Obama deserves props on the Putin situation

[Dafinch]

Fracking drove down the price of oil. Fracking in Texas. Fracking in North Dakota, etc. That raised the supply of oil causing the price of oil to drop. The drop hurt the Russian economy. Obama had nothing to do with it.

Sorry, I'll take the word of the Prime Minister and Putin himself over yours. And, let's remember who is saying this: what POSSIBLE reason would the President and Prime Minister have to lie about something that makes them look bad and the U.S. look good?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/10/us-russia-medvedev-sanctions-idUSKBN0JO0SR20141210

Rouble fall, sanctions hurt Russia's economy: Medvedev

By Katya Golubkova and Gabriela Baczynska
MOSCOW Wed Dec 10, 2014 8:07am EST

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev walks to attend a televised interview with Russian media in Moscow, December 10, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Dmitry Astakhov/RIA Novosti/Pool















(Reuters) - The weakness of the rouble is hurting Russia, which has lost tens of billions of dollars because of sanctions imposed by the West in the Ukraine crisis, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.

In a sober assessment of an economy edging toward recession, Medvedev said Russia should reduce its reliance on energy exports, which makes it vulnerable to falls in the global price of oil.
But he said Russia still had options, such as its companies and banks turning to Asia for funds and boosting domestic production to reduce dependence on imports, and added that history proved sanctions could not hold back a country for long.
The weakening of the rouble "has a certain impact on the budget, on how it balances and for a number of other reasons too, but nevertheless ... a substantial weakening of the rouble is not advantageous for the state and the economy," Medvedev said in the interview with Russian television channels.
The rouble has fallen around 40 percent against the dollar since June, fuelling inflation and hitting gross domestic product.

Asked about the impact of the Western sanctions, Medvedev said: "Our economy, probably, has lost tens of billions of dollars."
Echoing President Vladimir Putin, he said sanctions hurt not only Russia, but also those who imposed them.
The prime minister, who was president for four years until Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012, said there were tough times ahead. But he underlined that all Russians, including officials, were in the same position.
He said he held his money in roubles as he was paid in roubles - a sensitive topic as the sinking currency prompts Russians to change their money into hard currency.
Asked whether officials had access to luxuries that others could not buy as often happened in Soviet times, Medvedev said there was no preferential treatment.
"As for the government canteen, in no way does it differ from any other canteen," he said.
"In Soviet times it had discount prices, special food products. But there is no such thing anymore; no oysters, nothing that would not be available in other places."
(Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk, writing by Elizabeth Piper, editing by Jason Bush)

 

[ScottL]

^^^ Well there are those who disagree, and show figures as to why the US Shale Boom has had a bigger effect:
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/16/7401705/oil-prices-falling

 

[Dafinch]

I didn't say that the Shale Boom had no effect, YOU said, "Obama had nothing to do with it." and I-and the Russian leaders-disagree. And, that aside, I think they're in a better position to know-at least as far as Russia is concerned-that Brad Plummer would, whoever that is.

 

[Skulnik]

I didn't say that the Shale Boom had no effect, YOU said, "Obama had nothing to do with it." and I-and the Russian leaders-disagree. And, that aside, I think they're in a better position to know-at least as far as Russia is concerned-that Brad Plummer would, whoever that is.

Obama ButtSniff much?

 

[RenoChazz]

You think Saudi Arabia would do the US bidding by crushing Russian industry?

Yes. Russia is a big supporter of Iran and Syria, which happens to be the Saudi's two biggest enemies in the region. Not saying that's how it went down but def possible.

 

[superbeets]

RUSSIA IN MELTDOWN
The world has become used to Vladimir Putin giving tub-thumping speeches about the glory of modern Russia. His three-hour press conference last Thursday — by turns bombastic and duplicitous as he deflected questions about his country’s teetering economy — was no exception.
Railing against the sanctions enforced by the EU and America in response to the annexing of Crimea, he warned darkly against shackling the Russian bear and tearing out its ‘fangs and claws’.
During a recent visit to Turkey, however, he was forced to adopt a very different tone, announcing in clipped and petulant terms that his country’s prized new South Stream gas pipeline to Europe would not be going ahead.





The £25 billion pipeline across the Black Sea and the Balkans would have given the Kremlin a stranglehold on the energy supplies of a slew of European countries — Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Austria.
It would also have contemptuously demonstrated Russia’s superiority over the European Union, which had ruled the pipeline plans illegal. (The rules of the European energy market — strongly backed by Britain — say that the same company cannot own both a pipeline and the gas that runs through it because it gives them too much control over supply and pricing.)
But Putin has had to eat humble pie and cancel the whole project.








