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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (256892)	7/6/2008 12:33:56 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 794019

Lindy, we do indeed get Fox here. We have geostationary satellites in view and fibre to shores. We still have a lot of sheep and a lot of trees too, but our grass huts have got cyberspace inside. The reason Saudi Arabia increased production was to maintain market share and shut of the many alternative fuels I was helping develop in BP Oil and to cut down competitor inroads [such as USSR production]. Sheik Yamani was running the show and persuading him was easy because it suited what they were going to do anyway. They had a LOT of oil and ending up with a small market share at low prices would NOT have been good for Saudi Arabia's oil sellers. By the time the oil glut really got going in the late 1980s, the 1979 and 1974 oil shocks were well forgotten and of more concern to BP, Shell, Exxon, Mobil etc and other producers and energy sources such as nuclear was that there was too damn much oil on the market and profits were being pummelled. It became time to "put a bullet through the middle east" as my BP colleague and I discussed about 1988. It was NOT a surprise when April Glaspie "didn't meet Saddam" but "did tell him NOT to invade Kuwait because he would get sanctions and war". Hilarious that the meeting and the outcome is seen as a "myth". I was not surprised when after the war was over and Saddam was back in his cage, that the sanctions had to stay on after all. Saddam had asked if they'd be taken off if he withdrew. They were not taken off. Profits in the 1990s were huge, helped along by having his oil off the market. The bullet through the middle east happened and is happening still. Let's check Exxon profits: finance.yahoo.com Wow, what a graph! Nothing short of spectacular. What luck!! Market capitalisation closing on $500 billion with profits to match. It's great fun watching the world's shenanigans. A sense of cynicism is quite useful. Mqurice PS: I would not want to have backed a line of credit using my own money for Gorby either. Pouring money into black holes doesn't achieve anything. The way for them to get out of the economic hole was Perestroika and capitalism, free enterprise, private property, savings, investment. Refusing to extend a line of credit doesn't mean the credit denial caused the problem. Debtors often blame people for not lending them money, and also for lending them money = see USA housing market for example.