Obama wants only military leaders who will agree to fire on US citizens?

[BjornF16]

@bjornf16 Look up the definition of petrodollars. Oil is sold in dollars on the global market. It is the global reserve currency. It is the only thing that gives the fiat Federal Reserve Note value. It is enforced at gunpoint. Get it? When countries decide they want to sell oil for gold, Euro's, whatever, the US gunverment bombs them back to the stone age. Jumpin jeezus on a pogo stick. It is plain as day. You fight for the central bankers.

CCl4,

I know how the oil industry works. My dad was in the industry and I was in the industry before I joined the military. I have a patent in the oil patch. I don't need a stinkin' lecture on how it works.

It is GOOD for our overall economy that oil is priced in US Dollars. The push for pricing in Euro's has quieted down based upon the financial disaster spreading in Europe.

I'm sick of hearing the B.S. that we were there to enrich so and so's pockets or former company. The free flow of oil from the Middle East is in our Vital National Interests, not because our companies are there (I don't think any US company got oil contracts in Iraq), but because we are a oil dependent country. Period. IIRC, we only get some 18% of oil from Middle East...but an impact to the global economy has an effect on our economy.

If we want to stabilize crude oil prices, then we need to divorce pricing from oil futures and place it back on the spot market where it belongs (as well as making buyers take possession of the oil they trade in). Once upon a time, crude oil was priced on the spot market. Pricing scheme was changed because of the commodities once used as pricing standard became low in availability and was vulnerable to "cornering" (thus manipulation). Once upon a time, you had to take possession of the crude ordered. That all changed to make it based upon Brent Sea Crude and Dubai crude (both abundantly available) in the Futures market (and now susceptible to manipulation via speculation).

Both Bush presidents used the "vital national interests" acid test (and I fully support our actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan under their administrations).