Posts by brightheron64

George Robinson43 said:With things trending steadily downward lately,
unknown was at $98, while Brent hit $100.

It’s quite something how when Joe Biden releases oil from the American strategic reserves, the Republicans absolutely lose their minds, even though gas prices haven't really budged and those strategic reserves have plummeted to their lowest point in thirty-five years...

unknown
“President Biden drained our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to dangerously low levels just so that we could turn around and send 5,000,000 barrels of oil to Europe and Asia? America Last Presidency!” tweeted Rep Jim Banks.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2117432.html

Tucker Carlson is absolutely livid: Biden should be impeached for this


It really is worth taking a look at this...😁

Amy Rogers6 said:I don't have a problem with any of that if you can explain where the EU is going to find a replacement for Russian energy—and how they plan to move it into Europe? And all of this just by sheer willpower?

Even the Germans aren't on board with this; they're basically shitting themselves at the thought of those valves being turned off. According to them, a huge chunk of their industry is toast...

So, it looks like we're more likely to see some new Hitler rise to power in the short term than we are to see Russia take a massive hit.

Bottom line: what's the point of sanctions if they don't achieve anything besides wrecking the EU?

Killing two birds with one stone? 😬

boldbison40 said:Honestly, all this talk about oil prices skyrocketing is just pure nonsense. If prices spike too high, demand naturally craters, eventually forcing everything back to its baseline levels. Sure, we might see a recession, but that’s nothing new in the grand scheme of things...

The OPEC nations will go to any lengths to prevent prices from hitting the stratosphere, because they’re the ones who stand to lose the most if demand takes a massive dive.

But I have to wonder, what kind of magic tricks could actually cause such a drastic drop in oil demand? 🤔 Road transport doesn't even account for half of global consumption. Even if we entertained the idea of a world without cars, how on earth could we imagine one without heavy-duty trucks or massive transit buses?...

Just as a side note, last year's projections suggested demand would climb by 5% while production only grew by 2% through 2026. But now, with wars and sanctions thrown into the mix... well, only the folks in the Middle East (and Russia) truly know what actual production numbers will look like...

hollowdriver13 said:So now he’s calling for $380 per barrel while Brent has actually tanked 15% in a single month—we're looking much closer to a bear market than any kind of sky-high price spike.

🤷 Look, I don't work in the oil industry, yet they seem to constantly drag him in to act as some sort of expert commentator...

My world revolves around semiconductors, and we're actually doing quite well (though I can only imagine how things look to the Russians 😁).
The other day, I checked in with the ExxonMobil office to see if we could secure a larger shipment of hardware—maybe a hundred units or so—and they told me "we can get them to you in 150 to 180 days!!!" 😵

Bryan Booth82 said:I’m backed into a corner here. I can't bring myself to say exactly what Putin wants to hear, even if it feels like there's no other way out. People want to act like nobody is at fault—as if there should be no sanctions and no consequences. But how can we just look the other way while Ukraine is being absolutely decimated? We're talking about ten million refugees fleeing for their lives because of this madness. How can anyone sit there and claim there's no accountability when the devastation is this absolute?
Let’s get together and start trading.

It’s just not working anymore. We are at war.

lp

You see, Stern (along with a few others) actually thinks that while we should have slapped all sorts of sanctions on Russia, we really shouldn't have touched the oil and gas...

He even mentioned that while the sanctions hit Russia, they hit us much harder. "The mistake was deciding to sanction Russia on things the entire world relies on. The idea was to punish them where it hurts most, but in reality, it's us who are feeling the pain," he remarked.

And don't even get me started on those darker possibilities...

"That oil has been flowing up until now. If Russia limits its exports, oil could vanish from the global market, leading to scenarios I wouldn't even want to contemplate. Just yesterday, I saw warnings that in such extreme circumstances, oil could spike to $380 per barrel. That's three times what it is today. It would essentially mean a total collapse and a catastrophe for the global economy," Stern warns.

It’s fascinating to watch how these sanctions are opening up entirely new perspectives in this brave new world we find ourselves in....

