Originally Posted By: Susan
"The closure of the Red Sea and Suez Canal and Egyptian major Egyptian pipelines ... wouldn't change much how three main players, US, China, Japan get their oil."

I don't think that is even close to being the point. It is the FEAR that raises the gas prices, not the facts.

Sue


I think you are right but it is interesting that so many people slide toward fear without reference to facts and context. We have been through far worse situations.

There is an entire cottage industry centered around fear-mongering and carefully cultivating, farming, fear, hysteria, outrage, and hate. Hard to make clear headed and rational decisions when a good part of the citizenry is perpetually punch drunk, and addicted to being punch drunk, from an endless series of stories, carefully crafted to cause maximum alarm, that come down to 'the sky is falling' without a whole lot of facts, backing, or context.

There are a lot of reasons people might want to spread alarm. Speculators can make huge profits off a run up in price even if it is not reality based. And when the price drops they are all over the short selling because a good speculator can make money on both sides.

There are also profits to be made becoming a fear-mongering outlet. In the present situation there seems to be no down side to spreading baseless fears. There are people who do it repeatedly and they never seem to lose any audience when the story is shown to be baseless. People seem drawn to such outlets like they are drawn to gossip and seeing the worse in people.

Evidently "just saying" and mumbled references to "the precautionary principle" are excuse enough. And on to the next dose of fear, hate, worry, and doom.

Fear and calamity are also used to groom the society and push agendas. I highly recommend "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein:

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

I also think people might benefit from the short piece:

http://www.raptitude.com/2011/01/how-to-make-trillions-of-dollars/

Welcome to a world where societies and attitudes aren't allowed to just happen. A place where how societies think, and think of themselves, are engineered, groomed, massaged and steered by keeping people paranoid, afraid, overstimulated, uncertain. But don't worry. They will sell you a tool, or a toy, or status symbol, or a pill that will almost make you feel good about it. LOL.