Lol, i have as much bias for the NY Times as a whole as you, but Krugman knows what he is talking about. Speculation has no real influence on the price. Heres an excerpt about the price of onions for examples, which have no futures trading : As for the alternative fuels: I know they arent close, so whats your point. Pump out all the oil we can from where ever we can (to beat China, or Saudi, or whoever else) and then when absolute necessity kicks in, when we have no other choice, then start building the infrastructure for other sources of energy? Do you change your timing belt in the volvo after it breaks and messes up your stuff, or do you do preventative maintence and change it before everything goes haywire? The comment about your affluence for Allah was meant to be sarcasm. Next time ill make that more clear. And what will happen if there is free market in Saudi Arabia? A bigger monopoly. Think of the days of Rockeffeler. Short term price drops and huge buyouts. About the Georgia Invasion: I am not typing this from Belarus, if i was, regardless of what the real situation was, the media in Belarus would be all over Putins testicles. Belarus is a dictatorship. In every sense of the word. Now, as for the real conflict. Russia has indeed cause a ton of havoc in the world, but i would argue no more than any other economically or politically powerfull nation...like the U.S for example. That being said, the Georgia conflict is not one of those times. Georgia does not have a blooming democracy. Ossetia has for a long time wanted to become a part of russia and it was indeed agreed upon in 1992 that this would become a relaity. The current president of Georgia, however, disagress with this. He has massacred many people in that region for their desire to be a part of russia. The reason for this specific conflict, the reason Russia is defending Ossetia is probably rooted in economics. Lets face it, countries dont really help one another unless they can profit from the exchange. This does not change however, that georgia is in the wrong. As for your theory about Russias weakness, this is not the cold war, their light bulb building technologies have improved...just a little bit. But your last statement is correct except for one thing, a massive influx of wealth into the country because of the policies directly attributed to Putins totalitarian regime. Pardon the spelling, btw!