Posts by brightheron64

analogbear5 said:Occam's razor, my friend. It's way simpler than those biblical tales you're spinning.

Clearly. 😉

swiftjackal11 said:Back in July 2008, we saw crude hit a record high of $147 a barrel. Even then, gas was sitting at $9.75 and diesel was $3.25. Basically, oil was about 40 percent more expensive back then, yet fuel prices were actually 20 to 30 percent lower than they are now. What's the catch? Why is everything so pricey today?
And back then, there wasn't any conflict with Russia or Ukraine.

Just take a look at the dollar exchange rate from back then compared to where it stands today...

The term "petrodollar" isn't just some empty phrase...

The birth of the petrodollar—which essentially set our monetary standard—happened in 1973, when the United States struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to trade every single barrel of oil in U.S. dollars from the Federal Reserve, in exchange for American weaponry and military protection for those oil fields...

That agreement was eventually expanded so that any nation looking to purchase this type of energy resource had to swap their own national currency for American dollars...

In reality, this system of trading oil for dollars created a massive, artificial demand for the dollar globally, and since there was always a need for more crude oil, the production of the American currency just kept climbing...

As a result, the United States became the sole architect of this new monetary model, allowing us to establish a level of dominance over the global economy that still holds strong today; that $6.5 trillion moved by oil every year represents about 10% of the global GDP and a staggering 40% of the entire U.S. GDP...
https://hr.economy-pedia.com/11039257-petrodollars

Bryan Booth82 said:Once oil prices finally drop and the recession starts to fade, I expect you'll be coming back here to write those posts where you tell us all, "as I always told you..." or "just as I predicted..."🤣

If we are already effectively in a proxy war with Russia, then it stands to reason that the most effective strike would be hitting them exactly where it hurts most—their primary source of income.
Best regards,

Even if prices do fall—which, heaven knows, I truly hope they will—the damage has already been done on such a massive scale...

When we discuss sanctions against Russia, the real crux of the matter isn't just about price drops (which feel like nothing more than pure speculation), but rather determining which specific price points and supply levels will actually make Putin uncomfortable. As long as he can afford to undercut everyone else by offering lower prices... well, we're all essentially just whistling in the wind...

hollowdriver13 said:But what shortage are we even talking about?

The pro-Russian crowd keeps harping on about how India and China are going to vacuum up all that Russian oil.

But if we use basic logic—those two countries only have so much capacity to consume or store stuff, and most of their oil currently comes from the Middle East. That means they’ll naturally end up buying less from the Arab states. Those producers aren't exactly going to turn off the taps just to do Russia a favor; instead, they’ll pivot that supply toward wherever the demand is highest—which is Western markets—and the whole loop closes itself.

At the end of the day, this current price spike isn't really about a physical shortage; it's driven by speculators who are pumping up prices by grabbing production quotas early, fueled by that "hey, there might be supply issues later, better safe than sorry" mindset.

I certainly hope you're right about that...🙏

wearytrucker22 said:And I say, forget you, I'm just getting in my Tesla. That leaves Russia to fight the Middle Eastern players over the derivatives market. Besides, those Russian oligarchs have already moved all their profits over to the West anyway.

Well, aren't you something. I suppose your Tesla will be powered by an endless supply of hydroelectric dams, solar farms, and wind turbines...

And if you decide to go out and plant a couple of electrodes in the dirt, I'm sure everything will just start growing like... some kind of magic beanstalk...

Arthur Miller7 said:Sanctions aren't gonna fix anything in a week, and this war isn't ending in a week either. We'll see what happens when oil prices tank and everything else drops, or once the EU finds a real alternative to gas. That's when we'll actually see how much capacity Russia has left for any kind of fighting—not just this mess, but whatever comes down the pike in the next few years. Just enough time for their other neighbors to bail on them too. The EU will eventually bounce back from the crisis, but Russia? Stuck under sanctions, weighed down by this special operation, and losing their big EU customer who used to buy cheap gas and oil... man, they're in for it.

Oh please, let's not get carried away with such lofty optimism...

Let’s try some very basic math here... suppose Russian oil and gas production accounts for roughly 10% of global consumption...

If you shut that off, you’re suddenly missing 10% of your supply that needs replacing. And then what happens...?
Do you honestly think that the other 90% of producers are going to be all altruistic and decide to keep prices steady, or better yet, lower them because they just love us so much?

Let's look at it from a more practical, everyday perspective... imagine you have an abundance of gasoline, while I'm left with nothing...
- The first time, maybe you'll give me some for free because you're such a saint...
- The second time, you'll sell it to me at the standard market rate...
- But the third time? You'll cut me off and tell me it's either a 20% markup or I can start walking...

Bryan Booth82 said:Sure, but if we gamble on "producing less to drive up prices" and end up triggering the recession everyone is starting to whisper about... well, who knows? Suddenly, that "tomorrow" price could plummet to $45.
As they say over in Germany, economics isn't a one-way street.🤔

lp

Yeah, and then America will surely become the world champion in soccer too.

If you’re planning on hurting someone else, you really ought to think about how that might end up biting you in the backside first... "Call M for murder," as they say...

