by Jack Lee
The West and in particular the United States does its best work under pressure. When pump prices soared it created a lot of pressure…it was challenge, a call for action and this is a very powerful thing. It is likely that OPEC does not have any idea of exactly what sort of power they have unleashed, nor that once in place, it could forever change their livelihood of selling high priced oil.
We don’t know what our response will be yet, only that there will be a response and it won’t include Arab oil. Without an energy crisis America would probably have plodded along at a much slower pace to come up with alternatives to carbon based fuels. But, greed and malevolence by certain OPEC members have forced the time table by years and this will have a direct result on the price of crude and it won’t be that far off in the future.
The pain at the pumps we will feel in the meanwhile will only serve to strengthen our resolve to beat them at their own game and that starts with clearing the decks and preparing for action. We may have to throw some inept politicians oveboard, ramp up some laws and do some serious spending on research and development, but we will get there, and the chances are we’ll get their quicker than the oil cartels could ever believe.
Once we have arrived with our new technology, it will be shared with the world and ironically OPEC will have been the force behind their own compromised economy. They have nothing to offer except sand and oil, so what happens when the world moves past it’s critical dependency on OPEC oil? What happens then to those Arab nations now awash in our money and addicted to having it their way? Who will be their friends when that time comes?
We’ll pay dearly in the short term and it will be painful, but OPEC’s payback will last forever.
I love the term…”joist by their own petard!”