We felt a bit of a sting when similar measures were applied to South Korea, Iraq, or Iran... but seeing the devil manifest now, it turns out the spirit that escaped from "our" bottle was far more elusive than any of us ever imagined.

Gas prices have spiked due to a strike by Norwegian workers
Natural gas prices surged across European markets, driven by fears of supply shortages following a strike by oil workers in Norway and the announced maintenance shutdown of the Russian Nord Stream 1 pipeline. On the Dutch exchange, futures prices climbed to approximately €190 per megawatt-hour, hitting their highest levels since March. By the afternoon, prices had jumped about eight percent compared to Monday's figures.

Supply issues have also flared up in Norway, where oil workers have walked off the job demanding higher wages to keep up with rising inflation. For the moment, it doesn't look like deliveries to other European nations have been hit, but if production stays halted for much longer, exports could definitely take a massive hit.

The strike kicked off overnight, and both unions and company reps are forecasting a 13 percent drop in gas production this week. The petroleum industry association released a statement on Sunday estimating that by Wednesday, production will fall by 292,000 barrels of oil equivalent, which marks a 13 percent decrease.

And that is all there is to say about the strategic planning of our illustrious politicians...

Carl Lee27 said:I'm not sure if this has started circulating everywhere yet, but James Mattis really went off regarding the situation in Russia

Former US Secretary of Defense James Mattis on Friday slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin's unprovoked War with Ukraine as -> Quote

"WE have a saying in America — WE say that nations with allies thrive , nations without allies wither and we're watching Russia wither before Our eyes right now" -> Quote Mattis said while speaking AT The Seoul forum 2022 in South Korea -> Mattis said CNN -> CNN Mattis -> James Mattis marina four-star general Who led The Pentagon during The First Two years of The Trump administration , condemned -> marina

Mattis, a former Marine four-star general who led the Pentagon during the first two years of the Trump administration, condemned "the immoral, the tactically incompetent, operationally stupid and strategically foolish effort" of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, CNN reported.

https://www.businessinsider.com/jame...ukraine-2022-7

More or less, most of what he said hits the mark.

But when a US general lets his guard down and starts throwing around adjectives like "unprovoked" and "immoral"... I honestly feel like nailing him to an aluminum pipe and mounting him right at the top of Tor Bor...

dustyowl29 said:So, this "brand new" Lada actually runs on a modified engine straight out of an old 1980s Chevy Nova...

So, where does that leave us?

Just try putting yourself in the shoes of Putin and his inner circle, who are currently getting squeezed by all these embargos—though, let's be honest, there’s always going to be some way to track down a BMW, a Range Rover, or a Mercedes-Benz for the real heavy hitters...

Essentially, they are buying up everything that rolls, flies, digs, crawls, or drills... and they're footing the bill by leveraging oil and gas prices that are already 30% cheaper... And how do you think the Chinese (and a few others) will react to that? What can they really do? Either they slash their own oil prices by another 5 to 10% just to stay competitive, or they lose the whole market...

Even though it's almost absurd to even bring this up, from people like Kolinda to Xia or Modi... nobody ever actually calls Putin out for failing to honor a deal. And that is actually a incredibly messy situation because, regardless of how much of a Putin he might be, if he consistently follows through on his contracts... and by doing so, keeps someone else's national budget afloat... people don't tend to overthink things too much...
Even among the absolute worst criminals, there is often more value placed on having a code and keeping your word than anything else...

Bryan Booth82 said:Why are you taking this so far? Why didn't you pick an example closer to home?
Think about it—why were guys from Miami or Seattle on the front lines defending Memphis or San Francisco?

Maybe Mexico wouldn't have cared about those specific parts of the country... they could have just kept living off tourism in Key West or Newport Beach. Screw the US, let them deal with some place like Memphis.

Would Mexicans have ever set up shop near San Diego or Indianapolis??
Would Russians have ever stood on the border....

