While the media was arguing about whether Ben Bernanke knows what he’s talking about, while America was discussing the meaning of “double dip” recession, or hockey stick recession, or V-neck, or crew cut, or whatever, while Sarah Palin’s daughter got back with Levi or didn’t because he’s maybe got another girl pregnant or maybe she set it up to sell books or not -  something real and important was happening. As usual, Gregor MacDonald was on top of it:

“Russia has now surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the number one oil producer in the world. This is not an event that happened last month, either. The leap forward emerged as far back as 18 months ago, in October of 2008.”

It is usually a source of alarm when the Russians start taking the upper hand in things, but you would never know it by listening to American media, which is still in a tizzy over whether any major secrets were spilled by the Wikileaks documents showing us that Afghanistan is a tricky place to govern.

Incidentally, I hear that Wikileaks may come out next week with a chilling set of leak documents showing that fire is hot, puppies are cute, and that the trend for the sun setting in the west may continue.

Meanwhile, back in the rest of the evolving world:

It’s clear that Saudi Arabia has been a very different kind of oil producer than Russia, in the past ten years. I would encourage readers to think about, in particular, the period starting in late 2005 through late 2007 when against a backdrop of steadily increasing prices Saudi Arabia production fell by nearly a million barrels per day.

Obviously a major power shift will be going on as a result of this development. The priorities of the Middle East could change rapidly if the sheiks perceive a permanent contraction, and you can read history if you want to see what the Russians tend to do with significant power over their neighbors.