I think the media sometimes sensationalises articles. At the moment, everyone is looking for direction on the price of oil and it seems like making an arbitrary connection (imo) between the Saudi king and oil seems a bit too far stretched, but it gets readers. I know there have recently been some comments from the Iraqi oil minister that "oil has reached it's low" and he doesn't see it going much lower as well as the report from IEA about the end of oil price drops, but there's still excess supply even with China buying up record amounts (from Russia). I also think OPEC must be pretty pee'd off about the fact that they're still losing market share. Traditionally, the price of oil has been controlled by OPEC supply (not demand) and it seems like they're unwilling to be the balancing factor in determining price anymore. So, there's still market share war going on which suits the US just fine with all the QE they've done, this should dampen the consequent inflationary effects. Personally, I think there's still room for oil price drops, perhaps to the thirty something dollar per barrel level. It's not unprecedented. There have been oil price shocks in the past (1980's I think), just not with the same situation wrt QE. Again, since the US is dependent on oil, their economy should get on well with a low oil price and the dollar should get a lot stronger relative to the Euro. Just my speculation though.