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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (154142)	3/10/2020 10:17:21 AM
From: sense	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218554

Correct in focus... which I'm not seeing others even considering. Shale oil rewires the geopolitics of oil.... Almost a century of mid east policy is potentially upended by American energy independence... as will be a lot of Cold War era thinking about the implications of the criticality of access to ME oil in times of war. Mid east oil used to be a strategic imperative for the U.S., and, now it really just isn't... save in the degree we spend our money to defend Europe's interests even when Europe is unwilling to do that for themselves... as we've seen in relation to Iran recently. But, $27 dollar oil rewires the oil markets again... putting U.S. shale under stress, if not "out of business"... and, yes, it stresses Russian production too... probably more than they're willing to admit... when they say they can tough it out for five or six years ? Even it that's true... it comes at a cost... including lost opportunity costs as one certainty. Why would we defend the Saud's, though... when they're attacking our interests ? Maybe... because the Russian issues make it worth it ? That's the prior history... Otherwise, why would we expend our treasure to ensure stability in the middle east when that stability, the stability in what's there now, which isn't consistent with our own interests otherwise... doesn't really help us at all ? Our taxes... our military... are there... making cheap oil readily available to China ? Hmmm. Too little discussed now... is that the nature of economic events occurring now at the scale they are... is very often paired with the emergence of new conflicts... or transitions in conflicts to more active forms. The virus makes that risk greater... China in particular has a very long history of being most aggressive when they think they can get away with something... when others are distracted and unlikely to interfere... as when they're getting over the virus... and we're bogged down in it... just like they took the Paracels away from Vietnam just as we withdrew ? Risks of conflict are much higher now than they have been... A full blown war in the Middle East would probably do as much to the oil markets as the last two trading days have ? Iran... is MORE likely to lash out... because of the virus... the need to deflect from it... and wag the dog to distract from the ongoing disintegration of the Iranian economy and society ?