Fine, go ahead with boycotts and restrictions, but please, put some actual thought into the full strategy and all its consequences instead of just acting on pure impulse. It’s a good thing they haven't come up with a trick to thin out the oxygen in the atmosphere just to subdue the Russians and force them into submission...

The way things are going, it feels like the world is being run by a group of fools who were handed unlimited power by an even larger collection of idiots—whether following the rules of that famous process called "democracy" or the old-fashioned divine right of kings...

George Robinson43 said:Some sanctions on Iran were actually rolled back in early 2016. As soon as that was announced, oil prices plummeted to $28. So, really, where is the issue?

Donald Trump brought those back and took out Qasem Soleimani. He also tightened the screws on Venezuela with even harsher sanctions.
But now, Donald Trump is gone.

Yeah.

I actually got confirmation yesterday down at the gas station. There's plenty of fuel to go around... though it's a shame nobody has engineered an engine that runs on milk yet...

George Robinson43 said:Once Venezuela and Iran return to the global market, prices will drop significantly lower than $80!

Well, oops...

So, what kind of logic are we working with here? 😲
Are we supposed to believe Iranian oil is perfectly fine, even if it's basically funding an A-Bomb aimed at Israel? 🤔

Bryan Booth82 said:If we actually managed to crash global oil and gas prices, it would deal a far more devastating blow to Russia than any shipment of weapons they've ever sent abroad.
It seems like the West has finally caught on to this reality, which explains why Putler has pivoted toward these massive gas cuts—it’s a desperate attempt to artificially prop up prices before the floor falls out from under them.

Best regards,

Of course it would, absolutely. We’re talking about a strategic non-nuclear strike by an international coalition...

But, well, we’ve been waiting for that miracle for months now, haven't we? Honestly, should we just open up a betting parlor to see which happens first—prices going up or down?
It wouldn't even surprise me if the Saudi Crown Prince ordered a massive new yacht that practically paid for itself... I mean, one day you're looking at $100 per barrel, and the next it's jumped to $120, almost overnight...

William Anderson5 said:Why is that any surprise? Even an Orthodox believer like Putin and his Pope Kiril count non-believing Muslims and communists as their closest allies...

It really is a fascinating new world we live in, where roughly 7.5 billion people seem to be getting played by hundreds of thousands of total frauds every single day...

Bryan Booth82 said:This nation emerged as the ultimate lifeline to replace Russian oil. Massive tankers are flooding into Europe now that Americans have lifted export bans and sanctions.

lp

So much for consistency...

What was the name of that "newly elected" and "globally recognized" president of Venezuela again?
Guardo, Guardiola, Gumbo, Garfield... 🤔

And are the Iranians going to make their comeback soon too, like some ancient brothers lost in the wilderness of history?

hollowdriver13 said:And all those people who love Russia were claiming Maduro wouldn't throw Putin under the bus, and that he definitely wouldn't turn his back on the West or those dirty petrodollars just to be difficult... until suddenly, "it's nothing personal, just good business." 🕺
It’s the exact same deal with Iran—lots of big talk, but they'd probably jump at the chance to trade if it meant getting off the sanctions list. Honestly, only a fool wouldn't try to cash in on their natural resources while they still can. The golden age of hydrocarbons is winding down, and you don't want to be sitting on massive reserves that end up being totally useless.

Look, you have street walkers and you have high-end escorts... it's essentially the same business, just with different social standings and price tags.

In the end, the core question remains: "who is actually more corrupt, the one selling the service or the one buying it?"

William Anderson5 said:Well, that first video is actually pretty spectacular...🤣

The drone was practically limping through the sky, barely holding its own before it finally went down... and then it took out their refinery.

It’s almost like that old saying, “if Allied planes start dropping bombs on Germany, you can call me Miller” (Hermann Göring).

Based on all that previous Russian self-congratulation, you’d think even a pigeon wouldn't dare fly near a protected target. But then this happens... it's all bark and no bite....

Melissa Rivera5 said:Honestly, if Russia had just been pushed back to the east side of the Urals back then, I guess we all would've ended up in a much better spot long-term. Maybe.

True, though I suppose we might even find ourselves using different patriotic slogans today...

dustytiger8 said:Well... no... that's just not how it works.

A thick slab of concrete is basically just a target for a bunker buster. Just Google "bunker buster bomb" if you don't believe me. A single BLU-109 is plenty to take out a bridge; it can punch through two feet of reinforced concrete without breaking a sweat.

Sure, it pierces, but I assume the goal is to bring the whole structure down rather than just leaving a hole in it...

Keep in mind this isn't some "self-supporting" design like a beam, arch, or suspension bridge; it’s actually more like the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, where it's essentially a series of separate slabs resting on pylons. Unless you manage to take out the actual supports, you aren't doing much damage—certainly nothing that couldn't be patched up pretty quickly, even if you did manage to crack one specific segment. If a slab fails, you just swap it out for a new one...

But then again, if a couple of squadrons of F-35s decided to show up and use precision-guided munitions to carve out several strategic hits exactly where they need them...

