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Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

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Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#121

Post by Nasrudith »

coffeemug wrote: post #103
Nasrudith wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be a common disease of old money institutions - caring about self perpetuating themselves with illusion of merit instead who is actually the best fit for the job. See the goalposts on rails of the Ivy League to try to keep out "model minorities" like their physicals, analogies specifically designed to not be in the high school literature canon but among New England old money, the extraciruculars require…

EDIT: THE FOLLOWING DATA IS WRONG. (I foolishly misread a chart. Leaving this up for continuity, but the numbers are completely off.) --- Less than a third of Harvard students come from a household with income greater than $100,000/year. Almost half the students come from households with income between $30,000 and $75,000/year. One in six students comes from a poor family. Harvard is firmly middle class. The data sim…

Their purpose wouldn't be a monopoly but maintaining their disproportionate influence niche from family status. It is to get the legacies in. Regardless of the rightness of my assessment it wouldn't be a conspiracy as it isn't illegal.

It is legal to influence the instituions themselves with money as they have ownership of all resources involved. The admissions scandal demonstrated the difference quite well. Of course the admission has other unspoken reasons for wanting them - contacts for tbeir network and their own pride and flatrery about "cultural worth". Stupid human social trick stuff of skewed priorties.

Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#122

Post by mdemare »

fyfy18 wrote: post #115
rckoepke wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran's oil is not expensive to extract. These aren't marginal break-even prices on each barrel of oil...rather they're how much their current oil production would have to be sold for in order to balance their national budget, which includes defense and healthcare and whatnot. 79% of Iran's exports are unrefined crude oil: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Islamic_Republic_of_... (edited to 2017) Countries typic…

Why can't they just take loans like most Western countries do to balance their budget? The UK has been running at a deficit (£55 billion in the last budget) since 2002. Based on my back of the napkin math, the UK would need to export it's oil (yes, the UK is a net exporter of oil) at $350/barrel to cover that.

There are only a handful of countries that can borrow in their own currency, and borrowing in another currency is very risky.

Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#123

Post by 0x8BADF00D »

xiaolingxiao wrote: post #13

I found this part really interesting: "For dozens of oil producers, the plunge in oil prices is devastating. No major oil producer can balance its budget at prices below $40; according to the International Monetary Fund, with the exception of Qatar, every country in the Middle East requires at least $60, with Algeria at $157 and Iran at a whopping $390. The average Brent price of oil over the past month has been a ha…

Mexico was smart to lock in puts above $40 a barrel.

Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#124

Post by rckoepke »

fyfy18 wrote: post #115
rckoepke wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran's oil is not expensive to extract. These aren't marginal break-even prices on each barrel of oil...rather they're how much their current oil production would have to be sold for in order to balance their national budget, which includes defense and healthcare and whatnot. 79% of Iran's exports are unrefined crude oil: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Islamic_Republic_of_... (edited to 2017) Countries typic…

Why can't they just take loans like most Western countries do to balance their budget? The UK has been running at a deficit (£55 billion in the last budget) since 2002. Based on my back of the napkin math, the UK would need to export it's oil (yes, the UK is a net exporter of oil) at $350/barrel to cover that.

> Based on my back of the napkin math, the UK would need to export it's oil (yes, the UK is a net exporter of oil) at $350/barrel to cover that.

In a vacuum this isn't really a good-faith argument. It can be used to illustrate limited concepts, as another user did in this thread, but it's not really a valid point in general for anything. That's because the question of "what price of oil does [country] need?" only makes sense for countries where the supermajority of their GDP is based on resource extraction.

UK to Iran is not a great comparison because only 4.5% of UK's exports are crude oil. https://oec.world/en/profile/country/gbr/

Second, trade only makes up 30% of the UK's GDP, meaning it can and does better leverage its domestic production to meet domestic needs.

Lastly, the UK has not been nearly as dependent on exports to balance foreign reserves as Iran is. Due to its uncommon status as a global financial hub, I think it has other ways to ensure it can continue to finance trade.

Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#125

Post by jsnider3 »

birdyrooster wrote: post #5
irjustin wrote: post #3

I really appreciate this piece as there's a lot of the world of oil I don't understand. One thing I don't understand is, why is it favorable for OPEC not to cut supply? Is it they want to crush all non OPEC based producers? Or are their buyers forced to buy at a particular price so they don't care if they keep producing?

I think they see this is their last chance to shake off the light crude people in the US.

As an American, I welcome foreign countries to destroy our oil industry. They always support the worst politicians.

Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#127

Post by nl »

jeffdavis wrote: post #97
Iv wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the most relevant part was this: > She was an assistant to Paul Bremer in the Coalition Provisional Authority. She was Senior Director for Iraq at the United States National Security Council. Around that time, Bremer decided to bar former ba'ath officer from either serving the new military or getting pension. That decision almost single-handedly created the backbone of the terrorist networks that would become I…

"People from that admin should be shunned from any published analysis" Interestingly, it was GWB that also put a lot of effort into pandemic preparedness. See: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/homeland/pandemi... History is kind of a weird place.

Any normal mildly competent government does the same.

Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#128

Post by ashtonkem »

nwatson wrote: post #100
ashtonkem wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway stands as an obvious counter example; they’ve invested a huge amount of their oil money into a sovereign fund, and have a fairly robust economy too.

... and it was an Iraqi immigrant who steered Norway on the right path to avoid over-reliance on oil exports: https://www.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feab... ... "The Iraqi who saved Norway from oil".

Genuinely one of my favorite details about Norway’s sovereign fund.

Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#129

Post by perl4ever »

whyenot wrote: post #108
coffeemug wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: THE FOLLOWING DATA IS WRONG. (I foolishly misread a chart. Leaving this up for continuity, but the numbers are completely off.) --- Less than a third of Harvard students come from a household with income greater than $100,000/year. Almost half the students come from households with income between $30,000 and $75,000/year. One in six students comes from a poor family. Harvard is firmly middle class. The data sim…

I'm a little curious where your data comes from, because: "The median family income for Harvard undergraduates is $168,800—more than three times the national median, according to a recent study." https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/1/25/harvard-income-...

Isn't that practically poverty level on HN? That's like one person making $100K and a spouse making $68K. Don't entry level SWEs make as much by themselves these days? Plus stock options. And ping pong tables.

Re: Oil's Collapse Is a Geopolitical Reset in Disguise

#130

Post by ashtonkem »

selectodude wrote: post #70
ashtonkem wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway stands as an obvious counter example; they’ve invested a huge amount of their oil money into a sovereign fund, and have a fairly robust economy too.

Sure, but Norway is really the exception to the rule. Dutch disease is pretty much universal.

It’s not though. America’s an oil producing nation, as is the UK and Norway.

Dutch disease is common, but hardly universal. There are known mitigation techniques that can be applied, including a sovereign wealth fund.

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