The Obama administration has led the European Union to jointly apply economic sanctions to starve Russia of the $59 billion in investment capital the nation needs to keep its oil and natural gas revenues high enough to fund over 50% of the Russian federal budget. But the Russian people could make the capital funding available by adopting stringent energy conservation and agreeing to sacrifice part of their 70% subsidy for domestic oil and natural gas consumption. Although these sacrifices would be painful, the Russian people are known for being very tenacious and patriotic when challenged by foreign powers.     Despite being the world’s largest oil producer at 10.1 million barrels per day (mbpd), Russia is only the second largest oil exporter at 4.7 mbpd. The reason the nation of only 145 million people consumes 5.4 mbpd of oil and over half of Russia’s huge natural gas production is that the government provides a 70% subsidy for domestic...(Read Full Post)