Robert Kiyosaki: Welcome to Turbulent Times

The Sunday, Sept. 30, edition of the New York Times featured two articles that should be cause for alarm.

….Both articles emphasized that oil and gasoline prices are causing unrest all over the world, even in oil-rich countries. Governments have had to choose between allowing prices to rise, as they did in Myanmar, or subsidize fuel costs to keep prices low, as in Iran.


It costs governments money to keep fuel prices low. Oil-rich Yemen, for instance, devotes 9 percent of its GDP to making sure its people don’t riot when oil prices rise. But the problem with cheap, subsidized fuel is that it creates more demand, and thus costs the governments more money. Countries like Iran, Yemen, Colombia, and Nigeria could go broke if they keep providing cheap gas to keep people happy.

Fuel prices are at the center of our lives. They affect our ability to travel, stay warm, and feed ourselves. That’s why governments the world over have done their best to dampen the effects of oil prices that have tripled over the past four years. As David Goldwyn, an assistant secretary of energy in the Clinton administration, said in one of the Times stories, “Some countries are hiding the realities of high fuel prices to keep political peace.” If oil prices continue to rise, as I expect they will, there will be more events like the protesting monks in Myanmar and the match-throwers in Iran. It seems that world peace depends on cheap oil.

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