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Page added on March 17, 2015
Winners And Losers At The End Of The Era of The $100 Barrel
What if the world never again sees sustained prices for oil over $100 per barrel?
What if—absent exogenous black-swan events like major wars—oil never sells for much more than $50 per barrel for decades into the future? Who wins? Who loses?
The short answers: The winners are consumers everywhere, and American business that produce oil. The losers are nations that are oil monocultures, and businesses or policies everywhere anchored in expensive oil.
Is such a scenario likely? Or is the current price collapse a kind of inverse bubble?
History is often meaningfully predictive. In the roughly 150-year history of oil prices there have been just three short periods where oil sold for over $50 per barrel (measured in inflation-adjusted terms). It happened first for about 20 years after 1860 at the dawn of the oil age, followed by nearly a century with oil cycling around $20. The second price bubble, triggered by the ’73 Arab oil embargo, lasted only about a decade followed by nearly 25 years during which price averaged about $35/bbl. The third, recent price bubble has lasted just under a decade.
One should consider the possibility of at least another 20-plus year run at prices sub $50. Maybe it’s another one-century run.
But is there enough oil in the world and can technology extract it at low cost?
We don’t intend here to fully deconstruct the persistent promotion of the myth of imminent limits. (I’ve covered this, as have others.) Suffice to note that there are thousands of billions of barrels of physical hydrocarbon resources in the United States alone, never mind our friends north and south of our borders.
The impact of technology on “reserves” is easy to see in hindsight. In the 1970s when we were told that America was running out of oil, official U.S. reserves stood at about 35 billion barrels. From 1970 to the present the U.S. produced roughly 200 billion barrels. And official U.S. reserves today? About 35 billion barrels. It’s like a magician pulling an unending ribbon from a top hat, except that ‘magic’ here is technology, not some chimerical planetary limit.
Technology unleashed the oil era in the first place. Technology propelled each subsequent expansion in capabilities to find, obtain and transport oil from ever-deeper levels in the earth and ever-different geologies. And we know that it was U.S. shale technologies that upset the global apple cart. (For a view on the U.S. transformation and export implications, see my previous column here.)
Essentially all, not some, of the net new production in world oil supply over the past half-dozen years came from America. The U.S. shale businesses—it bears noting, using resources on state and private lands; output from federal land declined—not only offset declining production elsewhere, but also met demand from economic growth, and then some (hence the current storage challenge.) World prices would have soared instead of collapsing this past year absent supply growth in the U.S.
All this suggests that for scenario planners in both industry and government the salient question is: do you think we are at the end of technology? Or, alternatively and not credibly: do you think that we are uniquely at the end of technology just in the oil fields?
New technologies invariable offer lower cost ways of doing old things. This is a centuries long race to the bottom. All businesses compete essentially by offering the same or better service or product at a lower cost. It has always been thus. At least it has been in free market economies.
Let’s stipulate that it is at least as likely—if not arguably more likely—that technology forces have not finished playing out. And the U.S., and others (in particular our friends in Canada and Mexico) will continue to deploy new oil technologies.
We already know that a lot of the shale fields are comfortably profitable at $50 and even $40/bbl using yesterday’s technologies. Tomorrow’s technologies will lower that breakeven. This will be good news for the thousands of American shale oil businesses where growth, and survival, depend on the basic market principle of making a profit, even at lower prices.
But oil monocultures need, and have become addicted to, extreme prices in order to survive.
According to the World Bank (and others have made similar estimates) nearly every member of OPEC, and Russia, requires oil to be priced between $100 and $180/bbl to fund their national budgets.
The effects of the U.S. oil tsunami are still playing out. Consider that two thirds of all the world’s oil is produced by just 10 countries, only the first two of which are net importers: America, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, UAE, Venezuela, and Mexico. Just three of this group of 10 are market economies and one of those, America, will before long join the other two democracies, Canada and Mexico, as a net exporter.
