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With oil around $85 a barrel and tumbling to its lowest levels in several years, here's the upside: Gasoline prices are down, the U.S. is feeling less dependent on foreign crude, and serious economic pressure is growing on oil producers such as Iran and Russia.

Here's the downside: The low demand for oil reflects a fragile global economy that's vulnerable to additional shocks, like falling stock markets around the world.

Oil is still a uniquely influential commodity. Whenever prices move sharply in either direction, they unleash ripples around the globe that are both economic and political.

"We've had a three-year period of very stable oil prices," Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations told NPR's All Things Considered. "Three years is a long time. People were starting to believe that this was permanent. And they were wrong. So the big news is that volatility is back, that big swings are what we should expect."

With the prices down around 25 percent since hitting $112 a barrel in June, here's a roundup of the impact worldwide:

Political Turmoil, Falling Prices: Something strange is happening. Three key oil producers (Iraq, Libya and Nigeria) are mired in domestic turbulence, and Iran's oil exports have been dramatically reduced by international sanctions.

In years past, trouble in these countries might have instigated panic in the oil market, driving up prices dramatically. But today, there's plenty of oil to go around for several reasons. Production in the United States is surging, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have continued to pump at high levels, and overall global demand is weak.

While these conditions may not last, they do reflect what's been the steady loss of clout among big oil producers, particularly those in the Middle East.

The U.S. is producing more of its own oil and is buying the remainder from a wide range of mostly stable countries. The leading foreign supplier is Canada. Middle Eastern nations account for just three of the top 10 exporters to the U.S., and they account for around 10 percent of U.S. oil needs.

Russia's Lukoil launched this oil field in western Siberia on Oct. 8. Russia is heavily dependent on its oil exports and is now facing financial problems as world oil prices drop sharply. The country is also facing Western economic sanctions. Olesya Astakhova /Reuters/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Olesya Astakhova /Reuters/Landov

Russia And Iran: From the U.S. perspective, one of the benefits of falling oil prices is the pressure they place on Russia and Iran. Both countries are heavily dependent on oil exports at high prices. They face the double whammy of Western sanctions that are also biting.

Russia needs an oil price of $100 a barrel and Iran needs around $130 a barrel to balance their budgets, according to The Economist.

The financial hurt these countries are facing could have political implications.

Russia is at odds with the West over its annexation of Crimea and its ongoing role in Ukraine's turmoil. Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently opted for confrontation, but the price for that position is getting steeper. Putin pushed back against a request for higher government spending this week, citing reduced government revenue from energy production.

"You know that energy prices have fallen as well as for some of our other traditional products," Putin said. "Due to that, would we not, on the contrary, reconsider the budget toward reducing some spending?"

Iran, meanwhile, is negotiating on its nuclear program with the international community and is also waging a proxy war with Saudi Arabia for power and influence throughout the Middle East.

This is one likely reason the Saudis have been willing to pump oil at high levels even though that's contributing to low prices. The Saudis publicly cite a business motive, saying they want to maintain their current share of the oil market. But the Saudis are also well aware that low prices mean less money for archrival Iran.

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Oil wells near McKittrick, Calif., one of the places where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the rise. The U.S. became the world's largest oil producer this year, surpassing Saudi Arabia and pumping some 11 million barrels a day. David McNew/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption David McNew/Getty Images

Oil wells near McKittrick, Calif., one of the places where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the rise. The U.S. became the world's largest oil producer this year, surpassing Saudi Arabia and pumping some 11 million barrels a day.

David McNew/Getty Images

U.S. Production: Despite soft demand, U.S. oil production is rising again this year due primarily to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The U.S., which became the world's largest natural gas producer in 2010, is now the world's largest oil producer this year, surpassing Saudi Arabia this year and pumping around 11 million barrels a day.

The average U.S. gas price is $3.17 a gallon this week, down around 15 percent since June, according to GasBuddy.com. The lower price at the pump effectively serves as a stimulus for consumers that can encourage increased spending to stimulate the economy.

