Friday, January 20, 2006

Rock and a hard Place

The Dow fell by 213.36 points today, the largest decline in a single session since April 2003.

Oil was up to over $68 a barrel. Iran is pulling money out of Europe. Citibank and GE had disappointing earnings.

Iran is getting frisky and reminding us they can shut that oil off any damn time they feel like it. After all it is their oil.

Well, the mullahs claiming that oil is their oil is a lot like a bank robber claiming the money in the vault is his money.

I remember the Oil Crisis. The people that were the most hurt were the poor, here and all over the world. It precipitated the largest transfer of wealth in history and the people who made the most money off that debacle spent it on Terror and gold encrusted toilet seats.

At what point does the world say it is tired of a bunch of autocratic midieval crybabies and vengence seekers controlling the world economy?

Would we be better off we just bombed Iran's oil facilities and beat them to the punch? With 80% of his country's GDP gone how long would the mad mullah with the green aura last?

14 comments:

buddy larsen said...

This Winds of Change essay is pretty blue on Iran--Kind of a 'worse-case' speculation.

Unknown said...

This too shall pass.

I hope.

Unknown said...

peter:

I wonder if there are things happening we know nothing about as well.

Rick Ballard said...

"This too shall pass."

Certainly, many mullahs, imams and an ayatollah or two are about to pass. Joe Katzman at WoC is writing the long version of what I've been saying for a while.

We're gonna break it and we're not gonna fix it. The forecast for Iran is heavy rain followed by sunshine in the basement and probably sooner than we think.

The oil spike doesn't bother me but the two month spike in gold does. That kind of a spike is a precursor to unpleasantness.

buddy larsen said...

Wonder what the huge Los Angeles Iranian population is saying, wrt to the puzzling quiescence of that pro-western young-people majority back home?

Syl said...

I don't think that plane crash was as significant as some people are hoping. In fact hadn't that commander just gotten a demotion from being head of airforce to head of ground forces? That probably meant the mullah's didn't trust him enough. The airforce are the elites.

And the structure of their forces aren't like ours anyway--they have a preponderance of 'commanders' just like Iraq had.

They can lose dozens and it wouldn't make much difference.

I read a long comment section over at WOC last night and people were arguing whether the Iranian people hate the mullahs more than they would hate an invader.

But nobody seemed to realize that the Iranian people, whether or not they hate the mullahs, fully believe they have the right to have nuclear power--and most likely to have nuclear weapons as well. So whether they hate the mullhas or not doesn't matter as much as people would like to think.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Too hawkish for me. I think Iran is gonna get the bomb and we're agonna let em do it.

Gasoline prices are going to rise; get used to it. The Village Commisar is blaming Bush for not making them rise faster, but she would have been the first to condemn him had he taken steps to enforce an embargo. That would have been a case of ready, fire, aim.

Syl said...

mha

Too hawkish for me. I think Iran is gonna get the bomb and we're agonna let em do it.

Sometimes I fear that myself. But I sense much anxiety from Europe unlike re Iraq.

And if Iran is preparing the battleground by removing assets from Europe, I doubt they're the only ones placing their pieces.

Ledeen's 'faster, please' should have been directed at the Iranian people, not us.

Anyway, seems to me that Hillary has given Bush cover.

Rick Ballard said...

The Village Comissar will try and keep one dainty cloven hoof in as many camps as possible. She's definitely going to be for this before she turns against it.

buddy larsen said...

Money on the move:

MeaninglessHotAir said...

From Buddy's link.

Eizenstat told the AP, adding that Iran's principal area of leverage over the Europeans are the 5.5 million barrels of oil that it produces each day, much of it for export.

"People are afraid of a boycott of oil," Eizenstat said. He added that some in Europe fear they would be "cutting their own throats" if a sanctions regime include a ban on Iranian oil imports.


Money is the root of all policy. "Don't cut off the oil, whatever you do!"

Syl said...

You know, why would Iran need nukes as a deterrent when they have oil???????!!!!!

Unknown said...

MHA:

To be truthful it is kind of too hawkish for me too and I said it.

It seems the oil output of Iran keeps rising. First I heard it was 3 million barrels a day and then 4 and now 5.

I think the people of Iran might want nukes and I am not so sure the US and the Europeans would mind that all that much if the mullahs were not holding debates on the "myth" of the holocaust while they were ranting about wiping Israel off of the face of the earth and oil boycotts.

Then it becomes a situation of not when and if there is war, but who initiates it.

So maybe the west is calling a bluff here. Time will tell.

buddy larsen said...

'...it almost looks as if someone is trying to put pressure on oil prices.'