Oh, right—please, by all means, give us some justifications regarding Indochina and colonialism from two hundred years ago.
Best regards,

Those are nothing but insinuations where you're basically mixing apples and oranges.

Come on, let’s look at just one very realistic detail of our alternative history, if we follow your logic: Mexicans enthusiastically accepted the Plan Marshall.

And then what?
Thankfully they didn't, but man, what if they had???
So, what happens next?

Just imagine if NATO said, "enough of this nonsense," and decided to recognize the status quo as of June 30, 2022.?

Bryan Booth82 said:You tried to write a justification for the Russian aggression against Ukraine...(three dots)...(again), but you failed miserably, because what you said makes absolutely zero sense.

lp

Of course the Russian aggression against Ukraine is a massive disaster. But you're completely ignoring the fact that this kind of "disaster" is basically an inherent part of our existence...

Look, let's just (for a second) look past today... and try to justify most of the wars fought from '45 until now. Is that more whataboutism? Does anyone actually give a damn about the Maghreb, Indochina, the Mediterranean, Indonesia, the Middle East, or Africa...? Are you looking for justifications for those too?
Honestly, in a few years, we’ll probably see this exact same attitude (regardless of how things turn out) regarding the situation in Ukraine. If it weren't for modern communication technology, specifically our local hunger for energy... it would just be another footnote in human history...

"It's Beyond my Controll" as John Malkovich says in "Dangerous Liaisons>

dustyowl29 said:Let’s look at the classics—between 1945 and 1980, Josip Broz Marshall moved thousands of people from the Midwest over to Florida.
Just take a look at the last names in Miami. Every third one you run into sounds like it’s straight out of Chicago.

Marshall? Oh, absolutely, it was all about promoting that sense of national unity...

An unscheduled train?

I’m honestly surprised you missed the whole influx of Albanians, Mexicans, Canadians, and Canadians... Following that logic, even John Kerum should have stayed put in his hometown instead of moving out to Miami...

Bryan Booth82 As expressed by:
It really feels like nothing can ever truly get done without a firm hand at the helm...
I suppose we should probably get started on this, though I can't say I'm entirely sure where we're headed yet...

If only people could learn to look just a little bit further than what’s right in front of their own faces...

red_shrike As expressed by...
Well, we technically have strategic reserves, but the real question is what’s actually sitting in those warehouses... A few years back, it all came to light that everything had been pilfered and funneled straight into Agrokor, which was just devastating. I really, truly hope the idiots haven't pulled the same stunt this time around, because if they have, and things get desperate, there might actually be some people looking for a reason to see them face real justice at the end of a rope...

We’re actually producing more wheat than we could ever possibly need, but then again...

This is quite a disappointment... Looking back at everything from last year, back in 2021... And then we have the usual case of "discovering something that was already obvious to everyone else"...

“We’re importing wheat while sitting on a massive domestic surplus, and it makes you wonder... why exactly are Americans going to end up paying more for their bread?
To put it simply, American farmers actually produce far more wheat than we could ever consume domestically, yet we end up exporting most of it because we just don't have the local processing infrastructure to handle the sheer volume...
"We’ve finally broken through that million-ton wheat milestone after so many years, and now the Department of Agriculture is looking to pour investments directly into processing and expanding our local capacity, so we can keep as much of that harvest right here in America as possible," says Tugomir Majdak, a State Secretary at the Department of Agriculture...
Until we finally get those production facilities up and running, we're essentially stuck relying on imported wheat, which usually ends up being lower quality and costing us a whole lot more than it should....
The rising cost of bread is becoming an unavoidable reality for families across America, and honestly, it’s starting to feel like we’re caught in a perfect storm of global logistics and local supply chain hiccups... It seems that because the price of grain and essential ingredients is climbing on the international market, the loaves sitting on our grocery store shelves are getting more expensive by the day. We are seeing this ripple effect where even basic staples are hitting the budget harder than most people anticipated, especially with the way energy costs have been fluctuating lately... It really makes you wonder how much longer the average household can absorb these incremental hikes before it starts affecting everything else in the pantry...

