Talk Elections

General Politics => International General Discussion => Topic started by: dead0man on June 22, 2012, 02:03:25 AM



Title: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: dead0man on June 22, 2012, 02:03:25 AM
link (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/19/the_coming_oil_crash?page=0,1)
Quote
In an email exchange, Verleger pointed me to an interview he did a few days ago with Kate Mackenzie at the Financial Times. First, he explains, the Saudis are out for blood when it comes to fellow petro-states Russia and Iran, the former for failing to help calm the fury in Syria, and the latter for refusing to go to heel and give up its nuclear ambitions; in both cases, the Saudis think lower prices will produce a more reasonable attitude. In addition, Saudi Arabia is terrified of a current U.S. boom in shale oil; it is hoping that lower prices will render much of the drilling in North Dakota's Bakken Shale and Canada's oil sands uneconomical. Finally, the Saudis are well aware that low oil prices helped to turn around the global economic downturn in 1998 and 1999, and they hope to help accomplish the same now, and perhaps win new affection from the world's leading economies.

Meanwhile, though, Verleger thinks that oil prices will crash. Markets overshoot when one is trying only to fine-tune them, as the Saudis are, he argues -- which is the basis for his forecasts of $40-a-barrel oil and $2-a-gallon gasoline by November.

<snip>
Much more at link.  I doubt we'll get down to $2/gal by Nov (or ever again for that matter), but we seem to be finding new sources everyday, and they are rarely in an OPEC country or Russia.  It will surely help the economies of the West and hurt the economies of our enemies in Tehran, Caracas and Moscow.  On the negative side, more SUVs on the road.

What do our peak oil fanboys think of this?  Those threads were always funny.


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: Franzl on June 22, 2012, 02:06:12 AM
I'm a little confused by your obsession with Peak Oil. Do you believe oil is a never ending resource?


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: dead0man on June 22, 2012, 02:08:46 AM
I'm not obsessed with peak oil, I just enjoy making fun of the clowns that think it will inevitably end civilization as we know it.


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: dead0man on June 26, 2012, 01:28:55 AM
Do we not like talking about good news?  Or maybe I poisoned the well too much?


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: LastVoter on June 26, 2012, 01:51:51 AM
But wouldn't this lead to gasoline prices above $5 a gallon a couple years later? There is no way this is sustainable. The only good news about this would be a potential revolution in Russia that would lead to a more left-wing (and hopefully democratic) regime.
I'm not obsessed with peak oil, I just enjoy making fun of the clowns that think it will inevitably end civilization as we know it.
It's quite probable that only the 1% will be able to afford SUV's and obesity in 20 years, as 'muricans will be forced into smaller cars and more trips by foot/bike. Or is that not the kind of end civilization you are talking about?


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: dead0man on June 26, 2012, 02:03:21 AM
It's quite probable that only the 1% will be able to afford SUV's and obesity in 20 years, as 'muricans will be forced into smaller cars and more trips by foot/bike. Or is that not the kind of end civilization you are talking about?
Wouldn't that be a good thing?


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: Dereich on June 26, 2012, 08:42:32 AM
I doubt the Saudis would ever do this. All the financial incentives they've been giving to their  people to supress an Arab Spring depends on $75 a barrel, and if there's one thing we know about the Saudis its that they will ignore future risk to maintain current stability. Also, the fact is they don't have the capacity to unilaterally affect the market as much as they used to.


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: minionofmidas on June 26, 2012, 08:55:02 AM
The Saudis are already committed to doing all they can to keep prices down, have been for thirty years with minor ups and downs in intensity. (Yes, things might get, ahem, interesting outside the oil producing countries were that policy to ever change; but there's nothing to indicate it ever will. Also, quote, the fact is they don't have the capacity to unilaterally affect the market as much as they used to.)


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: opebo on June 26, 2012, 10:36:27 AM
It's quite probable that only the 1% will be able to afford SUV's and obesity in 20 years, as 'muricans will be forced into smaller cars and more trips by foot/bike. Or is that not the kind of end civilization you are talking about?
Wouldn't that be a good thing?

No.

Anyway though we disagree on most things I do love the idea of a return to cheap fuel and very large cars, dead0man.  I don't know if this will ever occur, but it is a wonderful dream.  Imagine, I used to drive one of these and pay about 80 cents a gallon (in the 1990s!):

()


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: LastVoter on June 27, 2012, 12:03:23 AM
It's quite probable that only the 1% will be able to afford SUV's and obesity in 20 years, as 'muricans will be forced into smaller cars and more trips by foot/bike. Or is that not the kind of end civilization you are talking about?
Wouldn't that be a good thing?
Yes, but your ideology of interventionist Libertarianism and right-wing economics would be destroyed(unless we have a doomsday collapse... lol). Also opebo reasserts that he is a fat in this thread.


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: dead0man on June 27, 2012, 01:23:19 AM
One more time in English.