And for these three market economies in the big 10, while the oil industry is important (and in the U.S., recently, the brightest growth sector) it is far from determinative of national economic survival. The oil business as a share of GDP is under 10% for Canada and the U.S. and only slightly more for Mexico. Meanwhile for the other seven in the big 10, oil is responsible for 25 to 50% of their entire national GDP, and from 70 to 95 percent of all merchandise exports.
Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, recently said that America would never replace Saudi Arabia as an oil exporter. That may or may not be true, but it is functionally irrelevant. What really matters is who tips the scales on the balance between supply and demand, and thus determines price. The finger on the scale used to be exclusively the purview of a few oil monocultures. It is clear now that the game has permanently changed because of shale technologies in the hands of thousands of American companies. And there is nothing more frightening to a monopolist than a thousand hungry entrepreneurs.
51 Comments on "Winners And Losers At The End Of The Era of The $100 Barrel"
penury on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 2:30 pm
Do you think this author is stupid? or just earning a paycheck. Not worth reading past the first sentence.
Davy on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 2:39 pm
Pen, Forbes is straight from the bowls of the DC/WS propaganda machine. I guess we expect trash out from trash in.
buddavis on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 2:45 pm
I guess $100 oil is right around the corner after a “KOD” article like this.
Steve Challis on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 2:57 pm
So America and its friends will continue to produce enormous and exponentially increasing amounts of oil into the indefinite future?
Unfortunately some people who read Forbes might actually believe this rubbish; I wonder if the author does.
Energydebt on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 2:59 pm
It was not the technology that allowed the extraction of oil. It was the coal and the production of steel pipes etc.
And it is the cheap oil that allows us to extract the hard to get oil.
There is no technology without the appropriate sources of energy.
The end is near, although the world stage of this drama may look very futuristic…
Plantagenet on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 3:05 pm
The oil glut is real. The price of WTI oil really is ca. $45 bbl. If the sanctions on Iran are lifted, even more oil will flood into the market, driving prices still lower.
Yes—its conceivable that we’ll see years of low oil prices. I don’t see this oil glut lasting decades, but it might go on for a few years more if new Iranian production gets added into the current glut of production.
GregT on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 3:24 pm
Oil glut. Oil glut. Oil glut. Oil glut.
When you start to develop the nervous twitch planter, you should seek medical help ASAP. At this point, you should probably refrain from driving, or operating heavy machinery.
dave on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 3:24 pm
Plant, if the price does not recover to north of $50 per barrel, production from many sources will be suspended. The oil glut you speak of is a direct result of billions of folks on the planet being unable to afford much oil at even $40 per barrel. On a positive note, a lot less carbon is being pumped into the atmosphere than might otherwise be the case.
GregT on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 3:47 pm
dave,
There’s no point. You’re flogging a dead horse. (with a newer and much more appropriate avatar)
rockman on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 4:03 pm
“But is there enough oil in the world and can technology extract it at low cost?” OK…here’s an extremely prejudiced answer to that question. Prejudice based on 40 years of exploring for hydrocarbons. It’s not only no but hell no. LOL.
But really. I’ll say it again for the umteenth time: oil/NG is easier to find and produce today than ever before in the history of the oil patch. I’ve given the technical reasons many times so I’ll skip until someone asks something specific. The problem is the lack of economically viable conventional reservoirs. Honestly guys, I tease about it but I really am one of the very best at squeezing the last bbl of oil out of the ground at a profit. I’m splitting my time between two companies now desperately trying to find enough reserves to justify the existence of both operations. And I was just as desperate when oil was $100/bbl. In fact, at the lower prices there may be opportunities to develop more drillable prospects at $50/bbl then $100/bbl. I’ll skip that long explanation and just say that cannibalism is alive in the oil patch today and growing. LOL. R
Remember my tale from the 80’s when the oil patch was flat on its back: I generated a drilling program that produced the highest rate of return of anything I had done since my career started more than 10 years earlier. Profitability is based on the price of oil/NG. It’s based on the difference between what it costs to get it out of the ground and what you sell it for. And thanks to the collapse of oil prices the costs to develop oil/NG has just gotten a lot lower. And will continue getting lower.