Why? The collapse in the oil price across the world — down by nearly half since June — is emptying the Kremlin’s coffers.
As the third-biggest oil producer in the world, Russia is heavily dependent on a buoyant price, deriving more than half of its budget revenues from oil and gas extraction.
The kleptocrats in the Kremlin rely on oil and gas exports to sustain Russia’s bloated and bribe-ridden bureaucracy, as well as its ruthless aggression against other countries.
But the price per barrel of oil hit a five-year low of $58.50 last week, and though it has recovered slightly, it is still far too low to keep Mr Putin’s regime running at full blast, especially given the economic sanctions the West has imposed.
No wonder the value of the rouble has plummeted, causing panic buying in Russia, the movement of money out of the country and even the jacking-up of interest rates to an eye-watering 17 per cent in a bid to stop the currency sliding further. So these are very bad times for Russia, where no one has forgotten that low oil prices brought down the Soviet Union in 1991 by eviscerating its economy. Today, they could spell doom for Putin’s attempt to recreate that Soviet empire.
He has naively set out his spending plans for the next three years based on an oil price of around $100 a barrel — which now looks wildly optimistic.
But though the Kremlin is weakened, we should not count our blessings yet. For there is a danger that the Russian autocrat will lash out militarily, distracting his hard-pressed people with another foreign policy gambit aimed directly at humiliating Nato in Europe.
With that in mind, some feel that now is the time to go easy on Mr Putin. He has learned a hard lesson from this collision with reality; we should not push him too hard, the argument goes. Instead, we should offer him a face-saving deal on the situation in Ukraine, offer to lift sanctions and prevent the Russian economy from staggering over a cliff.
I disagree. Putin does not want a deal with the West. He wants to rewrite the rules of European security. Only if we accept that countries such as Ukraine are to be consigned to Russia’s control will the hard men of the Kremlin be satisfied.
That is a concession we cannot and should not make. If we concede Ukraine, we signal that might is right. What happens when Mr Putin tries his tricks on another country — perhaps our Nato allies in the Baltic states?

+7


Putin, pictured, has had to eat humble pie and cancel the planned £25 billion pipeline across the Black Sea and the Balkans

 

[superbeets]

HOW FRACKING CHANGED THE WORLD
But if geopolitics and ancient enmities are playing a big role in the price of oil, so is modern technology.
Astonishingly, America has now overtaken Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer of crude oil.
That comes not from the traditional American oil industry, exemplified by J.R. Ewing in the TV series Dallas, but from fracking — pumping water and sand at high pressure into oil-and-gas-bearing shale rock.
America is a world leader in this technology. Costs are low and the geology is favourable: the regions in America where drilling is done for shale gas and oil are thinly populated — such as Oklahoma and North Dakota.
Not surprisingly, the Saudis are worried by America’s fracking revolution. And the more Westerners switch from oil to other fuels — such as gas or even solar energy — the worse it is for the nations which survive on oil exports.

Saudis note with alarm the growth in energy efficiency. Every barrel of oil not consumed in the West is profit lost.
So they hope that a low oil price will at least slow the development of fracking in America — and it is true that a low oil price is bringing bankruptcy for the riskiest drillers in the new American exploration fields.
The truth is, however, that the shale juggernaut will only be slowed, not halted. In time, it will reach other countries, too, including Britain.

 

[superbeets]

Oil production still rests on some of the most ill-run and fragile states in the world. Iraq produces 3.4 million barrels a day, and Libya another million.
That is half of the total produced by America. But both countries are precariously balanced on the edge of collapse. Libya is no longer a functioning state, riven by a bloody struggle between parliamentary forces and Islamist militias.
Iraq has already come perilously close to succumbing to the fanatical fighters of the so-called Islamic State.
The big picture is that the world is changing for the better: a number of despotic regimes —notably Russia’s — that depend on looting their country’s natural resources are facing a well-deserved comeuppance.
The question is whether they accept their fate, or whether the power of black gold to spark violent upheaval will see us all sucked into conflicts that could shake the world.

 

[Dafinch]

Obama ButtSniff much?

Gee, that was a cogent, relevant observation. Here's another one: go fuck yourself.

 

[ScottL]

Guy Bechor (Ynet News - Israel)

Op-ed: The Arab oil era is over

As the Gulf states are left with no money to spend and are experiencing internal shocks, the era of destructive Arab power is coming to an end; the Israeli mind and innovation era, on the other hand, is just beginning.

The most dramatic news in 2014 almost went unnoticed: The United States lifted the restrictions on American oil exports, and as of the first day of the new year it has begun exporting oil to the world.

No one believed this would happen so fast, but the US is already the world's biggest oil manufacturer, bigger than Saudi Arabia, thanks to the oil shale technology which changed the world of energy.

Within a year, the US is expected to export about one million barrels of oil a day and produce 12 million barrels a day. Iran, for the same of comparison, manufactures about a million and a half barrels a day.

This means that oil prices will continue to drop, as the US is already competing against other manufacturers. As a result, Russia will be crushed, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf states will fall flat on their face, the cartel will collapse, and all the dictatorships which were mainly based on oil – like Iran – will face a gloomy future.

At the same time, democracies like Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria and even little Israel will enter the market.

The Arab oil era is over, and so is the destructive power of the Persian Gulf's oil dictatorships. These dictatorships have disgracefully controlled the failing Europe: Buying politicians, bribing companies, taking over the economy and gaining political power which was also used against Israel.

It will take a few months, but both the Europeans and the Americans will realize that the era of the destructive Arab power is over, because the Gulf states will have no money to spend. On the contrary, they will be rocked from the inside by social, ethnic and terroristic shocks, as they will have no money left to continue satisfying terror.

