Putin has decided to flaunt the current world rules and invade Ukraine.  After all, the world did little (almost nothing?) when he stole Crimea, and even less when he had his cronies claim semi-autonomy for the Eastern provinces of the Ukraine.

So, now every European country and the US are devising methods to punish Putin and his kleptocrat pals as a means to stop his marauding.  And, you can see how well that has gone.

What we really need to do is lean on the frackers down South.  Using a combination of pressure and appealing to their heretofore patriotic claims.  Have them tell Wall Street to go to hell and begin producing gas and oil like they did a few years ago- before the price of oil dropped so low they were losing money,

(Wall Street has exacted promises from these firms to keep their production low, to ensure they have long-term profits and don’t tank the price of oil.  Because tanking the price of oil can mean they will have a year or so of low- or no- profits.  And, hurt the US petro-behemoths,  to boot.)

(Fracking and tar sands are not new sources of fuel.   They were around when I went to grad school. [I actually worked on a project to harvest Athabascan Tar Sands during my first grad school year.]  But, the economics were terrible.

Neither source could yield a reasonable financial return unless and until the price of oil skyrocketed.  Once that happened, the capital costs could be recovered quickly, leaving the operational costs in a very profitable position.)

Well, that’s why we need to have frackers escalate their production.  Because, we need to have the price of oil drop- NOW.

No, I am not suggesting that because the price of fuel in America has doubled over the past few months.  No, I am not trying to pander to those folks who (rightfully) are feeling the pain of filling up their cars and heating their homes.   That’s a problem- but one that we may have to learn to live with for a while- unless the price of oil stabilizes around $ 75 a barrel or so.

But, we need the price of oil to drop to cripple Russia.  (While we’re at it, we will also be hurting Saudi Arabia, which needs to corral Mohammed bin Salman and his murderous rages.)

You see, the United States is the largest single producer of oil in the world.  Thanks to fracking.

But, Saudi Arabia (and OPEC), as well as Russia, colluded to cut the production of oil so that the prices would rise.

When the price of oil dropped in 2014 to around $ 60 a barrel, our production rates were  creating all sorts of problems for countries around the world.  That is when  I first wrote about this (in 2014), because that precipitous drop in the cost of oil from some $ 140 to $ 60 per barrel, meant that most producers were suffering from nosebleeds to hemorrhages.  So, many countries tried to find ways to become profitable closer to  the new oil price levels.

I do recognize that Russia has found a way to cut its costs of production by more than half over the past few years, dropping from $ 122  to about $ 60  a barrel.

But, Putin- and Russia- can’t afford to have oil at breakeven.  They use the price of oil to sustain their economy.  After all, Russia is not a great producer of things.  Without natural gas and oil (the primary sources of cash)- plus aluminum, nickel and palladium (critical for the auto industries, among others),  weapons (of course), and grain (see the next paragraph), Russia’s economy would tank.  (Oil constitutes some 15% of Russia’s GDP,  natural gas is another 10% or so.)

Taking over Ukraine would mean that Russia would now be the primary breadbasket of the world.  (Ukraine is the larger exporter of grain, Russia is close behind.  Should Russia control Ukraine, it becomes the paramount supplier.)

So, if we really want to cripple Russia, we should lean on our fracking industry to produce oil and gas- which we can then use to supply Europe, freeing them from relying on Russia- and crippling Russia’s economy…quickly.

After all, we promised the Ukraine that we’d protect them.  In return for them discarding all those nuclear weapons that were left on their soil when the Soviet Union folded.

Some promise, huh?