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UAE to leave OPEC

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Re: UAE to leave OPEC

#501

Post by troad »

oa335 wrote: post #486
slibhb wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Arab regimes, today, are "US installed"? Iraq is the only plausible answer. As far as stability, I don't know. My view is that Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists. Dictatorship/monarchy has proven far more stable. Syria is trying to buck the trend; we'll see how it goes.

> Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists. why does that imply instability?

Because every Islamic theocracy to date has been profoundly destabilising for its neighbours and the world, and always ends up imprisoning and immiserating its own people. No one wants more Irans or Afghanistans. (Or Saudi Arabias, though that's not said out loud as often.)

Re: UAE to leave OPEC

#502

Post by edgyquant »

boringg wrote: post #59
pjc50 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone's going to have to provide me with an explainer of how many different proxy forces are involved in Yemen. I can barely keep up with Lebanon and have forgotten Syria.

Best of luck! These proxy wars have existed since the days of Assyria. 3000 years and running. Kind of depressing thought actually.

Not really there are time of instability but large stretches of stable government usually under a single empire the Persians, Rome, Caliphs and then Ottomans. The current shit show is due to a western induced collapse of the ottomans and then western powers ensuring no single nation can once again enforce that stability.

Re: UAE to leave OPEC

#503

Post by oa335 »

slibhb wrote: post #488
oa335 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists. why does that imply instability?

Fundamentalists tend not to be pragmatists.

i don't think you know much about islamist parties and are just grasping for reasons to justify suppressing democracy in certain places.

ennahada (tunisia), pks (indonesia), jui (pakistan) are all examples of islamist parties that have compromised or reached across the aisle at various points just off the top of my head.

besides, isn't the point of democracy to allow people to be led by those who represent their principles? if they are in power, why should the majority expect their elected leaders to compromise those principles?

Re: UAE to leave OPEC

#504

Post by _DeadFred_ »

huntertwo wrote: post #483
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Context: (1) “The United Arab Emirates,” today “made a shock request of [Pakistan] — repay $3.5bn immediately” [1]. (2) Saudi-Emirati relations were at an all-time low before the Iran War [2]. (Saudi Arabia just bailed Pakistan out of its Emirati loan. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan agreed a mutual-defence treaty last year [3].) Put together, we’re seeing an Emirati-Israeli axis emerging to balance Saudi hegemony in the G…

Shouldn’t UAE be upset their entire economy has absolutely rammed by the war started by Israel? At least the Saudis have pipelines - UAE is fucked

davidf18 your post (and all your recent posts) is flagged dead.

Re: UAE to leave OPEC

#505

Post by phil21 »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #338
brightball wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as fossil fuels remain one of the cheapest easiest to scale ways to make power, there’s a similar incentive to cheat. If everyone else cuts emissions and you don’t, your margins are higher and you can undercut them. Global reductions require an all-cooperate scenario. IMO economics always wins. You're never going to see an all-cooperate scenario. You will see an all-compete scenario, so constantly reducing…

Keep in mind if you are in the US, your prices have been artificially raised by tariffs. 30% starting in 2018, then declining each year for a while to 15%. Those tariffs recently expired but when I searched I saw this article about new tariffs on certain countries solar as high as 123%. All this to say, you calling a local company and getting quotes captures your price but that’s not quite the same as the global pric…

Tariffs have little to do with install costs in the US. They were horrible before Trump, and aren't much worse today.

The equipment is nearly free compared to the labor to install it. At least the last time I checked. I could do my own DIY system for about 1/4th the cost of one "professionally" installed - and I use the scare quotes for good reason. Most of the installation companies for residential solar exist to sell financing, the solar bit is just an unfortunate tertiary (behind grifting on the green energy credits/tax rebates) concern for most of them.

Panels costing an extra 65% is a rounding error for me. I'd need a whole lot more real estate to put them on for it to become a significant fraction of the total system cost.

And that might even STILL be okay if the quality of engineering and workmanship was decent and available. I'd pay the going rate tomorrow if I could find a highly competent electrician/company to do the over-engineered setup I want today. I'm not interested in saving money - I could care less if it ever pencils out. I'm interested in having a system that can survive a lengthy grid outage situation that is fully redundant and properly engineered to industrial level standards. This is effectively impossible in the US, but friends in other areas of the world have had similar setups installed for years.

Re: UAE to leave OPEC

#506

Post by oa335 »

troad wrote: post #501
oa335 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists. why does that imply instability?

Because every Islamic theocracy to date has been profoundly destabilising for its neighbours and the world, and always ends up imprisoning and immiserating its own people. No one wants more Irans or Afghanistans. (Or Saudi Arabias, though that's not said out loud as often.)

but neither Saudi Arabia nor Afghanistan's leaders were voted in ...

and secular/socialist/monarchic dictatorships have arguably worse effects on their neighbors and citizens - e.g. Saddam, Assad, Nasser, MBZ in UAE, MBS

Re: UAE to leave OPEC

#507

Post by negura »

ericmay wrote: post #255
nimbius wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pricing oil in Yuan because, I guess, the US is somehow not protecting the UAE doesn't make sense because China won't be there to protect them either. It is an admission that US protection was always a paper tiger. Perhaps in the 1960s it meant something, but Iran has shattered the illusion that Washington has any credible defense of the country. > The US can just say, well fine you can sell your oil in Yuan. But w…

> It is an admission that US protection was always a paper tiger. Perhaps in the 1960s it meant something, but Iran has shattered the illusion that Washington has any credible defense of the country. sigh No, it's not. There are 3 aircraft carriers parked in the region, plus US air bases. Iran launched over 2500 missiles at the UAE alone. The US destroyed much of Iran's military, the only thing they have left is the…

people tend to forget the exorbitant privillege of the US. originally this idea applied to USD being the global reserve currency. but it goes so much further. critics of american foreign policy simply lack a sense of proportion. there is so, so much leverage the US has. which they use to do things that wouldn't make sense for any other country. while still coming out on top. i'm glad to see specifics being provided in support of this idea

Re: UAE to leave OPEC

#510

Post by WatchDog »

winter_blue wrote: post #430
tsoukase wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their whole investment castle is built on sand (pun intended) and when oil even remotely starts to fade out as a commodity, it will crumble instantly. Panic will ensue and corruption will be rampant in order to continue the lavish consumerism. Everything will be sold for pennies. The difficult thing is not to make money once, it's to keep them afterwards.

A sovereign wealth fund with over $1 trillion USD (so with over $1 million per Emirati citizen) which invests heavily in U.S. equities will be sold for pennies? So U.S. equities will be sold for pennies? Are you predicting a U.S. stock market crash bigger than the Great Depression, when oil runs out?

Foreign assets are only as good as your alliance with those foreign nations.

When you lose your only bargaining chip(oil), things start to look dicey.

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