Oil - a three letter word
Cerebral rape and pillage in a village of his choice
Oil is creeping back into the American political lexicon, that ain’t good for elected officials. The US has long gone by the notion if some energy is good, more is better. Call it a wide held national delusion long preceding its present personification in the current president.
In her "Dyson Spheres are a Joke," Eastern Kentucky's own Dr. Collier has a wonderful critique of the current idiocy of limitless energy promoted by our AI Tech Lords. She notes how so much science fiction, and remember Sci-Fi is the basis of our present Utopias, looks at societal energy usage as an unlimited, linear progression. Not only is this not going to happen, but it's just stupid. Look at the earth's recent history. The evolution of this excessively chattering, endlessly busy, hairless ape, was only made possible with a certain planetary homeostasis, in part coming about with all those fossil fuels buried underground for hundreds of millions of years.
Nature long ago concluded more energy ain’t necessarily better, especially in both ecological systems and their component biological organisms. In his writings on cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, noted key to understanding stability in biological and mechanical systems is homeostasis. Simply, the processes of feedback regulating energy for the whole system’s benefit. For example, the human body temp is stable around 98 degrees (Fahrenheit). If you add a bunch more energy and bring it up say 10 degrees, well, you’re dead.
Regarding oil, Bloomberg has a worth reading piece explaining a couple things about the current predicament. After the bombs started dropping on Iran, the US became a big exporter of oil to Europe and Japan to in part, only in part, make up for what formerly came out of the Persian Gulf. Now, despite recent propaganda that the US is a “net oil exporter,” the US still imports 6-7 million barrels a day. The ballyhooed net oil exporter term exemplifies how the one part of economics that could be called a science, accounting, has in recent decades become a black art, just look at the stock market or the bond market for that matter.
You should ask, how does a country importing 6-7 mbd become an exporter? Well, you raid the Strategic Reserves. Now, US Strategic Reserves came about with the 70s Oil Shocks. The reserves were meant to be just that. Along with creating the reserves, the US prohibited oil exports. However, with the Obama Shale Revolution, the president was so excited, he lifted the four decades export prohibitions. He was great, right?
Four years ago, when the Ukraine/Russian idiocy commenced, Biden started draining the reserves and never replaced. At the start of this war, they were down to 400 million barrels from an "authorized capacity of 714 million barrels." Bloomberg claims the Reserves are now down another 52 million barrels in just a few weeks. Those barrels are the exports. Despite, the president crows, being such a good thing, well at least for oil company profits, talk of reinstating export bans have started to rumble.
Free marketeers Bloomberg concludes, “Bad ideas rejected at $4 a gallon prices might get a second look at $6 a gallon.” Let me just say, all sorts of things start getting second or even first looks at $6 a gallon in these United States, including that once long shot polymarket bet MAGA storms the White House on July 4th. That bet becomes even money.
