Oil Addendum

I just wanted to add a couple oil numbers that are important.

The United States is not oil self-sufficient. We still import, using EIA numbers from 2023, take them for what you will, 8 million barrels a day. Only ten percent comes from the Persian Gulf, while half comes from Canada, who the president's not bombing, yet.

In 2015, because of shale production, America's Shale president, Barack Obama (he was great wasn't he?), got rid of the 1970s ban on American oil exports. Today, however it's accounted, we export a million and half barrels or so a day.

The greatest difference between the 1970s and today is the world is immensely more economically interdependent. The US, not as dependent on oil imports, is much more dependent on goods produced and transported by cheap oil from across the planet. If the US somehow manages, and stopping the bombing is the easiest and best way here, but if US manages to avoid oil shortages, it will not avoid the price rises and product shortages from country's around the world that can't.

Speaking of cognitive stupor, the NYT has a piece hubristically titled, If You Want to Know What Happens in an Oil Crisis, Look at Asia. Much of Asia and much of Europe are greatly and even entirely dependent on oil from the Gulf. The last two weeks has seen a mad scramble in both places for oil and cutting demand.