An Introduction to Political Economy

Last month, when I looked across the vast gray wasteland of the calendar page ahead and noted that there were five Wednesdays in November, I asked readers—in keeping with a newly minted but entertaining tradition here on Ecosophia—to suggest a theme for the fifth Wednesday post. This blog being the eccentric phenomenon that it is, […]

Putin’s Mr. OPEC Becomes an Oil Market Player

When they meet, they often drive in the same car. When they make a visit together, they tweet the world smiling selfies. And when Alexander Novak, the Russian energy minister, and Khalid Al-Falih, his Saudi counterpart, speak they exchange so many pleasantries that oil investors talk about a “bromance.” While neither man is the ultimate arbiter […]

Ballistic missile intercepted over Saudi Arabia capital Riyadh

A MISSILE fired at Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh was shot down moments before it hit a royal palace today. Saudi air defences intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards the city, Saudi-owned channel al-Arabiya reported in a news flash quoting a Saudi-led military coalition official. twitter 7 The aftermath of the blast seen in the skies […]

Population Controls Are Ill-Advised and Inhumane

For thousands of years, population control meant violence. War, famine, disease, and genocide served as the primary powers that nature and the state could wield to limit the expansion of the world’s human footprint. However, medical and cultural advances, such as readily available birth control and women’s liberation significantly changed the conversation around not only […]

The myth of a fossil fuel phase-out

How the world uses energy is a hot topic for a warming planet, and fears of pollution and resource strain have produced a virtual arms race of energy-efficiency strategies. From the European Union to China, economies are vowing to reduce their energy intensity with the help of technological innovations and legislative changes. Yet, despite these […]

Mysterious militants raise new fears of insurgency

A new armed group has appeared in northern Iraq, causing locals to fear that IS is regrouping and re-branding for guerrilla warfare. Iraqi soldiers gather near their vehicles as smoke rises from oil wells in the Hamrin field east of the city of Tikrit in Salahaddin province, March 4, 2015. (MAHMOUD RAOUF/Reuters) By Araz Mohammed, […]

Kuntler: Taking Liberty

You can see where this has been going. The wholesale un-personing of “powerful men” in the arts, media, and politics for sex “crimes” ranging from rape to stealing a kiss communicates a hunt up the food-chain that leads to the Golden Golem of Greatness tweeting his wicked id out in his White House lair. The […]

Oil Has Cursed Venezuela

Most Venezuelans have a love-hate relationship with oil. I personally was never one of the haters—I was one of the lovers. When I was very young, I would go after school to my mother’s office at Meneven, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, where I was fascinated by the processes of production and refinement, […]

Saudi Arabia Will Give Cash to Poorer Citizens Hit by Austerity

Saudi Arabia will begin cash transfers to low- and middle-income citizens this month, part of efforts to cushion the blow for families as the kingdom overhauls its oil-dependent economy. Monthly cash payments will start on Dec. 21 to compensate Saudis affected by measures including subsidy cuts and new taxes, officials said Tuesday. The cabinet approved […]

Iran Ready for Broader Cooperation With China

I ran is ready to engage in cooperation over major projects with China, a former member of the Majlis Economic Commission said. “Iran and China should take full advantage of the opportunities and resources and carry out fundamental planning for cooperation and joint investment as soon as possible and we are totally ready to take […]

Trump’s Interior secretary: Shameless tool of oil and gas industries

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke loves to portray himself as a humble, outdoorsy man of the people, a loving steward of the purple mountain majesties and fruited plains so dear to the American people. In defending the Trump administration’s recent choice to drastically shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, Zinke claimed, […]

Kunstler: Abracadabra

And so, as they say in the horror movies, it begins…! The unwinding of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Such an esoteric concept! Is there one in ten thousand of the millions of people who sit at desks all day long from sea to shining sea who have a clue how this works? Or what […]

Iraq and Iran sign Kirkuk oil swap deal

Iraq has agreed to swap up to 60,000 barrels per day of crude produced from the northern Iraqi Kirkuk oilfield for Iranian oil, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said on Saturday. The agreement signed by the two countries provides for Iran to deliver to Iraq’s southern ports, on the Gulf, “oil of the same characteristics […]

Sale of Arctic oil leases goes bust

The federal oil-lease sale promoted as the largest ever in Alaska’s Arctic Reserve sold only seven tracts, or 0.8% of the 900 tracts offered, undercutting Republican arguments that they can help pay for their proposed $1.5 trillion tax cuts for the wealthy by selling oil leases in the Alaskan wilderness. ConocoPhillips Alaska and Anadarco E&P Onshore LLC jointly submitted […]

The Washington swamp is filled with ethanol

December marks the tenth anniversary of the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), and its wildly expansive Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), better known as the ethanol mandate. President Trump recently paid homage to the RFS, as all feel they must do to play politics in Iowa. Too bad. Trump, who claims he […]

