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Tag: Oil

  • This Seems Important

    1990s were interesting times. Soviet Union collapsed and so did European Exchange Rate Mechanism. These events together ushered a massive economic slump for Finland (and presumably many other countries), 25% official unemployment and breadlines, wave of bankruptcies (many unnecessary if nicer policies were followed, but the banksters and politicians, eager to please EU and BIS, see Koiviston Konklaavi, smelled blood on water and mass looting of SMEs and even bigger corporations ensued), and uptick in mortality as heart attacks and suicides increased among the formerly stable bourgeoisie.

    The ERM collapse was caused by years of fiscal mismanagement, which gave Soros Quantum Fund an opening to make massive profits by killing national economies. Third world countries had been a prey for decades, but now Soros and Druckenmiller attacked first world countries. The Global Trap had an exciting description what happened on European scale, and after reading in in Finnish, I was not surprised when Euro followed, as an attempt to create a currency that could not be shaken by some passing Soros (plot spoiler: they failed, as proven by EU debt crisis in early 2010s). Having followed popular economics since 1990s, it was therefore a slightly alarming news, when Bessent was named our Secretary of Treasury. But I was willing to give him a benefit of doubt, maybe we needed the killer of British Pound to fight the US economy, or at least the US Treasury, out of death spiral.

    It seems that the coming death of US dollar will be the crowning achievement of Bessent, maybe to the joy of his former boss, but if the analysis in this post is correct, it will come with a twist. I would not have imagined a looting on such breathtaking scale, but if the premise is correct and the current administration manages to privatize international dollars flows, or even a substantial fraction of them onto privately held stable coin issuer platform, I’d call it the heist of the century.

    The heist of the previous century being the founding of Federal Reserve bank, and their notes, which the supplanted gold and silver by Roosevelt’s orders and lost gold backing by Nixon’s orders, when USD moved to petrodollar standard. Which is now cracking, because US military and economy can no longer enforce dollar trade of oil, up to 20% of which anyways is stuck in Strait of Hormuz, for reasons that may or may not be related to the economic collapse of US of A, while flows from Russia are being constrained by war in Eurasia. And even if there were sudden outbreak of peace on Earth and goodwill between people, so much of the processing and transport infrastructure has been destroyed that refined products would be in shortage for years (I’m pessimist and believe that repairs will take longer than advertised.)

    TLDR: petrodollar is about to go kaput, loudly (maybe MAIDed), private sector stable coin is being ushered in through backdoor, quietly and in an unbelievable speed. Someone is going to pay for all this.

    Backed by full faith and credit of U.S. government. Although cents are no longer minted. And with inflation progressing I expect nickels to follow some years later.

  • Fuel Rumors.

    I’ll treat this as a rumor but where there is smoke, there could be fire. Some spot(s) in Texas are said to be running out of diesel and gasoline – this could be just a temporary and local supply chain hiccup, but in my lived experience, all sorts of hiccups are becoming the norm. Another rumor from the same report claims that New Jersey is running out of diesel and gasoline for big companies, as well as of motor oil. The motor oil issue spooked me already some months ago to buy a couple of pints extra in case I need it, when I learned that Toyota relaxed its oil specifications because there was not enough fancy oil available.

    The purported low price per barrel of crude may be due to demand destruction, or so it has been speculated. As economies crater (especially Chinese), the world oil consumption presumably goes down, and there is suddenly enough barrels after all. Problem: can official numbers of anything, including fuel supply and consumption, be trusted? And even if the numbers are real, are models correct?

    Meanwhile, I saw a video about people no longer affording fun like bowling, boating or going to movies. I think that entertainment downturn is also caused by demoralization. Nobody has time or energy for formerly fun hobbies, even if they had money. And people do still watch TV, play computer games and stream movies. They just are not consuming the new ones. I can sympathize. Call me old-fashioned, but I, too, used to watch more movies before COVID. I think that event fractured the society badly. Having said that, the last movie I saw in theater was Project Hail Mary, which I liked.

    The gasoline prices are currently lower but that may be temporary as the action in Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere intensifies.