 | How a market for sustainable bio-energy is being developed | The Oil Drum: Europe | Financial bubble - who will say that the emperor is naked? |  |
93 comments on Do they have a 'responsibility' to supply us?
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I don't see any added value in the association you are trying to make. Yes it is true that in a free market nobody has the responsibility to deliver (unless by a binding contract), including the pharmaceutical companies. This is the foundation of our market economy.
But it may argued that it is in the common good of both sides for the pharmaceutical companies to deliver. While it is not at all certain that it is in the long-term good of oil suppliers to squander their resources as fast as they can.
What we are witnessing is a clear case of one of the sides in market relationship trying to exert unfair and contradicting to the basic market principles power over the other side. If this was happening within US or within any developed country there would be a series of lawsuits costing billions for the offenders. But since this is happening in the international arena, where some are "more equal" than the others they are able to get away with it.
Jerome's article is spot on, and is drawing the attention to a problem which will become increasingly acute in the years to come. The most destructive way PO may lead us to would be confrontation between oil consumers and suppliers.
Hello LevinK,
I echo your ending quote:
"Jerome's article is spot on, and is drawing the attention to a problem which will become increasingly acute in the years to come. The most destructive way PO may lead us to would be confrontation between oil consumers and suppliers."
Sounds like the original Financial Times article is propaganda to induce us towards the '3 Days of the Condor' scenario. I hope we will have the attained sufficient Peakoil Outreach wisdom to practice ELP and some version of the ASPO Energy Depletion Protocols instead.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Personally I don't believe in any significant mitigation efforts before the crisis has arrived. Even then the response will not be ELP or coordinated conservation effort, but more like "everybody taking care of himself" :)
Oh, but let's not pretend we can't see the point just because we don't like the way it was stated (or because we delude ourselves about pharmaceuticals, most of which are used to pretend to treat old age, something we don't really have a reciprocal stake in.)
The bottom line is that most OPEC countries have nothing - zero, zilch, zip, nada - in the way of an economy except oil. That's why they've been twitchy about actually killing the golden goose in the past.
In the last few years they've gotten away with something and seem tempted to push until the world economy breaks. Very well, they may succeed. But let's not forget that it's a co-dependency, a two-way street. No oil out, nothing in trade back in, collapse, as they produce nothing themselves. Consuming countries are not the only ones in for a shock.
How does this preclude responsibility for the oil-exporting countries to manage their oil wealth the way we, the consumers want?
And I don't even want to enter in the argument that much of the reasons oil producing countries are ranking high in the misery rank-list are lying in the policy of the rich ones towards them. If they had any choices other than exporting oil, would they be wasting it for 10c a cup?
Oh, on that part of the point, you're right - as with most business transactions, the trade will go forward, or not, insofar as both parties see it as being in their interest, or not. The gross negligence by most OPEC countries of their own economic development simply disconnects 'responsibility' from the discussion by rendering it irrelevant.
Edit: on second thought, maybe the OPEC governments do have some responsibility to their own people. Most have done utterly poorly at that. And those responsibilities will involve trade, because (1) autarky doesn't work well anyway, and (2) their past negligence has foreclosed other alternatives for the short to medium term.
Aside from the apples and oranges point, there is no way the US is going to accept the deal implied here. The world can survive on generics -- but there is no generic substitute for oil.
Too late. This is what is already happening. And it is going to get a lot worse by all indications. That the empire will lose eventually is quite certain. How much devastation it will rain on the world is what's unknown. It's much too much to hope that it will collapse the way the "evil empire" did, with a minimum of violence.