In our highly connected world, what happens in some faraway, seemingly unimportant nation can affect us all.
Libya is undergoing violent upheaval that may overthrow that country’s government. That has major implications for the entire Middle East as well as lesser but still important implications for all of our pocketbooks because of the effect the upheaval will have on oil and gasoline prices.
We Americans are heavily dependent on cars and therefore on gasoline. So we feel it when gas prices rise. While we produce quite a bit of oil, and thus quite a bit of gasoline, inside the United States, gasoline supply and demand throughout the rest of the world also affect our prices.
Have you noticed that oil prices have suddenly jumped to more than $93 for a 42-gallon barrel? And the crude oil price on the London market has jumped to $106 a barrel this week. Obviously, “something” is happening that is affecting world oil prices.
One such “something” is the political instability in Libya. But what’s Libya to us?