The US government is seemingly hell-bent on a confrontation course with Iran. At the same time, gas prices are rising precipitously around the world.
That is by no means a coincidence: W’s warmongering is robbing your pocket.
First off, I am entirely convinced by the experts’ rationale that peak oil coupled with increased demand from developing nations will continue to drive energy prices ever higher for the foreseeable future.
But informed commentators on the subject also frequently mention a “risk premium”. Quantifying this is somewhat a matter of conjecture, but here’s one view:
“There is quite a bit of risk premium built into crude-oil prices at this time, probably nearer to $25 if we look at where our crude inventories stand — an eight-year high,” said Thomas Hartmann, an analyst at Altavest Worldwide Trading.
Iran’s facing opposition and almost daily conflicts with Western nations over its nuclear activities, militants in Nigeria have been targeting the oil industry in an effort to gain a bigger share of the region’s oil riches and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez appears to be attempting to nationalize his country’s oil industry.
Iran doesn’t export oil to the United States, but it has the second-largest oil reserves in the Middle East, said Hartmann, and it has a large coastline along the Arabian Gulf so it has the ability to “plug all traffic in that region.”
Other analysts may set this figure higher or lower; this is what one analyst is saying today.
$25 – That’s 40% of the entire price of a barrel of oil (again as of today). And according this nifty US govt graphic, the cost of crude oil accounts for around 50% of the price of gas. So reducing the risk premium is certainly going to have an impact at the pump.
Now of course, W can’t do much about Nigeria, and he’s burned what cred the US had in Venezuela. But he has it in his hand to significantly reduce tensions with respect to Iran, which is bound to reduce the risk premium in the price of oil – and the ease burden on the American consumer.
Or: Bush can talk down gas prices by talking to Ahmedinejad.
Or your slogan here.
