The Sacred Oil and the Golden Menorah
As received by Rabbi Lazer Brody on Lazer Beams Oil and Aliya
Rabbi Brody - Things are happening with head-spinning speed here in the Middle East. Just 48 hours ago, when you could buy as many thousands of barrels of oil as you like for $86/each, I wrote here on the Beams to expect the price of oil to double in the nearest future. Well, folks, today's futures for crude hit $100/barrel - a 16% rise in two short days.
One way or another, the price of oil will continue to skyrocket. In Libya, the opposition has seized many towns; nobody's manning the rigs and production is way down - it could be screeching to a halt, but we don't have a reliable source to verify. On the other hand, Madman Muamar Qaddafi is holed up in Tripoli; as a last desperate act, he's willing to cut off his nose to spite his face and either blow up his own oil fields or sabotage the oil pipelines to the Mediterranean.
Italy is in big trouble, for it is dependant on Libyan oil. But, when one supplier slows production, the whole world will feel the squeeze. It won't be long before the price-per-gallon in US retail gasoline pumps start shooting upward too. If you want to start a new business in the USA, I'd suggest you consider bicycles - you're bound to succeed.
You don't have to be a PhD in economics to know what the price of oil does to the cost-of-living index. Growing food requires lots of fuel; so does getting agricultural produce from the farm to the urban markets, especially in the winter when there's no homegrown produce. And, even if you do have hothouse tomatoes and cukes up north, it takes a lot of fuel to warm those greenhouses in winter. Food will go up and so will electricity. Salaries won't go up, so the average family will have a financial bind… Click to finish the rest of the blog.
Credit to Rav Lazer Brody – “Oil and Aliya” – Lazer Beams - 24th February 2011