"It's quite possible that Christmas shopping will be much better this year because consumers will be spending less for gasoline," economist Philip Verleger told NPR's Morning Edition.

While lower energy prices benefit most of the country, they could deliver a blow to oil-producing states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota. If prices go down and stay down for an extended period, energy companies could cut back on production and investment.

Related NPR Stories

Energy

'A Global Bathtub': Rethinking The U.S. Oil Export Ban

Parallels

The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo: The Old Rules No Longer Apply

The Global Economy: Lower gas prices are a small consolation if accompanied by a sluggish world economy, and that's what many economists are forecasting. In Europe and Asia, most of the major economies have low or slow growth compared with recent years.

China and India, which were gulping down imported oil as their economies raced ahead, have both seen slowdowns. The lower oil prices will help keep their manufacturing and transportation costs down, but that alone is not enough if the rest of the world is less interested in buying their exports.

Of course, oil prices could reverse direction swiftly and dramatically, as they have many times in the past. Small shifts in world oil production, currently around 92 million barrels a day, often lead to major swings in prices. If, for example, Saudi Arabia chose to cut production, or the fighting in Iraq shut down its oil fields, prices could head north in a hurry, according to analysts.

Greg Myre is the international editor of NPR.org. You can follow him @gregmyre1.

oil prices

Mexico's banking regulator has slapped a nearly 30 million peso ($2.2 million) fine on the Citigroup subsidiary Banamex, for failing to provide sufficient accounting controls. The regulator said the lack of oversight allowed the Mexican firm Oceanografia to allegedly dupe the bank out of $400 million.

Banamex had lent the money to Oceanografia, an oil services firm contracted by the state petroleum monopoly, PEMEX, based on invoices that turned out to be fake.

Oceanografia has not been charged with any wrongdoing but is under investigation. The company's CEO and controlling shareholder, Amado Yanez Osuna, had been under house arrest for nearly two months. He faces bank fraud charges in Mexico but was released earlier this summer after posting $6.2 million bond.

Citigroup fired 12 Banamex employees after discovering the alleged fraud, which also led to the resignation of several high-level employees, including Chief Executive Javier Arrigunaga, according to The Wall Street Journal.

But the Mexican newspaper Reforma points out that the fine represents less than half a percent of Banamex's earnings during the first half of this year.

For its part, Banamex says it has paid the fine and has reinforced its internal accounting controls.

However, earlier this week Citigroup announced it had discovered a $15 million fraud. According to Reuters, the money was used by a bank-operated security company originally set up to protect Banamex board members from personal attacks, including kidnapping. But Citigroup said the security company also used the funds to offer protection services to some of Mexico's wealthiest families.

Banamex's troubles don't seem to be limited to Mexico. Reuters also reports that a source says "Banamex USA is facing a U.S. criminal investigation involving possible violations of money-laundering laws."

banamex

Citigroup

Mexico

He delivers pizza by night and runs for U.S. Senate by day. Sean Haugh, the Libertarian running for Senate in North Carolina, is among a dozen independent and third-party candidates nationwide who could shake up tight races for Senate and governor.

Haugh, 53, doesn't have a traditional campaign headquarters, so he suggests meeting at a hipster fancy doughnut joint in downtown Durham called Monuts.

He is wearing a T-shirt and wire-rimmed glasses that harken back to the 1990s, far from the typical dark suit uniform of most male politicians. He orders an orange-velvet and a lemon-praline doughnut and settles in at a high-top table in back for the latest of many sit-down interviews he's done this election cycle. Others have taken place at a Waffle House, a coffee shop and his campaign manager's basement, where he also films his campaign videos.

YouTube

Sean Haugh's campaign for US Senate involves quite a few YouTube videos shot in his campaign manager's basement.

Delivering Joy And Pizza

After the interview, he'll drive his silver Kia to the pizza place where he works as a delivery driver.

