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Saudis Walk Out of OPEC


This is the best news I have read in a long time. Without the Saudis, OPEC is broken. The Saudi’s are smart enough to know that OPEC is trying to kill the Goose that laid the golden egg! Maybe they are getting nervous about America drilling for its own oil and ending our dependence on foreign supplies.

This should drive oil prices down even further. Now we can pick and choose whom we get our oil from and we can even restrict oil purchase from certain rogue countries. What was once a Monopoly could turn to competitive pricing. This will be interesting to watch.

The death of OPEC

Saudi Arabia walked out on OPEC yesterday, saying it would not honor the cartel’s production cut. It was tired of rants from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the well-dressed oil minister from Iran.

As the world’s largest crude exporter, the kingdom in the desert took its ball and went home.

As the Saudis left the building, the message was shockingly clear. “Saudi Arabia will meet the market’s demand,” a senior OPEC delegate told the New York Times. “We will see what the market requires and we will not leave a customer without oil.”

OPEC will still have lavish meetings and a nifty headquarters in Vienna, Austria, but the Saudis have made certain the the organization has lost its teeth. Even though the cartel argued that the sudden drop in crude was due to “oversupply”, OPEC’s most powerful member knows that the drop may only be temporary. Cold weather later this year could put pressure on prices. So could a decision by Russia that it wants to “punish” the US and EU for a time. That political battle is only at its beginning.

The downward pressure on oil got a second hand. Brazil has confirmed another huge oil deposit to add to one it discovered off-shore earlier this year. The first field uncovered by Petrobras has the promise of being one of the largest in the world. The breadth of that deposit has now expanded.

OPEC needs the Saudis to have any credibility in terms of pricing, supply, and the ongoing success of its bully pulpit. By failing to keep its most critical member, it forfeits its leverage.

OPEC has made no announcement about any possibility of dissolving, but the process is already over.

Amusing

Pelosi Asks Protesters “Can we drill your brains?”

Nancy “Nine Percent” Pelosi insulted protesters shouting “drill here, drill now” at a press event by asking them “Can we drill your brains?”

Over 70% of Americans want to drill now coupled with other energy policies and she still refuses to pay attention. How disrespectful and disconnected Pelosi is. All Americans should want us to be energy independent. To be at the mercy of hostel people for our energy is insane.

Pelosi’s “Let them eat cake” attitude is showing more and more everyday. Its time to send Pelosi and her corrupt cohorts packing! Enough is enough!

Pelosi to protesters: “Can we drill your brains?”

House Democratic leaders and protesters waving McCain signs had a war of words Tuesday at a press event outside an old train station. The demonstrators interrupted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with chants of “Drill here! Drill now!”

Pelosi paused and asked the group, “Right here?”

Seeming to enjoy the back and forth, she followed with another question: “Can we drill your brains?”

She went on to refer to the protesters, who continued to chant sporadically, as “handmaidens of Big Oil.” Arguing that increased offshore drilling would reduce gas prices by only a couple of pennies a decade from now, she referred to the demonstrators as the “2-cents-in-10-years-crowd.”

Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer swiped at the demonstrators, too, saying that “sophomoric chanting” won’t solve the energy crisis and that “all thinking Americans know” — stressing the word “thinking” and looking at the crowd — that America doesn’t have a quarter of the word’s fossil fuels yet uses a quarter of the world’s energy.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s news conference at the Democratic National Convention gets overwhelmed by pro-drilling Americans. Then she hops in an SUV after bragging about taking public transportation to the event.

Amusing

Democrats Pushing for Four Day Work Week for Federal Employees

Can you guess the reason? How about high gas prices?

Nancy “Nine Percent” Pelosi shuts down Congress and skips town without passing an energy bill. Now the Democrats are pushing for a four day work week for gas relief for themselves and federal employees, even though they refuse to do anything to provide relief for ordinary Americans. Amazing!

Hoyer Advocates for a Four-Day Work Week

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) is pushing a work week of four, 10-hour days for federal employees.

In a letter, released this week, to the Office of Personnel Management, he asked the agency to “undertake comprehensive analysis of the transitioning to a 4-day work week for all possible federal employees and inform me by August 31, of any additional actions Congress would need to take to implement such a policy by the end of fiscal year 2008.”

Hoyer acknowledged that federal agencies and departments “already have discretion to implement alternative work schedules.”

That discretion is underlined by an OPM document, “Negotiating Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules,” which says a 1982 law “authorizes a versatile and innovative work scheduling program for use in the Federal Government.”

The document says “many management officials are finding that the use of flexible and compressed work schedules can help resolve a number of personnel problems.” Those problems include employees with dependent-care responsibilities.

The high cost of fuel makes the four-day week all the more important, Hoyer’s letter said. “In these times of high gasoline prices, I believe the federal government should do all it can to ensure that federal agencies and departments are appropriately reducing gasoline consumption. This goal can be accomplished with the adoption of personnel policies to limit unnecessary commuting.”

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