WEBVTT - Is the Economy About to Explode? 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:05.640 All Zone Media. 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.400 Welcome to it could happen here, a podcast where the 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.240 economy is falling apart and do it exciting ways faster 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.120 than I can write about it. I am your host, 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:21.040 Mia Loong. Welcome to what has turned into a kind 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:25.480 of emergency? Is the Economy Collapsing? Episode? This episode was 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.000 originally supposed to be about tariffs, but while I was 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.680 writing the tariff episode, a bunch of shit happens, like 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:35.400 we invaded or run and KOs By, which is the 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.520 leading Korean stock market index, had its largest single drop 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:44.519 in its entire history, which triggered its circuit breaker. Circuit 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:46.600 Breakers are a thing that stock markets have now where 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.280 if the stock market collapses, like if it loses points 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.600 too fast in a certain period of time, all trading 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.360 will automatically stop for a bit, so it hits its 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.400 circuit breaker. The Tie index also hits at circuit breaker. 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.640 And then in the wee hours of sort of Monday 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.600 morning American time, I start seeing a bunch of people 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:10.920 posting that Coachy hit the circuit breaker, and I'm very 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:17.800 confused because that happened on Wednesday, right, like this already happened. No, no, no, no, wrong, wrong, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:23.119 happened again. It's two circuit breakers in like four sessions. 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:29.440 So this has turned into an unbelievable crisis. Yeah, so 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.240 we're gonna get the tariff episode at some point, talking 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:34.800 about the Supreme Court tariff rulings and stuff like that 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.319 that will happen. There's a lot of interesting stuff there. 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.200 But right now we need to answer the question is 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:47.040 the economy about to collapse? And tendively it has been 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:51.200 held off at least for a little bit. Now. This 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:56.280 is being recorded early Monday afternoon on March ninth. By 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.240 the time this goes out on March tenth, who the 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.320 fuck knows what will have happened. But let's talk about 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.120 what happened in the run up to all of this, 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.520 because it's very important. So in the lead up to 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.799 the open of the American markets, we had a massive 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.760 spike in oil futures, like one of the largest single 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.440 day spikes in oil futures ever. It looks like it's 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:21.320 going to be the apocalypse for the markets. And the 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.280 reason it looks like this is because and this is 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:31.320 something that's genuinely astounding. So one fifth of the world's 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.080 oil moves through the strait of farmos we're going to 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.720 talk about this in more detail later. And obviously there 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.560 is now a war, which means that you can't move 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:46.680 oil through it, and people suddenly realized that, oh my god, 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.680 this is going to raise oil prices. Now. When I 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.080 was originally writing this episode in the housey in days 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.200 of Friday of last week, part of this episode was 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.440 about why oil prices were not spiking because they didn't 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.119 spike and be upon the start of the war, right. 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.240 And I was very confused about this because the explanation 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:07.680 at the time was that people were like, Oh, I'll 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.840 be fine. The US Navy can escort oil tankers through 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.720 the straight ocrewer moves. No, they can't, like the narrowest 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.359 part of it's twenty three miles wide. Like what are 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:17.040 we doing here? 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:17.240 What? 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.919 Wait, Like forget drones. You can hit these oil tankers 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.680 with like a fucking trebuchet. What are we doing here? 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.120 What was the administration telling to oil companies? Right? And 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.440 then a few days later everyone collectively realized, oh my god, 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.760 we can't move oil, and yeah, no, shit, you can't 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:40.080 move oil. Jesus Christ, like this is unbelievable stuff from 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.400 the people who are in the oil markets, from the 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.320 oil executives, from the golf monarchies, from all of the 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.400 people planning this, Why would you think this wouldn't happen? 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.960 And we're gonna get into that actually in a little bit, 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.440 because there is apparently a reason why they thought this 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.200 was going to happen, which is some combination of just 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:02.320 pure lies and a full belief and some of the 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.880 worst strategic planning I've ever seen in my entire life. 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.720 But you know, the ability to close the straight upward 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:12.000 news is the reason why even if you are like 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.400 President Donald Trump, the kind of person who doesn't give 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.400 a shit if you know your army burns a running 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.840 and children to death, right, even if you don't care 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.919 that you fucking bombed a fucking school, you don't fight 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.599 this war because it fucks with the money. Now, in 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.000 anticipation of what looked like it was going to be 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.800 just a market pounding, Trump gave a phone interview with 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:43.520 CBS's senior White House correspondent Weija Jang, who posted this 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:48.000 on Twitter. This is her reporting of his statements. This 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.880 is from Donald Trump quote. I think the war is 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.320 very complete pretty much. They have no navy, no communication, 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.599 they've got no Air Force. He added that the US 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.560 is quote very far ahead of his initial three to 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:05.360 four timeframe. You know, he also said that ships are 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:09.960 moving through it now, but he's also quote thinking about 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:15.520 taking it over, which what is officially conquering the strait 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.599 up a moves instead of merely like protecting it with 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.400 the American fleet assets. This is completely unhinged. And that 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.800 he also said, quote they've shot everything they have to shoot, 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.479 and they better not try anything cute or it's going 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.880 to be the end of that country now. Okay, So 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.320 the part of this right that went to the markets 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.719 is that he thinks the war is over now. The 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:41.840 part of it where he says if Iraan fights back 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:44.720 in any way, quote, it's going to be the end 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.120 of that country apparently did not hit the markets. The 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:50.640 people running the markets are really really dumb. They think 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.360 and act like herd animals. This is, I guess slightly 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.440 an insult to herd animals because herd animals react that 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:57.840 way for a reason. These people are human beings. They 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.080 have the capacity for logic and reason. They have the 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:01.919 same capacity for logic and reason that we do, and 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.159 they still act like this. But this has calmed the 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.240 markets down, and it's sent oil prices back down again. 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.320 We're going to get into why that's kind of nonsense 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.479 in a little bit, but it's also worth noting in 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:18.400 terms of Trump saying the war is nearly over, that 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:23.240 every single other quote Trump has said about this war 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.200 has been He's in this for the long haul. He's 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.839 thinking about troops on the ground, he is not going 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:30.679 to get bored with it. He doesn't care the gas 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.040 prices are going up. Someone asked his press secretary about 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.039 whether he's ruled out the draft, and she said no, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:38.120 he hadn't, which is I mean, like they're not going 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.280 to do a draft, But like, that's ridiculous, why would 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:45.279 you say that. It's also worth noting that, so he 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.360 has a two hundred and fifty year anniversary commission thing 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.040 that he set up that he's very very excited about. 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:53.960 That's like it's America's two hundred and fifty year blah 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.760 blah blah blah blah. And that commissions like one of 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:01.120 their big people was ringing the opening bella shake this morning. 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.000 So you know, I suspect that there's a lot of 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.560 sort of motivated reasoning here going on with Trump saying, oh, 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:09.400 that's fine, It's gonna be fine. The war is nearly over. 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:15.400 Do do do do do? Okay? So, I quite frankly 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.160 do not believe the President when he says that the 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:19.240 war is nearly over. I mean, I guess maybe there's 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.840 a scenario where everything we're about to talk about causes 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:27.160 a crisis that is large enough to, you know, actually 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:31.320 set off Trump pulling out of the war under pressure 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.840 from his allies in the region, which is to say, 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.400 the air of monarchies. I don't know to what extent 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:44.200 that's actually going to happen, but let's talk about what 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:49.760 the crisis here is. So the US's war against Iran 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.440 has triggered what could be the start of a full 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.360 on energy crisis. The energy crisis has been postponed for 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.800 one day, I guess as of again time of recording, Monday, 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.760 March ninth. But this could be the start of a 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.360 fall on energy crisis. And it's not just me saying this. 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.440 Here is the subtitle of the Wall Street Journal's big 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.720 piece on this quote. Traffic through the Strade of four 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:17.960 mus has ground to a virtual halt, unleashing the most 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.800 severe energy crisis since the nineteen seventies. And threatening the 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:24.640 global economy. So that's not good. Now. I began this 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.680 episode talking about a collapse on South Korean and high markets, 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.600 and I also mention by the way that like when 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.839 that collapse happened, all the other Asian markets kind of 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.040 ate shit. The Chinese markets were sort of more stable 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:38.720 for reasons we'll get you in a second, but like Japan, 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.440 like the nik was down like four percent, like all 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.679 of the other Asian markets kind of ate shit, right, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:48.600 Tawinese market. And the reason for that is well, again, 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.360 as I said above, one fifth of the world's oil 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.280 supply crude oil is shipped through the trade of farmuz 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.680 and this is an issue for a country like South Korea, 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:00.800 which imports almost all of its oil, you know, and 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.520 whose economy, like manufacturing economy in particular, is very, very 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.400 heavily dependent on oil. This is true of a lot 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.800 of other countries in that region, and South Korea and 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.720 Thailand and Taiwan