Only until they raise the prices back up, then the competition is back. They may be irrational about it, which that would be, but they have to know they are hurting themselves and a shutdown of fracking and tar sands will only force them to keep the oil flowing to keep those from being viable.

If that is the case I say, woo hoo, cheeper prices for all till opec runs out, and then WOO HOO opec has lost all its funding.

I guess I should have put "Out of the recession" in quotes. I agree with you. We are only out in the funny number world where people that can no longer get, or no longer care to get, unemployment are no longer counted as unemployed.

Although there are some areas of the country that are out of the recession, but those are few and far between and pretty much all in areas that have less government involvement (government theft or regulation) in the businesses of those states.

Everyone seems to forget where China sits in all of this.

Robbie is right in that they are trying to eliminate the competition from the Canadians, the American frackers, etc.. This is a repeat of the early 1980s, just like Obama is a bad repeat of Jimmy Carter. Where is Ronald Reagan?

I think you are right with the exception of us being out of the recession. I don't think the under employed or the unemployed feel we are out of it yet. That is one of the reasons the next crash is going to be worse than the last one. :)

It surprises me as well, but I can come up with no other reason why they would flood the market with oil. Lowering the price of oil reduces their economy significantly. It hurts them, and there has to be some reason for it. If you can think of another I would love to hear it.

This is just the beginning. It would be good if I am wrong, but I think this drop in Oil price is a planned attack against the economies of other countries.

The OPEC nations have reduced their economies to half of what it was a year ago. They are still reducing it further with over production. Why?

I can think of only one reason. They are attacking others economically.

Putin, what little economy he has is based in oil. the low prices are crushing him. He will end up going to war in order to keep his people from turning on him.

In the US the fracking Oil industry that has pulled us out of a recession and is really all that is keeping us out will eventually be at a point where its no longer economically viable. The US goes back into a recession, making the interest on our massive debt a even larger percentage of our annual budget, crippling our ability to respond and sustain a response.

Meanwhile we have a president that is effectively supporting riots and instability here in the US, if we destabilize further and the Russians start attacking neighbors in Ernest we may be unable to respond, who else will?

Our friends the Saudi's will complete the vision of spreading the US so thin with other problems that they cannot respond to or deal with a caliphate.

If Russia does create a war, and we do have an economic downturn due to fracking oil no longer being viable there would likely be no better time for Isis and the Muslim Brotherhood to rise up and attack Israel with the world unable to respond.

I hope it fails, but I do think that is the intent.

Brits 4th - north sea

The OPEC nations are probably against Russia 1st, Canada 2nd, and the US 3rd.

The OPEC nations have declared an economic war again.

the US would be very protective of Finland, imo. too big a part of the cellular industry and they right now rank much higher on the EF Index. but who knows with a foreign policy lightweight or one world state Obama?

what about Denmark who have now openly stated they own the North Pole.

And Putin will not take the drop in the price of oil by the OPEC nations passively either! $54/barrel reminds me of the same precipitous drop in oil prices in the early 1980's.