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 Post Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:36 pm 
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Friedman opines "Yes, there is an alternative to the Euro-wimps and the neocons, and it is the "geo-greens." I am a geo-green. The geo-greens believe that, going forward, if we put all our focus on reducing the price of oil - by conservation, by developing renewable and alternative energies and by expanding nuclear power - we will force more reform than by any other strategy. You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple."

What say my sluggite friends?

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 Post Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:58 pm 
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Well, I'm no economist, but it sounds good. I can think of a few possible problems, though. The countries in question would scream bloody murder. Reforms of this sort would would be better for everybody involved, but it would also be a lot of work. The oil distribution companies [or whatever they are; I'm thinking Exxon or Texaco here] would also complain about it, because it seems that, somehow, they'd loose a bunch of money over it. The other problem is that if electric cars and other alternative energy sources become more popular, oil may be less relevant.

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 Post Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2005 11:16 pm 
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drdave wrote:
Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple.

I don't have a subscription to the NY times, but it seems to me like this ignores the most obvious option - for them to fail to compete, and become poor and destitute. Switching the basis of your economy is difficult, and every failure makes the next step worse.

Worse still, countries don't respond to economic hardships by being less oppressive, if anything they do the opposite. At least that's the strong impression I get. Heck, even look at American history, how liberal values (or simply skirt lengths) correlate with prosperity. Are there any examples where cause-and-effect works they way the article sounds like this suggests?

Latin America and Africa don't have the great oil revenues of the Middle East, and it's not like they've compensated by becoming great lands full of liberty. I don't get it. This isn't the famous Friedman who likes making things up, is it?

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 Post Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:07 am 
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While any effort to reduce the amount of oil consumed is to be applauded, it will have little have little effect on the economies of oil exporting economies. People are willing to pay any price for oil because of its importance to the economy. If there is lower oil demand the oil produces will lower production to maintain prices. OPEC any one?

Oil consumption is not likely to decrease even if every American traded in his SUV for a compact hybrid as the Chinese attempt to emulate the materialism of the western world. This comes as new oil production is falling. Oil prices are not going to drop anything soon.

As LeoChopper said economic hardship does not bring liberalism. It brings totalitarianism. Stalin. Hitler, Mussolini and others all had there authoritarian regime brought to power by poor economies.

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 Post Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 2:36 am 
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Korandder wrote:
Oil consumption is not likely to decrease even if every American traded in his SUV for a compact hybrid as the Chinese attempt to emulate the materialism of the western world.

Just out of curiosity, how much of a difference would this make to the national consumption? Oil is used for much more than driving cars, it makes nearly everything, from plastic to electricity. The US only uses a little arable land to feed itself, and that is only possible using petroleum-based products. Has anyone seen any statistics on how much oil is used for what?

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 Post Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 3:08 am 
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Well these days, if your economy gets in trouble, the IMF shows up at the door and says "We'll give you a loan but you have to open up your markets." :P

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 Post Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 10:51 am 
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Note, if OPEC lowers production, that too will lower revenue, just by moving less product.

I think the idea here is not so simple as 'cash cow goes away -> peasant revolt'. I think the idea is that these countries maintain their autocratic governments with very specific help and props from the big economies. If we do not need them to produce a valuable good at low cost anymore, we will be less inclined to support the conditions which make that possible -- i.e. oppression.

The problem is partly our influence. And for that to change, we need to be weaned off of the oil they provide.

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 Post Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:59 pm 
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Well, I imagine that reducing our dependance on the mideast for energy would make it quite a bit easier to exert some serious pressure on them to shape up socially. Right now, we can't do anything more than slap at their wrists for fear they might cut production again and leave us to suffer the economic effects. I don't think their economies are particularly healthy or balanced anyway, as nearly all the wealth belongs to the oil families and the poor get generally shafted.

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 Post Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 3:16 pm 
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There's another problem, of course. As long as the current crowd is in anything like power, the US is going to be so badly mismanaged fiscally that the OPEC governments can always devastate our economy; simply by dumping T-bills. Frankly, as long as the GOP is in anything like power, they're never going seriously propose anything that might reduce our oil dependancy; it would cut into the short term profits of their johns in the oil business (Exxon just posted a $25 billion annual profit; the current situation suits them just fine). So all of these hypotheticals will have to wait for a Democratic Congress (in the fond hope that they'll be patriotic enough to be fiscally prudent again) and president (to give them political cover).

It's a pity, as we really should be doing this now; but of course, it just won't be done. And they say politics doesn't really matter.

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