#4
Yes. Islamic expansionism is only dangerous to People who are unwilling to get their hands dirty and/or cannot afford to defy Islam's Tranzi enablers.
#5
Threat implies impending. Is ISIS a threat to Russia given its Muslim underbelly? Yes, if left unchecked. One can argue that Putin isn't waiting for that threat to grow to an unmanageable size.
Maybe 0bama can send him some rose colored glasses.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
11/03/2015 7:43 Comments ||
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#6
Like the bastid or not, he's a committed pragmatist. If Vlad spotted a unicorn anywhere, he'd probably shoot it and cook it on the Weber.
Kopits offers an interesting thought experiment. If the industry in question were, say, automobiles rather than oil, there is no question that such an arrangement would not be framed in the same manner. Imagine that the world thought it reasonable that GM or Ford could take as much market share as possible, and Toyota was expected to slash production if there weren't enough customers left over. It is an absurd scenario, but not so different from the world of oil.
Moreover, while cutting production would help to increase prices, OPEC would lose out from selling less oil. It is not clear why OPEC should, in effect, subsidize higher cost production from around the world. Saudi Arabia tried to cut production in the 1980s to rescue prices from rock bottom levels, but it only led to the loss of market share. It is no wonder that the oil kingdom is not keen to go that route again.
The U.S. on the other hand, has aggressively increased output. It is easy to see that much of the responsibility for the crash in oil prices stems from a massive spending spree in the U.S. shale patch, which increased output by around 4 million barrels per day between 2011 and the peak in 2015, nearly doubling production from 5.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) to 9.6 mb/d. OPEC's production, meanwhile, hasn't changed dramatically over the same time period.
U.S. production is now down by about 500,000 barrels per day since April. Oil prices will rise over the next year or so as U.S. shale is forced to cut back. That adjustment - high-cost suppliers forced out - is how markets are supposed to work.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
11/03/2015 06:50 ||
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#1
High prices led to increased US drilling - and fracking, with good success. This increased supply led to decreased prices - which put those who relied on high prices in a bind. Leveraged oil companies and countries like KSA that depend on oil cash then are forced to increase production, even at a loss, just to stay 'in business' today. Of course that forces prices lower, until enough players are squeezed out of the business and supply drops. Rinse and repeat, as we have been doing for 100 years. (It was Rockefeller's monopoly that broke the boom and bust cycle for a while.)
#2
Part of this has to do with the idea of limited oil supply. If you buy into that and project the curves forward, at some point in the not too distant future demand outpaces supply. Prices above $100/bbl were predicated on this happening.
Fracking, of course, has changed all that. Worldwide economic doldrums haven't helped either. Anyway, now that no one can claim insufficient supply anytime soon, pricing has come back to non-speculative levels.
Obama and his team have been the hardest hit, but many terror states are feeling the pinch as well.
[Right Scoop] In an interview with Bill Maher, Democrat Congresswmoman Tulsi Gabbard said that Obama's foreign policy was so incompetent that he was "essentially working hand-in-hand with Islamic extremists."
Now a lot of less reputable websites are yelling "treason treason!!" but Tulsi is not saying that he is actually calling up ISIS and getting commands from them on how to help the Caliphate become a reality on Earth. She is pointing out that in making enemies of two sides in a five-sided Civil War, Obama is stupidly working against himself when trying to topple Assad because that will help ISIS.
Not that Obama hasn't committed treason against the Constitution and America many times over. He has! But that's not what Tulsi is admitting to here.
Her main point is that because Obama cannot identify WHO the enemy is, and he cannot identify WHAT the mission is that he's putting our soldiers into harm's way. And she's absolutely right. It is not out of jingoism that we claim we have the most incredibly capable and lethal military in the world, it's just true. But it's an egregious misuse of the office of the presidency when Obama sends them into combat (though they idiotically deny it's actually combat) and hamstring them with restrictive rules of engagement.
Although she's a Democrat, you gotta respect her willingness to call out Obama on these issues.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
11/03/2015 02:44 ||
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#4
No? So just talk for the constituents hmm?
Posted by AlanC
Yes, instant gratification. It's all about these people, the millennials and the 'now-generation.' Happy faces from the constituents and a never ending chocolate factory conveyor belt of free stuff.
#9
Thompson contends Obama can't possibly be motivated by legacy building because he's too focused on "destroying" America. Sorry Syl, the two aren't mutually exclusive. It's called "fundemental transformation".
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Kopits offers an interesting thought experiment. If the industry in question were, say, automobiles rather than oil, there is no question that such an arrangement would not be framed in the same manner. Imagine that the world thought it reasonable that GM or Ford could take as much market share as possible, and Toyota was expected to slash production if there weren't enough customers left over. It is an absurd scenario, but not so different from the world of oil.
[Right Scoop] In an interview with Bill Maher, Democrat Congresswmoman Tulsi Gabbard said that Obama's foreign policy was so incompetent that he was "essentially working hand-in-hand with Islamic extremists."
