10 reasons why US can no longer dictate world policy

From The Economic Collapse:

1) China and Japan
2) The BRICs
3) China and Russia
4) China and Africa
5) China and UAE
6) Iran
7) China and Saudi Arabia
8) The UN
9) The IMF
10) Most of the rest of the world

The New World Order

China, meet Russia.
Russia, meet China.

So Saudi Arabia is the king of OPEC, and they say they're gonna open up the pumps, but it ain't that easy.

Khalid al Falih, chief executive officer of state-owned Saudi Aramco, recently warned in April that at the country’s current rate of growth in domestic oil consumption, Saudi Arabia would burn a staggering 8.3 million barrels a day of its own oil by 2028. That is almost its current level of production.
-Globe and Mail

So much for OPEC.
Pumps in Russia, on the other hand, have already been flowing freely.

Russia, the one country actually capable of producing 10 million barrels a day, isn’t even at the table at the OPEC meeting. And it’s been Russia that has been adding the most to world exports over the better part of the last decade as OPEC exports have faltered.

Oil production in Russia, the world’s largest producer, rose to a near post-Soviet high of 10.26 million barrels a day in May. Unlike Saudi Arabia, which has been hard pressed to maintain even a nine million barrel a day production level, Russian production has been north of ten million barrels a day since September 2009.
-Globe and Mail

Interesting.
Invading, occupying, and stealing all of the oil out of Russia won't be such an easy task for the United States (the world's largest consumer of oil). Russia actually has a military. Oh yeah, AND a shitload of nuclear missiles. I guess we'll actually have to purchase it.
Speaking of which...
China has become the world's largest consumer of energy, but still uses up only half as much oil as the US. That could certainly change if Russia wanted it to, and why wouldn't they want it to? They know Beijing's new aircraft carriers weren't built to attack Moscow. Oh yeah, and the two countries just opened up a direct oil pipeline between Russia's East Siberia and China's city of Daqing.

So Russia has all the oil, and China owns everyone's debt, but the banking cartel is run by Europeans and Americans.
I'm bearish on the latter two.

UPDATE: Apparently, a couple of Chinese guys were invited to this year's Bilderberg meet.

Obama Announces Gas Price Task Force

"We're gonna make sure that no one is taking advantage of American consumers."
-Obama

Lol.
Too bad the task force won't have any authority over the Saudis.
This from the Wall Street Journal:

Unreliable data on oil production—starting with the world's largest exporter, Saudi Arabia—are adding to the price volatility triggered by unrest in the Mideast, despite efforts to improve transparency.
Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that its production had been at least 700,000 barrels a day lower in March than existing estimates, including those published by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The surprise news pushed the price of oil down by more than $1 per barrel Monday morning.
The revelation highlighted a problem that is roiling markets at the moment: a dearth of solid information about the true state of production and supplies.
"Markets are fueled by a lack of reliable information," said John Hall, a London-based oil consultant. "Nobody knows if we are short of oil."