The only reason the US, or rather the privately owned federal reserve can print money out of thin air is thanks to OPEC and the Saudi's (among others of course) unlimited credit card.

You need $ to buy oil. Nixon pulled the gold standard, horrible c**t - but he wasn't stupid. He pulled the gold standard and replaced it with the 'petro' standard.

Merica NEED's a war economy to survive - In concession for OPEC to trade all of their oil in $ - they got 'protection' Mafiso style. Hence muscle flexing in Vietnam far far longer than necessary. And keeping some of the most disgusting dictatorship regimes armed to the teeth.

Dollar's fly in from around the world, dollar's fly out across the world, make 2% on the way in 2% on the way out. Beautiful. Because the one thing more addictive than crack - is oil.

The late 70's, 80 boom year's - 'yuppie' traders this was amazing. The .com bubble burst, people got burnt - but as long as the main event was in full swing - the petro dollar - recession without recovery was inevitable.

Perhaps - maybe naive - double digit growth in emerging economies wasn't fully expected. Neither was the capacity for reverse engineering - from cell phones to fighter jets. A RUS/CHN collation, despite the untold trillions pumped into the US defence budget, begins to make Washington nervous - more muscle flexing. Iraq x 2, Lybia, however Syria is a different situation as are ISSS. Despite calls for the Qataries and Saudies to tackle the problem on their own door step - with state of the art US hardware. Nothing goes up in the air. Curious. It might be worth remembering that despite the cosy 70's/80's90's OPEC relationship - These guys still regard the West as the 'Great Satan' - maybe we are lol.

Because thanks to Tiny Rowland and his stripping of Africa's depleted uranium when one shell hits a depleted uranium armored vehicle and dissipates into uranium dust up to 100km2 becomes uninhabitable for a million odd years - but sure the Queen of England made a sweet £800m outta it...