Saudi Prince espouses $70-$80 oil on CNN's GPS

By CNN wire staff, from CNN website, May 29, 2011
Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal said Sunday that he wants oil prices to drop so that the United States and Europe don't accelerate efforts to wean themselves off his country's supply.

In an interview broadcast Sunday on "CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS," the grandson of the founding king of modern Saudi Arabia said the oil price should be somewhere between $70 and $80 a barrel, rather than the current level of over $100 a barrel.
"We don't want the West to go and find alternatives, because, clearly, the higher the price of oil goes, the more they have incentives to go and find alternatives," said Talal, who is listed by Forbes as the 26th richest man in the world.
This man is not only among the world's richest, he is also a potential king of his country, Saudi Arabia, a decision he says will be taken by a council of some 40 men in the near future.
If the preferred price is $70-$80 a barrel for world crude, then would the western countries continue their interest in and pursuit of renewable fuels? Not likely.
So, the largest producer and the holder of the largest reserves of crude oil publicly espouses a lower price for a barrel of oil on world markets, in the hope that the rest of the world will continue to buy his country's most valuable resource. How's that for being held "over the barrel" by those most in control of world oil prices?
And we would like to think that our leaders can and do have some influence over the things that are most troublesome to their people! Not a chance!