Ennå tenker ikke alle liberalistersom Bush II, norske medier og Frp

From: Karsten Johansen (kavejo@ifrance.com)
Date: 10-04-02


En artikkel som viser at "the norwaying of the world" ennå står noe
tilbake å ønske, sett fra Bush IIs, regjeringens, Carl I. Hagens og
medienes ståsted. Det finnes liberalistiske økonomer som har et annet
syn på oljeforbrukets velsignelser. Tenk hvilket framskritt i demokrati,
hvis bare slike modererende og mindre virkelighetsfjerne synspunkter var
vagt hørbare i det lille "norske" vannglassets Frpske medieorkan. Men
det er utvilsomt alt for mye å håpe på.

Karsten Johansen

The Independent:

Hamish McRae:

Iraq may be doing us a favour by raising oil prices

The world oil price climbs, threatening to push up inflation and
undermine the economic recovery. Potential disaster, useful warning or
welcome relief?

The potential disaster is that some interruption in supply would have
the gravest consequences for the world economy. The immediate reason for
the climb in recent days was the shutting down of exports by Iraq. Such
swings in price are acutely political: yesterday the price fell by $2 to
$26.65 a barrel on reports that Israel would pull back its troops. But
that could very easily be reversed.

The Iraqi threat was not in itself a particularly serious blow. It has
been limited in the scale of its exports, for UN economic sanctions
allow it to sell only limited qualities to pay for essential imports.
Though Iran has voiced support for cutbacks, Iraq has not gained any
general support. The largest oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait,
have both explicitly rejected the Iraqi action and Saudi Arabia has said
that it will offset the shortfall caused by Iraq. While oil has become
expensive by the standards of recent years, in real terms it is much
lower than it was in the late 1970s. The bottom line is that as long as
the present regime remains in power in Saudi Arabia, the oil weapon
against the West is unlikely to be effective.

Nevertheless there are several reasons to believe that oil will remain a
relatively expensive commodity in the coming months. Demand will be
boosted by the greater economic activity that we are already seeing.
Supply will be contained as long as Opec maintains reasonable discipline
in sticking to production quotas. Though it only produces about 40 per
cent of world output, its Middle East members are the swing producers,
able to increase or cut production reasonably easily. Non-Opec
producers, by contrast, are unable or unwilling to increase production
much: Russia, one of the few non-Opec producers that could increase
production, confirmed yesterday that it would not do so to offset the
Iraqi shortfall.

You do not need to be a whiz at economics to appreciate that restrained
supply and rising demand is likely to lead to higher prices. As oil
affects all energy prices, this will add to inflation. For the time
being the US and to a less extent the UK are protected by reasonably
strong currencies. For those with weak currencies, the inflationary
impact is a real worry. Expect rising concern about inflation to drive
up interest rates around the world in the coming months.

So whatever happens in the Middle East, energy prices will be a serious
constraint on growth. Were there to be a more general interruption to
production – for example as a result of unrest in Saudi Arabia – then
the impact would be much more serious. A disaster in the Middle East
would be a disaster for all of us: there is no reason why, in the
short-termat least, the oil price could not double again.

This present increase should therefore serve as a useful warning. We
have created an oil-driven global economy, in a world where 70 per cent
of known reserves are in its most politically fragile region. That is
not very bright. The only way we can, in the short and medium term, dig
our way out of this dangerous situation is to become better at energy
conservation. That means harnessing the power of the market to wean us
off oil.

A reasonably high oil price is therefore a blessing in disguise. If oil
is too cheap, we will waste it. It is a welcome relief to have the
market pushing in the right direction rather than the wrong.

In theory, it might be possible to construct taxes and subsidies to
encourage the world to use energy more efficiently. Everything has been
tried, from grants for home insulation through to legislation to compel
motor manufacturers to improve the fuel consumption of their fleet. But
such measures are often ineffective. For example, taxing energy use by
British china tableware makers has tended to push their production
offshore, where factories are less energy efficient. Britain uses less
energy, sure, but the world uses more. In the US, requiring better fuel
consumption in cars has encouraged customers to shift to
four-wheel-drive vehicles and light trucks, which use more fuel. The
fuel efficiency of the car fleet has improved but overall fuel
efficiency has deteriorated. Nuts.

What we do know works is the price mechanism. There are huge strategic
and environmental reasons why the world should try to use less oil.
Sadly, however, the environmental lobby that has made this point has
frequently overstated its case. The most famous environmental warning,
that of the Club of Rome 1972 book The Limits to Growth, has been
discredited by 30 years of increasing prosperity. There are limits to
growth, but these are much more elastic than the Club of Rome authors
believed.

But where lobbyists fail, the market can succeed. If more expensive oil
leads our societies both to economise and to develop alternatives to
oil, then the clouds of the Middle East conflict could have a silver
lining. Put brutally, we need to be taught a lesson. More expensive oil
now would undoubtedly slow the world recovery, and any interruption to
supplies would jeopardise it. But reasonably expensive oil would also
help us to learn to grow more securely in the future.

 
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