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Russian Flag

Why Russia isn't worried about lower oil prices

Nick Cunningham
Oil Price
Thu, 27 Dec 2018 16:00 UTC
Siberian Maslenitsa
© Sputnik / Andrey LukovskiyThe Siberian Maslenitsa festival in the Altai village of Novotyryshkino
Even as Saudi Arabia has scrambled to prevent a bust in the oil market, so far failing to head off a dramatic price slide, Russia seems just fine with prices where they are.

Russia is a key piece of the oil price puzzle. OPEC, once a coalition of oil-producing members that made joint decisions to maintain market stability, has morphed into a Saudi-led cartel that desperately needs Russian cooperation to strengthen the group's efforts. Many OPEC members are either at maximum capacity, are suffering from production declines at aging fields, or are characterized by instability, making any promises to boost or cut production hollow. That leaves Saudi Arabia and its new strategic partner, Russia.

But Russia is not as desperate for higher oil prices as is Saudi Arabia. There are a few reasons for this. One of the key reasons is that the Russian currency is flexible, so it weakens when oil prices fall. That cushions the blow during a downturn, allowing Russian oil companies to pay expenses in weaker rubles while still taking in U.S. dollars for oil sales. Second, tax payments for Russian oil companies are structured in such a way that their tax burden is lighter with lower oil prices.

Comment: Russia has structured itself to be resilient against financial attack and market volatility, but by the sounds of it, Saudi Arabia will struggle if oil sells at the lower end:

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X

Canada: The carbon tax isn't the end goal - what comes next will be even wilder, like a meat tax

Anthony Furey
The Toronto Sun
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:25 UTC
Justin Trudeau
This is going to be the year of the carbon tax even more so than last year. It's the year the Saskatchewan reference question gears up in the courts. It's the year Jason Kenney, noted carbon tax foe, likely becomes Alberta Premier. And it's federal election year, where Justin Trudeau and Catherine McKenna do everything they can to shame the country into submission on this deeply divided issue.

No observer of the scene expects the protests we've seen out West, largely against the tax, to die down anytime soon. But then again nobody expects Trudeau, a true believer, to drop the issue.

The PM is facing a situation similar to the electoral reform debate. It was deeply controversial, with both sides hunkered into their corners. Passions were strong. And it became clear that there was no consensus but rather confusion and acrimony. Trudeau did the wise thing and put a pause on the whole project.

Comment: It's hard to know where to even begin to dismantle this - the entire edifice is built on dodgy science from its very base. That the elite are so willing to make massive social changes based on so little evidence is alarming in its own right, and doomed to failure before it even gets off the ground. But the fact that they will not hesitate to throw the rest of us under the bus in the name of their elaborate fantasy says a lot about how they think. Trudeau should be watching closely what's going on in France, as Yellow Vests start showing up in his own backyard.

See also:

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Star of David

Netanyahu's 'dramatic' announcement devolves into whiny snoozefest about his corruption scandal


RT
Tue, 08 Jan 2019 00:56 UTC
Netanyahu
© Thomas Coex/I24/Agence France-PresseIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a prime time newscast on Monday evening to claim he had been treated unfairly by law enforcement in a corruption probe, after initially promising to make a "special" announcement.

Netanyahu had said that he would deliver a "dramatic" message to the media, prompting news agencies and journalists to prepare to report on some consequential development - but when the broadcast began, it became clear that his statement was more of a personal one.

In front of a prime time audience, Netanyahu complained that he had twice "demanded a confrontation" with the state's witnesses in the corruption cases against him, but was refused. "I wanted to look them in the eyes and show them the truth. I asked twice and was rejected," he said.

Comment: The legal noose is closing around Bibi. Is his political judgement slipping from panic? It looks that way.

