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Strategies & Market Trends : Steve's Channelling Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (27791)	9/17/2001 6:36:10 PM
From: brightness00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30051

Imagine how many new recruits to OBL would show up if all moderate arab economies collapsed because the torrent of cash in the form of oil payment suddenly dried up. We, the West, allowed oil price to run up in the middle of the last century for three simple reasons: (1) Middleast does have by far the lowest production cost. (2) We allowed the nations of the middleast to nationalize their oil in order to prevent them turning to out-right Soviet-style revolution; the State Department also decided to subsidize the Shah of Iran (remember, Iran was once our ally) in order to complete the containment ring around the USSR; outright gift-giving was never popular with the American voters, so making the motorists pay for it was the best way to go about it. (3) There had to be some way to appease the destitute Arabs that surrounded the prospering Isreal. Installing moderates royal heads in those countries, and subsidize them with oil money was the most convenient way to put a lid on the potentially boilsterous situation. Not to mention that some of the money get funnelled back to defense contractors to help their economy of scale in the Cold War era. Jim