This Month's Issue of Foreign Policy Magazine: Corruption vs Stability vs Price of Oil

[Guest]

I was checking out this month's issue of Foreign Policy yesterday, and they had some very interesting charts that addressed various factors that make up some of the biggest problems the world is facing today.

One graph was how the history of the price of oil is apparently proportional to stability. The higher the price is, the more instability there is.

Another was the measured amount of corruption present in various countries. The less corruption there is, the less instability there is.

Next was a graph that tied these factors to the mean age of a country's population.

Many of the most troubled places in the world are where the population is youngest. Europe and the USA have much older mean populations than in the Third World.

It seems to me from reading the information in the magazine that the best way that the industrialized nations can help bring stability to the Third World is to reduce their dependency on oil. This will drive the price down, and reduce the violence and instability, if the information in the article is reliable.

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[vortexring 0]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And what about the third world people!!??

Sorry guys, we're forcing you to stop developing as a nation - see, our greedy fat need for oil is FAR greater than yours.

Here, have this Red Cross biscuit and fuck off.

Jesus!

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[SpeedRacer 1]

Let's reduce our own dependence on oil. the huge demand from the wealthy countries is what drives the price up.

also it seems that as soon as a country starts selling a lot of oil or natural gas, they start acting like assholes. look at Venezuela.

Speed Racer
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[sfc 1]

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Let's reduce our own dependence on oil. the huge demand from the wealthy countries is what drives the price up.

also it seems that as soon as a country starts selling a lot of oil or natural gas, they start acting like assholes. look at Venezuela.

They are acting like other rich nations, let me think, which other rich nations are making demands of others, threatening war and invasion, I wonder.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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also it seems that as soon as a country starts selling a lot of oil or natural gas, they start acting like assholes. look at Venezuela.

This is quite funny. Amazing what happens when a country thinks it is powerful and you look from the outside in....isn't it

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[mr2mk1g 10]

Sounds like they have that a bit arse-about-tit.

High oil prices don't cause instability – it's instability which causes high oil prices.

(admitting of course that the reverse might be true to a degree but it is most certainly overwhelmingly instability which drives prices up and not the other way round).