Gallic Disdain For NATO Continues

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigNick . ... and there is no OPEC domination today like there was in the 1970s.

This is at odds with the evidence. OPEC controls essentially all of the excess capacity in the world today. Russia has excess gas capacity, but their oil production is more or less flat, Alaska and the North Sea are on the downside of their depletion curves, and Central Asia has not become the powerhouse that was expected.

How do you see OPEC being a smaller market presence than earlier?

As to the logic behind our foreign policy, our president is getting mostly on-the-job training in this part of his duties, and perhaps this is an area that requires a bit more study and experience with gradually increasing responsibilies being assumed?

Ha

[MichaelB]

Big Nick: no problem. We understand that you are being positive because you are in France and probably have some French authorities looking over your shoulder or monitoring your email.

Texas Proud: Right. All the other Europeans dislike the French. That’s because lots of all other Europeans have emigrated at some point in time over the past couple of hundred years. Not the French though. They have stayed home more than any other major European populace. To make it worse, all the other emigrants at least had the good sense to make the US the primary destination country. But again, not the French. They went to Canada., and the Caribbean, and North Africa. They started it.

Ha: Agree. Can’t wait for the transition from “On the job training” to “ Now we know what we are doing”.

One comment regarding policy: since the Lockerbie bomber release eff-up, there is no way the UK or US can support Gadaffi and have every motive to get rid of him.

[BigNick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha How do you see OPEC being a smaller market presence than earlier?

In the mid-70s, when OPEC made any announcement about the price of oil which it would like to see, the world trembled. They worked effectively as a bloc and took advantage of Cold War tensions to maximise their collective income. They were, for the most part, states in the "non-aligned" movement.

Now, there is almost no geopolitical coherency between OPEC's members. Venezuela, Iran, and Libya are run by their own special looney tunes, while Iraq/Kuwait/Qatar/Saudi/UAE are more or less client states of the West. And demand is such that OPEC can't afford to push the price up; every (structural) $1 on a barrel is a step nearer pushing us to develop some other source of energy supply.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigNick In the mid-70s, when OPEC made any announcement about the price of oil which it would like to see, the world trembled. They worked effectively as a bloc and took advantage of Cold War tensions to maximise their collective income. They were, for the most part, states in the "non-aligned" movement. Now, there is almost no geopolitical coherency between OPEC's members. Venezuela, Iran, and Libya are run by their own special looney tunes, while Iraq/Kuwait/Qatar/Saudi/UAE are more or less client states of the West. And demand is such that OPEC can't afford to push the price up; every (structural) $1 on a barrel is a step nearer pushing us to develop some other source of energy supply.

a ver, señor