The Big Bad Orange Man (and any other common-sense person, who didn't believe the NWO garbage)......
BREAKING: UK government launches a £40 billion fund with the Bank of England to support energy companies to access extra liquidity | #EnergyCrisis #EnergyTwitter
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) September 8, 2022
BREAKING: UK Prime Minister Liz Truss announces plans to limit typical household energy bills to £2,500 a year for the next two years to help Britons cope with the soaring cost of living
— Bloomberg UK (@BloombergUK) September 8, 2022
More: https://t.co/fUmGNolelv pic.twitter.com/Ho24wx94pS
Quote:
Europe Is Buying All The Russian Oil It Can Before Banning It
- Europe is currently importing over one million barrels per day of Russian oil, attempting to fill up before the EU-wide embargo on Russian crude imports comes into effect.
- Oil prices have fallen as demand concerns grow and China struggles with Covid lockdowns, and Europe is attempting to take advantage of those lower prices to stock up on oil.
- Alternative sources of crude oil are abundant for Europe, but the price will be set by the seller and the EU may soon find itself paying more for this critical energy source.
Three months from now, an EU-wide embargo on Russian crude oil imports will kick in, shutting off almost all shipments of the commodity from Russia to Europe. But right now, Europe is importing over 1 million barrels of Russian crude daily and has been doing so for the last month. Someone is stocking up before the taps turn dry.
While they publicly condemn Russia for its actions in Ukraine and equally publicly assure their constituents that sanctions are working, European (and other) politicians make no mention of the continuing Russian oil purchases.
Yet, Russia is exporting some 3.32 million barrels of crude daily by sea, Bloomberg calculations have shown, which means Europe is buying a third of that, while it still can. And this means that nothing has changed since June when the embargo was approved, and Europe will have to find alternative oil suppliers at a time of likely higher prices.
Exports of oil from Russia to northern Europe rose particularly markedly in the first week of this month, the Bloomberg calculations showed, suggesting India's Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who told CNBC this week that "I said the Europeans buy more in one afternoon than I do in a quarter. I'd be surprised if that is not the condition still."
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Europe-Is-Buying-All-The-Russian-Oil-It-Can-Before-Banning-It.html
Source:https://t.co/hLosqPG5nK
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) September 8, 2022
Putin also didn't think to move half of Russia's reserves out of Western banks (over $300 billion) when Russia invaded Ukraine because he didn't think the EU and the US would freeze the funds with sanctions. After all we didn't when Russia took Crimea.twk said:
Again, whatever the short term outcome in the energy markets, Putin has lost the long term war. His military has been shown to be a joke, and long term, he is losing his best energy customers and will have to construct new pipelines and infrastructure in order to sell his gas to new customers. The people who are making out like bandits are the Chinese, India, and other countries that are buying oil from him at a steep discount then reselling it on the international market (hiding the origin).
No, it's quite safe to say that Putin is no genius. He has a bit of short term leverage due to the imbecility of western European leadership (who, collectively, have been dumber than Putin, I'll give him that much), but he's using that leverage up by the day and it won't ever come back.
They're all laundering money through Ukraine. Have been for quite some timeThe Green Dragon said:
We are seeing the end of "soft" leftism in Europe. They went all in on Ukraine. Why they did still remains to be fully understood - one might say that they were responding to the calls of the Facebook morons that supported the cause, but the population supporting Ukraine did so because they were manipulated through social media (yes, I'm talking about you), and not the other way round.
So, where does that lead us? I don't think soft leftism can be sustained, so we will see either a hard crackdown by the left towards outright authoritarianism or the hard right is going to take power. Either way, it signals the end of all classic liberal thought in Europe.
For the last few years we have discussed 1984 as prophetic. Folks, this is 1984 - either way you go. It's going to spread here as well, and I have only one thing further to say: I'm glad I live in Texas because it's gonna get wild.
That article is a month old, but it is all still fairly accurate from a non-military perspective.Quote:
No matter what indicator you use, Russian President Vladimir Putin is winning in the energy markets. Moscow is milking its oil cash cow, earning hundreds of millions of dollars every day to bankroll the invasion of Ukraine and buy domestic support for the war. Once European sanctions against Russian crude exports kick in from November, the region's governments will face some tough choices as the energy crisis starts to bite consumers and companies.
Electricity costs for homes and businesses are set to soar from October, as the surge in oil income allows Putin to sacrifice gas revenue and squeeze supplies to Europe. UK prices are likely to jump by 75%, while in Germany some municipal utilities have already warned prices will increase in excess of 100%. Russia has successfully weaponized energy supplies; Western governments will come under increasing pressure to spend billions either subsidizing household bills or, as is already the case in France, by taking control of power companies.
Winter is coming.Quote:
The second indicator is the price of Russian oil. Initially, Moscow was forced to sell its flavors of crude at huge discounts to other varieties to entice buyers. In recent weeks, however, the Kremlin has regained pricing power, taking advantage of a tight market.
ESPO crude, a category of Russian oil from the Far East, is a good example of the new trend. At the low earlier this year, it sold at a discount of more than $20 a barrel to Dubai crude, the regional oil benchmark for Asia. Recently, ESPO crude has changed hands at parity to Dubai. Urals crude, the flagship Russian oil export to Europe, isn't benefiting as much as ESPO, as its key buyers have traditionally been countries such as Germany rather than India. But it's also recovering in price, selling recently at $20 to $25 a barrel cheaper than the Brent benchmark, after trading at a discount of almost $35 in early April.
