Quote from nazzdack:
1) If you were an energy producer instead of merely an energy user, you would feel differently.
2) To answer your original question, a bigger threat than OPEC would be for a financial organization to overtake OPEC, such as Goldman Sachs.
3) Please don't praise the FED. 
Dear nazzdack,
1) I clearly agree with you. That's where personnal integrity is very important. Did you think to write : "intentionnaly raise local tension to help the price of crude" ?
2) Please... GS is conspiracy... and no more cartel what ever their form.
3) I don't praise, I just see the Fed respects the law of the United States Congress... and that's means everything to me. Furthermore if the Fed officials can find a better way for the economy I am sure that they will be really interrested.
Quote from Kassz007:
The financial system would be in ruins without the Fed.
I don't fully agree Kassz007, just that it could have been worse with a different one
Quote from Floss10Millgrom:
Read about the Ottoman Empire, junior.
Then sell your fruits of love to those "people".
With pleasure, which part in particular ? I hope that's it's the collapse that's always instructive
the 2 part, I don't understand it ? Could you be more accurate ?
Quote from Logic:
The interrupt in the oil supply from such an operation would bring *everything* grinding to a halt.
Decapitating the OPEC leadership creates a power vacuum, ensuring an ensuing power struggle with the other actors in each of the regions.
You will essentially be turning every country into Iraq circa 2002. It's taken Iraq ~7 years to gain any semblance of producing oil near its pre-war levels. And this is with American oversight.
OPEC controls around 43% of the world's oil production.
Do you really think the rest of the world would be able to stomach a 40% drop in oil production for the next seven years?
It's a bridge too far, my friend.
Dear Logic,
I don't agree with you. There is no reason to have an interruption in the oil flow. First it's impossible to compare to Irak with the rest of the Cartel. It went the Irak war 1 and lived under 10 years of total embargo. Futhermore, it isn't a secret that the Iran regime didn't help in Irak... the last month physical intrusion was a last proof...
Furthermore I strongly think that the Cartel will collapse on itself, who is stupid enough to go further? I mean who can be crazy enough to stand in the way of the Us and China... if they can agree on this subject...
Some part of the Cartel will even not feel anything, the only danger is Iran... You know offer something to the first to accept theirs errors and then... Everybody in the cartel has now more to lose from a confrontation than before... All this place have enjoy the ride... take - give or buy - sell
Quote from nazzdack:
What do you call what we have now? Do you have a poster of Volcker, Greenspan and/or Bernanke taped to the ceiling above your bed?
Compare to the 1929 one... I think that they did a "good" job with their tools...
Quote from Random.Capital:
Yes, it's OPEC's fault the major global economies decided to base their economic existence on the supply of a constrained resource from an unstable place.
Barely a third of the world's oil production is coming from OPEC, there is no reality-based foundation to this argument.
Dear Random.Capital,
As logic said it, it's 43%... ( a 1/3 is 33%... I know the screen....
)
Secondly the major economy first based themselves on Oil... it's well after that that OPEC was born... you should read their founding creation story... Really interresting. You are reversing reality...
I don't know if you trade but with 43 percent of the output, and the capacity to control it, you gain an incredible power. That's why in the civilizated world it's illegal to have more than 10% of all the open contracts on the CME on one product...
But I strongly agree with you that was a bad mistake, to based the economic growth on oil... however at the time, with the fog of war it was the best decision... and it's not for nothing that it's still widely use...
