Tag Archives: middle east

• Stocks and Precious Metals Charts – Blue Monday – How Are the Mighty Mispricings of Risk Fallen 
• A Timeline Of The FBI And DOJ's Involvement In Hillary's Emails And The Trump Dossier
• How much are illegal activities behind the demand for crypto-currency?
• The Market Meltdown Is an Ominous Sign
• FEMA Contract Called for 30 Million Meals for Puerto Ricans. 50,000 Were Delivered.
• Shale Reality Check
• Oil Prices Ravaged By Financial Turmoil 
• Arctic permafrost home to large mercury reserves, study finds 

Read More »

• The Science Of Loneliness
• The dark side of your $5 Footlong: Business owners say it could bite them
• These Will Be the Big Stories of 2018
• Stop reading what Facebook tells you to read
• Too much screening has misled us about real cancer risk factors, experts say
• Why American doctors keep doing expensive procedures that don’t work
• It's Time For Innovators To Take Responsibility For Their Creations
• Americans Will Eat a Record Amount of Meat in 2018

Read More »

While turbulent during the best of times, gigantic waves of change are now sweeping across the Middle East. The magnitude is such that the impact on the global price of oil, as well as world markets, is likely to be enormous.

A dramatic geo-political realignment by Saudi Arabia is in full swing this month. It’s upending many decades of established strategic relationships among the world's superpowers and, in particular, is throwing the Middle East into turmoil. So much is currently in flux, especially in Saudi Arabia, that nearly anything can happen next. Which is precisely why this volatile situation should command our focused attention at this time.

Read More »

Without any doubt, the Middle East has been a very long-simmering region of violent religious and tribal enmity.

In that regard, perhaps today is no different than 1,000 years ago. But given the importance of the remaining oil in the Middle East to the next 20 years of global economic health, the violence and chaos seen there recently is hugely important to the entire world.

Read More »

The situation in Iraq is serious, and is probably going to get worse before it gets better. The potential for this recent action to morph into a regional conflict is very high. That that means that oil could go a lot higher, and if it does, we can expect the odds of a global economic recession and an attendant financial crisis to go up considerably from here.

Read More »

“Well, I wish I had a more hopeful answer for you. You’ve nailed it. We really are very likely to face either a disruption violently [by terrorism] or a political decision by OPEC to change the price of oil to $200 to $300 per barrel and literally destroy the global economy.”

So predicts Robert McFarlane in today’s interview, which focuses on current US energy policy and the risks it faces. Mr. McFarlane’s many decades of public and private service in both the Middle East and global energy markets make him uniquely qualified to opine on the merits (or lack thereof) of the energy strategy that the US is pursuing.

He sees the US as committed to a foolish “monopoly-fuel” system that leaves it dependent upon and dangerously vulnerable to the actions of external players, including those hostile to US interests. And as the impacts of Peak Oil begin to be felt, he believes it is a near certainty that our country – along with the global economy – will experience great shocks which we have no plans currently in place to address sufficiently. The solution lies in creating a viable market for alternative fuels, which is in our power to do, provided we can muster the politcal and civic will. And do so quickly. 

Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Robert C. McFarlane (runtime 34m:39s):

[swf file=”http://media.chrismartenson.com/audio/robert-mcfarlane-2011-02-25-final.mp3″]

Download/Play the Podcast
Report a Problem Playing the Podcast

In this podcast, Robert and Chris discuss: 

Read More »