Seeing the world through Oil Eyes

It’s hard to figure out exactly where to point when figuring out why oil moved from $14 to $80 so quickly. In the old days, OPEC was enough of a villain, with enough power; but that was then.

It is probably a worthy exercise to ask, Who Prospers? as in all great mystery novels.

Let’s ask, if oil were at $14 today —

Would there still be a Putin in power?

Would Chavez be in power?

Would the Saudi family be as protected as they are today?

Would the Bush family be as wealthy? By how much less?

What’s happening to all the Iraqi oil today – and who is getting the money?

Would there even be a (non-bankrupt) Mexico without high oil prices?

What parts of the U.S. economy benefit from high oil prices, vs. taking a direct hit?

Who, globally, benefits from a shift of $200B per year (Jeff Immelt’s figure) in wealth transferance between the West and the Middle East?

As far as I can tell, we now have two new buyers of oil (futures contracts), China via burgeoning demand, and Wall St., which piled in seriously just over a year ago.

Are one (or more) of the producers using Wall St. to accelerate price growth?