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: LastVoter on June 27, 2012, 01:25:01 AM
The less fat and less SUV driven world would piss off opebo, you and the like because of side effects.


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: dead0man on June 27, 2012, 01:35:01 AM
Yeah, I have no idea what you're trying to say.  I would certainly not be "pissed off" with fewer SUVs on the road and less fat people.  I really don't care if people are fat or not, but SUVs are a danger to me and everybody else.  The drivers of them (except for the very very few people who actually need them) are selfish asshats that, at best, are just driving them to be cool and at worse are driving them because "they want a big, tall vehicle because it's (supposedly) safer".


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: LastVoter on June 27, 2012, 01:42:52 AM
Yeah, I have no idea what you're trying to say.  I would certainly not be "pissed off" with fewer SUVs on the road and less fat people.  I really don't care if people are fat or not, but SUVs are a danger to me and everybody else.  The drivers of them (except for the very very few people who actually need them) are selfish asshats that, at best, are just driving them to be cool and at worse are driving them because "they want a big, tall vehicle because it's (supposedly) safer".
Let's try it again. There will be a) less libertarians b) less neo-cons, assuming oil prices rise at a moderate rate(no more than $1/year). Considering that most libertarians come from fat people in SUV's and basements.


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: dead0man on June 27, 2012, 01:50:32 AM
Ahhh, I get it now.  You're one of "those" people.  Enjoy your stereotypes sir!


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: LastVoter on June 27, 2012, 02:21:02 AM
Ahhh, I get it now.  You're one of "those" people.  Enjoy your stereotypes sir!
Taking forum demography to the extreme.


Title: Re: The Coming Oil Crash
Post by: Redalgo on June 27, 2012, 03:15:37 PM
Much more at link.  I doubt we'll get down to $2/gal by Nov (or ever again for that matter), but we seem to be finding new sources everyday, and they are rarely in an OPEC country or Russia.  It will surely help the economies of the West and hurt the economies of our enemies in Tehran, Caracas and Moscow.  On the negative side, more SUVs on the road.

What do our peak oil fanboys think of this?  Those threads were always funny.

It is good for developing economies (e.g., Brazil and Ghana come to mind) but in the distant future we may still require quite a bit of oil for cheaply fabricating synthetic materials and for use in many other industrial processes. Using it for fuel today instead of retaining vast quantities of the substance’s finite natural supply in reserve for the needs of future generations is nearsighted at best, in my opinion, and at its worst could be setting the stage for major economic (and possibly environmental) challenges for people to contend with at some point decades or centuries down the line. As a matter of principle, I generally oppose expanded production of either oil or coal.

There are no flawless alternatives on the table right now but I would much prefer to have renewable energy playing a larger role in providing electricity, nuclear fission replacing coal in terms of generating baseload power, and automobiles going electric to draw off of those relatively clean and sustainable sources in urban areas while using natural gas as a stopgap solution for powering vehicles in rural areas until better batteries can be produced. While I will cede that past predictions of peak oil have apparently been miscalculated, and a catastrophic collapse of the economy as we know it is far from nigh, I reckon that we ought to be planning ahead rather than living in the moment when it comes to the extraction and consumption of raw resources.


It's quite probable that only the 1% will be able to afford SUV's and obesity in 20 years, as 'muricans will be forced into smaller cars and more trips by foot/bike. Or is that not the kind of end civilization you are talking about?
Wouldn't that be a good thing?

In cities and developed areas that have high population densities? Absolutely. My concern is more for if/when gas prices are very high in a region like mine, where the average household income is already below the national average and a lot of folks cannot do business without traveling over twenty or forty miles per day. If the changes occur gradually perhaps they’ll adjust their habits and places of residence accordingly, but in my limited experience human beings are not always wise, rational economic actors. We’ll endure and make the best of what we’ve got, sure, but...

Nonetheless, I worry high fuel prices could someday place a rather heavy burden on our respective measures of actionable freedom/autonomy/whatever as we are forced to more strictly reserve our money for satisfying basic needs relative to satisfying our wants. Maybe some of that is inevitable one way or another, but I do think at this time that the wanton exploitation of finite oil reserves poses a very serious, latent threat to the living conditions and general welfare of hundreds of millions of Americans (not to mention billions of people living elsewhere) yet to be born. A balance needs to be struck between lifting people up on the growth and prosperity fossil fuels have made possible and preparing ourselves for a world where development is powered by other sources.

If you could explain to me how markets will steer firms more toward taking long-term human interests into account than simply focusing on their own, short-term desires for profit it would be much appreciated, but I otherwise feel obliged to insist on distrusting actors in the private sector - corporate executives, investors, and even consumers, e.g. - to pursue prudent, socially responsible courses of action when left to their own devices. Is the status quo in regards to energy production going to remain firmly entrenched until people are suffering badly? Or might I be making the same kind of mistake many of my opponents do when they distrust the public sector to pull through on a variety of other tasks and social responsibilities? What are your thoughts? :<