Economists, Like Royal Children, Are Not Punished

Soaring Prices For Crude Oil, Falling Production Surpluses, Wild Speculation In Commodities, A Rush Into The Precious Metals, Turmoil In The Middle East, Assertive Oil Producers: It Is 1973-74 All Over Again, And At Dictation Speed.

Saudi Arabia Operates According To The Belief That God Made Young Men And Women So Utterly And Completely Without Self-control That They Must Be Physically Segregated Every Moment Of The Day And Night.

Viewed From A Distance, Or Through The Eye Of The All-knowing Ceo Of The Universe, The Crash Of 2008 Followed The Usual Pattern. A Long-lived Boom Driven By Cheap Credit, Going Back As Far As 1982 (though Subject To Interruptions In The Mid-1980s And 1990s, And In 2001), Came To Grief Because Of A Rise In The Cost Of Borrowing Money.

Were There Peace And Justice In The Middle East, The Arabs Would No More Need Their Tinhorn Dictators Than They Would Their Corpulent Princes.

The World Survived The Fall Of The Roman Empire And Will No Doubt Outlast Our Own So Much More Splendid Civilisation.