The signs of the drop in Arab power can already be seen. Twenty-two Arab states made a huge effort last week to pass an anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations Security Council, but failed. The US was undeterred by them, and so were strong Western countries. It's true that France and Luxemburg are still controlled by the Arab capital, or think they are, but they will also realize that the era of Arab money is over.

But as oil prices continue to drop, what will happen to Russia? The country is collapsing and could turn to a European war to save itself. And what will happen to Egypt, which is funded by Saudi Arabia? The latter is already cutting its aid to Cairo, because the money is no longer obvious.

And what about the rich Gulf states, like Qatar? They are deluding themselves that someone will be interested in them if they don’t have oil. Some are even toying with the idea of tourism. Well, if there is no oil, no one will want to come there at all, and the sand will once again cover the towers rising in the air which they have built.

And Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority? Well, no one in the Gulf actually donated money to this entity even before the crisis, although there were always festive declarations.

As the year 2015 begins, we are facing a new world: A world of a revolution of information, mind, personal strength, innovation and inventions. And in this world, Israel is a real princess.

The Arab oil era is over, and the global and Israeli mind era begins. It's a fact that countries which wouldn't dare approach us in the past – because of the Arab extortion – are now doing so hastily, as if to make up for the lost time of so many years.

Israel is becoming a close friend of countries which were distant in the past but are close today, like India, Japan, China and South Korea. They too understand that those who are not innovative and lack a creative mind will just not be. And in this field, Israel has a lot to offer them, just like they have a lot to offer in return.

 

[Skulnik]

Was that a YES?

 

[Michelangelo]

Any good Israeli stocks to recommend, Scott?

 

[Acebb]

LMFAO, wow is the guy who started this thread a moron:

Since invading and annexing Crimea almost one year ago, the Russian president has been running rings around the European Union, NATO and the Obama administration.

It is not that Putin is particularly clever -- on the contrary, his behavior suggests he is paranoid, impulsive and insecure. But he has benefited from the greater weaknesses of his opponents.
...
What Putin does know, or thinks he knows, is that, given Barack Obama's attempts to wind up overseas conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and his reluctance to get involved in new ones such as Syria, the U.S. President will be loath to confront Russia militarily in Ukraine in what could quickly become an uncontrollable, escalating proxy war.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/09/opinion/ukraine-putin-opinion-tisdall/

The fact that anyone thinks Obama "won" something here is surreal.

 

[Acebb]

Obama pimped the shit out Putin, lol. I can't believe I second guessed his strategy.

You are a laughable moron who is reduced to posting idiotic 1 liners because you are dumb, know nothing of the topic, and can't point to any achievement by Obama regarding Putin.

lol

 

[BleedingPurple]

LMFAO, wow is the guy who started this thread a moron:

Since invading and annexing Crimea almost one year ago, the Russian president has been running rings around the European Union, NATO and the Obama administration.

It is not that Putin is particularly clever -- on the contrary, his behavior suggests he is paranoid, impulsive and insecure. But he has benefited from the greater weaknesses of his opponents.
...
What Putin does know, or thinks he knows, is that, given Barack Obama's attempts to wind up overseas conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and his reluctance to get involved in new ones such as Syria, the U.S. President will be loath to confront Russia militarily in Ukraine in what could quickly become an uncontrollable, escalating proxy war.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/09/opinion/ukraine-putin-opinion-tisdall/

The fact that anyone thinks Obama "won" something here is surreal.

you are the moron, you stated, "preventive care doesn't save lives" then provide links that say it does, how moronic is that. you are too stupid to realize what a dummy you look like, even Scott caught it just like the Hilary thread when even Joe knows you looked stupid, that's twice in one week you look like a moron

 

[BleedingPurple]

then ace in great fashion says he didn't say preventivd care doesn't save lives ever. hahahaha

Wnat should Obama do?

 

[Acebb]

you are the moron, you stated, "preventive care doesn't save lives" then provide links that say it does, how moronic is that.

Except now you're at the part where you think if preventive care saves 1 life (while killing 3 people) that the statement "preventive care saves lives" is true.

Note, you are changing the subject. Want to guess why?

 

[Acebb]

then ace in great fashion says he didn't say preventivd care doesn't save lives ever. hahahaha

Wnat should Obama do?

Um, why don't you point out anything Obama has done that would be considered an achievement here, idiot?

I mean, you started the thread.

 

[ScottL]

BP said Obama deserves props on the Putin situation. It's likely Obama does not deserve credit and probably a lot of the blame, because like everything else Obama Fucked this up as well. So it turns out that BP got it wrong. Obama's strategy failed and a lifetime menace remains a lifetime menace. It doesn't mean BP should be browbeaten for misreading an issue though.

 

[BleedingPurple]

Except now you're at the part where you think if preventive care saves 1 life (while killing 3 people) that the statement "preventive care saves lives" is true.

Note, you are changing the subject. Want to guess why?

um no your links showed how mammography for older women was a benefit. why don't you look up preventive care such as Pap smear testing? no you focus on mammography given to healthy young women and psa testing to healthy adult males.