On: Why is the UAE choosing to leave OPEC?

Diary Entry, this 6th of March, 1713

It is a melancholy spectacle to observe the fracturing of that noble consortium of oil-producing states, whose harmonious coordination has so long ensured the steady enrichment of princes while sparing the common rabble the inconvenience of affordable fuel. The United Arab Emirates, in a fit of what can only be described as administrative petulance, has elected to withdraw from OPEC - an organization whose sole purpose is the judicious calibration of scarcity so that neither glut nor dearth should too violently disrupt the delicate arithmetic of profit.

One might argue that such a departure signals a dangerous independence of spirit, a reckless inclination toward market forces untempered by collective restraint. But I confess I see no cause for alarm. If the UAE wishes to flood the world with crude, let them do so - for surely the other members shall respond in kind, and thus shall the common man enjoy, for a brief and illusory moment, the sensation of prosperity, before the corrective mechanisms of cartel discipline are once more applied.

As for the Strait of Hormuz - that slender artery through which the lifeblood of empires must pass - its closure is but a temporary inconvenience. The great powers shall murmur, the admirals shall posture, and in time, some arrangement shall be made to reopen it, likely involving the quiet transfer of gold from one vault to another. The true marvel is that anyone should imagine such disruptions are anything but theater, staged for the benefit of those who trade not in barrels but in panic.

Let the UAE go. The arithmetic of greed is immutable, and they shall soon find that solitude in the oil trade is but a prelude to reconciliation - or ruin.