Schlumberger, the largest oil field service firm, cut 10,000 jobs in 2016 and another 20,000 jobs last year. The champion of hydraulic fracturing posted a loss of $1 billion, too.
Throughout the world's financial pages, economists have adopted a new noun: stagnation, stagnation and stagnation.
In Aberdeen, Scotland, former oil workers line up at food banks.
In Fort McMurray, Canada's oilsands mining centre, Nexen shut down a 50,000 barrel a day facility -- a dramatic first. Dogged by wonky technology and a recent explosion, the Long Lake steam plant consistently failed to reach production targets (70,000 a day).
Walmart, a conglomerate founded on the assumption that cheap energy will last forever, is closing more than 200 stores in the United States and Brazil, where the economy has gone south.
In the U.S., scores of energy companies dependent on fracking have gone bankrupt.
Every continental petro-state -- Alaska, Alberta, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas and Louisiana, North Dakota and many others -- has now declared extreme budgetary shortfalls due to huge drops in oil and gas revenue.
The International Energy Agency predicts "the oil market could drown in oversupply" in 2016.
And so, the descent of oil has become a sort of Sherman's March on globalization.
The status-quo pundits say don't worry.
But the global economy is now confounding academic theorists. Falling gasoline prices haven't propped up the economy, or stimulated growth for that matter. In fact, global finance appears to be driving into another recession while debt grows, innovation disappears, capital investment recedes and wages stagnate.
So there must be another story.
There is and it's called The Networked Economy
A senior Ikea executive, Steve Howard, recently acknowledged the possibility: "If we look on a global basis, in the West we have probably hit peak stuff. We talk about peak oil. I'd say we've hit peak red meat, peak sugar, peak stuff... peak home furnishings."
A peak world and complex society faces a conundrum: high oil prices shrink the economy while low oil prices destabilize it due to diminishing energy returns.
There may be some temporary solutions, but they involve ending cheap credit, shutting in at least a million barrels of oil, and regulating the price of oil as the Railroad Commission did in the 1930s. But our politicians cling to the myth of constant growth and have no idea what the real problem is.
more
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/02/08/Wild-Descent-Oil/
Throughout the world's financial pages, economists have adopted a new noun: stagnation, stagnation and stagnation.
In Aberdeen, Scotland, former oil workers line up at food banks.
In Fort McMurray, Canada's oilsands mining centre, Nexen shut down a 50,000 barrel a day facility -- a dramatic first. Dogged by wonky technology and a recent explosion, the Long Lake steam plant consistently failed to reach production targets (70,000 a day).
Walmart, a conglomerate founded on the assumption that cheap energy will last forever, is closing more than 200 stores in the United States and Brazil, where the economy has gone south.
In the U.S., scores of energy companies dependent on fracking have gone bankrupt.
Every continental petro-state -- Alaska, Alberta, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas and Louisiana, North Dakota and many others -- has now declared extreme budgetary shortfalls due to huge drops in oil and gas revenue.
The International Energy Agency predicts "the oil market could drown in oversupply" in 2016.
And so, the descent of oil has become a sort of Sherman's March on globalization.
The status-quo pundits say don't worry.
But the global economy is now confounding academic theorists. Falling gasoline prices haven't propped up the economy, or stimulated growth for that matter. In fact, global finance appears to be driving into another recession while debt grows, innovation disappears, capital investment recedes and wages stagnate.
So there must be another story.
There is and it's called The Networked Economy
A senior Ikea executive, Steve Howard, recently acknowledged the possibility: "If we look on a global basis, in the West we have probably hit peak stuff. We talk about peak oil. I'd say we've hit peak red meat, peak sugar, peak stuff... peak home furnishings."
A peak world and complex society faces a conundrum: high oil prices shrink the economy while low oil prices destabilize it due to diminishing energy returns.
There may be some temporary solutions, but they involve ending cheap credit, shutting in at least a million barrels of oil, and regulating the price of oil as the Railroad Commission did in the 1930s. But our politicians cling to the myth of constant growth and have no idea what the real problem is.
more
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/02/08/Wild-Descent-Oil/