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Saudi Arabia Oil Turn & The COVID-19 Pandemic


MidCenturyMoldy

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35 minutes ago, samagon said:

this is as good a thread as any I guess to not only post oil updates, but covid-19 updates.

 

if you hear a rumor about the port of Houston closing, this is a gross overstatement:

https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/port-of-houston-closes-2-terminals-after-worker-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/285-8daf3e82-91ba-4189-a3da-5490628e3870

 

just 2 terminals and from the way it reads, it's only going to be a short period of time.

 

With Trumps new wartime like powers enacted yesterday, this would be a great opportunity to petition the Pres direct medical industry spending to the city. The primary goal should be to start producing what is sensible at home instead of getting it all from China which isn't just the presidents priority, but is now dawning on everyone as a national priority. Our city is actually uniquely placed to really benefit from a renewed industry focus. We have a lot of warehouse space which could be converted to producing medical equipment, and medicine. We have a lot of cheap land to build new facilities. We have one of the biggest ports in the US which could then trade surplus medical equipment and supplies to our allies, and our central location within the nation would make us an ideal location sense it wouldn't take long to distribute resources to other parts of the nation in a good amount of time. Houston has a lot of new and fresh opportunities in front of it to really gain from this experience to help us better safeguard from the collapse of the Oil Industry and at the same time become a real engine for the nation at large.

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8 minutes ago, cspwal said:

I think there's going to be a lot of rethinking about getting everything exclusively from one country overseas - I could see a lot of bigger companies start spreading out their supply chains

 

I think @samagon makes an interesting case for talking about oil and covid in this thread. What a weird intersection for the follies of our nation over the past 20-40 years or even longer. I've started to say that; If our senseless and stupid foreign wars in the past were the death for Neo-conservatism, then this Pandemic, and failed policies which helped accelerate its spread will signal the death of Neo-Liberalism.

 

While I haven't liked the overreactions to all this, the silver lining is for the first time in a very long time the nation has a common goal and a common enemy, and this pandemic has reasserted why the nation-state is something to protect, and to maintain. Now looking back at how we let our companies put everything in China really creates of picture of how we were all sold-out. Not like its totally their fault, a lot of people stood to make a lot of money from doing that, but this whole situation clearly shows that its not only morally wrong, also a strategic failure to ask the 3rd World, and our Enemy's to be our factories just so I can get a slightly more affordable pair of sneakers. It would be one thing if it was our allies and we all worked together exchanging companies and work forces, but we literally are giving up our sovereignty to a nation that doesn't care about any of those things, and would be perfectly fine taking it away from us.

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3 hours ago, Luminare said:

 

With Trumps new wartime like powers enacted yesterday, this would be a great opportunity to petition the Pres direct medical industry spending to the city. The primary goal should be to start producing what is sensible at home instead of getting it all from China which isn't just the presidents priority, but is now dawning on everyone as a national priority. Our city is actually uniquely placed to really benefit from a renewed industry focus. We have a lot of warehouse space which could be converted to producing medical equipment, and medicine. We have a lot of cheap land to build new facilities. We have one of the biggest ports in the US which could then trade surplus medical equipment and supplies to our allies, and our central location within the nation would make us an ideal location sense it wouldn't take long to distribute resources to other parts of the nation in a good amount of time. Houston has a lot of new and fresh opportunities in front of it to really gain from this experience to help us better safeguard from the collapse of the Oil Industry and at the same time become a real engine for the nation at large.

 

I'm thinking also we need a toilet paper plant or two somewhere nearby...

 

BTW...IKEA is closed for anything other than pickup of online orders.  You have to wait in line outside to pick your order up.

 

 

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  • The title was changed to Saudi Arabia Oil Turn & The COVID-19 Coronavirus

Oil is in the low $20s, and very likely headed to $14 at some point in the near future. This move,  along with the stock market/economic recession has been in the charts since well before Covid19 was ever a thing. It just makes a convenient driver to push a move that’s been set up over the edge of a cliff. Longest bull run in history. The fed has been printing money so fast it’ll make your head spin.. they’re printing another $10 TRILLION through the end of the month. 50% of our current national debt. All of this has led to serious over inflation of pretty much every financial asset in the world, and we were due for a reset. The fed cutting interest rates so early on certainly won’t help anything now that they can’t use that to curtail the economic recession when we continue to fall. Sure if we get lucky we’ll get a bounce this summer and people will claim all is well, but we’ll be far from being out of the woods just because the virus is (hopefully) behind us, and you can thank economic policy for that.

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On 3/13/2020 at 11:24 AM, Luminare said:

 

Agree. Hand sanitizer has utility because you don't need water, and its easy to apply. I just want 3. One for my car, one for at my work station, and one for when I walk through my door at home. Soap is good for when you have water.

