The dollar is kept artificially strong through oil, so america can maintain an effectively infinite debt and an arbitrarily large deficit without the dollar ever weakening despite how much is printed…
I’m sure this sounds bad to someone, but if I was America, I wouldn’t try to put the gift horse into the wood chipper.
Oil supported by the world's biggest military and huge subsidies.
It's why moving to renewables would be catastrophic for the US. And for all of the big Fossils, including Russia and the Saudis. And the smaller second-order beneficiaries like the UK who make money from "services" - moving the big money around and avoiding taxes on it.
We're in a messy transition to a post-fossil global economy. It's going to take decades, and it's not obvious how much will be left standing when it's over.
But one way or another, it's locked in and unavoidable.
I’m sure this sounds bad to someone, but if I was America, I wouldn’t try to put the gift horse into the wood chipper.