Listen carefully: We DO NOT need Saudi oil.
Even without increased efficiencies or conservation, the 11% can be replaced by purchases from elsewhere, Russia, Canada, Venezuala, domestic production, and non-SA countries.
In addition, we can cut back a few percent without reducing growth and prosperity, as the state of California showed last year, cutting 17% of their energy usage in electriciy in a single month without reducing growth.
In addition, it would only take one or two years to topple Saudi Arabian royal thieves, and regardless who runs the place, if we did decide to resume purchases, they'll sell it, cheap. Who else are they going to sell it to? Think about that.
They are currently in debt, their royal expenses exceed their income, even at this point. Switching suppliers would either immediately break them, or cause them to examine their priorities and think about, oh, I don't know, building their industrial base, maybe?
The royals probably would head for Switzerland and live in poverty, with only the few hundred billion they've got stashed offshore to tide them over while they looked for work. |
