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Wednesday, January 7, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I N I O
N
Rachel
Marsden
American Voices
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone
number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not neces-
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To the Editor:
In mid-November we launched our annual
donation campaign for the Sisters Park &
Recreation District. The campaign is going
great so far with donations this year ahead of
this time last year, so thank you to all those
who have donated. We can’t do this without
you.
This year’s donor campaign is focused
on our Community Schools Program, and
our Scholarship Program. Both of these pro-
grams are almost entirely funded by grants and
donations.
The Community Schools Program provides
after-school programming for kids in Sisters,
and is largely funded by a grant from the
Oregon Community Foundation and the Ford
Family Foundation.
As part of this grant, there is a matching
component. OCF will match any donations we
raise up to $10,000. Due to generous dona-
tions we have currently raised around $6,000;
once the match is applied this will have a
$12,000 impact on the families we serve in the
community. We are really hoping to raise the
full $10,000 so we can take full advantage of
the match.
The scholarship program provides financial
assistance to kids from low-income families,
so that they can take part in any SPRD pro-
gram. Because the Sisters Park & Recreation
District operates on a very low percentage of
tax subsidy, program fees are set at a level that
covers the full cost of operating the program.
Any reduction in fees would result in pro-
grams not being able to operate, therefore we
must rely on donations to pay the fees for the
children who cannot afford to.
On average this requires about $30,000 to
$40,000 to provide financial assistance for
children participating in our programs.
SPRD strives to maintain a philosophy
that no child will be turned away because of
an inability to pay. The only way we are able
See letters on page 16
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“Subversion intro-
duced from the outside.”
That’s part of Encyclopedia
Britannica’s definition for
a Trojan horse, the hollow
structure that allowed Greek
soldiers to penetrate the city
of Troy and win the Trojan
War. What if the drop in
oil prices currently making
everyone cheer at the pumps
is exactly that — a Trojan
horse?
Subversion theory dic-
tates that in order for an
offensive move to be effec-
tive, it has to be welcomed.
And who in America isn’t
psyched about cheap gas
right now? Meanwhile, the
U.S. government likely feels
differently. It was set to reap
profits from its shale boom
— that is, before Saudi-led
OPEC decided to flood the
market with massive supply.
To whose ultimate ben-
efit is the price drop? On
the face of it, the only real
benefactors appear to be
global consumers. So then
why bother flooding the
market? Despite the Saudi
oil minister suggesting that
his country wouldn’t mind
watching oil prices take an
even greater plunge, Saudi
Arabia is still taking an
income cut on its primary
source of revenue at a time
when it’s projecting a $39
billion deficit for 2015.
Why are the Saudis pretend-
ing that a kick in the rear is
a gluteal massage?
One theory is that Saudi
Arabia and the U.S. are
conspiring to weaken the
economies of Russia and
Iran. The motives would
make enough sense. With
respect to Iran, Saudi Sunni
and Iranian Shiite regimes
have long hated each other,
while America is perpetu-
ally concerned about Iranian
nuclear unpredictability. On
the Russian front, Saudis
and Russians have been at
each other’s throats over
Saudi funding of Islamic
terrorism in Russia’s North
Caucasus region and over
Russia’s defense of Assad
in the interests of maintain-
ing Russian oil interests
and of curtailing Islamic
t erro ri s m . Mean wh i l e,
the U.S. currently seems
intent on squeezing Russia
economically.
But as much sense
as a U.S.-Saudi Arabia
conspiracy theory might
make, there are some sig-
nificant problems with it.
The U.S. chose Russia as a
partner over Saudi Arabia
and Qatar when faced with
that choice in Syria last
year. Moreover, Russian
and Saudi ministers met in
Moscow in November to
discuss cooperating on oil to
better manage their respec-
tive economic interests.
That last fact alone flies in
the face of any Saudi-U.S
oil price conspiracy theory.
An arguably more plau-
sible theory is that if any
nation is colluding with
Saudi Arabia, it’s China,
the top global net importer
of petroleum products and
the country that’s most ben-
efiting from the bargain
prices at the pump these
days. China is also the only
player that couldn’t care less
about oil revenues. Sitting
in 49th place in the world
for crude exports, China
relies on manufacturing for
its revenues. Unlike every-
one else in this game, when
China lays an oil pipeline
in a foreign country, it’s not
for profit — it’s just a mas-
sive straw delivering the
milkshake to the insatiable
masses back home.
Saudi Arabia is already
China’s top oil supplier, and
China doesn’t care about its
partners’ ideological prefer-
ences. It’s a match made in
heaven.
If the Saudis and Chinese
are wheeling and dealing on
oil prices for rewards to be
specified later, then Russia,
North America and Europe
will eventually all end up
sobbing into their alcoholic
beverages of preference as
their liquid gold drops in
value.
And while we consumers
may enjoy the price break
now, government and indus-
try oil-revenue loss will
come back to bite us in the
form of job losses and fiscal
cutbacks—requiring even
more U.S. debt to be bought
up by its primary holder:
China.
Enjoy the cheap gas, but
let’s just hope that it doesn’t
end up costing us far more
than we could ever have
imagined.
© 2014 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.