It’s also worth noting that, from time to time, things can get a little murky around here, and you might run into some shady dealings that just don't sit right...
It really makes you wonder about how much grain used to disappear from the Midwest heartland... back when those massive shipments would just seem to vanish into thin air without anyone asking too many questions...
The recent reports coming out of the agricultural sector regarding the instability at companies like Agrokor have really hit home for anyone following our domestic food security, and frankly, it feels like we're seeing a pattern emerge that should make us all a bit more cautious about how much influence these massive conglomerates hold over our local supply chains... It’s one thing to talk about market fluctuations in abstract terms, but when you realize that a single entity can destabilize an entire region's economy, it becomes much more personal. I was reading through some analysis on how the Department of Agriculture might need to step in to provide more oversight, especially given the way these large players manage their debt and assets, and it just makes me wonder if our current regulatory framework is actually robust enough to handle a crisis of this magnitude... There seems to be a growing tension between the push for massive industrial consolidation and the need to protect the smaller, independent producers who are the actual backbone of the American heartland. If we don't find a way to balance these interests, we might find ourselves in a position where a few boardroom decisions in a skyscraper could leave grocery store shelves empty in small towns halfway across the country... It's a delicate dance between efficiency and resilience, and right now, it feels like we're leaning far too heavily on the former without considering the devastating cost of losing the latter...

No, the real blow hasn't even landed yet...

It feels like we’re watching history unfold right before our eyes... starting in 2023, the gates are finally opening for foreign investors to start snapping up our affordable farmland, and honestly, I can already see the stampede coming. It looks like we're about to see a massive influx of buyers, particularly from the Netherlands, who seem to have developed this incredibly "clever" little strategy to get their hands on our soil...
The latest reports regarding the recent developments at the Department of Agriculture have certainly caught my attention, especially given how much weight these decisions carry for our local producers... It seems like there’s a growing tension between the regulatory shifts coming out of Washington and the actual day-to-day realities faced by folks working the land in regions like the Midwest. You have to wonder if the policymakers truly grasp the ripple effects these changes will have on small-scale operations versus the massive conglomerates that seem to benefit from every new mandate... It feels like we’re watching a slow-motion collision between traditional farming values and a very modern, highly bureaucratic approach to food security, and I can't help but feel a bit uneasy about where this is all heading...

hiddeneagle98 said:We keep hearing our leaders claim the gas reserves are at 50% and that they have plans to hit 90% once deliveries arrive... but if I'm reading the situation correctly, those reserves might just be enough to limp through the season.

And while we're on the subject, I don't understand why we don't have adequate grain silos. Is it just that expensive, or is the return on investment not high enough for them? The government should be treating this as a matter of national security, even if it’s essentially a sunk cost. Otherwise, all this talk about banning grain exports is completely pointless... you can't actually enforce an export ban if you don't have the infrastructure to store the stuff.

In this new era, governments—actual administrations—have to step up and handle these fundamental necessities. You can't leave this stuff to profit-driven capitalism to solve. In fact, it's that exact obsession with the bottom line that creates these strategic vulnerabilities in the first place.

But why would they bother? Do you truly believe anyone in this administration is actually thinking strategically or looking at the long term...

Just take a look at the prices for flour, bread, and pastries lately... meanwhile, farmers are being offered buyback prices as low as 2-$0.70 cents per pound (compared to the much higher rates on the European Union market).
Whoever owns the silos will just store their stock safely and wait out the harvest season, and once those prices skyrocket again... well, they'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

It’s also worth noting who actually controls the storage infrastructure (for instance, companies like PPK Valpovo—where 45,000 tons are held by Stipa Matić, the owner of M-san and King ITC).

"American agriculture is raking it in,"

And yet, here we go again tonight, listening to everyone moan about how grain buyers are only offering them maybe $2.00 or $2.10 per pound at most...

So much for all that panic regarding global food shortages...

