. Is Team Obama so afraid to admit that Governor Palin is right about this (and has been right all along) that they’re willing to risk economic disaster? It certainly appears that way. And make no mistake, if we see sustained oil prices of $200 or higher, the recession from which we just emerged will seem like a walk in the park.
The only reason for optimism is that the 2012 election is only 21 months away. If, as appears increasingly likely, the Obama Administration does nothing in four years to develop a realistic energy policy, the voters will know who’s to blame. Indeed the only energy policy coming from this administration that I can discern is to do everything possible to prevent the development of those domestic energy resources that, you know, actually work. Presumably this is the approach Obama believes will help us “Win The Future”. In 2012 voters will have the opportunity to take a different approach.
In California I expect it to hit $4.00 for regular soon in the metropolitan areas if it isn’t there already.
I think anything above $4.00 will hit a lot of people very hard. There will be a lot of parked cars at home on the weekends. Five dollars will kill the economy and nobody will drive.
I haven’t checked the restaurants in my neighborhood at night lately. I know for a while there were still a lot of people going. During the weekend day there are less dining now.
I know there is violence and instability in every mid east nation, I am aware that anything can happen at any given time. And that there is not really any Arab nation where people are content at all with their governments.
I only meant about relative liklihoods and unliklihoods. There is a reason these uorisings have now engulfed a nation like Egypt but not Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that Egypt has much larger population and a more powerful military.
And the UAE;s population is prediminantly foreign workers from South and SE Asia whose sole priority is supporting their families back home. The actual Arabs, a good percentage of whom are ridiculously rich and overindulged, are the minority.
Good. Actually I want it to go a hell of a lot higher than that.
While I personally will be hurt by it, it will make the Dems start shrieking in pain as their constituents start hanging them from the nearest tall objects. They own this crisis.
“Good. Actually I want it to go a hell of a lot higher than that.”
I was going to say that too...but didn’t want to be first. I can easily take gas prices doubling (we live cheap, but have a decent income).
Yep, there will be hell to pay for the Dems playing games with our energy security. And there is no way in hell that the Tea Party Reps are going to allow some kind of bailout for the drivers that cannot afford the gas. They are just out of luck - perhaps they will think a bit harder next time they vote.
Indeed, i thought it was like elementary geography that the Suez Canal is between Egypt and the Sinai.
And what is with the assumption that Saudi Arabia could cut off all the access to our Mid East oil anyway ? They could force us not to stop using Iraqi Oil by getting it through the straights of Hormuz so we would still have Iraq as a reliable source for oil-which ironically remains one of the truly great effects of the Iraqi War. Nor could they force us away from the Suez Canal.
And also remember that even the most rabidly Islamic govt that could possibly rule Saudi Arabia is not going to just suddenly stop selling us oil when that is the sole thing that keeps them from becoming like Somalia. Anyone who really knows Saudi Arabia knows that the current govt is ideologically quite similar to Taliban but it didnt stop them.
Remember, the soaring gas prices were one of the memes that the Democrats used to win in 2006. Right now their pet media is suppressing the return of the meme, but at, say $7-8 per gallon or so (if not more) there won’t be any way for the media to keep ignoring it. They will be forced to cover it and they won’t be able to spin it, as everyone ‘knows’ that the President is responsible for gas prices (thanks to the Dems earlier use of the meme) - and this time the President is a Dem.
The higher the better - the longer the lesson will last and the less people will be interested in any blockage of the exploitation of domestic energy sources.
People voted for this. Obama will cause more damage then carter ever dreamed. Idiots drooling whilst watching TV elected him.
The left hears nothing because they control all the media and ALL TV - enabled by idiots who watch it and keep them in business.
I work in oil and gas marketing. I am not a high-powered consultant type, but one thing I have noticed over the years is that the market reacts just as strongly to an EXPECTATION of a disruption of supply as it does to an actual disruption. I’ve told my wife to make sure she keeps her gas tank full.
That could all be true but there were so many other factors as well, the key one being people idiodically putting themsevles into debt and not paying it off combined with banks preying on said idiots. That was a factor in the more recent recessions; it was not simply a matter of gas going up.
I dont deny that if things keep going the way they are going that economic times will be very challenging for a lot of people. The issue is if people can have some inkling of personal responsibility and if we can get adults in charge of the white house who see that 1 we do in fact have other energy sources and 2 lets use them for G-d’s sake.
Anyone who cuts off the Suez is going to have the US, UK, France, Austailia, Canada and every European military up their a$$ within a day.
Thank you for letting me know that. I actually did not realize that was the case. Therefore I will keep that in mind and remind myself to not take gas for granted ever- you especially shouldnt be doing that when we dont even have an adult in the white house to control our oil availability.
Luckily for me, I will be working as a graduate student in small towns in Virginia and Tenesee where people do have some sort of responsibility and self reliance and so oil shortages and gas hikes wont cause the quite clusterf__k we will see on other parts of the nation where people are used to having govt clean up after them.
mmmm good, smells like get some time
I don't know who's worse, Bolling & FOX for putting it out there or Brady & Conservatives4palin for regurgitating it.
Doesn't do much for the credibility of either writer or their organizations.
That is also true and let us not forget the Chinese govt as well. They depend on Mid East Oil WAY more than we do, switching to other oil options right now isnt an option for them at all like it is for us. That is why even if Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz that threat would only last temporarily. One of the good things, to be sure, about a government that straddles the line between Communist and a Ruthless Interpretation of Capitalism-their priority is self preservation and productivity of their own. Something we can capitalize on if we are smart and know what we are doing,, ( I think you know the operative word in that sentence ).
He is not short sighted. He was “elected” in a coup to destroy America and ALL of TV and the drooling idiots who watch it love him.
Such a blatant error in geography for a person that is attempting to write an article on geopolitics is the equivalent of article on astronomy claiming that the sun revolves around the moon.
“...without a bill of rights or a separation of powers.”
Like Obam-America today? Do you think we have any rule of law anymore? The elites planned this and are looting America’s wealth from the middle class and upper middle class. The Bush clan does not like Palin - they are part of the same crowd.
Right on!
While I personally will be hurt by it, it will make the Dems start shrieking in pain as their constituents start hanging them from the nearest tall objects. They own this crisis.
Your comment echoes my sentiments which I've expressed many time s over the last few years, "We need another 9-11 to wake up America. This country has become complacent on what's important to America."
The "We will never forget crowd" forgot with the next episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
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