Choose Your Location
|
![]() |
The game began with a series of economic results based on a scenario in which Iran began blockading the Strait of Hormuz in January. The assumption was that Iran may succeed in fully blockading the strait for up to one week, but after that, some oil shipping would slowly resume.
The Heritage Foundation economics team, supported by analysts at Global Insight, then modeled the blockade’s likely economic effects on world oil prices and the U.S. economy. They found that under worst-case circumstances:
» The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude1 would peak in the third quarter of 2007 at $150 per barrel, an increase of $85 per barrel;
» Real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) would fall by more than $161 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007;
» Private non-farm employment would decline by more than 1 million by the middle of 2008;
» Real disposable personal income would be more than $260 billion lower by the fourth quarter of 2007.
You can read the full report on The Heritage Foundation Web site at: heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/cda07-03.cfm.



Comments from Examiner Readers
10:53 AM MST on Fri., Jul. 20, 2007 re: "Pietro S. Nivola: Uncle Sam suffering from attention deficit disorder"
Report as inappropriate
4:57 AM MST on Wed., May. 9, 2007
re: "Sunlight study sees 10 ways to open the House"
Report as inappropriate
Mr. Mirth Alert said:
Mr. Nivola should thank the Lord that he's allowed to put his ignorance on public display, for he knows little about division of labor & nothing about attention deficit disorder. Division of labor was a mfr.'ing scheme, to produce more for less, i.e., increase profit. Despite Mr. Mellon's early 20th-century claim that good govt. is good business, govt. neither mfrs. nor turns a profit. & This notion of doing a little of everything need not be explained by some questionable medical diagnosis but rather by the very dictum that got the guy who appointed all the policy makers elected: "I can please all of the people all of the time." Overstretched govt. is the product of deliberate planning, not some behavioral miscue.
291 agree | 217 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
Sorry, but this Open House Project commentary reads like an Onion parody column: who @the Sunlight Fdn. sincerely believes that Congress has any interest in empowering the public? The gulf betw. haves & have-nots widens a little more each day, & as "haves" Congress sure as shootin' has nothing to gain by reducing that gulf. Never mind all this techno nonsense, Sunlight Fdn.: arrest members of Congress & detain them for 48 hr; if for no reason other than to shake it outta its "have" stupor.
297 agree | 308 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree