oil

Idiots abound and Abroad

poetoftruth politics , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Two things in the news are bothering me.
Only two?
Well only two to speak of today… and a bonus fact at the end.

First, Trump went to China and was not met by the leader by his vice. No one said anything and the visit occurred normally. When Obama arrived, the mobile ladder was “broken.” So, Obama had to leave the plane by the back door. Neither President understood exactly what happened. The western press does not understand the Chinese culture so they said nothing. And the Chinese Press did not have to say anything, as everyone understood this loss of “Face.” It’s a form of prestige or cultural currency. In both cases, both Presidents were treated as lesser being, humiliated by Ji and made to look like fools to the people of China by this diminishment of their positions. And best of all, being clueless they smiled and walked right on in.

Trump, for all his idiocy has one goal in mind. To leave a lasting mark on the USA to say for future generations he was there. And I am here to tell you, he already has. He has destroyed American trade, American respect and the world order all for his own vanity and senility. The USA has lost the world order and no matter who they elect to replace Trump, that is never coming back. From Canadian trade diversification, to Europe boldly saying “no” to all companies American. To wit, or twit as we speak of what Trump has done. Using his power on over reach, he had Mastercard and Visa block the credit cards of all members of the world court. Though they deny this, I tend to believe the guy who has to carry cash and letter from the court Justices. EU has ordered that a new system based in Europe be created to avoid Visa or Mastercard.

They froze the world courts documents and emails by revoking their licenses. This trapping all data inside the American web. So Europe is switching to software created from Linux and wholly owned by Europe. This means a loss at minimum in the billions of dollars for Silicon Valley. The American made Tesla was called the worst car to own after only 4 years with its failure rate higher at 4 years then every other brand at 10 years. No wonder sales are down 45% across the board for Elon.

The war in Iran, long overdue. Trump has been working his way to have the courage to invade. He tore up the Obama deal just because it had the name Obama on it. He bombed Iran just cause the Israelis wanted him to. So now they are shutting down oil production. The result? Worldwide switch to alternative energy. Even in the USA there are more people employed in alternative energy then in oil and coal. Cuba under the oil block aid from the USA is undergoing the fastest conversion ever seen anywhere in the world going from fossil energy to Sun and wind energy. As they have no other choice in the matter, the ships are brining in as much as they can carry to set up Geo-thermic, Wind and Solar powered arrays to power the country. Think of all those birds Trump is killing. For someone doing his best to push fossil fuel, he is single-handedly the biggest pusher to go green. One of the biggest benefits is in Canada. For example Aluminum. Ours, made in Quebec with good old Hydro electricity is called green and by buying it from us, It passes European taxes to make things greener. Sure it may cost more for purchase but with the lower taxes for being green, it makes things cheaper.


With the high tariffs, so many contracts were cancelled, so new contracts with Europe popped up. Now American companies want to get back a semblance of normal but those contract they tore up? Sorry Charlie, get in line. Oil? Segway to our next topic, can now be shipped east. Asia used to get oil from the Persian Gulf, has had to look East for supplies. They are wandering around with cash in hand to buy anything we will sell them, and they are paying market rate. Not the discounts we were selling to the Americans before but market rates. Alberta is going to have a banner year of surplus as everyone wants their oil, as much or all of it as they can get. Trump can tariff all the Canadian oil he wants to. Americans, ordinary people, pay that. Asian will pay more for it anyway, and they will even come and get it. All in all, Trump will certainly go down as the worst President in history. And that is a fitting tribute to his legacy!

Next, speaking oil riches, let talk Alberta. The separatist movement was just kicked out of the running by the court. Premier Danielle Smith said she would use the “Notwithstanding” clause to reverse the court. But this “card” is the “UNO reverse” for all things legal. Tell me you don’t know what you are talking about without telling me you don’t know what you are talking about. The Notwithstanding clause? It applies to a limited number of rights like the right to freely practice religion or sexual orientation. It does not apply to every legal ruling. Likewise, it does not override Treaties or obligations. And those were not considered in this whole separatist project. Not only that, but it does not make a magic wand and change all the bad things those nasty radical judge do like upholding the law. But being clueless on the public stage is one of her gifts to the world. How embarrassing to be a citizen in Alberta.

