I'm confused. Several weeks ago Stephen Payne at Oil and Gas Investorsaid the latest James Bond movie taught him a valuable lesson, which he boiled down to this:
in order to have access to oil, geopolitics unfortunately requires politicians to have a sort of flexible morality when it comes to from where we import our energy.
Payne fantasized about reading the riot act to Putin and telling "Hugo Chavez to stick his oil where the sun don't shine, but that's not a realistic move." The moral of the Bond movie, according to Payne:
Until we find a more viable source of energy, it seems that we're going to have to continue to do business with disreputable business partners.
However, the recent sight of Barack Obama shaking hands with Hugo Chavez has given Payne second thoughts. This, says Payne, "does not bode well for the American public." I'll be looking forward to similar pangs of moral concern from Payne when Obama is photographed shaking hands with Putin and America's other "disreputable business partners."
