Freude — any help on how to shift through the EIA data would be appreciated; the BP data is another option. I can turn annual into monthly relatively easily …”

Oh, sorry, just saw this question.

Well, the problem is mostly that net exports aren’t really kept as a category for all countries, as far as I know at the EIA.

The easiest way is what I guess would be called implied exports. Take the data for consumption, (IEA World Petroleum Consumption 1980-2005) and subtract it from the data for production.

For 2006 and 2007, you will have to go through each country profile individually via the EIA’s country page. Some countries are not really in there (usually because their production and consumption numbers are very small … sometimes because they are new countries, like East Timor. East Timor is a pain.)

Obviously, there is the difficulty of the former Soviet Union / Yugoslav countries etc. if you want to look to earlier than 1991, but it’s doable.

This doesn’t consider stock changes, but given the total guesstimate character of most oil data outside of the US, it probably doesn’t matter all that much. At least I don’t think it does.

The IEA or BP might have net export data parceled out in a simpler fashion, but I’d have to look, and my guess is they don’t. It would be fairly simple, I think, to get from the IEAs Beyond 20/20 program (for up to 2005) … but be warned their numbers will conflict with the EIA’s and BP’s … and OPEC’s etc etc etc.

I believe there are useful economic history databases at eh.net, but I cannot seem to get at that website right now.

There are some other issues that may be causing some concern in Riyadh driven by oil price. For example, most of the Middle East are net food importers.

In the case of the Saudi Royal Family, I can almost understand why they play the game. The government got a 500% to 600% dollar price increase on oil and the buck dropped 30%. Wish I could do that. As a result of pegging to the dollar they have 10% or more inflation, but have been spreading around more of the oil wealth. If anyone complains about inflation, they can just say its because everyone has so much more money. Works on Americans, so why not Arabs.

The only thing I can’t figure is they are supposed to have a guestimated near trillion in US assets accumulated since the 70’s, so getting 30% whacked off that must hurt. Then again maybe they don’t even notice.

Mike Whitney: The United States current account deficit is roughly $700 billion. That is enough “borrowed” capital to pay the yearly $120 billion cost of the war in Iraq, the entire $450 billion Pentagon budget, and Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. Why does the rest of the world keep financing America’s militarism via the current account deficit or is it just the unavoidable consequence of currency deregulation, “dollar hegemony” and globalization?

Michael Hudson: As I explained in Super Imperialism, central banks in other countries buy dollars not because they think dollar assets are a “good buy,” but because if they did NOT recycle their trade surpluses and U.S. buyout spending and military spending by buying U.S. Treasury, Fannie Mae and other bonds, their currencies would rise against the dollar. This would price their exporters out of dollarized world markets. So the United States can spend money and get a free ride.

MW: Economist Henry Liu said in his article “Dollar hegemony enables the US to own indirectly but essentially the entire global economy by requiring its wealth to be denominated in fiat dollars that the US can print at will with little in the way of monetary penalties…..World trade is now a game in which the US produces fiat dollars of uncertain exchange value and zero intrinsic value, and the rest of the world produces goods and services that fiat dollars can buy at “market prices” quoted in dollars.” Is Liu overstating the case or have the Federal Reserve and western banking elites really figured out how to maintain imperial control over the global economy simply by ensuring that most energy, commodities, and manufactured goods are denominated in dollars? If that’s the case, then it would seem that the actual “face-value” of the dollar does not matter as much as long as it continues to be used in the purchase of commodities. Is this right?

Michael Hudson: Henry Liu and I have been discussing this for many years now. We are in full agreement. The paragraph you quote is quite right. His Asia Times articles provide a running analysis of dollar hegemony.

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