Solarbird 
do doot do doot doot
Jigme Datse@moira Um... Fuck... Let me go back and look at that to confirm it's not being deceptive... Oh it is. But still an overnight increase of 15% is fucky enough... For something as long established as that certainly.
@JigmeDatse Deceptive?
Oh, you mean zero-based Y-axis graph. I understand that argument but it doesn't apply everywhere all the time. Oil has what amounts to a profitability floor around $60/barrel, under which you start seeing large-scale production cuts. (This is something you'd know if you watch the market much, but wouldn't otherwise. See also XKCD 2501.) So printing all the way down to zero obscures data by squashing detail rather than enhansing it by providing context which, in this case, it honestly wouldn't.
(Yes, in earlier inflation eras the profitability floor was lower. That's a "technically true but irrelevant to the current economic window" fact, however.)
@moira Deceptive, not so much as it may have sounded. I'm aware that if that was plotted with a zero-y axis it would just look like a blip. But as it is plotted it looks like a doubling of the price, instead of a 15% increase of the price.
Deceptive as, "It doesn't mean what it looks like it means at first glance". It's a massive change of price, but not the apparent doubling.
Deceptive as, "It doesn't mean what it looks like it means at first glance". It's a massive change of price, but not the apparent doubling.
@JigmeDatse It's a doubling of the price _within the profitability range_, which - again, if you understand the market - is the relevant measure of geopolitical risk as priced in oil, the relevant commodity in this illegal war.
_If you know the market_, what you see on first glance _is_ correct.
@moira Fair. I rarely understand these sorts of things about economics. I don't understand why "our" (parents) financial advisor thinks that crypto is viable.
@JigmeDatse Personally, I'd say crypto _is_ viable, but _only_ if you're willing to put money into large-scale - state-level - money laundering, sanctions-avoidance, and fraud/theft.
North Korea, for example, is massively involved in crypto both for all these purposes - but so are many others, both national and private.
Throw out all the official/theoretical bullshit reasons for crypto. Those are why it has value.
@moira Yeah, I think it's a viable in the sense that people think it's viable (particularly money laundering, sanctions avoiding, fraud theft), especially when there's reasonable ways to buy/sell that can be converted to more widely accepted financial instruments.
Perhaps, I wasn't listening well enough, as I was in a different room.
Perhaps, I wasn't listening well enough, as I was in a different room.
@JigmeDatse Really, I'm more being very rude about their financial advisor. "Sure, it's viable, if you're into profiting off the worst people in the world." It's like the old triangle trade, including there's literal slavery, so.
@JigmeDatse Lemmie try to explain.
If oil goes meaningfully under $60 and somehow nothing else is changing (note: impossible) and _stays_ there despite production cuts, _oil stops being produced_. That's it for oil.
Again, that can't happen. They'd cut production, then costs, etc etc etc. More expensive modalities (shale) would shut down, low-cost sites would continue to produce.
But _if it did_, then fairly shortly thereafter, there wouldn't _be_ an oil market. Not as we understand it now. It would be completely different and substantially smaller. Old numbers would no longer apply.
(if it drops below, I dunno, $45ish? $35? There wouldn't be _any_ oil market.)
This is what they're trying to avoid through fascism, btw. Exactly this.
@JigmeDatse So in oversimplified broad terms, "sustained under $60" is the same as "zero" because "the oil market" - and oil - would stop being a thing.
(Note $60 isn't a magic number it's an approximation there's probably some padding etc etc etc.)
Does that make more sense?
John TimaeusLast time I had conversation around this with Frank was right before covid. He'd just come back from a meeting with the guys that run Texas oil production.
The general rule of thumb then was:
$60 - quit exploring
$55 - stop all capex projects
$50 - shutdown the slow wells
$45 - stop production
Given overall cost increases in the last five years, I suspect it's safe to add $5 to each of those limits.
@johntimaeus @JigmeDatse I would say $5 at a minimum. If I had to pick between $5 and $10, I'd pick $10.
(Which means I think it rounds up to $10.) (Plus I'm throwing in competition from solar which is happening no matter how much those fascists want to stop it, because China is oil poor.)
@johntimaeus @JigmeDatse (Also I don't know if you're up on battery technology but vehicle batteries just got solved in a way that fucking ends gasoline. Gas and diesel vehicles have about two years left, tops.)
@moira I'm not convinced that we can go entirely fossil fuel free, but every time I try to find something that absolutely requires it, either we don't, or the solution is just around the corner. Right now the thing closest to "requiring" fossil fuel, is the chemical industry, but I'm not aware of anything actually requiring it (ie. I'm not aware of anything which we don't have another means, though possibly using other resources we'd rather not focus on, due to the low cost of fossil fuel sources). Plastics have been argued to require it. We need to reduce plastics production, and we have means of handling it (though at great cost, compared to using oil). Most of our plastic use is because it's cheap. At least to produce. So, the possibility that oil might drop too low for there to be oil production doesn't entirely bother me.
@JigmeDatse Oh, I actively _want_ that.
But in terms of reading economics data in the context of current market framing - which is what got all this started - it's not relevant.
@moira Yeah, I was understating my desire significantly. I want it too.
Violet MadderA lot of the plastic is basically a byproduct. Trash that gets molded into particular shapes and then slapped into as many places as possible before it becomes trash again almost immediately.