Price-insensitive demand drove up the price of all globally available commodities, oil included. Third, in 2002 a very unsuccessful coup in Venezuela led to a very successful political purge of the country’s state oil firm—a purge that focused on the technocrats who produced the oil. The country’s energy sector never recovered. Fourth, in 2003 the Americans invaded Iraq, taking all its oil output offline. The country didn’t return to prewar levels of output for sixteen years. Between higher demand and lower supplies, oil prices steadily climbed from below $10 a barrel in 1998 to nearly $150 a
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