Yes about a year’s worth.
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Labor day is going to be tough this year.
Senior BoA analyst is banking on $70/brl later this year (based on an article i just read).
Iran will do whatever required to keep oil supply choked. I am waiting to see what kind of rabbit djt will be pulling out of his … whatever
I am still surprised that the market has not panicked as badly, yet …
And other countries will build alternative routes to limit their exposure to Iran’s influence.
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And Saudi’s plans to enlarge the pipeline to the Red Sea will be frustrated by their Houthi neighbours closing off the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — the chokepoint between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Reports say the Houthis said they would enforce a maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia and close that strait to Saudi ships.
Very true and agreed totally. But that takes time., resources and investment.
iran is betting that djt can not hold out that long. djt knows this. so, he, in turn is destroying infrastructure in iran (under military-use justification) to try and cripple them. iran is already crippled - they have been crippled for a very long time. what more do they have to lose?
I read an article today that djt deal to direct oil through the pipeline in armenia is progressing (well). that could also mean building pipeline from the UAE/SA/kuwait/iraq to reach that pipeline, while it would still be vulnerable to attack from iran, houthis, the kurds, and so many other different factions out there - everyone will want their finger in that pie.
the 10,000 ft view looks great. the devil is in the details, me thinks …
Houthis have joined the game.
Don’t think they ever left the game.
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I just find it astonishing that no national trauma is apparent in America.
Like after Vietnam where they got kicked out.
Afghanistan… meh!
Mogadishu… puff!
Anywhere the Americans have had their asses handed to them… shrug!
And now Iran.
To me is seems that their internal propaganda is working to the point where Americans are as uninformed as the Russians were under the Soviets.
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It is almost more insidious than that. The soviet state collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. It became impossible to maintain the facade. The USA continues in a post truth or post reality era. I hope it is a soft landing when it finally crashes.
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Post truth, post reality is indeed what I increasingly see with every trip back.
The myth of ‘American Exceptionalism’ is fundamental to an understanding of ourselves and our place in the world, drummed into us from early childhood. Much of our news, heck, much of a stateside American’s contact with anyone or anything outside our shores, is filtered through that lens.
Trivial but illustrative case in point: news coverage of the WC focused less on the sport than on “the world loves our Ranch dressing! Proof we are the best!” Or of the devasting heatwave: “We have air conditioning, therefore we are inherently blessed by doG, unlike communist Europe.” Few stories that don’t end in ‘USA! USA! USA!’ catch our collective attention.
Multiply that by a million for coverage of serious topics like wars, economics, international affairs.
Many Americans never hear ‘the other side’, and some, if they do, cannot comprehend it. American exceptionalism means any information that does not fit into the narrative simply ‘does not compute’.
There is no way to square reality with the myth, so many have chosen, or fallen into, complete blindness to what is actually going on.
And in the meantime, the kakistocracy is robbing them blind.
I’m not sure a soft landing is possible. From what I see over there I’m guessing it may take a crash, and prolonged personal loss, to get people out of their comfortable mythology.
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If history is anything to go by, it’s not going to happen, what has happened before is blaming “the other” for our ills, which in fact reinforces exceptionalism, and adds a layer of us vs them.
Edit: I mean globally, the “us vs them”, and “blame the other” are political strategies used for millennia, eg Demosthenes’s Philippic speaches.
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Americans have always had a major mistrust of government. That is exactly why Trump got into power. He figured out how to play it.
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One of the things that I noticed is that during the Vietnam war journalists had more or less free range, some atrocities were covered up or sanitized, others were freely reported to the world, which ultimately brought the war to an end due to the groundswell of disgust and bad propaganda.
After the last chopper out of Saigon the pentagon learned a valuable lesson…
“Dont let the press report freely!” and now we have “embedded” reporters reporting what the Pentagon allowes.
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Military draft VS army of volunteers.
Professional soldiers may have self selected: high trust in chain of command, not many questions, pride of being part of the team regardless of results.
Tangentially, some military are weird. The foundational myth of the French Foreign Legion is getting their asses handed to them. In the US there’s Battle of Alamo, Pearl Harbor, or the defeat of Confederates.
So, there’s a bit over 300m barrels left in the SPR. They’re drawing down between 4 and 8m per day.
Realistically, it’s unlikely that one can draw down below 180, maybe even not below 200.
That would leave us with at most 8 weeks before everything would come to a grinding halt, at least in the US.
I find the calm with which this fact is basically shrugged off by the press and the general public to be both fascinating and terrifying.
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Lets hope not; desperate times need desperate solutions.
I hope I’m wrong but I see American troops in Iran before the pumps run dry.
As far as I would guess, the US is in the same situation with Iran as Russia is in Ukraine and is too stupid to back down, like Russia the US can only escalate.
Djt cant afford to go this was. He may may not be impeached, but worse is whern his presidential legacy will be chopped finer than carrots in a ruebli salat. He will never have that if he has options.