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Hi all,
I'm just wondering what emergency measures you imagine governments, communities, and corporations taking in a really sudden oil crisis where overnight a nation lost, say, two thirds of their oil? Please check my summary page for my summary of rough concepts so far.
https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/sudden-oil-crisis/

Good ideas will be added to my page.

eclipse wrote:I'm just wondering what emergency measures you imagine governments, communities, and corporations taking in a really sudden oil crisis where overnight a nation lost, say, two thirds of their oil? ...

Hopefully nothing. This would probably give us the best results. But then I'm an anarchist.

I would say it depends on which country lost 2/3rds of their oil supply and why they lost it. In the case of the United States, we would almost certainly use military force to reacquire said oil supply. Until that was reacquired, we could tap into our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Certainly some combination of price controls and rationing would result from the loss. Also, this level of loss would lead to an almost instant depression since consumer consumption is 70% of our economy. With a lot of people out of work, consumption would drop off. As Vt pointed out, anarchy is almost certain to occur.

"As Vt pointed out, anarchy is almost certain to occur." Not in Texas...except at the borders where we set up roadblocks halting the Yankee migration. LOL.

So if the US decides to ally with Israel in some kind of Israeli action to gain land or power over territory what would happen? There was recently a thread produced on this site that asked what we remember of 1973. I was ten then. I remember how people argued over the cause of the crisis. I remarked upon how they didn't address the ostensive cause of the crisis (Arab embargo), but the greedy oil companies when they spoke about it in front of me. People said that oil was probably way cheaper than any of us thought and that even in ordinary times it was overpriced. They also talked about their various strategies for dealing with the gas lines. They did the same thing later, when the Iranians were the cause of the next shortage.

If what you are really asking is whether there would be blowback on Trump if he went along with the Israelis in such an endeavor, I have to say probably not. During times like that America, in particular, tends to become very patriotic. It would be doubly so if American troops were actually involved. There would be protests, but those would amount to about as much as the women's marches that took place in response to Trump's inauguration. Trump would face a more organized left, but gerrymandering ensures that he would still hold power after the mid-term elections.

Economically, America can run on higher priced gasoline derived from fracking for a short period of time. There's a huge glut of oil right now, so there might be time for the industry to ramp up, if it came to that. Assuming the Israelis weren't going to be involved for long, that the target of their action was in the West Bank and not another country, things might settle down before the fraud of trying to thrive off of fracked oil for the long term, alone it means too high a price for gasoline, became obvious. The US economic model needs cheap gas. It makes entrepreneurial endeavors cheaper, like a tax break but up front.

The real flaw in something like that, of course, is how life doesn't always go according to plan. Trump's not a big one on holding back when he sees that he shouldn't do things because when they go wrong they could end you. He's right up there with the guy cutting between two cars, with inches to spare on either end, at eighty plus miles per hour. He admires those who pull it off, even if it was actually more chance than skill that saw it through. He spews all over those who fail.

And it would be when it failed that you had a problem. It would threaten the spot market pricing of oil that was achieved after those earlier embargoes. The outright reliance upon fracked oil wouldn't hold, but it would serve to unhinge prices. The country that would benefit most would be Russia, especially the thugs who run it. Their private accounts would swell. The US has been moving on Russia for quite some time. It's actions in regard to Iran have been a squeeze upon them. They flipped the government in the Ukraine against them. Ostensibly, those actions, and others, were directed at their immediate targets. They were also directed at Russia, to get them to comply with international order and free market orientation, in dollars. The US likes the spot market model. It likes things priced in dollars. Backing Israel in a land grab and losing would threaten all of that.

A US "oil glut" right now? Latest numbers Oct 2016: US oil production...273 million bbls for the month. Total consumption..608 million bbls for the month.

Again: glut?

I choked on my coffee a bit there too Rocky don't worry. Though the last point re collapse of petrodollar risk is extreme in a military solution scenario is obviously valid.

Government priority 1 is generally always maintain the status quo & build on economic momentum. Remove the opportunity to do either, the response is usually war, whether there is anything likely to be gained or not, war is the earliest form of Keynesianism- digging holes to fill up to sustain economics. Degrowth is almost invariably violent, because the monopoly on violence is the only thing which maintains the authority of government in a genuine economic/ resource collapse.

What can government do? Chances are it can only do what it has done.

On this forum we have discussed this dilemma for longer than i have been here. Potential reform for inevitable economic reversal. Lots of concepts have been raised, but none escapes the central dilemma i point to & virtually nobody sees government honestly responding ahead of time to the dilemma- an absolute requirement to avoid inexorable slide away from a neo structral solution towards repeating the patterns of history.

(Reason there's not much answering going on here, we mostly are old hangers on this site & we have beaten around this bush a lot already. To generate discussion you need to put up your ideas, not just linkbait, a lot of us won't click. )

I can grant the above scenarios to a certain extent, but they're more geopolitical and international in focus. But what if we're not discussing America, but a little nation that can't just go and retake the oil?

