The next US war could be another Oil war brought on by resource market instability. Given the lead time for financial markets, a GOP Congress could bring the nation into another 2007-2008 crisis just in time for the 2016 elections.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
America's energy industry is battling OPEC with a ferocity not seen since the 1980s. So far, it's not backing down.
....the recent boom in shale oil and ultra-cheap credit has left many oil producers up to their eyeballs in debt. In a highly complex world, where junk bonds are owned by banks, investors, and even pension funds, a series of bond defaults could have a powerful domino effect that might impact not just the United States, but also global credit markets.
In just the last three months, oil prices have fallen by 40% to their lowest levels since the financial panic of 2008-2009. Citigroup estimates this might provide the global economy with the equivalent of more than $1.1 trillion in stimulus.
The affects of lower oil prices on U.S. job creation
As this chart shows, the U.S. shale boom has been a major growth catalyst for domestic job creation, much larger than the rest of the economy.
Energy junk bond crisis
Another potentially large threat to the U.S. economy might be a contagion effect resulting from oil and gas junk bond defaults. For example, according to Deutsche Bank, since 2010, energy companies have raised $550 billion in cheap bonds to increase oil and gas production and fund acquisitions.
Pride
Are you proud that you have silenced edscan?
Is your "bias" showing?
When the Nazis "have" the United States",
will you then be happy ?
edscan
The Allies, Spain, And Oil In World War II
"Franco was forced to seek accommodation with the Allies, and in return for an allotment of oil that amounted to about 80 percent of Spain's consumption before the Spanish Civil War, Franco acceded to the Allied demands for neutrality."
Do economic sanctions levied by one nation against another for political purposes work? In An Elephant in the Garden: The Allies, Spain and Oil in World War II (NBER Working Paper No. 12228), researchers Leonard Caruana and Hugh Rockoff study records documenting the Allies' control of Spain's oil imports during World War II and find instructive answers.
....Spain panicked, the researchers report, fearful for its transportation systems, fishing fleets, and industries. The country had no other access to oil, and appeals to Germany, which was concerned about fuelling its war machine and industries, were of no avail. Franco was forced to seek accommodation with the Allies, and in return for an allotment of oil that amounted to about 80 percent of Spain's consumption before the Spanish Civil War, Franco acceded to the Allied demands for neutrality.
This "First Embargo" held until the latter half of 1941, when Germany invaded Russia and Franco announced that Spanish "volunteers" were to fight alongside German forces. A second phase of sanctions, which the researchers called "the Squeeze," included a one-third reduction in Spain's allotment of oil, and American demands that its inspectors be allowed on Spanish soil to monitor the importation and consumption of oil. The Americans also wanted Spain to recall its troops from the Russian front. The British were less enthusiastic about these demands, worried that they might interfere with Britain's crucial imports of iron ore and potash from Spain. For its part, Spain swallowed the humiliating conditions imposed on it, but delayed withdrawing its troops from the east until October 1943 - and even then did not recall all of them.
57 Varieties of earworm: and what of future generations of millennial draft-age 1%ers whose Main Street is Wall Street and whose police will not turn their backs on them?
Despite all of Ben’s achievements, he did not seem excited about college. He’d spend hours in his room, playing violent video games and listening to moody, satanic music (I’ll never understand today’s bands — in my day it was ABBA!). The only time I’d see Ben was late at night, when he’d emerge from his room to raid the fridge for blood Popsicles. I worked to take advantage of these “sightings” as best I could. But when I tried to engage him in conversations about his future, he replied in typical teenage fashion, with a series of shrugs, grunts, and monosyllables.
“Do you want to go to a big school or a small school?”
“Arrgh.”
“Do you want to be in a city or in the country?”
“Arrgh.”
“Would you prefer lecture classes or seminars?”
“Arrgggh!!!!”
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In his new collection of stories, “Spoiled Brats,” former “Saturday Night Live” writer Simon Rich takes aim at the self-absorbed, the hipsters, the hypercompetitive — in short, New Yorkers. In this excerpt, “Gifted,” Rich mocks the Manhattan parents who can’t see their children as anything but the most special creatures in the world.
Limitations on Iraqi exports (chiefly oil) made it difficult to fund the import of goods into Iraq. Following the 1991 Gulf War, a United Nations inter-agency mission assessed that "the Iraqi people may soon face a further imminent catastrophe, which could include epidemic and famine, if massive life-supporting needs are not rapidly met." The Government of Iraq declined offers (in UNSRC resolutions 706 and 712) to enable Iraq to sell limited quantities of oil to meet its people's needs. Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Security Council established the Oil for Food Programme via resolution 986 on 14 April 1995 as intended a "temporary measure to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, until the fulfillment by Iraq of the relevant Security Council resolutions...". Implementation of the Programme started in December 1996; its first shipment of supplies arrived in March 1997. The Programme was funded exclusively with the proceeds from Iraqi oil exports. At first, Iraq was permitted to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months, with two-thirds of that amount to be used to meet Iraq’s humanitarian needs. In 1998, the limit was raised to $5.26 billion every six months. In December 1999, Security Council resolution 1284 removed the limit on the amount of oil exported.
http://www.bbc.com/...