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.
I think the left is going to get very tired during the next 22 months of hearing over and over and over that Palin was right.
I think $300
I think $300
If oil goes sky high and shortages develop,then Obama’s drilling ban is going to come back and bite him in the ass real hard.
Weird how no one reported on Obama lifting the ban on the Muslim Brotherhood leader, than Bush wouldn’t allow into this country, dontcha think?
Hmmm,
Oil shale? - Messiah says no.
Gulf of Mex? - Messiah says no.
Alaska? - Messiah says no.
At least he’s consistent; consistently short-sighted.
$300 will give us a real depression.A true economic collapse.
Good thing that obama put Ken salazar in charge of our offshore drilling. He effectively clamped down on all new drilling with the permitting process. Just don’t issue new permits. Problem solved. Gee, I guess they never thought that the mideast might blow up and our foreign oil supply would dry up.
Democrats want us all to freeze in the dark, but the elite leaders will be nice and cozy this winter.
If there is a way to go over the head of the clown in the WH to drill our own oil...it’s time to do it!
It’s coming, probably by summer if this crap keeps up. Figure on $6 (or more) gas also.
$400.00 anybody
I wish bush the first and bush the second as well as Clinton and Obama would have had more faith in the Americian style of government and promoted that form of government across the world like IKE and Truman did to Japan and Germany. Instead of excepting the left’s narrative of multiculturalism and saying one form of democracy is much like the other. If they would have insisted that countries taking aid adopt our Constitutional ideas the radicals would not have the power they now have in the middle east. instead they embraced dictators, strongmen and weak democracy without a bill of rights or a seperation of powers.
Until gas in $5 a gallon or more, Obama will not be happy.
The thing I think the overly pessismistic are assuming too quickly is that the same kind of revolutions will necessarily take place in Saudi Arabia or any other nation with oil. As backward and badly governed as the oil rich arab nations are, just having the luxuries they have means that kind of revolution is highly unlikely. People there simply do not have as much to be angry about-for many arabs of the north, i.e. Egypt, Jordan, etc, the resentment towards the oil rich arabs of the south is probably a part of what is driving their furvor.
Even if we did have lose access to the Mid East, then there should be no reason why we cant just immediately amp up our own oil production (and maybe start looking to other energy sources, naturally a subject of debate) and use some of our reserves if we really need to. Worse case scenario should be brief periods where oil is not readily available in excess, and we cant afford to make fun of canadians anymore, followed by periods where we have our own oil.
I don’t think so. the economy will roll over before $5.00/gal. the decreas ein demand form a 25% unemployment rate will keep the price of gas down to around $4.00-$3.75/gal.
As the present recession showed in 2008 the economy just can not handle $4.00/gal gas. Loans go unpaid, homes get forclosed on, people go hungry etc etc.
You are clueless about the middle east.
I imagine the House of Saud has probably got a contengiency team (with Americans on it) on 24-7 by now.
Saudi has always been unstable. And violent.
/johnny
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
“Also very important is the geographic location — just across the canal is Saudi Arabia...”
Wow, who ever wrote this is not all that well acquainted with geography.
How embarrassing.
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