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Eye 2

Trump's neocons are blatantly reversing his Syria withdrawal plan

Ron Paul
The Ron Paul Institute
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:32 UTC
trump neocons nato
© NATO/FlickrPresident Trump with Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo, Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and National Security Advisor John Bolton
I'm starting to wonder whether President Trump has any power over US foreign policy at all. Many people believe that the US president is just a figurehead, with actual foreign policy firmly in the hands of the deep state. Trump's latest dramatic U-turn on pulling troops from Syria certainly feeds such theories.

When President Trump announced just a couple of weeks ago that the US was removing its troops from Syria and possibly reducing troops from Afghanistan, the neocons, the media, the military-industrial complex, and the left-wing "never-Trump" people were livid. They were silent when President Obama made the horrible decision to overthrow Assad in Syria and sent weapons to jihadists to do so. They never said a word when billions of dollars were committed to this immoral and dangerous "regime change" policy. They weren't interested in the rule of law when President Obama thumbed his nose at Congress and sent troops into Syria.

But when President Trump declared the obvious - that ISIS was effectively defeated and that we had no business being in Syria - these above groups in unison declared that actually bringing US troops home was a "gift to Russia." They said bringing US troops home would create instability in the regions they left. Well, is there any proof that occupation by US troops actually brings stability?

Comment:

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Quenelle - Golden

SOTT Focus: NewsReal #22: France's New Year's Revolution - Trump Battles War Party


Sott.net
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 21:50 UTC
newsreal yellow vests trump 2019
Despite the intervention of the holiday season and cold weather, there has been no let-up from the Gilets Jaunes protesters in France. Incredible scenes from 'Acte VIII' of the protest movement this weekend confirm just how serious the French population is about fundamentally changing the country's political order.

In this episode of NewsReal, Joe & Niall bring you up to speed on the tense stand-off between people and power in France. They also discuss the false choice of believing either that Muslims are 'evil', or that Muslim migrants should be welcomed en masse with open arms.

Finally, they recap US president Trump's battles with the Neverending-War Party over the holidays, specifically his moves to withdraw American troops from Syria and Afghanistan, and the fits of rage this sent 'leftist' Never-Trumpers into...


Running Time: 01:24:39

Download: MP3

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Dominoes

French PM says new, tougher laws on unauthorized protests coming in wake of Yellow Vest clashes


RT
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 21:02 UTC
yellow vests
© Abdul Abeissa / AFP / Getty Images
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has said that the government will crack down on unauthorized protests and toughen punishment for rioting in the wake of anti-government Yellow Vest demonstrations which began in November.

The new measures will significantly toughen punishment for people who participate in riots, Philippe said, while adding that it was still "necessary to preserve the freedom" to demonstrate in France. Those who want to protest peacefully should not be punished, he said.

The announcement comes as part of new "public order" measures unveiled by the government after the Yellow Vest protests resulted in violence against police officers and government buildings.
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Chess

Kurdish SDF spokesperson: deal with Syria 'inevitable'


AFP
Sat, 05 Jan 2019 20:14 UTC
Redur Khalil Kurdish spokesperson
© AFP Photo/Delil SOULEIMANRedur Khalil, a spokesperson and senior official in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), speaks to AFP in the northeastern Syrian town of Amuda on January 4, 2019
A deal between Damascus and Syria's Kurds over their autonomous region in the country's north is "inevitable", a senior Kurdish military official said on Saturday, insisting that Kurdish forces should remain in the area.

Marginalised for decades, Syria's minority Kurds carved out a de facto autonomous region across some 30 percent of the nation's territory after the devastating war broke out in 2011.

Kurdish forces, backed by a US-led coalition, spearheaded the fight in Syria against the Islamic State group after the jihadists seized large parts of the country and neighbouring Iraq in 2014.

But Washington's shock December announcement that it would withdraw its troops from Syria pushed the Kurds to seek a new alliance with President Bashar al-Assad's regime, amid fears of a long-expected Turkish assault against Kurdish forces.

Comment: Now that the US is more or less out of the way, the Kurds have had to setup talks with the Assad government, which is what they should having been doing all along.

