Toronto Sun: Next Great Depression?

[marmar]

Sun, June 22, 2008

Next Great Depression?
Greed and high oil prices could spark meltdown
By LINDA LEATHERDALE



I've been called a lot of things and it's usually left-leaning, union boys hurling the insults with name-calling like "business bitch" and "Leatherface."

One even told me to, "f--- off and die."

But never have I ever been labelled a Marxist.

It appears a column this past week hit a nerve, where I alleged oil brass cashing in and getting rich from this painful world energy price shock didn't give a damn about the layoffs stacking up.

"The industry I am a proud member of, and for some strange reason a vilified one -- perhaps because of poorly informed commentators like Leatherdale making us the bogeyman ...," wrote an oil executive from the U.K.

The bogeyman, according to him, is the world's huge national oil companies (NOCs), like SaudiAramco, Gazprom, NIOC, Pemex, PetroChina, Yukos, etc., who enjoy an even more powerful oligopoly than the world's Big 5 oil giants (Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell).

The Big 5's combined profits last year were a staggering $123 billion US, making them worth more than half the world's economies combined.

BLACK GOLD

But NOCs, with their deep reserves of liquid black gold, are worth even more and these bad guys, this exec warns, are now flexing their muscle by tightening up access to their reserves -- when world demand is growing. So, it's their fault oil is heading to $200 US a barrel, and higher.

NOCs, along with OPEC ministers, though, blame greedy Wall Street speculators. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.torontosun.com/Money/Columnists/Leatherdale_Linda/2008/06/22/5953096-sun.html

[Arctic Dave]

1. Question. All these countries have national oil companies

but somehow it is not a possible in the US. Why?