Coronavirus - Economic and Political Fallout: Page 3 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Coronavirus - Economic and Political Fallout

jones

Feels like this should be more in the Trump thread, the pandemic is certainly the root cause but unlike American WTI, Brent or Dubai Fateh haven't crashed nearly as hard. Serves anyone bleeding money right for wanting to prop up a literally toxic industry that can't even draw profits.

Claudius

Jones, you’re not worried for oil dependent states who will see badly hit forex earnings in terms of oil demand overall this year? Sure the world needs to transition to renewables, but for now oil feeds people. And even as we transition to renewables, oil will still be critical in the renewables value chain (transport and manufacture of equipment)

jones

Oh most definitely, I was just referring to this specific phenomenon about WTI and American oil. The low price is hurting all producers, doubly so because most of them like Russia, Iran and Venezuela are hurting badly from American sanctions in the first place.

Claudius

I can understand the collapse in demand. I’m still trying to rationalize the spread in my head. If oil storage is near 70% globally, what’s the headway? How much more room did the market have to absorb reduced supply? Was this just a ludicrous panic and are we going to find that some of your BlackRock mates profited handsomely off it in the headlines next week?

Also, what signal does this send to countries? I hear leaders saying they need 2 weeks of downward trajectory in Covid-19 stats, but would the risk of a futures collapse next month accelerate timelines? So many questions.

Burnwinter

My understanding is that the whole point of the Russian break from OPEC was to punish US shale gas, seems they're getting close to destroying it very quickly now coronavirus lockdown is factored in. Same thing has happened in Australia.

If I were an investor I'd be steering clear of a capital-intensive industry that's so vulnerable to this kind of risk.

banduan

O&G industry have it within their means to reform and not subject themselves to their own fake whims. But they won't.

Shale is an especially clear example of this. In no way should this sector exist. It's only here because of propped up prices from blatantly protectionist measures.

y va marquer

Hey Qwiss, Gemma's joined forces with John Waters now.

I wonder how sound the legal argument is?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/legal-challenge-covid-19-laws-5080031-Apr2020/%3famp=1

Qwiss

Yeah I seen that, no surprise those 2 would team up. The constitutional issue is interesting but I think there are stipulations for emergencies throughout the constitution (not that I've ever read the whole thing mind you) so I doubt they'll get anywhere. It keeps them in the news though and thats what they really want. Maybe get the support of a few more crazies along the way and make a few more quid.

Just had a goo at her twitter and she's retweeting the American protests too. Thats who she sees herself as aligned with.

y va marquer

They must be well annoyed that the Gardai didn't try break up the gathering of 100 that trailed along with them, sort of undermines her assertion that people "were being held under mass house arrest, or fear being interrogated by the Gardai if they leave their homes"

Qwiss

I've been wondering have the Guards been told not to give them any ammo. She's always up in the faces of Guards screaming at them etc and they never react.

Mirth

26 million people are claiming unemployment in the US.

26 million.

flobaba

But the stock market is doing great!

Mirth

Claudius

flobaba wrote:
But the stock market is doing great!

If going from 29,000 to 23,000 is great, you must have bet bigly against the market.

There was some alarmism in the last few weeks because people posting pictures of stock market charts going up versus job losses. Which is why the stock market does not belong on the news. Investors process information at different speeds to job loss reports being released. So you cannot juxtapose the two and say "oh, the stock market shows how callous investors are." There are many things wrong with the incentive structures in the capitalist system that lead to poor distribution of resources of bad incentive systems, but those pictures were not really capturing that.

y va marquer

In the words of a Prof from the Royal College of Surgeons

the last 6 or 8 weeks have been largely a success. That model of listening to technical experts worked very well to get us into this.

“I don't feel it will work particularly to get us out of this because a lot of the key decisions are about getting the economy going again.

“We have to ask how we pay for this? What businesses do we support? How do we support those businesses? Do we nationalise them? Do we do a grant?

“Those are intrinsically financial and political decisions.

“I believe that these are going to be some of the hardest decisions we will ever make in Ireland in 100 years.

“I think we need broad cross party support for those really tough decisions.”

So at a cabinet meeting yesterday:

Several ministers highlighted the need for what was termed "a little bit of give" on the restrictions.

Dopes.
There really is a dearth of deep thinking, wise, creative and inspiring politicians in this country.

Burnwinter

There's been a new decline in Australian and Chinese diplomacy in the past few days.

Our Prime Minister and several ministers have repeated that there should be an independent inquiry into the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan.

China has responded with harsh words from its ambassador and stinging editorials in the Global Times. Our "newspaper of record" (ghastly Murdoch rag The Australian) has been printing editorials about "Communists trying to undermine the West". Yesterday an Australian businessman, Andrew Forrest, who has made his fortune exporting iron ore to China, brought a Chinese diplomat to the Health Minister's press conference.

https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/forrest-deploys-diplomatic-test-de-force-20200429-p54ock

Listening to belligerence levelled at Australia by a great power really only gives you the merest sense of what it must be like to live in one of the imperial targets of the US, but it's unsettling nonetheless.

Klaus

Are they actually suggesting that the virus was made in a lab? Or is the "independent inquiry" about China's supposed attempts to initially cover up the outbreak?

Burnwinter

No, of course not. I think they're just adding their voices to the US diplomatic agenda.

That said, an investigation into intensive agribusiness and how to stop it becoming a cage fight for rapidly mutating strains of viruses carried by other species would be good. COVID-19 may have come out of China but swine flu came out of US piggeries. Wherever there's a high frequency of contact between humans and species that are viral reservoirs we've got an issue.

Mirth

Is Australia realistically able to exert any influence on China? From what I gather this is just the culmination of accusations towards Chinese interference in domestic issues over the past decade. I haven't really followed up to see how true those accusations are but, like you say, it's probably par for the course in Great Power diplomacy.

Burnwinter

Of course not. The only cards we have in play are higher education—many of China's elite educate their kids at Australian universities these days—and resources. There's been a disturbing tendency to Sinophobia in our media in the past couple of years, which is unfortunately well matched by Chinese nationalism and some evidence of graft and surveillance at the highest levels of government here. However rhetoric such as this is pretty painful to read:

“Australia is always there, making trouble. It is a bit like chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes. Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off"

(translation of the Global Times from the other day)

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