Terry Green3 said:Zelensky says the war needs to wrap up by winter

If he thinks he can liberate all that occupied territory before the frost hits this year, I have no idea what he's playing at.
Looks like he’s already written off Crimea...

Sure, why not just aim for tomorrow?

At the end of the day, we'll just have to wait and see which path turns out to be the more affordable option—trying to settle everything "tomorrow" or dragging it out until "this winter"...

George Robinson43 said:🙂
It isn't right to use the term pogrom. We all know where that word comes from.
Try using something else if you want to engage in whataboutism regarding Russian "enemies."

Go ahead and try explaining that logic to Google. 😉

The post honestly has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of a "Russian enemy"; it was just a passing remark about how almost everyone has a little bit of dirt under their fingernails, regardless of whatever sacrifice might have been made at any given moment...

Anyway, I think I'll stop poisoning the thread by worrying that, heaven forbid, I might end up in Palestine.

It feels completely absurd to lay an entire nation—one that suffered such horrific devastation during WWII—at the feet of its own dark history, though I have to admit that once I truly confronted these facts, my empathy for the Polish people shifted in ways I didn't expect... Not to mention some of their more recent "achievements," like that whole "pregnant women registry" controversy...

But, if we look back at the past:

Kielce: A pogrom following a Holocaust that Poland is still grappling with today
In the wake of World War II, Jewish refugees discovered they couldn't actually return to their homelands—a heartbreaking reality that still resonates even now...
.........
The massacre was ignited by a blood libel. It wouldn't have been out of place in the Middle Ages, except this wasn't ancient history or even Nazi Germany—this was 1946, just a single year after World War II had ended...
..........
All in all, 42 Jews were murdered that day across 7 Planty and throughout the city, including a newborn baby and a woman who was six months pregnant. Another 40 people were wounded...
After the Holocaust, so many Jews dreamed of finally returning home. Kielce shattered that dream; for Jew, Poland could never truly be home again...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...ver-180967681/

Automatic translation:
https://www-smithsonianmag-com.trans...r&_x_tr_pto=sc

Bryan Booth82 said:... and we slide right into Whatabautism 🤦
The core issue here is that there is actually a massive amount of common ground between us. The real disaster happens when the negative elements start to outweigh the good—whether we're talking about everything from minor annoyances to full-blown xenophobia or homophobia...
When the lack of peace is forgotten, and the negativity is what we choose to fix...
LP

I really don't think that's whataboutism... if you look at it closely, our entire history is essentially just a series of moments that, quite often by the narrowest of margins, completely altered its course.

Even that one famous cliché: "Adolf Hitler applied to the art academy in Vienna" carries an incredible amount of weight when you actually stop to think about it...

Bryan Booth82 said:They don't want it; our colleague is just feeling a bit discouraged, as usual.
If you aren't absolutely certain about a fact, why not just make it up? Or rather, let's call it "adjusting the narrative" to fit the story, shall we?
LP

Just thinking out loud...

Let's stir the pot a little...

In the spirit of saying: George Washington concluded that it’s actually better to remain a subject of George III. Or is that actually a truly incredible option?...

Bryan Booth82 said:Yeah, looking through that outdated lens of the North America, Johnson is basically prepping an invasion of France just so he can liberate Germany from there.🤦

Drop that nonsense already; you know as well as I do that we left that era of history behind us.

Germany isn't rearming for its own sake; it’s doing it because of everyone else, because they were obsessed with the idea that they could somehow "leapfrog" straight into the future.
But that kind of future is only possible once others reach the necessary level too—take Russia, for example, which has chosen a much more difficult path.

Well, the Mexicans paid quite a high price for their new level of awareness, didn't they?
The Russians will pay even more, because they simply refuse to learn from history.
Best regards

"Backwardness" is such a subjective term, isn't it? Let's step away from the war talk for a second and look at the US Supreme Court and the Roe v. Wade decision. It might feel like a local circus to some, but its impact is truly global...

And while we're on the subject of brotherly love and peace... honestly, from the days of Gilgamesh right up to this very moment, there has always been something inherently "unpeaceful" about humanity...