Last month, the hapless Joe Biden supplicated himself in front of the Saudi butchers, in order to try to get them and the other Gulf feudal regimes to help him out in reducing oil prices, to give his Democrats some hope of not being wiped out in the mid-term elections in the Autumn. The Saudis and their associates in OPEC+ have responded appropriately to such weakness, by giving Biden a swift kick in the balls. They have announced the smallest increase in oil output on record. To put it in perspective, the increase for Saudi Arabia is not even enough to fill a single oil tank once a month! Some commentators have described it as the diplomatic equivalent fo a slap in the face. Its a bigger insult to Biden than that.
The announcement comes as US imperialism is trying also to reduce global oil prices as it tries to further its economic war against Russia, for whom the sharp rise in oil prices, following NATO's attempts to prevent Russian oil sales, has been a massive boon. The US and its NATO imperialist allies have also proposed to cap Russian oil prices, but they can't do that without the support of countries like China and India, and Russia would just refuse to sell at the prices that the US wants to impose, which would simply reduce global supplies further, causing global energy prices to surge even further. This all seems as economically illiterate as the kinds of shooting from the hip proposals coming from Liz Truss.
To not make matters even worse, the US, therefore, needed OPEC to significantly increase output, but OPEC has replied to Biden with a big Fuck You. Biden's administration has replied by saying that, in fact, compared with six weeks ago, oil prices have fallen significantly, and US gasoline prices have also fallen. But, that has nothing to do with their diplomatic efforts. Oil prices have fallen from six seeks ago, when they were at £120 a barrel, to around $95 today ($102 for Brent), but today's price is still way about the $70 a barrel it was at before NATO tried to block Russian oil sales. And, to get to this level, the US has been pumping huge amounts from its own strategic reserve, and pressuring its NATO allies to do the same, so as to increase supply, and reduce prices. That simply stores up problems for the future, when they have to replenish those reserves, probably at much highe prices.
The other reason that oil prices have fallen is that China, fearing its economy overheating, and causing its interest rates to rise, causing a bursting of its huge asset price bubbles, has been descending into ever greater levels of absurdity in implementing its zero-Covid policy, so as to physically close down its economy. One of the most ridiculous recent examples was when it implemented a lock down of more than 1 million people simply on the grounds of just 4 people being infected with COVID!!! That's not 4 people dying, or even 4 people being seriously ill and requiring hospitalisation, but just 4 people - who were probably vaccinated anyway - simply having registered as infected. The Chinese Stalinists will not be able to maintain that level of idiocy and restriction of liberty for much longer without it leading to massive social unrest, which could threaten the regime itself. But, its that deliberate slowdown of the economy that is also responsible for a reduction in global oil demand that has led to a fall in prices. When that demand rises sharply, prices will rise again too.
But, Biden has to simply grin and bear the kick in the balls given him by the Saudis, because the other reason for his supplication to them is that he has needed to enlist the support of the Saudi butchers, and the other Gulf feudal regimes, who are also now aligned with the the Zionist butchers in Israel, to act as NATO's proxy in the region, in opposition to the butcher's of the Iranian regime, which acts as the proxy of Russia. They perform the same function for US imperialism in the Middle East, that Ukraine performs for it in Eastern Europe, and that Taiwan performs for it in the Pacific against China. In other words, they are strategic outposts for NATO imperialism, in its developing global imperialist war against Russia and China.
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