dinopello wrote:I would prefer the shore-leave in Holland, Norway, Denmark and the UK better than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAEStarvid wrote:The Persian Gulf is not a hard place to work offshore. It's calm and balmy, no storms and it's shallow. Compare that to the North Sea...
Every time I've spoken to the ASPO chairman about these kinds of things he very strongly says that he is not an economist and not better than anyone else at predicting those things. ASPO deals with oil and gas and leaves economics to those who are better at that.shortonoil wrote:My biggest complaint with ASPO is that they tend to ignore some of the more drastic effects that oil’s falling energy contribution will have on world economies. Smaller energy supply means less economic activity, which in a world buried in debt, which it will no longer be able to service = TRAIN WRECK!
Starvid wrote:Dubai is supposedly very nice, and so is that Iranian(!) free zone island resort Kish.
mos6507 wrote:I doubt any westerner is going to be getting laid there, at least if they intend on returning home with his head intact.Starvid wrote:Dubai is supposedly very nice, and so is that Iranian(!) free zone island resort Kish.
Then there are the fun-loving girls who fly out from Europe (and the States) to hook up with affluent guys. Magazines here have even published interviews with British women who say they come out for sun, fun, and sex. You’d think this would be good news for all the men here, and it is for those with lots of cash but single guys like my Canadian friend Joe don’t fare as well. His is a teacher’s income. This gets you a date with a Bangladeshi housemaid if you are lucky.
Ironically, single friends of mine of both sexes make the same complaint: finding a decent partner of the opposite sex is nearly impossible. My Dutch friend Saskia says, “Men want only one thing: sex. My male friends all complain that women only want one thing: a guy with lots of spare change. Yes, the West has arrived.
So what happens? The guys with the bucks get a large share of the women. Of course, guys like Ahmed, a local friend of mine, say that they give equal time to both Western and Arab women. “Lebanese are the best, though” he says. “They know how to treat a man.” I didn’t ask him to elaborate. What I do understand from Babak is that Lebanese women are ‘high maintenance’. You have to spend a lot. Filipinos, in contrast, are cheap dates.
What’s interesting—and a little irritating—is that a lot of local guys have no problem with being married and having girlfriends on the side (not an attitude restricted only to local guys). Local women, on the other hand, are not even allowed to chat on the telephone with a man outside the family. Very double standard, to my way of thinking.
Maybe it is better to talk about peak decade instead of peak year then? If we define the decade in the same way as Wikipedia, e.g. 2000s, our current decade should be peak decade?Starvid wrote:I'd like to add that, as we all know, the data is very bad. As a result of us getting better data, the peak year might keep jumping back and forth, just as it has done previously on regular occasions.
Starvid wrote:Every time I've spoken to the ASPO chairman about these kinds of things he very strongly says that he is not an economist and not better than anyone else at predicting those things. ASPO deals with oil and gas and leaves economics to those who are better at that.
Starvid wrote:There are no economists in ASPO. They are physicist and geologists et cetera. They can only speculate about the economic impacts of peak oil, and they aren't more qualified than you or me when doing that. So if they talk about the economy they aren't really contributing any added-value. If you wonder about the economic impacts of peak oil I'd advise you to ask Paul Krugman or Ferdinand Banks, two eminent American economists.
TOD wrote:ASPO Switzerland was founded 1.5 years ago by Daniele Ganser, a young professor of contemporary history at the University of Basel. His primary research interests concern the politics of peace, and it was in this context that he began to study the political and sociological implications of Peak Oil: How can humanity transition from a paradigm of continuous expansion and exponential growth to one of sustainable development and stagnation while avoiding violent resource wars as they are likely to erupt over control of the last remaining oil fields?
Interview at Voltairenet wrote:Daniele Ganser, professor of contemporary history at Bale University (Switzerland) and chairman of the ASPO - Switzerland, published a landmark book about "NATO’s Secret Armies." According to him, during the last 50 years the United States have organized bombings in Western Europe that they have falsely attributed to the left and the extreme left with the purpose of discrediting them in the eyes of their voters. This strategy is still present today, inspiring fear for the Islam and justifying wars on oil.
