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Small Business Growth

OPEC is bullish on long-term oil demand growth. Not everyone agrees [Video]

The sun sets beyond crude oil storage tanks at the Juaymah tank farm at Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, on Monday, Oct. 1, 2018.

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Global benchmark Brent crude falling below $70 a barrel in early September — its lowest in 33 months — is terrific news for consumers, who will consequently see lower prices at the pump.

It’s also the stuff of nightmares for OPEC+, for whom oil revenues are critical.

The oil producer alliance led by Saudi Arabia earlier this month decided to delay oil production hikes for two additional months in an effort to shore up prices, but so far to no avail. Low global demand forecasts, coupled with new oil supply coming from non-OPEC countries, spell a long period of subdued crude prices. 

It’s led some in the market to ask the question: Have we officially reached “peak oil”? Has demand growth …

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Small Business Growth

Trump names Brendan Carr, senior GOP leader at FCC, to lead the agency [Video]

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as the new chairman of the agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband.Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC's general counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission.The FCC is an independent agency that is overseen by Congress, but Trump has suggested he wanted to bring it under tighter White House control, in part to use the agency to punish TV networks that cover him in a way he doesnt like.Carr has of late embraced Trump's ideas about social media and tech. Carr wrote a section devoted to the FCC in Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint for gutting the federal workforce and dismantling federal agencies in a second Trump administration produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation.Trump has claimed he doesnt know anything about Project 2025, but many of its themes have aligned with his statements.Carr said in a statement congratulating Trump on his win that he believed "the FCC will have an important role to play reining in Big Tech, ensuring that broadcasters operate in the public interest, and unleashing economic growth.Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans Freedoms, and held back our Economy, Trump said in a statement on Sunday. He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling Americas Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America.The five-person commission has a 3-2 Democratic majority until next year, when Trump gets to appoint a new member.Carr has made appearances on Fox News Channel, including when he slammed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris appearance on Saturday Night Live the weekend before the election charging that the network didnt offer equal time to Trump.Also a prolific writer of op-eds, Carr wrote in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal last month decrying an FCC decision to revoke a federal award for Elon Musks satellite service, Starlink. He said the move couldnt be explained "by any objective application of the facts, the law or sound policy.In my view, it amounted to nothing more than regulatory lawfare against one of the lefts top targets: Mr. Musk, Carr wrote.