Remember the fable of the grasshopper and the ant? The ant toils away storing grain for winter, while the grasshopper parties through the summer and dies of starvation in the winter. Something like that is happening in Chile. Chile is the world’s largest copper producer. Like several resource-rich countries — especially those with oil like […]
Let us now all mourn the passing of Paul Bloom. Who? I hadn’t heard of him either till he died. So I took a few moments to research. Why should you care that he died? Paul Bloom was one of those bureaucrats who — to many people who do not want to be bothered with […]
This is “Upgrade Your Electric” week for the Obama Administration. First, the President announced a $3.4 billion upgrade for the US electric power grid. Then yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the State Department had decided to help Pakistan upgrade its electricity to prevent the frequent outages. These electricity problems, according to the […]
Right now, with oil rising to $80 a barrel, it is important to recognize that the price of oil does not reflect the value of oil but the value of the dollar. There is still fairly weak demand for oil. Meanwhile, the fate of the greenback is being tugged in different directions by different international […]
I hope the new Nigerian peace plan works. For years, Nigeria has been the poster child for everything that can go wrong when a country discovers oil. Instead of the prosperity, thousands have died violently, the country’s infrastructure has crumbled, the Niger River delta has been environmentally devastated, the army has run amok among the […]
For most of its existence, the UN hasn’t dealt with oil, gas or mining much. It has gotten involved on mostly small scale, small bore development projects, and, of course, the disastrous oil-for-food program in Iraq. Natural resource development is considered an internal matter, and one involving the private sector — a part of the […]
There is a potentially dramatic change in the location and availability of natural gas globally. If all comes to pass as predicted, it would alter the geopolitical power of some countries like Russia, while lessening American, and possibly Chinese, Indian, and European, dependence on foreign oil and gas. Unlike normal natural gas, which is often found […]
One heart-warming story I have been following has been the epic international showdown between the IRS and the Swiss banking giant UBS. Until recently, if you were to ask any American to name a “good” country, Switzerland would probably have come to mind first, because of its role in World War II. More recent events […]
According to the UN, there are more than 370 million indigenous people in some 70 countries worldwide. For centuries, indigenous people have endured bias and, in some cases, severe racism. Their lands were (and sometimes still are) considered empty and fair game for others to exploit. Up to sixty percent of the world’s most desirable […]
For decades now, speculators in oil have justified their bidding up oil futures with the concept of peak oil: to wit, we have discovered all the major fields that there are and soon there will be no new oil, and this will lead to wars and exorbitantly high prices, and so although not now, but […]
Does the US care enough about Pakistan to face the long haul? Does Pakistan? The New York Times reported Sunday that the Obama administration is trying to decide what economic assistance to offer Pakistan, given the level of corruption and waste. American officials said the need to assist the Pakistani economy directly became alarmingly clear […]
On the first anniversary of the financial crash, I have been thinking of the role oil played. Most pundits cite re-setting mortgage rates as the precipitate cause, but I believe the sudden spike in energy prices earlier that summer — and the resulting inflation in food and other prices — acted as the tipping point […]
In the past couple of weeks, the International Crisis Group, which monitors and comments on conflict situations around the world, has been focusing on the African country of Chad. Chad is neighbor to Sudan and starting point of what had been one of the most anticipated oil pipelines in history. ICG’s recommendations ask Chad’s government […]
I know China’s economic philosophy is different than America’s but was it ever so glaring as a week ago, when it was reported that China “loaned” China National Petroleum Corp. $30 billion for yet more overseas projects? Can you imagine Uncle Sam doing this for Exxon? (Okay, maybe GM, but the terms were a lot […]
I like it when things line up. Syzygy, they call it. What do Mongolia, Iraq, and Venezuela have in common? (Hint: it’s not oil.) It’s that they have all recently bumped into the sharp edge of resource reality. There is something about the discovery of valuable resources that make people and countries take leave of […]