Tag: Price-Caps

U.S. ups the ante: are we indeed headed into WWIII and what can save us?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Gilbert Doctorow, 9/9/22

The UK and Commonwealth may be mourning the passing of Queen Elizabeth II yesterday. I am in mourning as well, but for a very different reason: the gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in the Ramstein air base in Germany yesterday reshuffled the deck on Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine, raising contributions to the ongoing holy crusade against Russia from still more nations and adding new, still more advanced precision strike weapons to the mix of deliveries to Kiev. It was an open summons to the Kremlin to escalate in turn, as were the test firing the same day of a new intercontinental rocket, the Minuteman III, from Vandenberg air base in California and the unannounced visit to Kiev yesterday of not only Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was featured in Western media accounts, but also other top officials of the Biden administration. The most notorious member of this delegation was surely Blinken’s deputy, Victoria Nuland, who had stage managed the February 2014 coup that put in power in Kiev the Russia-hating regime that Zelensky now heads.

Gilbert Doctorow: U.S. ups the ante: are we indeed headed into WWIII and what can save us?

Related:

A Former US Marine Corps Officer’s Analysis of the Ukraine War (archived, in case the original is removed)

H/T: Natylie’s Place: Understanding Russia

UK’s New Prime Minister Makes No Apologies for Favoring the Wealthy

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

UK’s New Prime Minister Makes No Apologies for Favoring the Wealthy

Truss also went out of her way to channel Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who remains as iconic among the Tory Party base as Ronald Reagan is for Republicans in the U.S. Truss has studied Thatcher’s body language, has adopted her dress style — as Twitter users were quick to point out — and has reached for many of the same rhetorical tools. Yet, style notwithstanding, she has nowhere near the ideological consistency or heft of a Thatcher.

…

It will take all of Truss’s shape-shifting talents, and then some, to turn around the election ship for the Conservatives over the coming two years, which is the time span that Truss has before the next general election must be called. In the meantime, as the U.K. grapples with a deepening economic crisis, all of the new prime minister’s public statements suggest that the country is going to be dragged ever-further rightward into a deregulated, anti-union, Brexit-hued future.

God Save The UK!

Putin Threatens To Halt All Gas To Europe If Prices Are Capped

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Retaliation, grain, trade, gas prices, gasoline prices, national interests, liquefied natural gas, LNG, concessions, food crises,

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to retaliate against any move by the European Union to cap the price of Russian gas by halting flows completely and suggesting a deal allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported to world markets could be disrupted.

Putin Threatens To Halt All Gas To Europe If Prices Are Capped

US, Allies Agree To Implement Russian Oil Price Cap Plan

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

US, Allies Agree To Implement Russian Oil Price Cap Plan

If Russia responds to the attempted price cap by cutting oil production [they already have], experts have warned prices could skyrocket. In the worst-case scenario, analysts at JPMorgan Chase said oil could shoot up to a “stratospheric” $380 per barrel. Oil prices are currently hovering around $100 per barrel.

How do higher oil prices prevent a worldwide recession?! Did the Biden Administration even think this through?! 🤯

Russia Confounds the West by Recapturing Its Oil Riches + Yellen discusses Russia oil price cap as Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi visits US

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Moscow is raking in more revenue than ever with the help of new buyers, new traders and the world’s seemingly insatiable demand for crude

Russia Confounds the West by Recapturing Its Oil Riches

Related:

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that a failure to place a price cap on Russian oil would hurt the global economy.

Yellen discusses Russia oil price cap as Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi visits US

🤡

Moscow’s New Found Independence + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Moscow’s New Found Independence

Hudson noted, however, that “the biggest beneficiary” of Russia having been laden with sanctions is Washington. This is because Europe, which is heavily reliant on Russian energy, is faced with simultaneous energy and food crises, thus leaving it with little ability to pay attention to other matters.

“Basically, Washington doesn’t care if Russia wins the war [in Ukraine], because the US has succeeded in eliminating its competition in Europe, especially Germany.”

Related:

The International Energy Agency says Western sanctions have had a “limited impact” on Russian oil production

The agency added that the European Union’s commitment to reduce member states’ gas consumption by 15 percent from August 2022 to March 2023 will continue to increase oil demand by about 300,000 barrels per day for the next six quarters.

Shipping oil from the US to Europe costs 12 times more than the start of 2022 as nations continue to shun Russian crude

The Aframax vessels are optimally-sized to dock at European docks, which often cannot fit supertankers, an analyst from E.A. Gibson Shipbrokers told Bloomberg, and the current sky-high rates should remain heightened in the months ahead so long as sanctions against Russia remain.

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“The market consensus was too pessimistic about Russia’s capability to re-route volumes to other buyers,” IEA analysts said. “Russia’s exports adjusted towards other buyers without a serious disruption to its production.”