Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
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PAGE 27 of 479
There’s No Magic Solution To The Slowdown In U.S. Output Growth
Trump's assumptions about U.S. oil’s fungibility and supply elasticity are flawed.
By Alex Kimani - Feb 05, 2025, 7:00 PM CST
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Theres-No-Magic-Solution-To-The-
Slowdown-In-US-Output-Growth.html
An executive order signed by President Trump titled ‘Unleashing American Energy’ signed on 20 January detailed oil’s importance in restoring U.S. economic and military security. The executive order describes oil as an abundant low-cost resource that has been held back by regulations, and that can now be freed to fuel a renaissance in manufacturing thanks to the cost advantage of cheap oil.
Commodity analysts at Standard Chartered have pointed out that Trump’s view of U.S. oil hinges on several assumptions: that oil is fungible and hence, for example, substitution between foreign heavy crude refined in Illinois and light sweet Permian Basin crude is easy, and the supply curve for unconstrained U.S. oil is highly elastic with a low marginal cost. StanChart says these assumptions are flawed, arguing that the U.S. oil supply curve is likely to remain stubbornly high and steep rather than low and flat.
StanChart has predicted that the dramatic slowdown in U.S. oil production growth that we witnessed in 2024 will continue over the next two years. (That is exactly the opposite of Trump’s predictions.)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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How Trump Lost His Trade War
By David Frum | February 5, 2025, 1:42 PM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/trump-tariffs-mexico
-canada/681579/
Round one of Donald Trump’s trade war has come to an inglorious end. The United States has suspended its threats against Canada and Mexico in return for border-enforcement measures that Canada and Mexico either were doing anyway or had done before without making much difference in the flow of drugs. What can Americans and others learn from this costly episode—other than not to repeat it? The following:
1) American tariffs hurt Americans.
President Donald Trump has always insisted that tariffs are paid by foreigners, that they put free money into the U.S. Treasury. Trump’s week-long tariff war confirmed that nobody else in the U.S. government or in American business believes him. The National Association of Home Builders published a letter to the president predicting that his tariffs would raise the cost of housing construction. Automobile stocks slumped because investors expected Trump’s tariffs to add thousands of dollars to the cost of each new vehicle. The senior Republican in the Senate publicly pleaded for potash to be exempted from tariffs so as not to increase fertilizer prices for his farm constituents, belying Trump’s claim that the higher prices would be paid by the exporters.
2) Tariffs beget retaliatory tariffs.
When Trump paused tariffs on Canada and Mexico, those countries halted their retaliatory actions. But China is proceeding with a range of tariffs against U.S. exports, reserving more retaliation for later. Americans are already paying for previous rounds of Trump trade actions against China. In the first Trump presidency, China cut its purchases of U.S. soybeans by 75 percent over a single year in 2018. Brazil in 2018 overtook the United States as the world’s largest soybean producer. During the campaign of 2024, the vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance lamented that the United States had become a net importer of food. He omitted to mention that a reason for this status was precisely the harm done to U.S. farm exports by Trump’s first-term tariffs.
3) There’s not much point in negotiating trade treaties with the United States.
Trump renegotiated NAFTA during his first term, replacing it with his USMCA deal. Now, in his second term, he has reneged on that. Trump’s version of NAFTA offered a range of legal ways to terminate the agreement; he did not use any of them. He did not even pretend that Canada or Mexico had somehow defaulted on their end of the bargain. He simply ignored the deal and proceeded with his tariffs under a series of contradictory excuses.
Days earlier, Trump had issued a flurry of threats against Colombia, which also has a trade agreement with the United States. Again, Trump ignored all the legalities of the treaty; again, he used trade as a weapon to resolve nontrade disagreements.
Mexico and Canada have oriented their economies to the U.S. under first NAFTA and then USMCA. That probably will not alter even after Trump’s episode of blackmail. But other countries, farther away, may wonder whether there’s any point in signing deals with such a bad-faith partner as the United States has become.
4) “Friend-shoring” is a fiction.
As relations have worsened between the United States and China, many in the U.S. government have looked to friend-shoring as a way to keep most of the benefits of free trade. The idea is to redirect U.S. purchasing power away from hostile China and toward more trustworthy partners. The assumption behind the term is that those partners will gladly trust the United States.
Trump, Vice President Vance, and their allies in Congress have threatened unilateral military action against Mexico; Trump himself indulges in speculation about the forced annexation of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark and about absorbing Canada as a 51st state.
Maybe that’s all just a lot of ugly talk. But the president has made clear that so-called friendship with the United States does n
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Nobody cares about your propaganda.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Oh, David Frum.
Another neocon with an axe to grind.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
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Quote:Trump and Trumptards were described: "Trump is a uniquely emotionally needy president, prone to impulsive vindictiveness." Those three character flaws: emotionally needy, impulsive and vindictiveness have caused Trumptard divorces, financial failures, and other suffering.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody cares about your propaganda.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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I became aware of doctors dropping out of Medicare when I found the allergist/immunologist I was referred to no longer accepted it. AFA your figures... you are correct. Altho California is ranked in the 2nd highest category of non-participating physicians, 98% accept Medicare as payment in full. With the recent bout of inflation, this is a figure that bears watching. Fortunately, its being watched.
*****
I already posted extensively about oil, and the problem that our light sweet crude poses for our refineries. I concluded that altho we could continue to export oil, since we can't use it exclusively we would be advised to import heavy oil from some place convenient, like Venezuela.
Furthermore, oil recovered by fracking drops off by 95% in 5 years (according to one study) and must constantly be "restimulated". Fracked oil is necessarily more expensive to recover than conventional oil.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
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Quote:Canada accounts for a staggering 61 percent of all imported oil to the US. Canadian crude is heavy and from tar sand. Trump, knowing nothing about oil refineries, was going to place tariffs on crude oil.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I already posted extensively about oil, and the problem that our light sweet crude poses for our refineries. I concluded that altho we could continue to export oil, since we can't use it exclusively we would be advised to import heavy oil from some place convenient, like Venezuela.
Which country sends more heavy crude to USA?
https://www.google.com/search?q=which+country+sends+more+heavy+crude+t
o+USA%3F
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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@camillecardonaa 12/04/2024
I just found out that only 1.5% of Japan’s population is Christian and I’m heartbroken.
https://www.threads.net/@camillecardonaa/post/DDJ8tkepy-K?hl=en
Hi. Japan's homicide rate is 0.7 cases per 100K. United States homicide rate is 5.7 cases per 100K.
Japan's unhoused population in 2024: 2,820. United States unhoused: 653,104.
Japan also has one of the highest food security rates in the whole big world. Meanwhile, in the US, 18 million people are food insecure.
Maybe this Sunday you can ask the Christians what their bible says about poor people and murder. Sorry about your heart.
JoeJustice @JoeJustice
Japan has one of the lowest murder rates, lowest crime rates, and highest longevity rates. Difficult to measure, but arguably the most polite and considerate of others. But only 4% of the population believes in God or a supreme being. So, how does it work? It’s called Dotoku, a class in all grades, modeled by teachers, and supported by all public services. It teaches how to act and respond in many different situations for a harmonious society.
5:31 AM · Jan 25, 2025
https://x.com/JoeJustice/status/1883115588752716076
America compares poorly to Japan because Trump and his Trumptards behave disgracefully. Democrats cannot fix what is wrong with people psychologically opposed to decency.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
@camillecardonaa 12/04/2024
I just found out that only 1.5% of Japan’s population is Christian and I’m heartbroken.
https://www.threads.net/@camillecardonaa/post/DDJ8tkepy-K?hl=en
Hi. Japan's homicide rate is 0.7 cases per 100K. United States homicide rate is 5.7 cases per 100K.
Japan's unhoused population in 2024: 2,820. United States unhoused: 653,104.
Japan also has one of the highest food security rates in the whole big world. Meanwhile, in the US, 18 million people are food insecure.
Maybe this Sunday you can ask the Christians what their bible says about poor people and murder. Sorry about your heart.
JoeJustice @JoeJustice
Japan has one of the lowest murder rates, lowest crime rates, and highest longevity rates. Difficult to measure, but arguably the most polite and considerate of others. But only 4% of the population believes in God or a supreme being. So, how does it work? It’s called Dotoku, a class in all grades, modeled by teachers, and supported by all public services. It teaches how to act and respond in many different situations for a harmonious society.
5:31 AM · Jan 25, 2025
https://x.com/JoeJustice/status/1883115588752716076
America compares poorly to Japan because Trump and his Trumptards behave disgracefully. Democrats cannot fix what is wrong with people psychologically opposed to decency.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Japan has a completely homogeneous culture.
You're comparing apple to a cornucopia.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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All the ways Elon Musk is breaking the law, explained by a law professor
There are a lot of them.
by Andrew Prokop | Feb 6, 2025, 11:05 AM CST
https://www.vox.com/politics/398618/elon-musk-doge-illegal-lawbreaking
-analysis
David Super, an administrative law professor at Georgetown Law School, recently told the Washington Post that so many of Musk’s moves were “so wildly illegal” that he seemed to be “playing a quantity game, and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once.”
I reached out to Super so he could walk through this quantity game — so he could take me on a tour of all of the apparent lawbreaking in Musk’s effort so far. A transcript of our conversation, condensed and edited for clarity, follows.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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