US-Saudi Arabia: Winter Is Coming

Energy Intelligence ^ | December 2014 | Bill Murray

[jttpwalsh]

Without oil, Iran is going to backslide enormously

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Respectfully, not sure I can agree. The Iranians I know, here, in California, do quite well, and none of them own oil wells. They tend to be well educated, hard working, and family oriented. I have worked in several industries, since the 70’s, and they all seem to be quite good, at whatever field, they choose. When Shah was running the show, they had a burgeoning society that functioned well, and was constantly improving; he realized oil would not last forever (unlike the Saudis).

In my opinion, if Iran was lifted of the oppressive burden it lives under, it would flourish again, not unlike the economic miracle the Israelis created, in a barren land.

Thank you for considering an alternative point of view.

[SampleMan]

Note that I said “backslide” not collapse.

Iran has more capability than oil, and yes Iranians are capable, but for the last 50 years their standard of living has been greatly underwritten by oil.

25% of their GDP is oil, so I’d say about a 25% backslide.

[jttpwalsh]

I guess that depends on timing, that is to say, when the oil stops flowing, vs. when Iran may be able to throw off it’s shackles. You are correct, I failed to realize the importance of your use of the term ‘backslide’.

Thanks for your reply.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks thackney.

"As Americans, we know the answers to these questions," Obama said in a Lansing, Michigan, speech in early August 2008, weeks before his nomination in Denver. "We know that we cannot sustain a future powered by a fuel that is rapidly disappearing. Not when we purchase $700 million worth of oil every single day from some the world's most unstable and hostile nations -- Middle Eastern regimes that will control nearly all of the world's oil by 2030. We simply cannot pretend, as Senator McCain does, that we can drill our way out of this problem."

Instead, we're now paying Iran $700 million a month for doing absolutely nothing but work on its nuclear weapons program.

Wiki-wacky sez, "The price of oil underwent a significant decrease after the record peak of US$145 it reached in July 2008." That works out to 1.7 billion barrels if Zero's figure is correct (that's a big assumption). The price is now about 40 percent that much, and "[t]he US alone has added 4 million new barrels of crude oil per day to the global market since 2008. (Global crude production is about 75 million barrels per day, so this is significant.)" [ http://www.vox.com/2014/12/16/7401705/oil-prices-falling ]

Also from that vox source, "officials in Saudi Arabia remember what happened in the 1980s, when prices fell and the country tried to cut back on production to prop them up. The result was that prices kept declining anyway and Saudi Arabia simply lost market share. What's more, the Saudis have signaled that they can live with lower prices in the short term. (The government has built up massive foreign-exchange reserves to finance deficits.)" That's factual, but the vox source is clearly ProBama, attributing the drop in consumption (2008 avg 298391/mo, vs 2014 avg 223908/mo) to more fuel efficiency, when it has been almost entirely due to the Obama Recession, and calling for a raise in gasoline taxes.

[usconservative]

Just wait until the Saudis put Jeb in place - all will be well. :)

Yep, we'll be back to paying $4 and more for a gallon of gasoline in a repressed economy.

No thank you, stay out the Bushes!

[usconservative]

We all must remember, since the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 the Saudis have been playing us like a fiddle. The river of money flowing into their coffers has since been used to fund Islamic terrorism around the world.

Every mosque and madrassa built around the world is done so with Saudi money. The Wall Street Journal documented that fact in June/July 2003. (I used to have a digital copy of the article, unfortunately I don't have it anymore....)

[DakotaGator]

Yes. Islam is an integrated system. Its buildings are outposts for infiltration, intimidation, and domination.

No great secrets there. But western governments refuse to deal with it.