"I'm the deliverer of joy and relief to about 20 families a night," says Haugh. "When you think about why you order pizza, it's because you want to treat yourself or you just got home from work and you're so tired and you say, 'I don't want to cook, let's just order something.' So everyone loves the pizza guy."

And Haugh loves being the pizza guy — more than he thought he might. He gets to see five sunsets a week and says his job allows him to decompress after days spent campaigning. He asked us not to publish the name of the company he works for, to keep the corporate office out of it.

Haugh started delivering pizzas about a year ago, after an extended stint of odd jobs and applications that went nowhere. It turns out, he says, 2010 was the worst possible time as a man in his 50s to try to change careers. Before that, Haugh spent more than a decade working for the Libertarian Party.

His first job, while still in college, was as a paid petition-signature gatherer trying to get Ed Clark and David Koch on the ballot in all 50 states in 1980. His next job: selling merchandise for Greenpeace.

An Act Of Conscience

Sean Haugh ordered a lemon-praline and an orange-velvet doughnut at Monuts in Durham, N.C., where he was interviewed by NPR. Tamara Keith/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Tamara Keith/NPR

Haugh says he decided to run for Senate as an act of conscience, so there'd be someone on the ballot he felt like he could vote for. At first, he thought any votes in addition to his own would be a bonus.

"But now I really feel like the views I am putting out there to stop all war and stop spending more money than we have are really resonating all across the political spectrum," says Haugh.

He's polling around 6 or 7 percent, which is high for a Libertarian candidate. Most polls show his major-party opponents — Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagen and Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis — separated by just 1 or 2 points. And that's why Haugh is making people nervous.

"The third-party candidate is a pizza deliveryman — nothing against pizza delivery men — who is getting between 4, 5 and 7 percent of the vote," says Scott Reed, senior political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Sure, that's a concern."

Hagan and Tillis are both underwater when it comes to voter approval. Heck, voters nationwide are fed up. Reed says that creates an opening for third-party candidates, as protest votes. The Chamber, which wants Republican candidates to win, is targeting those voters directly.

Third-Party Candidates A Factor In Many Races

And it's not just North Carolina. A Libertarian candidate could force a runoff in the Georgia Senate race; an independent is polling well in Alaska; there's a wild four-way race in South Dakota; in Kansas, the independent candidate leads in some polls.

It's All Politics

A Guide To Third-Party Candidates

"All over the map, we're just seeing potential this year for these third-party candidates to have strange impacts on races in a way that I can't remember," says Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling group based in Raleigh.

Jensen says support for third-party candidates tends to fade as Election Day gets closer, but this year he expects them to do better than in the past.

Just Don't Call Him A Spoiler

Conventional wisdom suggests Libertarians like Haugh are more likely to pull votes from Republicans. But Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, says that's not the case. He says polls that ask people planning to vote for a third-party candidate whom they'd choose if that person weren't running find the vote split along the same lines as the rest of the electorate.

"They are not spoilers," says Winger. "Libertarians are generally drawing equally from people who'd vote Democratic and Republican."

Haugh agrees with this analysis and bristles at the term "spoiler." As he sees it, his platform is a combination of ideas from the left and the right. He's pro-choice everything, anti-war, and wants a smaller government.

His grandfather was a moderate Republican; his parents are very liberal.

"I was simultaneously raised by Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King, so you put them both together you get a natural-born Libertarian," says Haugh.

And because North Carolina is on everyone's Senate-race watch list, this natural-born Libertarian is bringing more attention to his party now, delivering pizzas, than he was able to do in a decade as a paid party operative.

In just one night, in 2003, Clay Aiken got 12 million votes.

That wasn't quite enough to win American Idol's second season, but his soaring vocals won him a record contract and legions of fans known as "Claymates."

Now, he needs far fewer votes — maybe 200,000 — to win a congressional seat representing the rural center of North Carolina. The odds are against him. Aiken is a Democrat in a district where the Republican incumbent Rep. Renee Ellmers won by 15 percentage points two years ago.

