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Hmmm ... people controlling oil arguably have more power in the world, and possibly more wealth, than people controlling anything else.
by hackuser 10y ago
Hmmm ... people controlling oil arguably have more power in the world, and possibly more wealth, than people controlling anything else.
- greedo 10y agoThat control is tenuous. Do they control the oil, or does it control them? I can imagine numerous scenarios where control of the oil is taken away.
- hackuser 10y agoI can see how that could happen, but the reality is that it doesn't. The people controlling oil today are almost all the same as the ones controlling it since 1979, Saddam Hussein being the big exception I can think of.
- saryant 10y ago1979? American frackers didn't exist yet. North Sea production had only become significant a few years earlier (the Brent field was discovered in '71). Petrobras was irrelevant. Venezuela had nationalized its oil industry just three years prior. My point is, these things can change. Quickly.
- dredmorbius 10y agoYou can go back further than that. Gulf Oil was discovered in the 1930s. The current major oil-producing regions: Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, were all majors then. See Daniel Yergin's The Prize, or Manfred Weissenbacher's Sources of Power. (Which is to say: I'm agreeing with your point and extending it.)