Energy Poltics

"The U.S. urged OPEC on Tuesday to boost output, but oil ministers appeared undecided on the eve of a key meeting that could help decide whether consumers worldwide will pay more or less at the gas pump and for their heating bills." Or so an AP story reported today.
Gosh. Those who sell oil appear undecided. Hmmm. Let's pretend that instead they said: "We'll pump until the price of a barrel of oil drops to $20." If they did, we would not be flogged if we thought that they would be looking for market share, because, unlike the early 1970s, far more oil comes out of the ground elsewhere, a circumstance they fostered back, well, long ago when they had hoped for more importance in the energy world, but miscalculated, and stimulated productive drilling elsewhere instead.
The point of this post, however, is not to point out that early miscalculation or the politically driven expansion to less economic oil resources, but to wonder why the media fronts for OPEC economists. Of course they will not open the gates. Of course they will appear undecided. Of course they will play the game for all its worth; they have learned much over the past three decades, including that the politics of energy pays as much as pumping it.