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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

#141

Post by roenxi »

djsumdog wrote: post #47
pmoriarty wrote: post #41

It's times like these that I really wonder where all the oil peak guys are who you used to see crawl out of the woodwork whenever anyone talked about oil. Now they're suddenly quiet. They used to predict doom and gloom due to an oil shortage, but what we got instead was doom and gloom and an oil glut. Where are they now?

Hubbert peak oil theory seems to not really hold water in retrospect. People try to say the peak is just delayed as we're finding more oil reserves or because there's been a big switch to renewables. I think his models assumed a very different metrics for oil supply and distribution that don't seem to apply today. This podcast from a few years back goes into a lot of it: https://youtu.be/0wlNey9t7hQ

The theory has two parts - first the specific curve. Production left the curve, so that was probably wrong. The other part is the too-obvious-to-argue observation that we are using a substantial fraction of a non-renewable resource and it is going to run out. It doesn't tell a comprehensive story but discoveries vs consumption [0] of crude says we are going to run out shortly. That part is still hard to challenge.

We'll see if the shale gas boom is sustainable. The oil prices required to make it profitable are not comfortable. It isn't obvious to me what the 'new technology' here was beyond prices being very high in 2010. We'll be using a lot less oil at those prices.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_crude_discovery_pro...

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

#142

Post by tonyedgecombe »

glenvdb wrote: post #109
core-questions wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. As soon as we all get moving again, the demand is going to ramp back up to previous levels; higher in some cases as industries work harder to fill backlogs. It's not like all the oil-consuming things have disappeared in two months.

I think the ramp will be much longer and gradual than people expect though.

News I've read in the UK over the last week includes BA laying off a quarter of its staff and stopping flights from Gatwick, Rolls Royce laying off 3,500 staff, Airbus contemplating layoffs. These people put their money where their mouth is and they don't see a quick recovery.

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

#143

Post by ImaCake »

matthewaveryusa wrote: post #45
ImaCake wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you are being modded. A third option, which I consider most likely, is that this piece is doing both. The author most likely believes in what they are saying and are trying to manipulate things in a certain direction. There is noting wrong with this, and I think understanding the bias is merely a more effective way to gain more from reading this.

no idea what modded means. That's a fair point. so you're saying that maybe the author doesn't know they are being manipulated despite being an expert -- that's also possible!

> the author doesn't know they are being manipulated despite being an expert

Actually I meant the author was aware of his view and is being both manipulative while fairly forwarding his agenda. Your option would be a fourth possibility? Which would make sense since any two binary outcomes will give a 2x2 sample space for a total of 4 outcomes.

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

#144

Post by baybal2 »

xxpor wrote: post #86
voz_ wrote: post #2

Additional detail: The author was one of the architects for major pieces of the Iraq war, including the surge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghan_O%27Sullivan

Between the Kennedy School and the law school, it seems like everyone I hear about coming out of Harvard these days is stupid and/or evil in some profound way.

I read O'Sullivan reports and some of her works in my student years.

First, I have no idea how she got her scholarly titles when her writing is so incoherent, and devoid of line of though. Some times she outright descends into polsci technobabble, and I loose her. She is not a scholar, but a person who went to school and bullshited her way to the degree with every mean and way, in hope to get a cushy government job.

Second, for a portion of her writing making sense, her vision of reality is a laconic polsci101 recital, and carbon copy of her mentors views, without a iota of extra thought. The reality of politics is that shit happens, the reality of war is that you don't improve global stability by starting one. Her works state that it can be otherwise.

My criteria for a politician who knows his onions, is caution. Above all is caution, and an understanding that whatever he or she does returns threefold if made in error. Anybody claiming a clear, logical, rational picture of the world has never worked a day in job where his life depends on it.

I repeat my opinion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23051520

> People must stop decrying types like McNamara, Kisinger, Dulles as some kind of "smart calculating types." They were top idiots at the apex of power, and their coming was a prelude to what America got itself in now.

Every big name "strategist" USA had since the WW2 I can name was a big joke, and such types will keep coming unless people will start calling things their real names. The "geopolitical technobabblers" should not allowed to sit in high posts.

In this case, I think there can't be a better way than to pull her early works, and her academic writing for everybody to see.

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

#145

Post by luckylion »

stevenjohns wrote: post #131
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…

> 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 ISIS. This isn't true. The Ba'ath party had already largely lost its Arab nationalist identity and become progressively more and more Islamist after the first Gulf War. Saddam announced the "return…

> The Ba'ath party had already largely lost its Arab nationalist identity and become progressively more and more Islamist after the first Gulf War.

That's not so much the point the parent comment was making, I believe. Mostly that by making sure the previous military and political leaders would not be allowed to play any role in the future and not get pensions, they'd obviously have zero incentive to work with the new regime/administration/whatever.

On the other hand, they had plenty of incentive to work against it, which they then did. They may have gone full Arab nationalist if that had been an option, but to be funded in the middle east in a war against the US and Shiite-aligned governments, you'll look to the Saudis, and that pretty much only leaves Wahabi fundamentalism as your rally-cry.

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

#146

Post by IlyaMoroshkin »

stevenjohns wrote: post #131
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…

> 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 ISIS. This isn't true. The Ba'ath party had already largely lost its Arab nationalist identity and become progressively more and more Islamist after the first Gulf War. Saddam announced the "return…

If your objective is to engender low-level conflict that will justify billions of military dollars for decades, destabilising the country and fostering insurgency is a feature, not a bug.

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

#147

Post by blargmaster33 »

blackrock wrote: post #139

This sounds like an opportunity for someone to kickstart a whole new post-petroleum industry. How? Use the sun, wind, tide, nuclear, geothermal, space-solar, anything, to produce electricity, in order to crack hydrogen from water, and jumpstart the hydrogen economy. And will also need to begin mass production of fuel cells to get it cheaper. This proves that the world does not need oil, if an alternative energy sourc…

Where do you think fertilizer comes from?

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

#148

Post by luckylion »

perl4ever wrote: post #129
whyenot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In SF, maybe. In most places, hardly. And keep in mind that entry level SWEs usually don't have kids that are at the age of heading off to Harvard, so they'd earn that income for a decade or two. That would probably put them somewhere in the range of the average income with their dividends alone.

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

#149

Post by jacobush »

sadfklsjlkjwt wrote: post #79
opo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can choose to do that, or they can choose to save and invest the money. Norway's oil fund is around 1 trillion dollars. >...The Government Pension Fund Global, also known as the Oil Fund, was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector. It has over US$1 trillion in assets, including 1.4% of global stocks and shares, making it the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. h…

An increasing proportion of Norwegian spending is already covered by the revenues from the Oil Fund. This crisis has seen a near perfect storm of massive increase in welfare spending, massive fall in the value or the Oil Fund's assets and massive decrease in the price of oil (and hence the input for the Oil Fund). It will be very interesting to see what happens with the fund in the next 10-20 years. EDIT: To be clear…

Not a bad use.

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

#150

Post by buboard »

core-questions wrote: post #90
aantix wrote: post #88

Time to buy oil stock. Tesla is the only real electric hope, and they have many many years before they supplant combustion based vehicles.

Pretty much. As soon as we all get moving again, the demand is going to ramp back up to previous levels; higher in some cases as industries work harder to fill backlogs. It's not like all the oil-consuming things have disappeared in two months.

we aren't going to 'get moving again' nowhere near the levels we were before
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