"I've always been an underdog," says Aiken. "I walked into that audition on American Idol and people went, 'What?' I get that."

He was a skinny kid with spiked red hair who didn't look like a pop star. Aiken was actually rejected on his first try and drove to Atlanta to audition again.

"I don't have a problem being an underdog. It's never hurt me in the past," he adds.

Aiken barely made it out of this spring's Democratic primary, beating his opponent by fewer than 400 votes. Since then, Aiken has visited countless community festivals, civic group meetings and even a couple of high school football games.

Two Custom Cheers And Countless Selfies

It's a blowout. Terry Sanford High is on its way to beating Douglas Byrd 50-0. But the cheerleaders have something else to cheer for — or rather someone else.

"I need a cheer," says Aiken when members of the Douglas Byrd cheerleading squad ask him to shoot a selfie. "I've got to have a cheer ladies."

"When we say vote, you say Clay. Vote. Clay. Vote. Clay," they cheer, pompoms glistening under the stadium lights.

Tamara Keith's post on Vine

Both schools' cheerleading squads gladly come up with Clay-inspired cheers, and he gladly shoots selfies, encouraging them to post to Facebook and Twitter. He has taken so many photos on the campaign trail, there's even a hashtag: #selfieswithclay.

And that's the thing that separates Clay Aiken from your average underdog congressional candidate: People recognize him.

Ever the candidate, Aiken is quick to change the subject from American Idol (How much of a jerk was Simon Cowell anyway? That was a long time ago. Did you know you were runner-up before it was announced? Yes.) to the upcoming election. He says he entered the race because he was fed up with Congress and, in particular, the incumbent, Ellmers.

He's running on issues like education and helping veterans. In a debate, he went after Ellmers for not doing more to keep an Airlift Wing at nearby Fort Bragg. Ellmers hit back.

"It's almost as if as an entertainer you believe that you can just go in with a song and dance," said Ellmers with an attack she repeated throughout the televised debate. "That isn't the way that it works."

A Debate About Gay Marriage

Back at the football game, a man approaches Aiken behind the home-team bleachers.

"Serious question: I want to know where you stand," says Terrence Becker. Becker wants to know where Aiken stands on a federal judge invalidating North Carolina's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

"You wanna know where I stand?" asks Aiken rhetorically. "You don't know where I stand?"

Aiken is gay. The story made the cover of People magazine in 2008.

And thus begins a heated five-minute debate about gay marriage. In the end, they agree to disagree. Becker says there's no way he'd vote for Aiken, but it seems unlikely he had planned to before the discussion, either.

A crowd forms, patiently waiting for campaign stickers and selfies. Walking away, Aiken is almost puzzled by what just happened. This isn't a defining issue for him or his campaign.

"It's the first time that's come up," says Aiken, "the first time the entire time we've been in the campaign that's come up."

Hanging Up The Microphone

One thing that does come up, repeatedly, is a request.

"Can you sing a little melody?" asks a woman at the football game. "Just a little bit."

It happens everywhere he goes. And the answer is always "no." If he wins, Aiken says, then he'll sing again.

"But you won't be singing to me personally," she pleads.

Then, in a singsong sort of voice, Aiken says, "Vote for me, vote for me."

The next day at a festival in the town of Goldston, Aiken pauses to watch a group of young women sing. He took a vow not to sing during the campaign, in part so he'd be taken seriously.

"What would have happened today if I had gone up there and sang? Everyone would have come around, they would have talked about it. But that would be what they left talking about," he says.

Win or lose, it's not clear whether Aiken will have a music career when this campaign is over.

Aiken used to share a manager with the Dixie Chicks, who suffered severe backlash from some of their fans because of a comment critical of George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq War. Just coming out as a Democrat, Aiken says, will automatically turn off part of his fan base.

"It's something that I had to recognize before I decided to run — that in addition to having to give up what I was doing for the year, that very possibly I might have to give it up for good," says Aiken.

And he's OK with that.