I don't know. I think OPEC already has a nest egg. Low prices keep the market alive. I think higher prices will encourage alternative energy and put the age of OPEC to the end.

America has little to gain in the long term by digging up their own natural environment etc to encourage oil consumption.

Though I haven't seen concrete evidence, I'm pretty sure that the OPEC leaders have taken a lot of their gains and invested them in industries in the rest of the world. Despite the public image of Arabs in the Gulf region having solid gold bathroom fixtures, the really rich guys are rather few and far between, the equivalent of our 1%. Most of them lead not terribly lavish lifestyles. So I'm pretty sure the big boys are spending their money elsewhere.

In the UAE Sheikh Zayed set up a system of public education and health care and utilities/infrastructure for the citizens, and a stipend to males over the age of 18 (not sure about females- they may get a stipend too) based on sharing the oil wealth. Obviously this can't go on forever as they will eventually run out of oil, so I would bet that the sheikhs are investing pretty heavily elsewhere to keep their country's economy going.

And yes, I know for a fact that the UAE at least is investing heavily in solar energy. Look up Masdar City for more info on that. They want to make the oil and gas last as long as they possibly can. The Arabs are not fools- they're generally pretty shrewd. When oil starts being too costly, they'll be riding high on new technology- and can probably afford to keep their prices down.

Politically speaking- I'd actually rather see nuclear power being kept and maintained- as opposed to oil, until we get the alternative energy market matured.

That said, thanks to Bush- we've already reconstructed so much of our economy towards; and spent so much money in the middle east; it seems like political suicide to step out.

The posted article is right-wing, drill-baby-drill bullshit. And for an alleged economist, the guy seems to have little grasp of what actually drives oil prices. In fact supply and demand are generally less important than speculation and geo-political machinations- and far from 'having their back broken', OPEC still has a big say in whether gas stays cheap or not. The Saudis can throttle production at any time and drive prices up. One possible reason they're not- to put pressure on their competition and political rivals; mainly Iran and Russia.

So, apparently this article is just going to ignore that there is nothing new about shale oil and we've been aware of vast amounts of it being available in the US, but it wasn't until gas prices leaped after 9/11-Iraq and the ensuing Oil Futures craze that extracting it became financially viable?

Also, if I remember correctly, American oil is actually sold on the international market, yes? Rising oil production doesn't directly result in a US surplus...

Of course!

There's still lots of oil in America that isn't shale, but it's not economical to extract for less than $100 per barrel. Oil falls below that point, and the owner will be shutting down the well.

We don't export oil on a straight-up basis. Oil producers that are stuck with product they can't sell domestically are allowed to apply for a license to ship it overseas; the people I can find talking about this on the internet generally call the process "opaque."

Well, also advances in the extracting technology (i.e. fracking).
And yes, despite the dubious claims of the author of this dubious article, rising domestic production has little effect on available supply and price. Even if we end up never importing another drop of Saudi soda, it's still an international market set largely by OPEC.

Russia's untapped oil resources make American unimportant to the total available oil, correct? Thus negating his premise that America holds major sway over oil supply/global fuel market.

What about China? Does China have oil? They have so many fossils it seems strange that they wouldn't.

Current top oil producing nations:

1. Russia 10,730,000 bbl/day
2. Saudi Arabia 9,570,000
3. United States 9,023,000
4. Iran 4,231,000
5. China 4,073,000

But these numbers alone don't tell the whole story- compare with the top five oil consuming countries:

1. USA 19,000,000 bbl/day
2. China 9.500,000
3. Japan 4,455,000
4. India 3,200,000
5. Saudi Arabia 2,650,000

The obvious issue is that the US still needs to import oil from elsewhere to meet its voracious appetite, so our production is of little consequence to the global market. China meanwhile is a major producer, but also not nearly enough to meet their demand, which is likely growing at the fastest pace. Meanwhile, Russia and Saudi Arabia (and Iran) can still sit pretty as the biggest exporters, though I have seen reports that Russian reserves are not so vast and in fact their production may be soon declining.

This got me looking up India's oil stats. Common search result is they produce only 30% of the oil they consume, their demand is rising, and their production is not. Could be an interesting development to watch.

Mr. Stephen Moore btw has an established history of distorting and omitting key facts in order to forward his bullshit agenda.
Wouldn't be surprised if he got a check directly from the Koch brothers for writing this piece of agitprop.

I'm happy to see lower gas prices, but I'd pay the extra 50 cents to $1.00 a gallon not to destroy entire states with pollution, fracking is so fucking terrible.

It seems awfully hard to say fracking is ok when north Texas has been experiencing all these earthquakes when they never used to. Sure, it's just correlation, but with few or no other correlated factors, that leaves us with a rational assumption.

Is spiting OPEC (for an entirely reasonable reaction, mind) really worth this?

Somewhat related:
Jon Stewart realized that Koch Industries was running ads during his show. So he trolled them.

So much for embedding.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/avy6xw/democalypse-2014---south-by-south-mess--ad-of-brothers