What are rising oil prices doing to the rest of the world?

Oil price rise causes global shift in wealth

"High oil prices are fueling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4 billion to $5 billion more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone."

The winners in this financial cluster-fuck are Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Argentina. The losers are the US, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and China. Breaking even are Britian and continental Europe.

Conditions for doing well seem to center around either being a net oil exporter with a stable political environment or around reducing total petro-product usage to compensate for rising prices. Doing poorly appears to result from taking environmentally stupid positions as an importing nation or being a producing nation without the political infrastructure necessary to develop the country in a financially sound manner. Britain produces what it needs and continental Europe has been cushioned against rising oil prices by a severely weakened dollar against the Euro.

The surprising details in the article make it well worth reading. I suspect at some point America will be forced to acknowledge that it is no longer a sole global hyper-power, but would be in a better position if it claimed status as first among equals or something like that. A reinvention of the American psyche in that manner might better posture us to deal with emerging issues in the global political sphere.

We will, I suspect, lose the ability to economically bully people as the dollar falls and markets here generally drop. We are also not convincing as a military bully after Afghanistan and Iraq have shown the impotence of a small fast professional military in dealing with popular uprisings in urban settings. All we have left is the ability to talk to people in a sincere and conciliatory fashion, working together to achieve a common end. I hope someone in charge realizes that we don't hold all the cards anymore before it's too late.