If it weren’t for high oil prices justifying the utilization of EXISTING TEHCNOLOGY, such as hz drilling and frac’ng, at least half the pubcos wouldn’t exist today IMHO. A speculation I fear will be proven in another 12 months if prices stay below $60/bbl. I’ve grown very tired of ever ass that has a platform ignoring the obvious need for higher oil prices to justify shale development. Even the great Marcellus Shale play which has greatly boosted US NG production is now showing clear signs that depletion has killed that growth spurt. Even though more rigs are drilling than ever in the MS the net gain in production over the last 12 months has been insignificant. A good bit of new production but the rapid decline of the heritage MS wells has reduced the net gain to almost zero. Which isn’t to say the MS won’t still see a lot of activity but at best it will keep production relative flat at current price levels.
Banjo on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 4:03 pm
The supply exceeding demand is millions of US Euro and other global citizens without a job or a low paid job that can’t afford to consume add much as in the past. No glut just demand destruction
Plantagenet on Tue, 17th Mar 2015 4:20 pm
Rock —- good luck finding profitable plays on $50 bbl oil. If anybody can save those two companies its you!
rockman on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 6:52 am
“Profitability is based on the price of oil/NG” Of course I meant to type “…isn’t based…”
I might find another trick survival pony today like I did back in the 80’s. NG was selling for 1/3 of what it is today but I applied a common offshore tech that wasn’t being used in the onshore arena I was playing in. Not only did I generate a nice ROR but I also completed 23 out of 25 wells. Others saw what I was doing and joined in for a mini drilling boom for the next 5 or 6 years…hundreds of successful wells drilled. Good news for the Rockman and other small independents. The bad news: the net effect of those efforts weren’t significant with regards to US energy production. I see the same potential dynamic developing today: given the lower cost thanks to the EFS downshift my costs will be much lower. But I’m not talking about bringing 1,000 bopd wells to the table but more like 50 to 100 bopd. Not big wells with regards to the NET decline of the shale plays as much of those trends go dormant.
Purely survival mode for the Rockman et al. As far as developing significant future oil reserves needed by the rest of you folks: screw you! Nothing personal…just business. LOL. While the debate raged over how profitable the shale plays were that didn’t matter to the consumer: production increased. Of course the downside for the consumer was that the refiners passed on the extra $360 BILLION PER YEAR cost for the oil they were buying. But at least a lot of that revenue was going to US companies and citizen workers. And now the consumer can enjoy the lower prices. Which will also mean less domestic production, increases in foreign trade payments, lower fed revenue from their leases, etc.
The hump in the production plateau consumers rode up the last 6 years has led them to a nice view from the top. Unfortunately many can’t see that they are about to slide into a long downhill glide. And most will be looking out the side windows and won’t notice the road ahead falling away from them.
buddavis on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 7:35 am
There are profitable plays at $50 oil. But like Rock said, nothing to move the needle on US Production. Just enough to move my needle.
Revi on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 9:28 am
Rockman ha spoken. It’s interesting to see that the insider’s view is. It looks like we’ll be seeing what it’s like to be on the downslope soon.
Lawfish on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 9:43 am
“We don’t intend here to fully deconstruct the persistent promotion of the myth of imminent limits. (I’ve covered this, as have others.) Suffice to note that there are thousands of billions of barrels of physical hydrocarbon resources in the United States alone, never mind our friends north and south of our borders.”
I stopped reading immediately after that bit of corn-porn.
shortonoil on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 10:04 am
“Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, recently said that America would never replace Saudi Arabia as an oil exporter. That may or may not be true, but it is functionally irrelevant. What really matters is who tips the scales on the balance between supply and demand, and thus determines price.”