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TV

Cracks are appearing in mainstream media's 'perpetual war' machine

Robert Bridge
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 06 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
cameraman/interview
© NBC
As historians know, events of great significance are sometimes put into motion by some seemingly irrelevant occurrence. This week's shot across the bow of the mainstream media by one of its erstwhile members probably won't trigger a stampede for the exits, but it did provide for a timely wake-up call.

Although probably no more harmless than the fluttering of a butterfly's wings deep inside the Amazon rainforest, news that veteran journalist William M. Arkin severed relations with NBC over its relentless pro-war, anti-Trump narrative was exactly the message the omnipotent media kings needed to hear as attacks on alternative (i.e. conservative) voices have reached totalitarian proportions.

In a farewell letter to his colleagues, Arkin said he was "alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war."

"We shouldn't get out Syria?" he asked rhetorically, suggesting Trump's particular brand of foreign policy has not been a total flop. "We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia ... do we really yearn for the Cold War?"

Comment: Here's a few snips from William Arkin's departure letter:
There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict.

We've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently done little of consequence.

There is not one country in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.

The things this and most organizations fear most - variability, disturbance, difference - those things that are also the primary drivers of creativity - are not really the things that I see valued in the reporting ranks.

For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI.


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Arrow Down

Trump on Europe: You're vassals and I don't care


Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 04 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
orangetrump
© Alternet
"I don't care about Europe," declared US President Donald Trump this week during his White House cabinet's first meeting of the new year. The American president probably revealed more about the true nature of US-European relations than he intended.

Trump was speaking in the context of American military involvement with Europe, as well as trade and other issues. He was reiterating the tedious mantra that the US is allegedly being "taken advantage of" by European allies by not spending more on their military budgets.

It was the usual rambling, barely articulate fallacy from Trump who portrays the inherent military profligacy of American corporate capitalism not as a destructive vice, but as a supposed virtuous cause of "protection" for allies and the rest of the world. In short, delusional American exceptionalism.

But it was Trump's bluntly stated contempt for European allies that was notable. In a quip to a question about his reported unpopularity in Europe, the president said he didn't care what Europeans think. A few seconds later, in a betrayal of his arrant egotistical state of mind, Trump turned around and claimed that he would be popular if he stood in an election in Europe!

Ironically, though, perhaps we should be grateful to Trump for his brash outspokenness. By dissing Europe with such contemptuous disregard, he lays bare the true face of Washington's relations with the old continent.

Comment: 'Europe needs to stop being a lackey of Washington.' Precisely. Europe needed a poke in the eye to change its thinking and dependencies. Trump provided just that. An undiplomatic poke in the eye.

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Cross

Syria: Western rogue states must confess crimes against humanity, be held accountable

Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Restaurant Aleppo
© Vanessa BeeleyRestaurant beneath the Citadel in Aleppo.
The West and its allies in the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel have waged an eight year war against the Syrian people. The West has besieged, starved and deprived the Syrian people of humanitarian aid while pouring "aid" into the areas controlled by their extremist sectarian proxy armies.

The West has violated international law and it has enabled the destruction of Syria's history, heritage and cultural footprint. The West has behaved as a collective rogue state without conscience and without pity for a people its media has systematically dehumanised to enable such a crime to take place.

Despite this war of attrition and despite battling disproportionate force, the Syrian people have refused to capitulate or to abandon their secularism in favour of an extremist tyranny that would destroy their society and persecute the minority communities into extinction. Christmas 2018 has demonstrated the victory of Syrian unity over the regime change project incubated in the West which is now a failed campaign lying in tatters at the feet of the self determination of the Syrian people, the valiant defence by the Syrian Arab Army and the steadfastness of the Syrian Government and its President, Bashar Al Assad.

Comment: The debt incurred to Syria is near incalculable with devastation money can't fix. Morally and ethically, full accountability, restoration and amends should be forthcoming from the West. Except for tokenism, it won't.

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