Moscow is finding new commodity traders, often operating from the Middle East and Asia and probably financed by Russian money, willing to buy its crude and ship it to hungry markets. With Brent crude hovering at close to $100 a barrel, and with Russia able to offer smaller discounts, there's plenty of money coming in to the Kremlin. For now at least, energy sanctions aren't working.
Texted a friend in Hungary this.BAP Enthusiast said:
Report from a local in Hungary:
It appears that Hungary is in the process of collapsing.
RiverAg 80 said:
I enjoy listening to Ziehan.
MuchosPollos said:
Y'all are both missing the point......
Putin has fractured the EU with a simple military operation which captured pretty much all the productive capabilities of Ukraine.
Furthermore, he's been able to maneuver governments throughout the continent to having choose between accepting social unrest, very significant decline in quality of life for millions, drastic cuts in industrial and economic capacity, extreme stress in financial markets, and facing the threat of millions freezing to death this winter all while dumping billions of financial and military aid to a corrupt gov't in Ukraine, accepting millions of migrants from Ukraine, and diplomatically taking in the ass from a dementia riddled pedophile and his incompetent minions who couldn't manage a Dairy Queen
OR
Negotiate a peace and end this madness.
The choice is pretty clear BUT as we are seeing the ECB, WEF folks, and the Soros backed Gov't leaders are 100% on board the suicide train.
At a minimum, he's caused trillions in damage to the EU GDP. Over the next few weeks/months, we will witness whether or not Putin achieves a soul crushing victory. Hint: It's not looking good for the West right now.
BTW - that $300 billion in Reserves.......it's a pretty small price to pay to defeat your enemies.
Day 200 of my 3 day war. The Russian army advances rearwards exactly as planned while Ukrainian military flees in a panic chasing after it.
— Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) September 11, 2022
I remain a master strategist.
“The request was triggered by a trading error by one of France’s regional energy providers, which accidentally oversold huge amounts of electricity over a two-day period…”
— Gold Telegraph ⚡ (@GoldTelegraph_) September 11, 2022
Source: https://t.co/gG3qiuhM21
Looks like the diplomacy is working well.......Quote:
Germany's Arms Pipeline To Ukraine Has 'Crossed Red Line', Kremlin Says
The Kremlin has again called out Germany for abandoning its historic neutrality regarding shipping weapons to foreign conflicts, with Russia's ambassador to Berlin stressing the German government has violated a red line.
"The very fact that the Ukrainian regime is being supplied with German-made lethal weapons, which are used not only against Russian military service members, but also the civilian population of Donbass, crosses the red line," Ambassador Sergey Nechaev told Izvestia newspaper in a fresh interview, subsequently republished in English in state sources.
Invoking Moscow's previously stated objective to "de-nazify" Ukraine, the ambassador said that Germany should know better than to cross Russia's red lines, "considering the moral and historic responsibility that Germany has before our people for the Nazi crimes."
Nechaev continued by saying Germany "has unilaterally acted to destroy bilateral relations [with Russia] that were unique in scale and depth and had been built over decades," and that, "In essence, the post-war reconciliation of our nations and peoples is being eroded."
Addressing the soaring cost of utility bills the German population is already suffering - which is set to grow worse into the winter months amid the Nord Stream gas pipeline stoppage - the ambassador said the anti-Russia "sanctions war" led by government leaders will be increasingly seen by the German people as a case of "shooting yourself in the foot", which is likely to lead to energy and cost-of-living protests.
"We believe the ongoing processes to be Germany's domestic issue, in which we do not get involved," Nechaev said. "And we certainly are not in the habit of delivering pompous lectures, the likes of which the West constantly makes about Russians."
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/germanys-arms-pipeline-ukraine-has-crossed-red-line-kremlin-says
Latest forecasts that I have seen, as mentioned in my post above, indicate that Europe might just make it through winter without having to cut off gas to residential users, thanks to curtailing major industrial users. Now, will some folks try to go the wood burning route in order to save money? Yes. And, some accidents will happen, and there will be more particulate in the air than usual this winter. But, the crisis that will result will be more of a slow burn. When a lot of those energy dependent manufacturers are unable to resume business in the spring, then we'll start to see some fallout, but it will probably be more gradual than dramatic.Stat Monitor Repairman said:
We gonna see a huge amount of particulate matter in the air over northern Europe this winter from people burning wood and trash in fireplaces.
Older houses have unused fireplaces still installed but a lot are converted to electric or heating oil. Are we gonna see a bunch of fires from people starting up old fireplaces that haven't been swept in decades?
We gonna see people scrambling for firewood. Burning public property, trash and anything that they can get ahold of?
How equipped are people to deal with reduced heat / no heat day-to-day?
Most all urban and suburban areas in northern / central Europe are decades removed from that level of resilience. We talking both people and infrastructure.
We sleepwalking into a massive global crisis.
You know, imo, of course.
The Russians have shot their bolt in terms of using the gas weapon: things are still very bad but not getting worse and they are beginning to get better. End of energy fear porn https://t.co/vURZOkHDE1
— François Heisbourg (@FHeisbourg) September 12, 2022
74OA said:The Russians have shot their bolt in terms of using the gas weapon: things are still very bad but not getting worse and they are beginning to get better. End of energy fear porn https://t.co/vURZOkHDE1
— François Heisbourg (@FHeisbourg) September 12, 2022