Doomsday Machine is in Trump’s hands

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, thousands of pages of the Pentagon’s secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, exposing the government’s lies and helping to end the war. President Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, called Ellsberg “the most dangerous man in America.” Now, at 86 years old, Ellsberg is revealing […]

Kunstler: Stranger Things

   The hidden agenda in the so-called tax reform bill is to act as stop-gap quantitative easing to plug the “liquidity” hole that is opening up as the Federal Reserve (America’s central bank) makes a few gestures to winding down its balance sheet and “normalizing” interest rates. Thus, the aim of the tax bill is […]

Jerusalem Riots Spread…

Jerusalem riots spread to Indonesia and Malaysia as terror group Hamas promises ‘day of rage’ over Trump over embassy move Donald Trump sparked protests after announcing the US would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel RIOTS sparked by Donald Trump’s provocative move to recognise the Holy City of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital have spread to […]

China sues Venezuela’s oil company over unpaid bills

China is turning up the heat on Venezuela. One of its biggest state-owned companies has filed a lawsuit against Venezuela’s oil company, PDVSA, in a U.S. court, claiming millions of dollars it says it is owed. Chinese oil and gas company Sinopec is suing PDVSA for $23.7 million plus interest and damages, accusing the Venezuelan […]

China’s Push to Trade Oil in Yuan Faces a Key Hurdle

China’s moves to set up trading oil in yuan have sparked enthusiasm about what could be a shift in the global financial system: a reduced role for the U.S. dollar. Players like Adam Levinson, founder of hedge fund Graticule Asset Management Asia, call it a “huge story” to come. But with policy makers prioritizing market […]

Maduro Unveils “The Petro”: Venezuela’s Official Cryptocurrency To “Overcome Financial Blockade”

Three months ago, in a not entirely surprising move meant to circumvent US economic sanctions on Venezuela, president Nicolas Maduro announced that his nation would stop accepting dollars as payment for oil imports, followed just days later by the announcement that in a dramatic shift away from the Petrodollar and toward Beijing, Venezuela would begin […]

Kunstler: What Now?

“Contact with Russians.” Grown men and women, doubling and re-doubling down on a political fantasy, repeat this prayer hour after hour on the cable channels and Web waves as if trying to exorcise a nation possessed by the unholy hosts of Hell. But such vicars of the news as Wolf Blitzer, Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd, […]

Saudi Graft Settlements Could Reap Billions

Saudi authorities estimate they may be able to recover between $50 billion and $100 billion from settlement agreements with suspects detained in an anti-corruption crackdown that has implicated prominent princes, officials and billionaires, a senior official said. Suspects are being offered settlements to avoid trial, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. […]

Saudi Arabia’s anti-corruption purge is all about life after oil

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s decision to arrest scores of the country’s most prominent officials and business elites under the banner of an anti-corruption purge last week was a remarkable power play, an unprecedented move designed to concentrate all authority in the Gulf state in one man’s hands. But the radical shake-up was also […]

Saudis and Trump: Gambling Bigly

“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.” –  Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, first Prime Minister of United Arab Emirates Try this simple mental exercise. Imagine a hypothetical Middle […]

The Saudi Coup Signals War And The New World Order Reset

For years now, I have been warning about the relationship of interdependency between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and how this relationship, if ended, would mean disaster for the petrodollar system and by extension the dollar’s world reserve status. In my recent articles ‘Lies And Distractions Surrounding The Diminishing Petrodollar’ and ‘The Economic End Game […]

Oil seen as real prize of Iran’s Kurdish adventure

After helping Iraq stifle a Kurdish push for independence, Iran is now positioning itself to take control of oil exports from the region’s giant Kirkuk field, with the first deliveries expected within days, officials and trading sources said. FILE PHOTO: Flames emerge from flare stacks at the oil fields in Dibis area on the outskirts […]

The War That Would Transform Oil Markets

The oil pipeline resumed operations in a matter of hours, but the war of words is heating up. Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Khalid Al-Khalifa said on Twitter that the “attempt to bomb the Saudi-Bahraini oil pipeline is a dangerous Iranian escalation that aims to scare citizens and hurt the global oil industry.” A spokesperson for Iran […]

Kunstler: What Now?

It must be exciting to wake up on a gilded bed somewhere in Riyadh and realize that you are Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, mover and shaker of Middle East order. Actually, exciting just to have woken up at all. Perhaps Prince MBS checks to make sure that there aren’t seventy-two virgins in the […]

Saudi “Deep State” Prince Bandar Among Those Arrested In Purge

According to a new report by Middle East Eye, Prince Bandar bin Sultan – Saudi Arabia’s most famous arms dealer, longtime former ambassador to the US, and recent head of Saudi intelligence – was among those detained as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) so-called “corruption purge” that started with the initial arrests of up […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy