Some of you may know that I am an analyst in the world of commodity technologies. This means that I spend my time scanning global events thinking about their impact on commodity prices and risk and how in turn, that may impact demand for software solutions that help manage commodity trading and risk management. It’s a fun job and I have on occasion been able to make a little legal money by betting on commodity prices directly or indirectly (precious metals, ETF’s and equities basically) with that knowledge behind me. It’s a very strange thing but I often hold quite contrarian views and am almost always right in those views. For example, while everyone was talking interest rate lowering I was arguing interest rates may actually need to go higher, when many were writing down a particular metals trader, I was buying as much of their stock as I could, selling a few years later for 600% more than I originally paid.
So just recently, I have been getting an intuitive sort of thought that likely fits into this contrarian habit I have. It’s a very dark point of view though I will warn you and I hope to hell this time I am wrong. See, I see a pattern - a deeply disturbing pattern. Let me try to explain and let me begin by saying that the reason our lives have been so good in the last 50+ years is down to affordable energy in the form of oil & gas. Readily affordable energy has allowed many in the west and beyond (look at China) to raise their lifestyles to heights unimaginable and lift people above the daily struggle of life and death.
Yet now we see a war on cheap energy. It is this I find disturbing. Yes, I know many of you will point to renewables but let me dispel that myth right away. Renewable energy in most instances as a mass source of energy is expensive, unreliable and intermittent. At a very local level, it can work - however, society is not set up to allow most to benefit from that in a meaningful way - a different sub stack perhaps I will write later….
The war on cheap energy is likely coming to a cataclysmic conclusion. Not only do we have the climate change agenda and the war on fossil fuels - finding, producing and using the stuff - but we also have a war in Europe and resulting geopolitical sanctions that have caused a massive rise in energy prices there and even around the world, and a new war in the middle east. The latter has reached a critical stage in which Iran may be tempted to try to shut down shipping routes - something already partially done by shooting missiles at ships. If Iran and its proxies were to essentially blockade the shipping routes in the area, you can bet oil prices will rise to heights unseen in recent times. Those that want an end to oil will then understand just how integral to modern life oil actually is.
An oil price spike will cause a recession and even a depression if it lasts long enough but there will be many other ripples to this in terms of geopolitics - it will be the west that will primarily suffer - Russia has its own massive oil and gas reserves, China is stockpiling like crazy and will continue to do so. The west, the only region in which Governments have had an ongoing war on energy via climate legislation, has stopped new oil and gas, fracking, and so on so if it suddenly needs new oil and gas, that will now take years. You think you have seen inflation? Just wait.
If you think that this is positive because you are infected with some woke globalist climate none sense in which the end of oil and gas is to be celebrated, just wait. You will come to understand the true role of cheap energy in every aspect of your life…. and regret your stance rapidly.
Now, if either Iran or Israel goes nuclear, things will be even worse for some oil & gas reserves may be contaminated and unusable. I have always believed that any use of nuclear weapons would come in a regional conflict and between the Governments of Iran and Israel, there are lunatics and fanatics who I think may go that far.
However, I cannot help feeling deep down inside that all of this - every iota - is planned. It is part of the powers that be’s war on humanity. A war on energy that results in mass starvation, social upheaval, civil wars and disease. Hell, they even weakened many people’s immune systems already via a novel and untested therapy……
I hope I am wrong and I will certainly be meditating and visualising peace and hope myself in the coming days and weeks….
I think if they want a “war on oil”, they should start with their planes, ships, tanks and missiles. Convert all of them to electric forthwith and see how far they get.
Carry on with construction equipment, corporate headquarters and the elite’s boats/planes.
And all EVs should be charging from solar panels or wind turbines - not oil-powered generating stations.
The hyprocrisy is astounding and yet the masses fall for it.
I think you are spot on. A war in the ME will accelerate the burden on the tax paying West. Ultimately it is the average Joe who gets it in the wallet. I have mused since the 70s that there has been an illusion painted of wealth that simply doesn't exist. I think that a point many folk overlook is that this is a deliberate deconstruction. It'll be the banking dynasties pulling the strings as they move their new markets in those countries currently demonised by the press agencies of Western governments aka legacy media.