Why Oil Is Not A Strategic Good

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Mar 29 14:48:11 PST 2003


JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:


>I mean, I'd like to not think that this war is all about keeping profit rates
>from falling by restricting the production of a needed resource (by contrast,
>attacking a country to take its resources seems almost charming) but I still
>haven't heard a convincing argument otherwise.

Are you assuming that if Bush is successful with his war, it will result in a lower oil price than otherwise would have prevailed? I don't buy that at all. Low prices would be hell on Texas, and would render drilling in Alaska (a project dear to W's heart) economically risky. If the idea is to keep OPEC from driving prices too high, you don't need a war to do that - recession will do the trick, and quickly. There are a lot of political and economic forces that tend to stabilize oil soemwhere in the mid-$20s. The "almost charming" explanation seems more compelling than the low price explanation.

Doug



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