How Long Can Russia Hold Out?

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What’s behind the oil price plunge and the associated stock index plunge?

Russia refused a Saudi Arabia deal to cut oil production during the current drop in demand for oil by an additional 1.5 billion barrels per day. This would have been on top of the 1.7 billion barrel per day cut begun some weeks ago in response to reduced oil demand driven by reducing Asian and European economic activity.

That reduced demand has been exacerbated by the coronavirus’ panic-driven impediment to overall economic activity.

In response to the Russians’ refusal the Saudis cut their price of oil by $6-$8 dollars and have said they’d increase their oil production by some 2.3 million barrels per day. In essence, the OPEC-agreed limits on oil output are completely withdrawn.

This has added stress to the Russian economy.

…the Russian ruble ha[d] its worst day since 2014, down more than 8% against the dollar.
…
Russian authorities on Monday pledged to use their $150 billion sovereign-wealth fund to support the economy and said the nation’s budget can withstand low crude prices for a decade.

But at what cost, what trade-offs? Given Russia’s financial commitments/needs to support its occupations of Ukraine and Georgia, its drive to build up its military, its cyber attacks against Ukraine, the Baltic States, and elsewhere around the world, it’s part in the joint development, with the People’s Republic of China, of Siberian resources, and on and on, for how long can Russia’s monetary reserves last, really? How long until Russia starts printing roubles, and triggering dangerous inflation?

And: do we have the stomach for lasting longer and doing better than Russia?

Working for the Opposition?

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Rick Moran had a piece over at PJMedia, in which he described some folks on Mike Bloomberg’s erstwhile paid campaign staff who bragged about taking Bloomberg’s paycheck and going out and campaigning for Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT).  Citing the Daily Caller, Moran wrote

“I would actively canvass for Bernie when I was supposed to be canvassing for Mike. I know of at least one team of ‘volunteers’ that was entirely fabricated by the organizers who had to hit their goals,” one staffer said, according to [Ken] Klippenstein’s report.
The person added: “It was easy enough to fudge the data to make it look like real people put in real volunteer work, when in reality Mike was getting nothing out of it.”

Then Moran closed his piece with this:

Whatever those staffers did to Bloomberg, he deserves it.

Because if we don’t like the guy, it’s perfectly OK to cheat him, to defraud him, to break laws doing him down.

Right. That’s certainly what liberals think and do. Maybe those Bloomberg staffers aren’t the only ones secretly working for the opposition.

A Progressive-Democratic Party Debate in Arizona

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With the latest Progressive-Democratic Party realignment of who’s running for President, we’re down to two folks who are going to participate in the next primary debate, this one in Phoenix: Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT).

There is, though, one other candidate still active in Party’s contest for its nomination, and she is, to use Biden’s own phrasing,

[A] mainstream [American Samoan-Hawaiian] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking [woman]. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.

You’d think with Party willing to make a late alteration of its rules to bring Michael Bloomberg onto its debate stage, it would be willing and able to make similar late accommodations to bring Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D, HI) onto that Phoenix stage.

But wait—Gabbard doesn’t have the money to buy her way onto the stage. Besides that, she’s already shown herself fully capable of incisive, reasoned argument, and that’s anathema to Party.

On top of that, in a further illustration of Party’s level of integrity, it has made a different late alteration of its debate eligibility rules. A Phoenix participant now must have at least 20% of pledged delegates–a requirement that carefully excludes Gabbard.

Hmm….

Elizabeth Warren’s Nearby Future

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Now that Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator (D, MA) has suspended her presidential campaign, the question arises regarding her future—and the future of the present Party campaigns for the nomination.

Second thing first: there’s little direct impact from her dropping out. She has only a handful of delegates with which to bargain at a brokered convention, although her few will increase in importance as the number of ballots required to get to a nominee grows.

Her real impact will be from her direct absence from the debate stages and from her commentaries as she campaigns. This will sharpen the contrast between the remaining Progressive-Democratic Party candidates, Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) (the other candidates aren’t worth noticing at this point, except to the extent they play their delegate hands with skill at the brokered convention). That contrast, and the debates between the ideologies of the two, actually will work to the benefit of Party, as its core ideology gets a measure of clarification at the end of the primaries.

First thing second: the big winner here actually is Warren. Her dropping out creates a win-win situation for her. Why is she dropping out at this stage after having assured all around, as late as Tuesday night when those results were coming clear, that she was in it all the way to the Convention? Was she lying about that (don’t answer)?

Mark my words: Sanders offered her the Vice Presidency if she’d drop out.  Biden offered her her choice of Treasury or Commerce if she dropped out.

A British Proposal

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In contrast with UK-EU negotiations, begun earlier this week, these are the high points of Great Britain’s suggestion of what a US-UK trade deal would look like.

  • reduce or remove tariffs for UK exports…US has indicated its intention to seek to reduce or remove UK tariffs on US exports in a UK-US FTA
  • customs procedures at the border are as facilitative as possible makes importing and exporting easier
  • address subsidies which have the potential to distort trade. Provisions for fair, effective and transparent competition rules could underpin liberalisation of trade between the UK and the US
  • a UK-US FTA as an opportunity to build on our global leadership in this area to develop a world-class [Intellectual Property] chapter

These form the core of an actual free trade agreement, one that is much better than the restrictive, anti-competition, anti-business straitjacket in which the EU wants to trap Great Britain and in which it wants to keep remaining member nations trapped.

The proposal itself can be seen in its entirety here.