It feels a bit pointless to compare today's cutting-edge tech to what happened fifty years ago, though it might be worth remembering the situation with the Thanh Hoa bridge back then...
https://www.airforcemag.com/PDF/Maga...11/0811jaw.pdf

William Anderson5 said:Those are just students. We're talking about professionals in the high-tech sector who actually have the capacity to bring specialized expertise back to China. You don't pick up that kind of practical knowledge in a university lecture hall; you get it working at major private corporations...

Well...
Technology isn't built by students; it's grown by scientists who act like mushrooms, sprouting up overnight. And while we sit here debating it, others are out there actually doing the work...

It’s certainly not something that makes me happy—in fact, it’s quite disheartening because, based on these trends, we're basically stuck in nowhere... But look, this isn't some tabloid rag from yesterday, either; it's a legitimate professional journal:

Scientific American is the membership magazine of The Institute of Physics, one of the largest physical societies in the world. It is an international monthly magazine covering all areas of physics, pure and applied, and is aimed at physicists in research, industry, physics outreach, and education worldwide
Corporation: IOP Publishing
Country: United Kingdom.

China overtakes the US in research quality, finds study
22 Mar 2022 Laura Hiscott
The quality of China’s scientific research output exceeded that of the US in 2019. That is according to a new analysis by researchers in the US, which also found that China had already overtaken the EU in research quality by 2015.
https://physicsworld.com/a/china-ove...y-finds-study/

But hey, if you still want to keep blowing your own trumpet, be my guest...

William Anderson5 said:What kind of Chinese person working at a high-tech Western firm would actually consider moving back to China? Are you even grasping the sheer amount of money we're talking about here?...

Honestly, family ties in China run much deeper than most people realize... and that's not even mentioning what happens if someone hands you a blank check...

Just to show you how far off the mark you actually are:

Consequently, by 2017, a stock of 5.2 million Chinese had gone abroad and 3.1 million had returned; the return rate appears to be about 60.3 per cent. Taking into consideration that 1.45 million were still students, 83.7 per cent of those who had finished their overseas studies had returned.
https://academic.oup.com/spp/article/47/2/172/5658550

And in some cases, they were practically forced out, though...

Wernher von Braun: The man the US deported - Who then helped China into space
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54695598

rustywalker82 said:I'm with you there—everyone's going to end up getting chewed up and spat out in Ukraine. Between the Britons and Americans, they've already been talked into that deal where they essentially gift their nuclear arsenal to Moscow.
And let's be real, that whole "you'll join the EU" line is way too little, too late. They should've been brought into the fold whenever the Baltic states were.

Back then, the vetting processes and entry requirements were much more stringent, so under those circumstances, there simply wouldn't have been any way for them to make the cut...

goldenowl73 said:That is exactly it! If we let this kind of violent takeover become the new normal where one country just denies another exists, we're basically signing a permission slip for a dozen different hotspots to pop up all over the globe using the exact same playbook. We'd be looking at total chaos.

The truth is, the chaos is already here; it's just that our attention is currently locked onto a single point on the map...

Nancy Gomez26 said:There is very little margin in wheat or corn. You need massive acreage and high yield just to survive. Only a tiny fraction of farmers actually manage that scale. On the flip side, expecting to make a living off such crops with only a few acres is naive. For them, any subsidy amount is merely survival money—social welfare, really—not capital for expansion. For small-scale producers, almost any buyback price is a losing game because their fixed overhead is already too high to cover. Those with limited land should have pivoted to different types of production, but that requires specialized knowledge, marketing expertise, and a host of other skills. If they possessed those capabilities, they would already be among the large-scale operators. Opportunities existed, but that window is closing or has already slammed shut. At this stage, you simply work with the resources you have left.

I was listening to The New York Times, and Novotny mentioned that even though it looks like we produce twice as much wheat as we actually need, about 90% of it is diverted to livestock feed rather than bread... which means we end up importing much more expensive, high-quality wheat specifically suited for our domestic bakeries, driving up the cost of bread and other flour-based goods everywhere.

Then you have some advisor from the Department of Agriculture trying to dispute that, though even they have to admit that we are importing significant amounts of wheat...

Jack Hill2 said:In all realism, Russia might have maybe 18 months left to mess with Germany, and even then, it’s mostly just regarding gas (they can't really touch oil anymore).

After that, Germany will be the one causing them trouble, and we won't be talking in months, but decades...

The moment this war finally draws to a close and some kind of international agreement is reached, profit will once again become the primary driver, and I don't see anyone playing games at that point...

After the dust settles, do you really think the Germans are going to keep paying premium prices for LPG when they used to have Russian gas delivered right to their doorstep? It seems highly unlikely they would just hand over their hard-earned money like that...

Well, this is a bit of a mess...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Vice President is ramping up an urgent plea for Americans to start cutting back on their energy consumption following the news that ExxonMobil announced significant cuts in natural gas deliveries through a key pipeline.

On Tuesday, state-owned ExxonMobil announced they were slashing gas flows through the undersea Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 40%, and then just twenty-four hours later, they dropped even more bad news about further cuts that bring the total reduction to roughly 60%...