Dem senator calls for ban on Saudi Arabian oil imports

[Duppers]

5. There's a problem: Saudi's retaliation + our oil addiction.

"The kingdom emphasizes that it will respond to any measure against it with an even stronger measure,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

While the Saudi statement didn’t make an explicit reference to oil, analysts and traders said it could be read as a veiled threat to use its energy riches as a political tool. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, earlier this month hit a 4-year high above $85 a barrel.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/saudi-arabia-says-it-will-retaliate-against-punitive-measures

Heard a discussion regarding the extent this path could take that said an oil embargo could more than double oil prices which would totally wreak havoc with the world's economies.

We should have spent trillions on public transportation and on support for electric car systems decades ago. Instead we chose to support oil companies. And pursuing that goal we've already spent over $2.4 Trillion* on the Iraq War, not to mention the ongoing one in Afghanistan. By far, our largest motivate has been to ensure and support a continuing oil supply.

In the long run we could have saved the environment (our lives) and created jobs had we put that kind of effort and investment into technologies that replaced fossil fuels.

So, for now, it seems we have to suffer murdering despots in order to support our junkie oil habit. Killing ourselves and the planet because we're so fucking shortsighted.




*"According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War