 

Has anyone seen this at the stores yet?

 

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/houston-distillery-creates-bottles-of-hand-sanitizer

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2 hours ago, Highrise Tower said:

Social distancing line at Central Market. There is a line out in the parking lot with a police officer keeping order.  This is to keep social distancing inside the store. Love CM’s professionalism. Never seen anything like this.  Unreal

 

Not just at CM, they are doing that at other H-E-B stores as well. The Heights store has distance markers both in the checkout lanes as well as in the parking garage where the line to get in forms during peak hours. I haven't had to wait in the access line yet, but even during non-pandemic times I tend to go closer to closing time, when there aren't nearly as many people shopping. 

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1 hour ago, mkultra25 said:

 

Not just at CM, they are doing that at other H-E-B stores as well. The Heights store has distance markers both in the checkout lanes as well as in the parking garage where the line to get in forms during peak hours. I haven't had to wait in the access line yet, but even during non-pandemic times I tend to go closer to closing time, when there aren't nearly as many people shopping. 

 

Target is doing the marker thing as well but I've found that unnecessary so far.  With higher prices than HEB people avoid the Super Targets for food shopping anyway so there's never a line or crowd.

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1 hour ago, hindesky said:

Even though I prefer shopping at my Montrose HEB I tried the Kroger on West Gray on early Sunday morning and they had the distance markers on the floor at the checkouts

 

How were the crowds?  That's been my main thing during this.  I'll pay a bit more to shop where there's few people around.  Come to think of it, I guess that's my normal preference since I usually do my shopping late at night to avoid lines.  Been avoiding the normal grocery stores during this thing, though.

 

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1 minute ago, august948 said:

 

How were the crowds?  That's been my main thing during this.  I'll pay a bit more to shop where there's few people around.  Come to think of it, I guess that's my normal preference since I usually do my shopping late at night to avoid lines.  Been avoiding the normal grocery stores during this thing, though.

 

I went there around 7:30 am and the crowds were tiny. I rode my bike all round the inner west loop area today and found that the Whole Foods and Krogers were very manageable sized crowds like on a normal day. I've been avoiding my HEB since I saw a line on a Sunday a couple Sundays ago.

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So I saw this yesterday and thought it was interesting...

 

https://www.foxnews.com/media/doctor-david-price-coronavirus

 

This doctor is working in a NYC hospital treating covid19 cases and says the virus is primarily being transmitted by direct contact.  His advice is to religiously clean your hands and refrain from touching your face.

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21 minutes ago, august948 said:

So I saw this yesterday and thought it was interesting...

 

https://www.foxnews.com/media/doctor-david-price-coronavirus

 

This doctor is working in a NYC hospital treating covid19 cases and says the virus is primarily being transmitted by direct contact.  His advice is to religiously clean your hands and refrain from touching your face.

I've been washing my hands like I've never done before. I also have created my own soapless hand sanitizers since they can't be found in the stores. Had many bottles of 99% alcohol and bought some Aloe and spritzing bottles from Amazon, just add a little essential oils to add a little scent to it.

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12 hours ago, august948 said:

 

That's about as relevant as Joe Biden.  Just saying...

You might be right. Hand soap and eggs are becoming increasingly more relevant by the hour. Just like Biden, they are now a hot commodity and going up in value (at least in the swing states where it counts). https://www.mediaite.com/news/fox-news-poll-shows-joe-biden-crushing-trump-by-25-points-in-swing-counties/

 

I know, I know, polls are only relevant if trump is leading in them, right? 🙄 But congrats on Trump's t.v. ratings. I'm glad he brings that topic up so often on his daily coronavirus/political revenge briefings. I'm sure it makes Americans feel a lot better and a lot safer and so confident about their jobs, mortgages, 401k's and parent's lives to know that Trump's t.v. ratings are so good these days.

 

If the stores being without hand soap and eggs and the hospitals being without mask and ventilators and Houston's energy industry having no future for the foreseeable future is what you people call "Great Again", I'll gladly settle for making America NORMAL again, like back when 'irrelevant' Biden was VP.

 

Edited by West Timer
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I remain hopeful that the world will return back to normalcy, eventually. Seeing commercials about "no contact" is so unnerving. I get businesses will capitalize on this I just didn't expect it so quickly.

 

Gas going under a $1 per gallon is something I would have never thought I'd see again.

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Downstream projects that are currently under construction are considering long delays and staff reductions now. We could be seeing massive layoffs in about 3 weeks. This is about to start getting very, very bad. I never thought I would see multi billion dollar construction projects that are underway grind to a halt.

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On 3/29/2020 at 7:57 PM, august948 said:

So I saw this yesterday and thought it was interesting...

