All over again? The difference between perception and reality.
We are in a strange situation again, in oil-land: whilst 100-150 million barrel is floating in storage and demand is going down in almost all corners of the planet, the price has almost doubled over the last 2-3- months. The difference this time (with last year) is that the media-circus is relatively quiet this time. This is understandable as there is no case to be made for higher prices and one can wonder what it all says.
Whilst there are good sides to the higher price, and not only for the oil-producing countries (as the IOC”s have been calculated to earn about 5 times more from the oil than the producing countries), the way it is happening, and especially that which is not happening, leaves a lot of questions.
As there is no fundamental reason for the increase, based on supply and demand, one can ask: “What is actually
driving the price?”, and how is it possible that a complete disconnection between
“market-principles” (supply/demand) and the actual price has occurred, and who or what is driving this,
and why?
One wonders what the grand-scale return of the Hedgefunds & Co to the market has to do with it.
Whilst in the run-up to last year”s peak oil-price there were a lot of pundits talking the price ever higher in
their self-fulfilling prophecies, this time it is very quiet. Why? What is not being said?
Whilst it could be partly the result of a “Grand Deal” between “the Producers” and “the
Market”, the quietness in the press is nudging for further questioning.
As several times before in this Column, the complicity of the Media-Machinery is the question here, as they have
turned out to be an important medium for market-manipulation and, even more important
“perception-manipulation” (meaning that we are made to believe something whilst actually something else
is the case).
An example of this is, that in very, very few articles about the war in Afghanistan, and certainly not the in
controlled main-stream media, the TAPI-pipeline is mentioned as an important factor in this. Or that an important
reason for the surge in deadly activity in Pakistan seems to be the “freeing” of very resource-rich
Balochistan and the breaking up of Pakistan in 3 regions, thwarting the plans of the Chinese to lay a pipeline
from China to the Pakistan coast to shorten the route the oil needs to go to reach China and thereby increase its
energy-security. That millions of people are being displaced or killed, seems to be of little interest, or does not
want to be mentioned.
And to make sure the war-theatre continues, the first announcements turn up that the “terrorists” are now
leaving Pakistan and go the Yemen or Somalia, both strategically important places with (potentially) substantial
energy-reserves. And suddenly some European tourists are being kidnapped in Yemen (not unusual in itself) but this
time they are brutally killed, which makes of course no sense when you want to have a leverage as kidnapper, but does
make sense in a run-up to point out a country to the world-opinion as a dangerous place where terrorists gather,
offering it up for “liberation” of pacification.
We are generally kept in the dark about such “covert operations”, “black-ops” or “psy-ops” as the protests of the remaining decent people may turn out to be devastating, needing to increase even more the control of the masses for “home-land-security”.
What all this has to do with the oil-price? We will see. But what is clear is that the “working together” of “Media”, “Market” and “Military” is turning out to a Might that in its influence is similar to what is happening to the oil-price: there is a huge difference between what is being presented and what really is happening. And that is a very dangerous development.
Be aware of what you read and what you believe,
Alexander
