Global stock markets hit bear territory this week, with oil prices experiencing their biggest plunge since the 1991 Gulf War.

Boom Bust is joined by Professor Richard Wolff of the Economic Update to discuss the ongoing oil crisis. He explains that the US, which wanted "energy independence," decided 10-20 years ago to go into the fracking business simply because it was profitable.

"Fracking is very expensive… but everything was premised on the notion that the price of oil would stay very high," Wolff says. "The Saudis and the Russians were hurt by the emergence of the American fracking industry; they've hated that industry from day one because it's a competitor."

The notion that they are fighting each other is an illusion, Wolff says. "And now finally the Russians together with the Saudis are fighting the United States because by bringing the price of oil down, all of those US fracking oil companies go belly up. They are done."

He adds that the fracking companies "can't repay their debts and that plunges the credit market and the banks into a whole new crisis which we are just beginning to learn to understand and which threatens the whole system.

"You put coronavirus together with the oil and you have a one-two punch that is making most of Wall Street realize that the glowing description of the American economy as the greatest in the world was the self-delusion of politicians and has no basis…"

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