and Japan are not countries like China, 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.199 which have much of oil stockpiles and have the ability 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.840 to get oiled through other ways. Now, I want to 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.079 take a second to actually explain what the strait of 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.280 Carmus is. So the Strait of Ramus is a straight 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.360 it's like there's a little bit of water, but it's 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.640 close to land. I talked to said earlier. At the 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.280 narrowest part of it is twenty three miles, so it's 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.840 very narrow, and it is a passage between the Persian 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.840 Gulf and effectively the Indian Ocean, right and what you're 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:40.880 out into the Indian Ocean, you can get to the 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.360 rest of the world that is, you know, east of that, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.600 which is all of Asia, most of the rest of 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:52.280 the world that's not west of view right now, she's 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.960 bordering the Persian Gulf. Who are in the area who 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:01.400 need to ship their oil out through here include Iran, Iraq, 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.440 Bahrain Cutter, the UAE in Saudi Arabia. Those are a 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.040 bunch of oil producing countries. You know. They are now 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.320 also countries that are embroiled in this war because they 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.200 are part of the American Alliance. And you can ask 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.360 the very reasonable question, Okay, so if you're part of 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.840 the American Alliance, why the fuck would you be like, okay, 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.320 with the United States launching this attack on Iran. On 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.000 a more vulgar level, you can ask the question, how 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.840 the fuck was this allowed to happen. This is the money, 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.760 This is the global economy that you are fucking with 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.520 right now. One of the things that the Wall Street 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.040 Journal talks about is that officials in the US and 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.160 Israel told the Gulf States that there wouldn't be retaliation 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:47.240 by Iran, right, that Iran wouldn't target oil facilities, they 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.400 would just target American military bases. They had a whole 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.800 thing about how oh were in the war with Israel. 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.200 They did only target American military basis. They didn't like 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.880 bomb any oil infrastructure. They were sending mister Bean memes 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.000 in their group chats about how weak the Iranian retaliation 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.960 was going to be. So this is not just a 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.480 situation of pure, you know, motivated reasoning. We were lying 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.160 to them, etc. Et cetera. Like the Americans appeared to 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:18.520 have actually believed some of this, that Iran's retaliation was 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:20.959 going to be weak. I've seen reports that they thought 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:22.880 that Aram was out of drones. I don't know why 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.280 you would think this baffling. Their drones are extremely cheap 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.199 to produce, like they've used them, but why would you 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.679 think they didn't have more? And I just want to 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:34.760 point out, right, so their point of reference here was 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.880 oh Iran showed restraint in the war with Israel. You know, 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.080 this is a twelve day conflict where Israel and Iran 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.280 sort of fired missiles at each other and stuff after 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.440 Israel assassinated a bunch of people for doing nuclear stuff. 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.240 But okay, let's look at this for a second. My 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.439 brother in Christ, you killed the fucking Ayatola. This is 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.199 an existential war for survival of the regime. Of course, 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.640 they were going to forget your oil facilities. Are you 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.320 fucking kidding me? Your goal here was regime change. You 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.920 literally assassinated their fucking head of state. You literally killed him. 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.280 What the fuck did you think was going to happen? 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:15.319 Oh my god. 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.680 These people are so fucking dumb and like, you know, 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:23.080 and it's obviously not clear exactly like who knew what 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.040 about this plan? But again, like it seems like the 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.080 plan was put into place because they had the opportunity 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.560 to to kill a tool a committee And like, okay, 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:36.680 if that's true, and presumably the goal states would know that, 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.640 why the fuck would they not expect retaliation? 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.640 I expected this. I'm a podcaster. I mean, I know, 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.040 I'm very smart, but like these people are these people 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.880 and their advisors are running fucking like some of the 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.240 most important governments in the entire world. I don't know, monarchy, 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.920 bad system of governments electing Donald Trump also apparently bad 0:12:54.960 --> 0:13:00.320 system of government. You're getting just oh my god, holy fuck. 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.320 These people are stupid. Oh my god. They really truly, 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.800 they really truly believed that Iran was not going to 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.280 pick up the weapon that it has always had, that 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.040 has always been the thing. For what reason why you 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.480 don't fight this fucking war even if you don't care 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.360 about Iranian lives, that you're willing to spend American lives? Right? 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.360 They really thought they wouldn't do it. I just, I 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:26.240 just I can't get over this. I just oh my god. 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.560 Oh I don't know. I don't know. 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.000 Okay, we're gonna go to ads. I'm mad as hell. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:41.960 I'm not gonna take it anymore. Here's some ads. 