Yeah, all the Gulf States are shit about who is and isn’t really a citizen. Foreign nationals make up about 75% of the workforce and they are largely from Pakistan, Bangladesh and some other countries with a lot of poor people and are often more or less indentured.
Surely we can agree, regardless of marginal cost, we would prefer those revenues to be in North America pockets than in SA pockets. Especially if you are a woman or minority.
Yeah, SA has invested bigly in renewables. (Not to say they are greener than Canada - at least internally. Canada’s ungreenness is mostly their exported oil and their mining operations in the developing world)
SA being a shitty country is partly their responsibility I guess, but their rulers only rule because of USA/Western support and a lot of the money going there goes back to Western Oil companies, military industrial complex, and developers (for example an Italian company WeBuild recently got a $20B contract to work on “The Line”).
Agree. Also their terrible state religion.
Because OPEC reduces volumes until the price goes up and allows the expensive folks to produce as well
I mean. People make careers out of figuring how it’s more complicated than that, but that’s pretty much the ball game.
Seems like if OPEC’s production level is price targeted rather than maximized, any reduction in domestic production will be replaced 1:1 by OPEC and not actually keep any more oil in the ground on net.
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If we don’t cut out stuff like methane from fracking then it doesn’t matter where the money goes; it will just be worthless paper/digital stuff
In addition to what micro said and I just don’t generally see things like this to begin with, RE: pockets by nation
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So it seems like we are trading fracked oil for non-fracked oil without even costing poor people with higher prices. Win-win
Like if SA loses money, they become friendlier to women?
Seems like the state would double down on fundamentalism
It just doesn’t make any sense to starve people financially to motivate them to change
Well, they may or may not have had a terrible state religion with a different history, but in this history that we do have it’s because Ibn Saud made a deal with Standard Oil of California which set up a subsidiary called the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, which changed its name to Saudi Aramco and that has kept his family in power ever since.
And OPEC definitely shows it has some independence, but
It (OPEC) generally operates on the principles of unanimity and “one member, one vote”, with each country paying an equal membership fee into the annual budget.[17] However, since Saudi Arabia is by far the largest and most-profitable oil exporter in the world, with enough capacity to function as the traditional swing producer to balance the global market, it serves as “OPEC’s de facto leader”.
and SA is dependent on US/Western support.
Perhaps in a given year, but the hard to get oil will become uneconomical (probably already is without subsidy) while the easy to get oil will remain cheap. So, as alternatives become cheaper, it’s now or never for the tar sands.
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And that’s why there’s so much money spent on consultants and lobbyists
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Let me reiterate that I am asking you how YOU would make this all work. Like if you were king for a day or whatever. Assuming that access to clean water is a human right, how would the government of the city of Microbet fund the production and maintenance of a functional water distribution and sewer system?
I know it’s a wild fantasy, but there could be municipal utilities that are publicly funded like LADWP…oh yeah, that’s the crazy system they have in Los Angeles.
Eta: and raise rates on heavy users or taxes on property, both, raise the hell out of property taxes.
But seriously, I’d move the Cincinnati Bengals to Pittsburgh.
lol. This is getting absurd now.
She’s taking birtherism to a whole new level. What does she want? A DNA test?