But not to be out done, hold my beer. The separatists have taken the electoral list for the entire province and put the entire thing on the dark web. That means every single adult who is eligible to vote in Alberta will for the rest of their lives have the worry of ID fraud. All the necessary information use to validate their voting eligibility is on the dark web and that can be used to scam banks, or any other company out of millions, or billions. And the hits will keep on coming for generations.

But wait! The leader of one the fringe groups is refusing to hand over basic information like donor lists and how much money he has gotten from whom to fund his separatist drive. Seems he does not want to name the unnamed billionaire who has been paying him to do this. The same billionaire paying people in the Netherlands to make ads, videos twitter postings etc advocating for separation. The only line drawn so far was to give the local idiot a 500 billion dollar credit line. See if he had asked for something small say 50 million, he might have gotten it and been able to take out millions before they noticed the scam.
Oh, and rumour is this local guy won’t be around much longer. He got his Green card so he is off to the USA.

As one author said on net, if he were to have written any of this, no one would have bought his books as this it just too beyond the fringe.

And lastly, the bonus fact. The polling for the liberals has Carney however near the 50% range. Including 7 seats in Alberta. Imagine that.

Ukraine

poetoftruth Uncategorized , , , , ,

Talking about the economy. The numbers are scary in Russia.

The people withdrew in 2025 from savings 1 trillion rubles from banks.
Which makes no sense to me, so how can that number make sense to anyone else. In USD, it’s about 340 billion dollars American. Which seems to me to be a lot. Another way to compare would be with the total government budget. Well, what the government says is its budget. They budgeted 340 billion rubles for the year 2025 according to Wiki. Is that because they need the extra cash, or because they no longer trust their money in banks?

In terms of assets, one of the largest Russian banks has assets of a little over 50 trillion rubles. But two things to keep in mind, how much of that money is frozen in foreign assets, and how much is locked up in loans. Our next topic. The Russian banking system is under stress. The government pressured the banks to loan money to industries that supplies weapons and armour for the war effort. Those companies in turn are paid for by the Russian government contracts. So, see if you spot the problem, The government gives banks money to give to arms industry, then pays the arms industry to make weapons. So, who is doing what again? Or is it simpler to see the money comes from the government on both ends? The government has to find that money somewhere. And it is not from imports or exports. Sanctions.

How bad is it? Let’s talk gas.
Both the USA and Russia export oil and gas. The price of gas in the USA is lower than in Russia. Not by a lot, mind you, within a range of 10 cents to 25 cents per unit. So not a great difference. Except, the USA pays in American dollars, where Russians pay in paper money called rubles. Oh, and one other thing, The average American income is about 7–8 times what the average Russian makes. Yet they pay the same price for gas?

In terms of industry, the Russian Education department has created a new program for students. You can get high school credit for working in military arms factories. In fact, you can just start working now, and forgo the whole book learning. Just work in the industry and forget the need to read or write. You can start your new factory career at the ripe old age of 12. And in 5 years you can get your high school degree. And a real one, not some fake thing. Issued by the state. Verified by the state.
Why?
The simple answer, you do not need to read or write if your life span will end at 18 in a Ukrainian ditch somewhere.
Russians don’t have enough people to work in factories any more, all excess workers drained to the front line. So they are brining them out of class to work for so many years before they join the military and sadly end up dead. Russia has a legal rule for military. If you volunteer, very stupid of you, you can be sent anywhere in the world to fight and die for the motherland. If you are drafted, and all males at the age of 18 are, you cannot be sent outside of Russia. Isn’t that safe? Well no. Russia lost territory to Ukraine a few years ago. So all draftees are sent to fight in that area. And according to Uke Intelligence, captured draftees are sent anywhere the government wants along the front line regardless of status.

Russians are paid to volunteer, except we are finding that they are no longer paid up front. They get paid over the course of their enlistment. Why? It saves the government so much money. If you are dead, no more money. If you are severely wounded, well, sorry you did not serve out the term. No money, and commanders are ordering solders to hand over bank cards and pins before battle so they can drain any money left in their accounts.

Industry, is running out of necessities. So they are shutting down shifts and closing the plant on Wednesday to give people an extra day off… without pay.

Russian banks report that 13% of all business loans are considered compromised, i.e. not being paid fully, properly or on time. 26% of all loans are listed in the same condition. One industry CEO described the growth rate for the company as negative, but still as growth. People who report bad news find windows very tempting to jump from, or is that pushed? So, we can assume that the numbers reported are worse than they seem and more than they expect.