this article suggests (to me, at least) one reason for the high oil prices of recent years: speculation of the broadest sort. The standard story is that it's a bunch of "exogenous events" (war in Iraq, conflict in Nigeria, etc.), i.e., events that can't be explained by available theory. But these events don't simply drop from the sky. One of the reason why there are so many fights over oil and oil-related matters (including the recent war between Russia and Georgia) is that oil is extremely expensive, which makes the _stakes higher_. So part of the story is: high oil prices --> greater likelihood of conflict over oil --> higher oil prices.
It's like the fight in "Mad Max" that I've been told about (since I've never seen the flick) in which they waste a lot of gasoline fighting over gasoline, which is in short supply in that post-apocalyptic world. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
