| I think the US control over global oil supply in theory has a few big consequences greater than just importing cheap oil: First, there’s the whole petrodollar thing, which in theory is a net positive in global trade (since all this external money is sloshing around in USD, there is more demand and liquidity for USD globally, and at the end of the day that means we get traded things in exchange for printing money). It also gives us a lot of leverage over other countries the world over. If Russia is acting up, the US can pressure countries to dump oil to lower the price and hurt Russia. A lot of these countries like SA buy a lot of US weapons which we like for economic and political reasons. Also, the US wants the region to be stable, since Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are all at varying degrees of being nuclear powers and don’t have great relations between each other. If there were a big war over there, it would be bad for business globally and could destabilize countries outside of the region. Now, I’m not saying I like this state of affairs, but it’s complicated and there aren’t a lot of good guys over there, so it’s hard. At least the current state of affairs is somewhat stable. |