Flashback: The Games Oil Prices Play

…On Nov. 1 last year, a group called Securing America’s Future Energy ran a game-playing
exercise with nine mucky-mucks like former Treasury Secretary Robert E.Rubin, prize-winning author and consultant Daniel Yergin, former deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Gen. (Ret.) John P. Abizaid. The goal: to dramatize the risks of a price shock if some unexpected event threatened world oil supplies. The scenario: unrest rocks Azerbaijan and an explosion cuts off a million-barrel-a-day pipeline. The scenario was called “Shockwave” and
it envisioned an urgent meeting of the National Security Council to deal with the “crisis.”

And what was the price of oil during this hypothetical crisis? $115 a barrel – slightly less than the current price.


That brings to mind one lesson and one question.

The lesson: People get used to high oil prices surprisingly quickly — although they’re definitely not happy about it and the prices are definitely hurting the economy.

Washington Post