 

https://www.foxnews.com/media/doctor-david-price-coronavirus

 

This doctor is working in a NYC hospital treating covid19 cases and says the virus is primarily being transmitted by direct contact.  His advice is to religiously clean your hands and refrain from touching your face.

 

yes.

 

don't bother getting disposable gloves. go to your local garden center (or if you have some garden gloves, get them out), buy some gardening gloves.

 

wear them any time you leave your home, or your car.

 

I feel very silly walking through Kroger with gardening gloves on, and I feel equally silly when I am pumping gas with gardening gloves on, but it sure is a good reminder to not touch my face with them on. before I get in my car I toss them in the trunk of the car and hop in and drive away. 

 

after they've baked in your trunk for a day, anything that would have survived is going to be dead, so you can feel safe putting them on tomorrow. while gardening gloves are porous it's highly unlikely that the virus will bore through the gloves to get on your skin. I say gardening gloves because they are super easy to put on and take off without having to touch things that might have come in contact with the virus with your bare hands.

 

don't use this as a substitute for good hygiene, aka, wash your hands when you get home.

 

anyway, take it for whatever, and be safe out there, and if you see a weirdo wearing gardening gloves in the grocery store, wave at me.

Edited by samagon
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43 minutes ago, samagon said:

 

yes.

 

don't bother getting disposable gloves. go to your local garden center (or if you have some garden gloves, get them out), buy some gardening gloves.

 

wear them any time you leave your home, or your car.

 

I feel very silly walking through Kroger with gardening gloves on, and I feel equally silly when I am pumping gas with gardening gloves on, but it sure is a good reminder to not touch my face with them on. before I get in my car I toss them in the trunk of the car and hop in and drive away. 

 

after they've baked in your trunk for a day, anything that would have survived is going to be dead, so you can feel safe putting them on tomorrow. while gardening gloves are porous it's highly unlikely that the virus will bore through the gloves to get on your skin. I say gardening gloves because they are super easy to put on and take off without having to touch things that might have come in contact with the virus with your bare hands.

 

don't use this as a substitute for good hygiene, aka, wash your hands when you get home.

 

anyway, take it for whatever, and be safe out there, and if you see a weirdo wearing gardening gloves in the grocery store, wave at me.

 

Not a bad idea.  I've started carrying a small bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket.  It's become part of my edc recently.

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7 hours ago, jgriff said:

Downstream projects that are currently under construction are considering long delays and staff reductions now. We could be seeing massive layoffs in about 3 weeks. This is about to start getting very, very bad. I never thought I would see multi billion dollar construction projects that are underway grind to a halt.

 

More people are coming to grips with new realities and

Are now realizing that we are just

Going to have to adapt and 

Adjust to having much, much less in the future.

We Houstons never knew how good we had it

All along. But now we

Should really think

About preparing for life without a lot of things we used to 

Help ourselves to without having to consider the consequences.

Our decisions and future

Actions now could hurt us by

Xmas if we keep making excuses for believing excuses.

Edited by West Timer
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44 minutes ago, West Timer said:

 

More people

Are just

Going to have to 

Adjust to having much, much less in the future.

We

All

Should really think

About

How

Our

Actions now could hurt us by

Xmas

 

Trying for poet laureate again?

 

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58 minutes ago, West Timer said:

 

More people are coming to grips with new realities and

Are now realizing that we are just

Going to have to adapt and 

Adjust to having much, much less in the future.

We Houstons never knew how good we had it

All along. But now we

Should really think

About preparing for life without a lot of things we used to 

Help ourselves to without having to consider the consequences.

Our decisions and future

Actions now could hurt us by

Xmas if we keep making excuses for believing excuses.


There comes a point when the solution is worse than the problem. I’m starting to think 2% of the population dying might be a sacrifice we should make. After another month of this we might be very close to social unrest caused by economic issues, not medical ones.

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1 hour ago, jgriff said:


There comes a point when the solution is worse than the problem. I’m starting to think 2% of the population dying might be a sacrifice we should make. After another month of this we might be very close to social unrest caused by economic issues, not medical ones.

 

I think the leaders of Jonestown were saying something like that just before they forced little kids to swallow poison Koolaid.  The fact that so many people are entertaining the idea of sacrificing OTHERS so that they can live without "social unrest" makes me think that we may be already seeing the collapse of civilized society (that's MAGA for ya).

 

Do whatever you want. When you are finally face to face with death, I'm sure it will be a great comfort for you to know that I can still go to the Galleria. But if you think that anyone else should sacrifice themselves for YOUR cause, please feel free to SMD. Just because MAGA failed doesn't mean the rest of us have to die. Have a nice day. 🙂

Edited by West Timer
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