Russia, Iran, Venezuela

So you have three oil producers in the world that don't like the US and just absolutely love to watch the price of oil go up and up. The money was rolling in and they wanted the price to go higher and higher it went.

And then it popped and went down and down and down.

People never learn a few rules about prices and parasites.

First, if the price goes up, people use less. Maybe not at first, but they will use less. In fact, the price has come down a bit now and we're still using less. These countries need a high price of oil to pay for the social structures they've built in the country. Now the price is lower than it needs to be to support that structure.

Secondly, parasites live off a healthy host. It is in their interest to make sure the host stays healthy so that the parasite benefits. The parasite takes only enough so that the host does not die. This is one reason why viruses become less lethal over time. If a virus kills the host, the virus cannot spread. The virus must infect the host causing minimal damage so that the virus can move to the next host. Ebola - bad virus. The cold - generally a better virus.

These countries were bad parasites. While they produce a product (oil) that is needed by the healthy industrial countries, they pushed for increases in the cost of oil which helped contribute to the economic sickness. And now there's an additional push for energy efficiency and alternatives which is going to make them less virulent in the future.