Silvia Cattori: When we observe the demonisation of the Arabs and Muslims in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, we might think that this does not have anything to do with the oil.
Daniele Ganser: No. In this case not. But, in the US perspective, it is definitely about taking control of the energy reserves of the Eurasian block that is situated in a ’strategic ellipse’ that goes from Azerbaijan to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the Persian Gulf, passing through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It is precisely over there, in that region where this false war ’against terrorism’ is taking place, that the biggest oil and gas reserves are concentrated. In my opinion, it is not about anything else but a geo-strategic game inside which the European Union can do nothing but lose. Because, if the US takes hold of the resources, and the energy crisis becomes worse, it will tell them: "You want gas, you want oil. Very well, in exchange we want this and that." The US is not going to give the oil and gas for free to the European countries. A few people know that the "peak oil", the maximum production of oil in Europe - the production to Norway and Great Britain - is declining.
The day when people will realise that these wars ’against terrorism’ are manipulated, and that the accusations against the Muslims are, among other things, propaganda, they are going to be surprised. The European countries must wake up and understand once and for all how the strategy of tension works. And they must also learn to say "no" to the US. Moreover, in the US also, there are many people who do not want this militarizing of the international relationships.
Silvia Cattori: You have also done some research on the attacks that took place in September 11th 2001 and you have signed a book [13] jointly with other intellectuals who worry about the inconsistencies and contradictions of the official version of these events, as well as the conclusions of the commission of survey ordered by Mr. Bush. Do you not fear being accused of being a "conspiracy theorist"?
Daniele Ganser: My students and other people have always asked me : if this "war against terrorism" concerns indeed the oil and gas, the 911 attacks have also been manipulated, haven’t they? Or is it a coincidence that Osama Ben Laden’s Muslims have struck exactly at the precise moment that the occidental countries were starting to understand that an oil crisis was announcing itself?
Therefore, I became interested in what had been written about September 11th and I also studied the official report that was presented in 2004. When we dig into this subject, we realize from the start that there is a big worldwide debate around what really happened on 911.
Asia Times wrote: The oil price rise of more than US$50 per barrel since the US Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates in September is beginning to get serious. Since the rise of oil import prices alone removes $170 billion from the US economy, more than 1% of gross domestic product, it is both inflationary and highly recession-producing, especially since it has been accompanied by similar rises in other commodity prices. Its full effects have not been seen yet but they're coming - don't worry! At some point we are probably going to have to do something about it. The question is: what?
...We could invade somewhere. Considered as an oil acquisition exercise, Operation Iraqi Freedom has been a smashing success, and only appalling Wilsonian wimpiness in the US government has prevented the United States from taking full advantage of it. Iraq's known oil reserves have been increased by about 100 billion barrels since the invasion, as competent US oil companies have been free to explore for new oil employing techniques more advanced than the 40-year-old dowsing sticks used by Saddam's oil operation. At today's oil price of $130, less a generous $20 for drilling and extraction, those additional reserves have a value of $11 trillion, or approximately 10 times the most alarmist estimate of the cost of the war to date.
The problem is that the US did not secure itself a proper royalty on the new oil finds (even 10% would have been worthwhile - $1.1 trillion over the next few decades.) Nor did it ensure, by setting up a privatized oil company and a trust fund for the Iraqi people diverting oil revenues from the Iraqi government, that the new oil finds would be exploited in an efficient manner and the supplies directed properly into the world oil market. Any future invasion of an oil-producing country should avoid these two mistakes and thus make itself self-financing. The obvious place to invade is Venezuela...
The way to solve technical problems until now has always been to pour more oil into the problem.
Leanan wrote:I love that quote. Who said it?The way to solve technical problems until now has always been to pour more oil into the problem.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 70 guests