>Yet the President and many others believe the lie that they are deliberately cutting back on production because of lack of buyers. Hell, let them lob off about five bucks off the price and see how many buyers they have.

The Flip side of the coin says that the President is indeed well aware of PO and knows very well that KSA is "maxed out". After All Matt Simmons was apart of the President's energy counsel. Cheney was also in the loop. The President believes that any direct acknowledgement will trigger a panic. For one, such a speech would destablize the ME further, possiblity resulting in the overthrow of House of Saud that suddenly ends all KSA oil exports (eg 1979 Iranian revolution). That certainly would not be an improvement. The US now imports 60% of its oil from oversea. What do you think would happen if 10% to 25% of Oil imports disappear with in the next 30 days? Absolute chaos.