Like a religion there are those who are willing to go to their death to support the old Econ 101 concept that the price of oil is controlled by where you find the barrels. These investors just lost $7 billion in 10 days in pursuit of that elusive barrel:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-17/energy-junk-bond-revival-cut-short-as-7-billion-lost-in-10-days
How many $billions will be lost before they begin to realize that there is something fundamentally wrong with their assumptions is difficult to say? Chances are that many of them will have moved out of their MacMansions into a brand new cardboard box before they begin to come to terms with the reality that things “are” different this time. Admitting that the value of a barrel of oil is not preordained by some edict of the gods is going to be a tough reality to swallow. Admitting that depletion has usurped the masters of the game a tough truth to embrace. Most will just keep pounding away; “when the only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail”. Convinced that things will must go back to normal they will just keep sealing up their coffins. The end of an era is not often recognized until it has become long past.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
rockman on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 10:55 am
Reva – “It looks like we’ll be seeing what it’s like to be on the downslope soon.” I suspect it will take a good 18 to 24 months for the average Joe6pack to begin to catch on. Some of will see the signs much earlier but the various spinmeisters will daze and confuse the J6P’s for a long time. All any J6P will pay attention to is the price of gasoline. That single metric alone will convince him that we’re not in any trouble at all.
Lawfish – But it’s true that there ar many billions of bbls of oil RESOURCES in the US. Just as there are millions of ounces of gold RESOURCES floating around in the world’s oceans.
shortonoil on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 11:05 am
There are profitable plays at $50 oil.
Oil just hit a $41 handle, and eased back up to $42 after an API announcement of a 9.3 mb build last week. Production will have to be cut substantially to bring the price back to this curve:
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm
Production of oil creates a demand for oil, because it takes oil to produce oil. Presently about half of the production. To reduce inventory by 1 mb requires a production cut of 2. It now looks like prices may fall until lifting costs can no longer be met. This downward trend is likely to continue for another year, and by the time it is completed a lot of the industry will be completely gutted. Much of the capital needed by the industry comes from the value of the oil that it holds in the ground. At $42 that is not much. Don’t expect any kind of a future Phoenix like rise from the it. This bird is getting plucked!
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
Davy on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 11:06 am
Rock, if your definition of J6P holds up then I believe Marmico otherwise know as the Marmi would fit that description of the obsession with gas prices but then there is his Freddy Fluff obsession. I imagine he drinks Merlo like his hero Boehner. Hum, Rock can you make an exception for the J6P description to included Merlo drinkin Feddy Fluff chart lovin cats obsessed with gas prices?
BTW, why is he so disrespectful to you like he has a clue about where oil comes from.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 11:19 am
“why is he (marmico) so disrespectful to you…”
For the same reason that truly disturbed individuals always lash out at the most likely perceived source of their pain. rockman brings the truth, that truth is like sunlight to a vampire for the marmicos of the world — it burns so baaaad!
BTW, rockman has a great point. As long as gas prices stay “low” — AND as long as the stock market stays “high” — there might be millions of J6P’s living in tent cities and scrounging garbage cans for dinner, but they’ll blame themselves because hey, the economy is doing just fine, it must be ME!
marmico on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 11:29 am
Production of oil creates a demand for oil, because it takes oil to produce oil. Presently about half of the production
Why do you continue to peddle your ETP bullsh*t, you buffoon.
You are so full full of sh*t appealing to your master’s degree in mathematics that I had to make simple formula for your bullsh*t ETP.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 11:33 am
marmico — It is entertaining to watch you squirm and lash out in your tortured state of abject denial. You have so completely discredited yourself on this forum numerous times that there is nothing you can say that isn’t interpreted as complete idiocy from the get-go. Why is it so damn important for you to constantly return to this forum and make a fool out of yourself by vigorously denying facts and realities that clearly torture you? We can all see that you’re fighting internal demons, but fighting without a full deck sadly for you. Still, even the greatest fools in the world eventually get a clue, don’t they? Well, in your case, maybe not.
Davy on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 11:39 am
Marm, I guess in that case per the Marmi, oil grows on trees. You are so smart Marmi I didn’t realize that. Please show me the Freddy Fluff chart that shows the oil production per tree and how that is rising exponentially with no end in sight. I want to be awed with the personification of brilliance your aura exudes.
Bob Owens on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 11:44 am
The Tech the Author is referring to suffers from diminishing returns; a little noticed dimension in oil drilling. The Deepwater drilling done today requires seriously high tech and costs correspondingly seriously high $$$s. This high cost also produces less oil over the well lifetime. This increases the cost per barrel extraction. Each barrel also has as higher EROEI which adds to the cost. These costs are now seriously costing the oil companies; future Ultra Deepwater drilling will be even more expensive and will not be happening. The costs have gotten too great. The high-tech drilling failures are now showing up all over the globe. Shell with its Arctic drilling is the most obvious. We also have the demand shrinkage due to current slowing economies. All this should put a quick end to oil (a few decades).
marmico on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 11:46 am
ETP is crapola. It is simple arithmetic that most of the posters here learned in middle school. Please rush to the defence of the ETP multiplication and division formula.
It is time for you to latch on to another religious belief. Maybe the quart shy can come up with a new one rather than pontificating about the discredited one.
Davy on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 12:03 pm
Marm, you can rightly discount ETP some but you are unable to explain away the jist of the analysis. You are pretty good at ignoring natural law but hard to ignore that it takes significant energy to produce energy. Do you care to put a number on that energy amount you think is needed to produce oil? Please do so because it is boring this morning and we need a laugh.
Pops on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 12:36 pm
Oil is finite, but that doesn’t mean it will run out this afternoon.
EROI is falling, but that doesn’t mean it is near negative.
Distinctions do matter, that is if one is actually going to act. OTOH, if this is just a computer game (or opportunity to sell something) then by all means go ahead and co-sign whatever hyperbole sounds most dramatic.
Apneaman on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 12:44 pm
Davy, Many folks turn to cargo cult type thinking when reality becomes unbearable. marm invented his own form of BAU Numerology as a psychological defense mechanism. I’m seeing all sorts of pseudo-mathematicians ghost dancing all over the intertubes. This is just the beginning. It is going to get way more strange and entertain as we continue with the great unraveling.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 12:49 pm
Apneaman — Amen to that. What we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. Denial of reality takes on many forms, all of them ugly and grotesque and ultimately self-defeating.
Davy on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 1:09 pm
Yea, APe/NR, the “Great Unravel” is going to be (IS now) an Alice and Wonderland on steroids especially now that we are clever monkeys that are global and 24/7/365.
Marmi, is a beautiful example of smart enough in denial. Quite interesting really if it were not for the fact that this whole BAUchrades is supplying me with life giving sustenance.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Northwest Resident on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 1:53 pm
The FED made their much awaited “forward guidance” statement today and dropped the word “patient”. Trading bots and assorted automated software interpreted this to mean a microscopic increase in interest rate “may” be postponed. Result, stock markets are soaring again!!
In Game of Thrones parlance, this would be called “a mummer’s farce”.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-18/here-reason-why-stocks-are-soaring-or-farewell-recovery-again
Apneaman on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:05 pm
Guy’s, when it has become so so obvious that BAU is over and never coming back and you get that perfectly natural feeling to verbally express your vindication – I told you stupid MutherFuckers this was going to happen!- don’t say it. It won’t matter and it will probably lead to resentment and violence too. If you have already been expressing your concerns in public then some people will always resent, and in a shoot the messenger way, blame you. Others will recognize your wisdom and seek out your council. Many people will wake up, but it will be after the fact (that’s just the way we work). I believe we are fucked as a species, but it could be a few generations, so in the mean time – how do you want to live? The more people you inform now the better the chance of avoiding a totally brutal transition. Even people who are resistant to your evidence will connect the dots after the fact. It is hard for people to imagine collapse when everything “appears” normal – the idea is especially abstract for the unlearned. I would suggest to keep diplomatically plugging away at people and planting seeds. It will not prevent collapse, but it may help avoid the worst case scenario after it happens.
Davy on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:10 pm
NR, this world today is so bizarre especially what finance has become. I am old enough to remember when finance was boring like insurance. Now it is like Hollywood or photoshopping in Cosmopolitan.
What is so bad about this is it is the foundation of BAU. A foundation that is central to what feeds us. To think BAUtopians take little pause to this is amazing to me. It reminds me of the king gone mad. You know this can’t last.
I have a nose for unreality being a doomer who has rejected denial. This dog and pony show called the fed and her circus called the markets is truly peak entropic decay IOW a fantasyland.
