[idiom]

Ayn Rand would be pissed.

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lan Shrugged: Greenspan, Ayn Rand and Their God That Failed

In a historic moment, former Fed chair Alan Greenspan acknowledged he had been wrong for years to assume that government regulation was bad for markets. Whoops—there goes decades of Ayn Rand down the drain.
by David Corn

In a congressional hearing room on Thursday, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, one of the most influential civil servants of the past century, saw his stock plummet—and his entire career lose its moorings. More important, the ideological battle over economic theory and the role of government in markets—a fight that has played out in the current presidential campaign—took a historic turn.

With members of the House oversight and government reform committee blasting Greenspan for his past decisions that helped pave the way for the current financial crisis, he acknowledged that his libertarian view of markets and the financial world had not worked out so well. "You know," he told the legislators, "that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." While Greenspan did defend his various decisions, he admitted that his faith in the ability of free and loosely-regulated markets to produce the best outcomes had been shaken: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

In other words, whoops—there goes decades of Ayn Rand down the drain.

[Daphne64]

With that in mind I bought some JPMorgan puts. I figure that stock hasn't been pounded yet like most of the other big stocks, and they do have that massive silver short position on COMEX...

We'll see how it turns out!

[Daphne64]

With that in mind I bought some JPMorgan puts. I figure that stock hasn't been pounded yet like most of the other big stocks, and they do have that massive silver short position on COMEX...

We'll see how it turns out!

[mattduke]

Jim Rogers: Sell Sterling. It's finished.: You mean to tell me paper money loses value?

independent

[jdmartin]

I've always wanted to visit England...now might be a good time to go~

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'J')im Rogers joins Zero Hedge in being highly skeptical about just how credible Saudi's call for a 1MM + boost in its oil supply is: "Saudi Arabia has been lying about the reserves for decades. Saudi Arabia the last two times said they are going to increase production and they couldn't increase production. Don't fall for that. The reason oil is going up is the world is running out of known reserves of oil."
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/jim-rogers-saudi-arabia-lying-about-being-able-increase-its-oil-production

[evilgenius]

Yeah, there's probably going to be a war.

[anador]

isn't there already a war?

not to mention the ME is like a kicked anthill right now

[Cid_Yama]

Let me tell you an interesting history of OPEC. In 1986, they established a quota system that based each countries cap in production on the the amount of oil remaining in their reserves.

This created an incentive to report more reserves remaining and a disincentive to report any decline in reserves.

Most every one of the OPEC countries doubled their estimate of reserves and have not been claiming any decline in reserves remaining even though they have been pumping for years. As evidenced by this funky looking chart.



Only So Much Oil

[Cid_Yama]

Everyone has know that they have been lying about their reserves since 1986, but everyone has been willing to go along with the lie, because they want that oil.

Simple as that. Cantarell has now crashed, and the other supergiants are right behind them. And they will continue to report incredible remaining reserves until they crash.

Because of the advanced recovery going on at all of the supergiants, none of them will slow decline, they will all crash like Cantarell.

[Cid_Yama]

Canada's jump on the chart after 2000 is the oil sands. Which shows we are even cheating in our reporting, by including unconventional oil.

We don't want to admit it. So we lie even to ourselves.

This is evidenced by the repeated reports of Oil Shale reserves on this website, which isn't even oil but Kerogen. It can be turned into a synthetic oil at great expense and low EROEI, but it isn't oil.

[Daniel_Plainview]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'J')im Rogers joins Zero Hedge in being highly skeptical about just how credible Saudi's call for a 1MM + boost in its oil supply is

[Cid_Yama]

Last time they raised production it was all heavy with high sulphur content.

[JohnRM]

I started noticing that in the early 2000s that mid east petroleum reserves never changed much. I used to use the CIA Fact Book a lot and it was always around 260 billion bbl for Saudi Arabia. I always wondered about that, even before I took an interest in Peak Energy Awareness.

[TheDude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'L')et me tell you an interesting history of OPEC. In 1986, they established a quota system that based each countries cap in production on the the amount of oil remaining in their reserves.

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'L')et me tell you an interesting history of OPEC. In 1986, they established a quota system that based each countries cap in production on the the amount of oil remaining in their reserves.

[Cid_Yama]

The OPEC Race For Quotas And Now For Statistical Credibility
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t was in the autumn of 1986, after world crude oil prices collapsed, that the issue of OPEC's distribution of production quotas arose. OPEC's crude oil output then had fallen to 16m b/d and it was very difficult to divide that number among the member-states. With some members demanding a "scientific" method of allocating quotas, OPEC spent the next two years in fruitless discussions. Experts proposed such factors as oil reserves, annual budget needs, production capacity, the country's size by area or population, etc.

As member-ministers agreed oil reserves could be a factor, huge revisions of reserve numbers ensued. Thus, OPEC's proven reserves rose from 530 billion barrels in 1985 to 637 billion in 1986 and to 755 billion in 1988. Some countries increased their reserves by 100% overnight and others went as far up as almost 200%.

That raised doubts about the authenticity of the numbers and OPEC lost credibility, especially since no support documents were required for the process. Some members - especially those who counted on their sovereignty for resource nationalism - considered reserves a state secret.

OPEC finally dropped the reserves and other "scientific" parametres for quota allocations and considered excess production capacity as a guideline for the setting of production limits, or targets. Soon reserve revisions became less sharp and less frequent.

Writing in Gulf News of Oct. 18, Saadallah al-Fathi, an Iraqi downstream expert now based in Dubai who, in 1986 became head of the Energy Studies Department at the OPEC Secretariat in Vienna, recalled: "It was finally realised that it is what hits the market that matters most and not what lies underground or what the Iraqis would call the ability to load the truck with melons' quota allocation is a political accommodation process among member countries, nothing more and nothing less".

"Therefore", he added, "it is very hard to understand the reasons for sharp reserves' additions announced in the past few years and especially in the past few weeks. Take Canada, for example, where reserves were close to five billion barrels in 2005 but Canada started reporting 30 times as much in what it called tar sands oil, unconventional oil whose production goes up and down with the price of oil.

"This prompted Venezuela to revise its oil reserves up from 80 billion barrels in 2005 to 211 billion in 2009 on account that its unconventional heavy bitumen deposits had become economical to produce due to rising oil prices.

"Will these numbers go down if oil prices collapse? I doubt it".

[rockdoc123]

just to clear up some misconceptions

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ost every one of the OPEC countries doubled their estimate of reserves and have not been claiming any decline in reserves remaining even though they have been pumping for years. As evidenced by this funky looking chart.

[pana_burda]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'T')his created an incentive to report more reserves remaining and a disincentive to report any decline in reserves.

Most every one of the OPEC countries doubled their estimate of reserves and have not been claiming any decline in reserves remaining even though they have been pumping for years. As evidenced by this funky looking chart.



Only So Much Oil