Word: opec
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...price of oil has almost tripled over the last 14 months, from $11 to $30 a barrel, mainly due to supply constraints imposed by the cartel of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC). The costs of heating oil and gasoline in the U.S. are rising substantially, with gas prices expected to reach $1.80 or even $2 a gallon by the summer. Although the price rise is smaller than those of the 1970s, some worry that the increases will fuel inflation--or convince Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to raise interest rates--and choke off the economy's growth...
This is not to say that we should celebrate the current price rise. Prices are high in most European nations because of gas taxes, not supply constraints, and these taxes send revenue to the governments rather than OPEC--revenue that can be used to build public transportation systems, fund alternative fuels research, mitigate environmental damage or compensate the poorer citizens and gas-dependent industries disproportionately affected...
...patrols the northern and southern skies of Iraq to ensure the safety and security of Iraq's neighbors, majority members of OPEC [BUSINESS, Feb. 28]. This commitment to security for the Middle East and OPEC has been going on for nine years, with no end in sight. Doesn't America have any leverage with which to persuade the OPEC nations (Saudi Arabia, the emirates and other cartel members) to reconsider their production cuts and resultant price increases? We could stop monitoring Iraq and let OPEC feel the pinch of scarcity of another precious resource--U.S. military power and the security...
...while U.S. pressure will almost certainly prompt OPEC to at least partially back down, the price is unlikely to be pushed down to the depressed levels of the late '90s. "In the end," says Baumohl, "neither the U.S. nor its oil-producing allies want the price to fall too far. They'll probably look to find an optimal level, at which everybody wins." And that's a matter that will probably be settled nowhere near the free-trade mecca...
www.yahoo.com: Eventually, I caved. I went to Yahoo, looked up Buchanan, and found the official website at www.buchananreform.org. "Oh yeah," I thought. "He's in the Reform Party now." After all this, though, the real deal was pretty anticlimactic--all about OPEC and China policy. Now if only Buchanan had a position on clowns...