11-09-07 by dugan
Here’s an interesting cross-fertilization in the news. The Wall Street Journal posts a business item on how rising oil prices mean that Nigeria will keep more of the oil pumped by Exxon, BP and others in the Niger River Delta. The New York Times has a gruesomely detailed piece on the result of that oil wealth: A corrupt government financing armed gangs and ensuring violent social disintegration. Obscenely high speculative prices on crude oil turn tinpot rulers into world-moving powers. Speculators use the unrest as a "reason" to jack up the price of oil even higher. All the rest of Exxon’s oil then sells at the Nigeria-induced price. And Congress can’t even pass an increase in auto mileage standards that would greatly reduce U.S. dependence on these dirty, marginal sources of oil.