This one is for you @The Tradition
www.theguardian.com
Today’s soaring energy costs are frightening. But the deeper truth, often overlooked, is even more shocking. The global oil and regional gas markets are anything but – they are rackets, a profiteer’s paradise. If they operated in a single legal jurisdiction, they would have long been deemed illegally rigged.
The excess, unearned profits of the oil and gas industry are astronomical, recently revealed as $3bn every day for the past 50 years. That’s $1tr a year, on average, from the pockets of you and me into the bank vaults of dictators and big oil. It may be the biggest shakedown in history.
That has consequences. The power bestowed by these colossal sums has changed the world, driving both geopolitical conflict and the climate crisis. But this price gouging also contains the seeds of its own destruction and the green shoots are starting to show.
Cartels have dominated the oil and gas industry for so much of its history, it has become normalised. But, if you take a step back, the absurdity becomes clear. Countries such as Saudi Arabia can produce a barrel of oil for a few dollars, sell it for $100 and still talk about cutting production. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and manipulation of gas supplies has sent prices through the roof, sending yet more billions of unearned dollarsinto the Kremlin.
How much longer can we tolerate this price-gouging racket of an energy sector? | Damian Carrington
We are all footing the bill of a crooked system that drains our bank balances and heats the planet, says Damian Carrington, the Guardian’s environment editor
Today’s soaring energy costs are frightening. But the deeper truth, often overlooked, is even more shocking. The global oil and regional gas markets are anything but – they are rackets, a profiteer’s paradise. If they operated in a single legal jurisdiction, they would have long been deemed illegally rigged.
The excess, unearned profits of the oil and gas industry are astronomical, recently revealed as $3bn every day for the past 50 years. That’s $1tr a year, on average, from the pockets of you and me into the bank vaults of dictators and big oil. It may be the biggest shakedown in history.
That has consequences. The power bestowed by these colossal sums has changed the world, driving both geopolitical conflict and the climate crisis. But this price gouging also contains the seeds of its own destruction and the green shoots are starting to show.
Cartels have dominated the oil and gas industry for so much of its history, it has become normalised. But, if you take a step back, the absurdity becomes clear. Countries such as Saudi Arabia can produce a barrel of oil for a few dollars, sell it for $100 and still talk about cutting production. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and manipulation of gas supplies has sent prices through the roof, sending yet more billions of unearned dollarsinto the Kremlin.
