Quote:
Originally posted by fastpat
[B]No, while you're correct that the US government has expended huge sums in various adventures in the mideast for almost 80 years, almost none of the oil used in America comes from that area. The actual level is approximately 7-8%, which has been the case for decades. The US government has wanted hegemony in the area for the purposes of empire building and for enhancing the merchantilist corporations that are entertwined with the US government overseas. In short, if the US government stopped it's mideast empire building, it would have little or no affect in America at all.
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Fastpat, you must have been sleeping through economics in college.
1) Oil is a commodity. As such (in general) it doesn't matter where we specifically buy our oil, because oil is oil (excluding differences in sulfer content, but I digress). Oil is produced and consumed, that brings me to the other key point here...
2) Commodities are governed by supply and demand. So demand from the US creates demand in the mid-east, even if the US doesn't specifically buy it's oil from the mid-east. If the US were to suddenly stop consuming oil, the price of oil would drop in the mid-east (at least in the short term) because Canada would start to sell it's oil to the customers of the mid-east, thus driving down the price world-wide due to the excess of supply.
If the US were to start turning corn in to Ethenol, the reverse would occur. The value of corn would increase because of the extra demand. I'm not convinced that this is a bad thing since this would then allow the US farmers to make more money from their crops rather then being paid to plow crops under by the government. And as I said earlier, if corn syrup were not the cheapest sweetener on the market, that would be a good thing too in my book. And since most of the mid-east isn't suitable for growing corn, the amount of cash flowing into the region would dry up, thus draining the coffers of lots of the terrorests.