private property laws
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The Saudis and the rest are powerless to control the drop in crude prices, and are now resorting to accepting and “managing” the decline.
I would not say powerless, but rather unwilling to take sufficient cash flow cuts to greatly bring the prices back to $100. But it isn’t in their long-term interest to have spikes up or down.
The beauty and profundity of the shale drilling boom in the US is that it has marginalized OPEC and the Saudis even more. Each OPEC producer in its won right is only a market taker not a market maker of prices. OPEC as an oligopoly has only coordinated on pricing when supplies were tight. As supplies increase OPEC becomes even less important (in terms of price setting) than in the past.
They’re also trapped by Islam and the monarchy. Islam is by its nature socialist and fatalist. Those are terrible philosophies for growth and human improvement. The monarchy must balance all this keeping people happy and keeping themselves at the top.
An energy breakthrough in the US, in addition to oil, will further undermine ME oil, particularly Saudi. Egypt is a Saudi dependent. So are a variety of other countries. It’s a mess.
If Millennials permanently abandon the automobile then what?