Oil… What’s Stronger: Reality Or Contrarian View?

Anyone that reads this blog knows I root for oil to go down, down, down… because, while that doesn’t benefit an outdated oil industry, it does benefit every other person on the planet… and, oh by the way, it benefits the planet, too.

The facts all virtually guarantee oil will keep driving lower… because of lack of demand (remember the world has shut down!)… because of geopolitical bickering… and because — go figure — the world is really, truly almost out of oil storage.

Ha, those are some pretty great facts!

So why would anyone take a flyer on oil going up now, with oil trading in the low teens?

Because that’s what contrarians do… the opposite from what everyone else thinks.

Case in point:  After oil getting absolutely crushed over the last few days, it had a rather big pop today.

So oil can go up, if no other reason than a dead-cat bounce.

Or, let’s say there’s a threat of war… like what may have happened this morning given Trump told the military to shoot at any harassing Iranian gunboats they want.  Military disruption like that tends to spike oil prices.

Or, let’s say Trump just can’t help himself and he starts levying tariffs on foreign oil.  The U.S. is (sadly) the world’s biggest consumer — by a wide margin — so tariffs would mean the price of oil would be artificially raised in a rather meaningful way.

Or, let’s say that the world gets unbelievably creative and somehow finds a lot more storage space… like old train storage containers… or old storage silos or such… because it’s the lack of storage space that caused the extreme oil pricing mania yesterday.  (“What do you mean I have to keep all the oil in my swimming pool?!”)

Or, let’s say of the 70 vaccines in testing right now, one of them makes it to the finish line relatively soon.  The real possibility of the world reopening for business would also cause oil to spike.

Or, let’s say OPEC decides that their 9.7m barrels a day cut from a week or two ago was completely and utterly insufficient… and so they call another “emergency” session and cut oil by 30, no, 40 MILLION barrels a day… way more than anyone would expect… because they know the time for horse-shitting around is over.  That would send oil prices skyrocketing.

And, let’s say Trump can’t stand being out of the spotlight for more than 12 seconds and he politically forces the Saudis and Russians to cut supply… by offering guaranteed cuts from U.S. producers (something that was left off the table the last time OPEC got together).  With oil at perceived negative prices, he just might have the go-ahead to make that type of commitment.

Note that nothing above is, “when aliens invade the planet” crazy.

So, call it contrarian or whatever, but I just don’t trust that something, ANYTHING won’t happen to interrupt the greatest “fuck oil!” party ever.

Sadly.

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Uh Oh, Is A New NRA Being Born?

I like guns.  But I don’t like the NRA… in the same way I don’t like most lobbyist groups.

I also like the military.  But I don’t like military spending… by some estimates a whopping 20% of our deficit-growing American budget.

To put that in perspective, we have enough nukes to bury the world many times over.

To put that in more practical terms, we spend more money on the military than the next SEVEN countries COMBINED.

So the last thing we need is more hawks in government.

Yet, Jeff Bezos just donated $10 million to a relatively new organization called “With Honor,” dedicated to electing military vets to office.

As our budget spirals out-of-control, I can’t think of a worse time to elect a more biased group of government officials.

Military Spending Is Killing Us

I’ve often said that running a company with too little money is easier than running it with too much money.

I know that may sound counter-intuitive.  But not having money sharply clarifies what is important and forces you to focus on just the critical priorities.

In contrast, when you have too much money, the world is your oyster (so to speak)… so everything is possible… so most of the time you end up trying to do everything… regardless of how important — or unimportant — it is to the mission.

I believe that’s the problem with our military spending.  We have too much money.  We already can bury every other country in the world with thousands of nukes… yet we feel like we need to spend more… because… we can…

… because all we have to do is just rack up some more deficit spending.

What does this mean in terms of dollars and cents?  Way over half of our government’s discretionary spending goes to the military!

If that number was way smaller, I guarantee you that we’d get a lot more done simply by being forced to focus on our top priorities.

Whether you like him or hate him, Senator Rand Paul (KY) recently wrote an interesting piece that touches on this, entitled, “Is Our Military Budget Too Small, Or Is Our Mission Too Large?“  It’s short and well worth the read (underlining is my emphasis):

     Is our military budget too small, or is our mission too large?  Since 2001, the U.S. military budget has more than doubled in nominal terms and grown over 37% accounting for inflation. The U.S. spends more than the next eight countries combined.

It’s really hard to argue that our military is underfunded, so perhaps our mission has grown too large. That mission includes being currently involved in combat operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Niger, Libya, and Yemen. We have troops in over 50 of 54 African countries. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost over a trillion dollars and lasted for over 15 years.