Davy on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:12 pm
Damn APe that was almost poetic and not your usual misanthropic self, lol, great comment.
Perk Earl on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:21 pm
Ok guys, forget about Ocontrare Marmaduke for a moment. Today the Fed made a statement about a possible interest rate hike, but couched it in double talk, i.e. the economy must jack up a bit more to justify rate hike.
In other words, they know they can’t raise rates or all hell will break loose (loan defaults), but they have to act like it’s possible to maintain some semblance of validity.
But get this, supposedly if we go by Govt. stats unemployment is at 5.5%, growth is at 3+% and inflation is about 2%. So what’s holding up a rate hike? Fear of defaults leading to recession, that’s what. Apparently they don’t give their own stats much credit – uh duh, I wonder why?
After all these years with Zirp, QE 1-3, cash for clunkers, Harp I & II, a stock market headed to the Moon, a supposed real estate recovery, so on and so forth there’s still not enough of a “recovery” to raise rates?! That’s pretty bad. My God what does it take to get the patient up and walking again?
Notice below the seesaw effect of how they couch what is stated. There’s some up but there’s also some down, left but also right, slantways but also crossways, in effect cancelling out each suggestion made so they aren’t committed to a rate hike after all, which they know darn well will upset the apple cart.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-usa-fed-idUSKBN0ME0D520150318
Fed opens door for rate hike even as it downgrades economic outlook
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday moved a step closer to a much anticipated first rate hike since 2006 by removing “patient” from its language, although markets bet on a September hike after it downgraded the expected pace of growth and inflation.
Stock markets rallied after the Fed statement, while the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield dipped below 2 percent for the first time since March 2 and the euro rose against the dollar on the more dovish forecasts that appeared to argue against a June move.
“The committee anticipates that it will be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate when it has seen further improvement in the labor market and is reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium-term,” the Fed said in its statement.
Perk Earl on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:40 pm
http://www.maxkeiser.com/
Max & Stacy talk about American Eagle oil co. (Bakken Fracker) missing their first bond payment on 175 million dollars and lost 96% of their stock value which is now at .20 cents a share.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:40 pm
Perk — Exactly. Like I said, “mummer’s farce”. Google it, if you aren’t a Game of Thrones junky (like me).
Or, like Peter Schiff says:
Forget patience, QE4 is coming: Peter Schiff
“The U.S. economy is sicker than ever,” said Schiff. “And the Fed is going to launch QE4 for the same reason they launched QE3, 2 and 1. They’re going to try to stimulate the economy. Now that they stopped QE, the air is coming out of this bubble.”
I don’t personally put a lot of weight in what Peter Schiff says, but he happens to be correct this time, IMO, especially when he says:
“People are just oblivious.”
FED pretending to be serious about raising interest rates fits in nicely with the freak show performance that we’re all being treated to, courtesy of TPTB.
So, QE4 likely? For the wealthy and the well-to-do, that’s a clear message that the party is scheduled to continue until further notice. The drunken revelry is non-stop while outside the golden halls decked in splendor, the world burns down around them.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102512859#.
Davy on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:52 pm
NR, QE is just an acronym for wealth transfer. ZIRP is an acronym for free money IOW 1%er welfare. It is curious because they don’t have an acronym for reality maybe because reality is reality.
buddavis on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:57 pm
I do not know where I read this, maybe on here, maybe on another site or an article, but it was a very simple statement that summed up all the shale plays and their economics. “For all of the increased production on the books for these companies, it is not showing up in the bottom line.”
marmico on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:58 pm
Guy’s, when it has become so so obvious that BAU is over and never coming back and you get that perfectly natural feeling to verbally express your vindication.
forget about Ocontrare Marmaduke for a moment
Both of you are an effing innumerate retarded albino apes, looking for acceptance in the dunce colored tribe.
ETP is bullsh*t.
ETP is bullsh*t.
Get another religion.
Dredd on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 2:59 pm
Forbes is a bit confused about when life, or is it death, depends on the price of poison (Petroleum Civilization: The Final Chapter (Confusing Life with Death) – 3).
