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November 21, 2008 2:48:22 AM CST

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Dear Yanks: Time to Snap Out of Oil Coma

Posted May 20, 08 2:37 PM CDT in World,  Politics,  US 

(Newser) – Romancing the Saudis and railing against speculators won’t accomplish anything, Gerard Baker tells American pols in the Guardian: A second industrial revolution is driving oil prices up and there’s no turning back. Stop the populism— the "economically illiterate idea for a gas tax holiday," for instance—and the saber-rattling, and instead focus on areas, like energy efficiency, where progress is being made. 

Concludes Baker, “real, ingenious American leadership will be needed not to make pointless gestures towards the newly powerful energy producers"—distasteful they may be, in the Middle East and Russia particularly—"but to ensure we don't turn our dependence on a scarce resource into political capitulation.”

Source Times (UK)

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President Bush walks with Saudi King Abdullah after a signing ceremony at the Al Janadriyah Ranch in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Friday, May 16, 2008.   (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
In this Friday, March 21, 2008 file photo, a Saudi Arabian man fills his vehicle's tank at a gas station in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.   (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)
In this Tuesday, May 6, 2008 file photo, an oil worker works near a new well which is being being drilled in the Sakhir desert, Bahrain.   (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)
Sean McGrath of Chicago fills his car at a gas station on Chicago's North Side Monday, May 19, 2008.   (AP Photo)
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