Unfortunately, none of these wars have been authorized by Congress, and Afghanistan and Iraq have gone far beyond their original authorizations. And when all combined, these wars are draining our treasury. A country can only remain strong as long as it remains solvent.

In Afghanistan, we spend about $50 billion each year. Where does the money go? For troops and weapons, of course, but billions have also been spent on roads, bridges, and schools for Afghanistan. Seems a shame that bridges, roads, and schools crumble here while we persist in nation-building abroad. Maybe it’s time to do some nation-building at home.

Don’t get me wrong. I supported going after the jihadists who attacked us on 9/11. But that mission is long past over. We killed the plotters and their supporters. The question we need to ask is, “When will the Afghanis be able to defend themselves?”

Most conservatives believe welfare should be temporary, and that ultimately the able-bodied must stand on their own. Foreign assistance is no different. If the U.S. coddles and comforts and does all the fighting, the Afghanis will never become self-sufficient. People argue that the Taliban will take over Afghanistan. Not if the Afghanis stand and fight. We’ve given them 15 years of training and billions of dollars of the most sophisticated weapons known to man. Surely, the time for them to step up and fight is now.

Is it worth one more American life to try to build a nation for people unwilling to fight for their own country?

The recent 21% increase in the military budget will buy a lot of weapons, but it won’t win the war in Afghanistan. President Obama already tried that. Obama increased our troops to around 100,000, and, sure enough, the Taliban ran and bided their time for the inevitable troop withdrawals.

The Taliban now controls a sizeable area of Afghanistan. I just can’t, in good conscience, ask our soldiers to go back to Afghanistan to take back the same villages they’ve taken twice, first in 2002 and then again in 2010.

Candidate Trump wisely ran on a platform that the Iraq War was a mistake. But President Trump is surrounded by Generals who’ve never seen a war that they believe cannot be won. And so the wars continue.

My hope is that President Trump will remember Candidate Trump and tell the Generals who surround him: “Enough is enough. I’m bringing the boys home.”

 

And, I would add, “… so we can stop spending so much money on non-prioritized military stuff… so we have a hope of balancing our OUT-OF-CONTROL deficits!”

 

Sad How The Boston Tragedy Will Be Pimped

It is absolutely tragic what happened in Boston.

Yet, I haven’t been able to bring myself to engage in the popular discussion.

In fact I have, for some unknown reason, actively not watching things on the news about it.

Until now.  Because I figured out why.

Tragically the publicizing of these kinds of events is used more for military fund raising than anything else.

The more outrage and hysteria there is, the greater military budgets will swell.

It’s an awful, awful way to think… but this is what happens.

I’m not saying we should bury our heads in the sand… nor am I saying that we aren’t living in a progressively more dangerous world.

What I am saying is that whatever we’ve been doing isn’t working.

We live in a world of guns and explosives.  We helped create and actively protect this world.  Yet, when people use guns and explosives inappropriately, we’re always so shocked and stunned.

Kinda silly, no?

Ugh.  Prepare to have your shoes x-rayed this summer at your local 4th of July parade.  More freedoms being suppressed under the banner of protecting freedom.

If I Were Running For President I’d Fix Everything

If I were running for president, I’d promise to fix everything.

Seriously.

How would I do it?

I would mandate natural gas… the energy alternative that we have about 100 years worth in the U.S.

That would allow me to promise — and deliver — everything:

(1)  More money in consumer’s pockets:  Natural gas is cheaper than black oil… by about 1/3 to 2/3rds to consumers.  But anyone that reads this blog knows that the price of energy goes well beyond simply what we spend on energy for our cars… it affects the price of everything.  Lower energy price is the greatest — and most effective — stimulus in the world

(2)  Jobs:  A new/updated infrastructure would be necessary… as would new/updated vehicles.  Someone has to build all that stuff

(3)  More corporate profits:  More jobs and more money in people’s pockets mean more spending.  Cheaper energy also means less input costs.  Economy improves.  Stocks rise… and so does everyone’s 401K plans

(4)  Health:  Pollution is — literally — choking the world… just look at the rise of breathing-related illnesses like asthma over the last few decades… but unlike dirty fossil fuels, natural gas burns clean

(5)  Environment:  No more ugly, toxic oil spills… let’s make the Gulf disaster our last

(6)  Smaller military:  Reducing our dependence on foreign oil means less “geopolitical” conflicts… as in, if we didn’t need oil, how much would we really care about the Middle East?

(7)  More money in Uncle Sam’s pockets without raising taxes:  All those new jobs create tax revenues.  Also would require less spending on entitlement, health, and military programs.  Bottomline is a dramatically improving national bottomline

(8)  Oh, yeah, an extra $1 trillion per year — money that we usually send out of the country each year, mostly to countries that hate us — is kept in America

Now that’s the candidate I would vote for!