Northwest Resident on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 3:13 pm
marmico — Intimately familiar with effing innumerate retarded albino apes, being a prime example of one himself, and projecting his persona onto others as we see in his not-so-clever post. And looking for acceptance is exactly what marmico has given up on long ago, having been repeatedly rejected and scorned in his attempts to socialize with others, he has embraced the horror of his lone-wolf retarded albino ape reality. With every post, he is simply trying to be the worst that he can be, and as must be equally true for his entire life, failing miserably even at that.
marmico on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 3:16 pm
Peter Schiff. That’s a great money manager bullshi*tter for ya retards.
Become a prepper and lose all your investment money at the same time. Does Shiff even have a single fund that is not 10% lower return than its benchmark.
Losers!
Losers!
Apneaman on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 3:50 pm
marmico, I don’t even know what ETP is. Nor do I give a fuck. No doubt, you could blow me out of the water at complex mathematics marm (I am only proficient in practical trade math) but, as Kunstler and others have pointed out, you are among many westerners who have been sucked into believing that you can control the world through counting. Seems to me that some of history’s most prolific mathematicians were nut jobs with highly dysfunctional personal and financial lives. Too much of any good/useful thing leads to destructive imbalances. Btw, no one has adopted the data/control mentality more than white male American males. We do it here too, but not to quite the same degree.
How Isaac Newton went flat broke chasing a stock bubble.
http://www.sovereignman.com/finance/how-isaac-newton-went-flat-broke-chasing-a-stock-bubble-13268/
Perk Earl on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 6:51 pm
“a mummer’s farce”.
“A mummer is like an actor, and what do actors do for a living? They pretend to be others, they lie, they present a “farce”.”
Got that off of Google. Didn’t notice your post NR, before posting or would have referenced it. Just got back from long drive to and from San Diego and I’m bouncing around. Found the best time to make the drive though but it takes guts! Start from San Diego North on Hwy 5 at 10:00pm and get home in No. CA at 7:30am sunrise. That way misses most of the traffic jams.
Although…hit 580 once up to the bay area at 5:30AM and 6 lanes of traffic as far as I could see up a long sloping rising hill at night was a sea of red tail lights. Ouch! It was surreal. The Sun wasn’t even up yet and this many people were willing to jam into an aggressive game of beat the clock?! I felt sorry for them and worried for humankind. That 580 is a reality shocker of just how far we took expansion into the ethers.
Anyway, yeah, actors playing roles talking out of the side of their heads, led by Yellen. Talk about orchestrated routines. They must practice numerous times at the Fed to get that seesaw effect down pat. It’s a crock and we all know their stuck between ‘Fantasy Land’ and ‘Off The Cliff’. How long can they win symbolic academy awards fooling the masses?
Davy on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 7:54 pm
Perk, I feel that surreal in traffic also. In fact when in the city after a few weeks alone on the farm I see things other don’t. It is as if I am out of my body looking into a unreal existence of my fellow mankind. It disgusts me at times but then I realize it is what it is then I settle back into their world as one of them.
Perk Earl on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 8:41 pm
NR, QE4? I think at this point they would be too embarrassed to admit it, so they might do their magic without telling us much.
Davy, yeah, it’s surreal, then like you say it’s oh well might as well get back into it. That scene at 5:30am after driving all night though was weird – shocking. It’s an image tattooed to my memory.
Apneaman on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 9:28 pm
Perk,ignorance is over attributed. More people know, at least part of it, than are letting on. Everyone is acting in some fashion. I’ll go to dinners and other social gatherings and I often feel like yelling at people “Why the fuck are we all acting so normal!?” Like many adults I have asked little kids and teens what they want to do/be when they get older. I cannot ask that anymore because it makes me feel like the worst mummer farcer ever.
Apneaman on Wed, 18th Mar 2015 9:35 pm
Speaking of surreal traffic, try the loop around Atlanta 285. More times than I care to remember, I spent over an hour just to go 10-15 miles on that trap in rush hour(s). Extra fun in the Georgia summer (95F) when my A/C went Kaput. The asphalt was so hot I had to leave my window rolled up.