oil

One criterion of victory in Iraq: when will the oil flow?

By / 11 Comments / 30 May 2010

As our involvement in the Iraq War winds down, Michael Schwartz writes about two of the criteria for victory by the Coalition Forces:  increasing Iraq’s oil production under involvement of western companies. “The Iraqi Oil Conundrum – Energy and Power in the Middle East” By Michael Schwartz, TomDispatch, 2 February 2010 Introduction by Tom Englehardt Americans have …

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File under “wishing oil was cheap” will not make it so

By / 6 Comments / 28 August 2009

The boomers will recognize this as a grown-up version of “I want my Maypo!”  “Opec’s greed will herald the end of the oil age“, Bill Emmott, op-ed in The Guardian, 20 August 2009 — “If producers keep prices high even when demand is slack, the world will be surprisingly quick to wean itself off fossil …

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If we won in Iraq, what did we win? Was it worth the cost?

By / 26 Comments / 12 June 2014

Summary:  Correctly understanding what happened in Iraq, and its consequences, is of extreme importance.  False conclusions will lead to more foreign wars.  Not only can we not afford them (we’re borrowing the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars), but future wars might not end so well for us. . Michael Yon is a former …

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Poor peak oil research, more evidence of a serious problem with America’s vision

By / 9 Comments / 29 June 2014

This post briefly reviews a new presentation by investment banker Matthew Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (2005).  He is one of the best known of the experts warning about peak oil.  IMO he is one of the best of them.  As this analysis shows, that …

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Confirmation in the news of things you already read on the FM site

By / 2 Comments / 25 April 2009

Usually these weekend posts examine unexpected ways in which the world is changing.  Here we do the opposite, matching current news with past posts from this site. “Stimulus Thinking, and Nuance“, New York Times, 1 April 2009 — About Hitler’s economic policies, one of the keys to his success. “The Water-War Myth“, Jack Shafer, Slate, …

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