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.400 Okay, calm me down a little bit. Let's get back 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.640 to the actual oil of it all. So let's talk 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.400 about the quality of the oil here now. Sharp eared 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.280 listeners may remember that when I talked about Venezuelan oil 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.520 Battery nor Executive Disorder episode about the previous war, A 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.800 couple of months ago, a sentence so unhinged. I had 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.480 to go back check the date to make sure that 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.640 I wasn't hallucinating. But no, it was January third, twenty 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.120 twenty six, when we had our last war with a 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.520 major oil producer where read in some way incapacitated or 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.000 killed the head of state. By the way, we're still 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.680 just like holding Maduro hostage. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.680 This is just still a thing that we're doing right now. 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:29.280 Incredible stuff, incredible like normal government shit, bad things happening. 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:31.720 But in that episode, which would have been the executive 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.880 disorder that came out on Friday of the January ninth, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:40.000 I talked about how Venezuelan crude oil is not very good, right, 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.280 It's extremely sour, kind of sucks. The cumbo composition is bad. 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:45.400 The oil in the golf is not like that. This 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.960 is good oil. This is one fifth of the world's 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.960 crude oil supply, right, And also it is now because 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.920 of cutters from that like liquified natural gas production. This 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.360 is now also a shutdown of a significant portion of 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.200 the world's liquified natural which is again extremely important to 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.920 the economy. And also you know, one of the biggest 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.360 sort of climate hoaxes in all of this, right, and 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.040 I'm saying climate hoaxes here. There's been a whole push 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:11.760 to be like, oh, we should transition to natural gas 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.320 because it's cleaner than oil, and like kind of a 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.640 little bit in the sense that like dunking your head 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.840 into a swamp is probably cleaner than dunking your head 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.880 directly into like a shitful toilet. And also it's only 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.680 cleaner assuming that no methane escapes through the production process. 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.800 But the thing is, methane fucking escapes during the production 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.120 process of natural gas all the fucking time, and methane 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:38.320 is like to get a sense, So we're talking about 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:42.040 greenhouse greenhouse gases here, right, and obviously we're familiar with 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.280 CO two is like the major pollutant that we that 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:48.200 we produce. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is so 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.600 fucked that it is better to light it on fire 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:54.520 and have it burn and have it admit that CO 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.280 two into the air. That is better for the environment 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.960 than letting fucking methane into it. It is that fucked 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.400 of a greenouse gas, right, And you know a lot 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.760 of this stuff escapes and and this this is the 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:06.520 point that I've been, you know, trying to find a 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.000 thing to put in this episode. Right, one of the 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:13.400 big things here is why are we still using oil 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:15.760 to this extent? And you know, it has to do 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.680 with sort of, I mean just just the the the 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.760 utter cowardice and evil and short sighted profit motive chasing 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:24.960 of the entire world ruling class. It has to do 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.840 with specific efforts by the oil lobby in order to 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.360 make sure that politics would happen like this. You know, 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.800 we can talk about like the role of Pennsylvania and 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.920 like fracking as like an electoral thing. We can talk 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.960 about sort of the kind of Andrea's molm fossil capital 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.240 thesis about the place that you want to produce things 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.680 being a place that both has stable energy and also 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.160 a sort of I don't know, I guess the capitalists 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.120 would call it disciplined workforce, but like a workforce that's 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:57.080 not like organized, and that's not militant, so you can 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.800 exploit them. And the places where those things are true, 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:03.320 for example, like this century largely has been China, where 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.800 you know, if you try to do independent union organizing, 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.800 they will arrest you. Sometimes you will get disappeared. And 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.920 that also coincides with you know, they have an energy grid, 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.879 and the energy grid is extremely pollution intensive. It still is, 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.440 even as you know, trying to sort of renewable energy 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:24.560 push has been happening, is still extremely carbon intensive. So okay, obviously, 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.480 like we're in this nightmare because a whole bunch of 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:32.000 people who really, really, really really desperately want us to 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.800 burn the entire world alive so they can keep making money. 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:37.399 But we're turning to the original thing before I got 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:39.760 kissed off about people saying that natural gas is cleaner 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.440 than oil. It's like, just fucking use literally any other 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:48.679 way to generate energy that's not fucking oil or natural 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.440 gas or coal or I guess nuclear too. But like I, 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.399 we have other ways of generating power. We could do this. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.399 But because we haven't done this, this massive decrease in 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.960 oil supply because again nothing's fucking going through the gull. