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-Land of the Free
Zeihan: The American Retreat, Part I: Oil
2019-06-26
[Zeihan mail list]

In a pair of posts U.S. President Donald Trump asserted:





Diction and statistical issues aside, these tweets comprise the 92 most important words used by anyone in the past three decades. Trump just made clear the days of America protecting global shipping – particularly of oil shipping in the Middle East – are over.
Or at least about to be seriously renegotiated: “This is what is costs us us to keep the world safe; what will you do to compensate us? We will no longer do it for free.”
There is an easy argument to be made that the United States’ shale revolution will make the United States a net exporter of crude oil in the current calendar year, but to understand just how critical that is for the Americans we must first pick apart just how horrible that is for everyone else.
Head to the link to read!
End result? Today’s oil markets comprise the greatest concentration of risk in the most critical economic sector at the most vulnerable part of the global system and no one can do anything about it if the Americans leave.

And that’s just the beginning.
Oil is not the only thing being shipped around the world. A goodly portion is either raw materials and finished goods being shipped to American customers or raw materials and finished goods being shipped from American suppliers. So the American Navy will not completely get out of the business of patrolling the sea lanes.
Posted by:3dc

#4  Oil is not the only thing being shipped around the world. A goodly portion is either raw materials and finished goods being shipped to American customers or raw materials and finished goods being shipped from American suppliers. So the American Navy will not completely get out of the business of patrolling the sea lanes.

True, but I think Zeihan's point is that the security of the Persian Gulf -- not world shipping in general -- will be a subject of American choice.

And actually, if Zeihan is correct on the effects of increased risks of oil supplies to the world economy, then even the protection of world shipping could decrease and become a matter of choice to America as the volume and "range" of that shipping decline.

Certainly, economics is not the only factor here.

We don't want to leave a vacuum that the Chinese might fill, for example.

But if Zeihan is right, then our options will be greater and better.
Posted by: charger   2019-06-26 17:30  

#3  You have to use easier concepts and words for 3rd grade comprehension, Bobby.

"Dirty burn, good."
Posted by: Skidmark   2019-06-26 12:19  

#2  Somebody should send this article to AOC. And Gov. Newsom

You have to use easier concepts and words for 3rd grade comprehension, Bobby.
Posted by: Mullah Richard   2019-06-26 10:29  

#1  As counterintuitive as it sounds, we need more carbon-heavy fuels to get to a lighter-carbon world. And that means coal and oil. A lot of oil.

So fossil fuels are important? Somebody should send this article to AOC. And Gov. Newsom.
Posted by: Bobby   2019-06-26 08:03  

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