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I heard him on Coast to Coast. His knowledge is from the 1970’s and his understanding is imbued with populist conspiracy thinking. This is not unusual.

The world of business and much else besides is ruled by the laws of economics. These are a form of abstract knowledge that is beyond the understanding of most itinerant Baptist preachers -- and most other people as well. Believing in conspiracies is a lot easier than learning economics and the facts applicable to a particular line of business.

As far as I can tell, the single hard fact he relies on from his experience in Alaska is that an oil company capped a successful exploratory well instead of pumping the field. Conspiracy? No. It can be readily explained as a matter of reserves and economic return.

As standard practice, many oil deposits are explored but not put into production immediately, being instead booked as reserves intended for future production. If this were not done, oil companies (and oil producing countries) could not assure themselves and their customers of a future supply of oil.

In addition, development costs for oil fields are immense, and in the 1970’s, high interest rates made borrowing especially painful. Capping wells made sense, and I am old enough to recall that this was often done at the time because of high interest rates and wage and price controls.

The allegation as to a Kissinger oil deal with the Arabs to allow high prices in the 1970’s deal is an old and much disputed story. In any event, even if there was such a Kissinger deal in the 1970's, it was superseded by later deals and events.

Specifically, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Reagan got the Saudis to pump oil so as to drop the price and hammer Russia's hard currency earnings. This helped precipitate the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The real problem for the US is that since the 1970's, Texas no longer has the level of oil production needed for the US to act as the world reserve capacity producer. The Saudis now perform that role.

In addition, western oil companies lost their dominant position as oil producers in the 1970's as country after country expropriated them. Today, the oil majors rarely own oil fields, and since the 1970's, the Saudis, not the US, is the world's reserve capacity producer with the whip hand over prices.

If one looks at the facts of geology and economically recoverable oil reserves, the world will one day run out of oil as our prime form of cheap energy. With free markets and the benefit of technological advances, we will have the energy we need, if at a higher cost and in other forms.

In the meantime, oil markets will go through booms and busts as supply, demand, and financial and political considerations affect prices. Among the public, painful spikes in price will produce new conspiracy theories instead of a recourse to economics and business texts.