Or what if we are discussing America, but there's no oil to retake? Say a small comet strike hits vital oil infrastructure, or terrorists nuke it, making certain vital oil fields radioactive? What if a nation - even America - just had to get by with less? (Insert whatever domestic terrorist event, oil-state seceding from the union, or other equally drastic scenario that appeals to you).

Would rationing to vital agriculture and other infrastructure do the job, along with a rise in city rickshaw, bike culture, and other savings measures?

How about destroying the United States? Is that enough of an emergency measure?

The Ds in California are so freaked out by Trump's election that they are preparing to secede from the union. A statewide initiative campaign has just received the go ahead to mount a campaign to repeal the part of the California state constitution that says California is forever a part of the union.

is-california-really-going-to-secede

An estimated 7,000 volunteers have begun amassing the 585,407 signatures necessary to place a constitutional amendment on the 2018 ballot deleting the state’s adherence to the United States and authorizing a 2019 referendum on independence.

Once the Ds in California get that repealed then the way will be clear for the Ds to secede from the union.

My point is when you boil it down, there is no way known anything remotely resembling the status quo will be maintained by any system of government, that government will by it's nature resort to authoritarian defensive position at best- so yeah you might see a rapid roll out of a system of provision- farm to soup kitchen, if said government shows extraordinary resolve. Best case scenario. Worst is as others have mentioned, rapid descent to chaos as people's who's entire culture has been about goal setting & dream chasing watches their goals & dreams shatter to a bazillion shards. To my mind more of concern than any technological or socio political fixes being too little too late, is vanishing restraint on human nature at the micro & macro levels when push comes to shove.

Well, I can recommend a bunch of technological fixes but human nature is what it is, unless you're going to get theological, and I'm not sure that's the purpose of this forum.

The Marxist faction around here has gone from vocal to non existent last few years. Other than them nobody has been much about systemic restructure solutions, including the religious parts of thr board.

I'm a 'whatever works' kind of guy. If America were to go socialist with regard to energy, and just nationalise rolling out nukes the way the French did, maybe with a synthetic diesel emphasis as well, then I'd support them in that. Dr Hansen promotes a book by his friend Tom Blees: "Prescription for the Planet" free at the link below. Tom Blees has a great breakdown of why the electricity sector is not really a 'market' and looks at Enron as an example of complete 'market failure' in the non-market that is electricity.
http://www.thesciencecouncil.com/pdfs/P4TP4U.pdf

Mr. Evangelicus sure will take care of you - he is gay - like all of us are - or wish to be - or not..

joke aside - there are no measures for anyone anywhere (despite the fact that the New World is run out of Australia)

for us surface dwellers there is nothing but Douglas Dietrich over here in North America and "eat dirt" over there for the rest of the world.

Good luck with your future endeavours and " do NOT listen" to religious preachers unless you source from within !!

ROCKMAN wrote:A US "oil glut" right now? Latest numbers Oct 2016: US oil production...273 million bbls for the month. Total consumption..608 million bbls for the month.

Again: glut?

Did I say US oil glut, or oil glut? Of course there isn't a fracking glut. There have been a lot of bankruptcies. Never mind what is in storage the question is really, how long would it take for the fracking industry to ramp up production to a level replacing lost supply from an embargo while oil sources outside of the Middle East maintain supply? Would it take so long that gas prices would rise to a level that killed the economy, or would it only take as long as high gas prices that the economy could live with? There might even be rationing used as a measure to balance out the problems, but markets tend to be more efficient and independent contractors wouldn't function well under rationing, unless there were exceptions to maintain commerce.

As far as government measures go, I suppose this would include relaxed laws regarding financing for fracking operations. They would probably allow more risk. They might let pension funds and investment banks walk into some debt instruments they ought not to. They might even encourage it as a way to keep the investment off of the public debt roles.

There might also be a manpower shortage. The government might introduce measures designed to make people more comfortable with relocation, such as making it easier to unload an underwater mortgage if you were going to move to North Dakota. They could make promises, that is. They might get enough movement just from promises.

Oh, and you'd probably see the US Navy in the gulf of Guinea. These days I guess the Marines are separate. You'd see the Marines too. Something might happen in Haiti, as that is the best staging area for intervention in Venezuela. They probably wouldn't do anything inside Venezuela. The threat would probably be enough.

Basically, what I am saying is that the Breton Woods world would be at stake if the US were to back Israel and fail at it, should the Israelis attempt a land grab. That's just one scenario for a possible oil shortage. I'm saying that the nature of the shortage does have a say in what would happen as a result of it. Geopolitics are different than a comet strike or a dollar panic.

Thanks for giving me the chance to say fracking glut. My inner child is really amused by that.

I think, and to paraphrase James Howard Kunstler, "they will be lucky to still be able to answer the phones".

Except that phones don't run on oil.

Jist everything they are made of & everything everyone talks about does.

Australias had strikes that have effected oil supplies before.
Basically petrol rationing kicks in
Odds and evens number plates on alternative days
Exemptions for emergency vehicles.
People make do, organise car pooling, more public transport is put on.