Time To Start Burning Peat

August 2, 2005

What's wrong with this picture?

An article showed up in the mainstream news today (Reuters) stating that, "Oil Firms Near Record On Supply Fears." Turns out the death of Saudia Arabia's King Fahd has thrown the oil industry and, as a result, world financial markets, into chaos. Oil is $1 away from a record high today.

Because one guy died.

I'm no macro-economist, but when the world economy shakes at its roots because A Guy Died, doesn't that mean there's something wrong with the way we're doing things? I won't even venture to say what it is...the way oil companies do business, the slow rate at which leaves, apple cores and dead mice turn into petroleum, the government of Saudi Arabia, the government of the U.S., the American�need for oil, the Chinese need for oil, the finite supply, the extra-cold winters or just an accidental conspiracy between geography and geology...I won't even venture a reason; I'm not trying to make a political statement.

Here's an analogy...the tech market has, in the past, shown itself to be notoriously fickle, immature, unstable and capable of rippling for no good reason. But if by some chance Bill Gates were to be kidnapped by little�blue aliens and taken away to the planet Fluhurg, I suspect the tech market would survive.

Does that make the oil industry less stable than the tech industry? What a scary thought.

TES

Read the Reuters article here: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-08-02T181041Z_01_L02345921_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESS-MARKETS-OIL-DC.XML