Blast From My Past: Part One

Back at the end of the eighties when I was International Editor of The Oil Daily, I found out from a guy who was in the meeting that in a visit to Riyadh in 1982, VP George H W Bush was asked by Crown Prince Fahd what the "right and fair" price for oil would be. Remember, Bush was an oil man, and he could have said keep the price high so his Texas friends would prosper. That's what Democrats would expect.

Instead Bush told CP Fahd that a fair price would be around $18/barrel, given all the economics. This was partly said to get the US out of the Carter Recession, but also because Ronald Reagan had a plan. Everyone was taking him for a dummy, but he knew what he knew and he was aware that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and were back at their "Wars of National Liberation" because the USSR was getting rich on the oil boom, with oil at $35/barrel and Russia exporting eight million b/d. So Bush said $18/b and my friend got rich, literally Marc Rich as a client, from predicting that prices would fall imminently---he had just been the CIA oil chief for the Middle East. In six months, the Saudis opened the spigots and oil prices crashed to $18/b, the US economy rebounded, the USSR started its death spiral as its Eurodollar horde evaporated and soon Gorbachev was in charge decommissioning the Communist Empire. Ronald Reagan also threw Star Wars into the hopper, just to make the Sovs waste their military money on high-tech rubbish. You won't read about this in a book, because my friend who became Marc Rich's [parenthetical note: whom Bill Clinton pardoned after Rudy Giuliani busted him for treason for buying Iranian oil---the pardon reportedly due to Rich's wife Debra sleeping with Billy Jeff and giving umpty millions to the Clinton library] advisor will deny it all---as an ex-spook, that's what he'd have to do.

Debbie Rich is now a Palm Beach stalwart right up the road from Boca.