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.480 There's like a couple of ships have gone through. This 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:04.800 is causing a crisis in the global economy. I'm going 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.240 to quote the Wall Street Journal. If the Strait is 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.880 still closed this Friday, output in the region could follow 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.080 by more than four million barrels. Kind of analystical Quoting 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.800 earlier estimates, the decline could reach about nine million by 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.920 the end of March, representing almost a tenth of global demands. 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:25.239 Now it's worth noting here, right that you know, you 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.800 look at a tenth of global demand and you go, oh, okay, 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:29.560 so it's like a ten percent reduction, but it's actually 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:34.080 way worse than that, because again, people have this tendency 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.280 to look at oil as just liquid money that moves 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:41.080 freely around the world. But that reduction in supply is 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.000 not evenly distributed across the world. Right there are countries 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.000 who have extraordinary needs of it who get their oil 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.399 from the Middle East. This is the places like for example, 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.000 Korea from Thailand, b and mar We're gonna get to 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.320 you in a little bit, are places who are relying 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:57.880 on this oil. And you know, for South Korea, it's 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.480 like seventy percent of their oil comes from this region. Right, 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.040 So that ten percent of global demand is not spread 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.200 eatingly across the world is intensified into acute crises and 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:13.040 very very specific economies. And this is a compounding crisis because, 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.560 as the Wall Street Journal points out, like it's not 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:18.720 just that the Strait is closed for the first time, ever, Right, 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.720 this rait has never been closed. Like there was a 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.480 point where the US was like escorting things through a 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.000 dream the arad of rock War, but like, it's never 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.000 just been closed before. It's not just that, like you know, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.200 oil and natural gas and fertilizer isn't coming out of 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.440 there either, which is a real fucking problem that we'll 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:37.479 talk about in a second. This is not just an 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.119 immediate crisis of we can't move the oil that we 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:42.959 have out there is a secondary crisis, which is that 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.840 where the fuck do you put the oil? Right? If 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:48.280 you get one thing out of listening to me talk 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.320 about oil, it's that again, it's not just liquid money, 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.480 it's a material substance. And the actual substance of oil 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.119 and what it is and how it's produced has really 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.160 wide reaching political effects, right, because when you take ausself 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.919 out of the ground, the system is designed so that 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.359 it is moved extremely quickly. Now, there are countries like 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.920 a rock that you could in theory still produce oil, right, 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:12.959 but there aren't enough containers to store it, so they 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:14.920 have to shop production down. Now you could be like, okay, well, 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.080 but why don't they just ship it out through the 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.240 Mediterranean and the answers that the pipelines and the shipping 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.679 equipment there just don't have the throughput. Oil distribution is 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:25.480 very very flexible, and this is what makes disrupting it 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.879 harder than something like coal used to be. But it 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:32.520 is designed to a point to be sort of nodal 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:36.679 and flexible and able to sort of deal with supply 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:41.480 reduction crises. Right, It's not designed to deal with this, 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.560 which is a full on energy crisis level, like, oh 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.600 by god, we can't get oil out through this radio removes. 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:50.919 This is a scale of issue that can't simply be 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:54.000 solved by just moving the supply around and distributing it differently. 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.679 That this is not a solution to this, and so 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:01.240 these are having these interlocking effects right because also again 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.760 these things are designed to be going constantly, and it's 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.159 not just a thing where you can just turn it 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:06.760 off and turn it back on again. It doesn't work 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.320 like that. These are actual, very very complicated, had to 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.000 go processes. If you turn these things off, this is 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.199 again very important. If you turn these wells off, some 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.640 of them will never turn back on again. So we're 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:23.600 talking about permanent damage to the supply, right, even if tomorrow, Right, 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.240 like the war is suddenly over and everything quote unquote 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.080 goes back to normal. We're talking about still like permanent 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.480 damage to the supply. And this is where again you 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:33.600 can be like, well, okay, like why don't we just 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:35.760 transition from oil? And again you can also ask like 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.080 why should we give a shit about this? There's a 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:51.240 few reasons when I say this is a compounding crisis. 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:53.199 The Water Journal talked about this a little bit, but 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.040 in every article you read about this, you will see 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.919 people making the argument that, oh, it's fine, Like the 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.040 US is more insulated than it was from oil prices 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.200