Supply and demand: it sounds reductive and patronizing but that's really it. Oil is not being used much because demand has been halted, while supply has been r

Supply and demand: it sounds reductive and patronizing but that's really it. Oil is not being used much because demand has been halted, while supply has been ramped up because some countries are filling in their budget holes as fast as possible. We pretend that these are controversial political problems, but the way the world was before was the market manipulation. You may be familiar with the story of De Beers, how diamonds had no demand so De Beers created a demand with their story, and also constricted supply so that prices of diamonds would go up. The same happens with oil in the OPEC+ nations. They fundamentally exist to collude on oil prices to keep them high by limiting the supply of oil well under their capacity to extract it. This "balance", or lack thereof, exists at any oil price. Oil has crashed FROM 23 cents before. Its all about the quantity that exists and the demand for it.