It's other way around! Iron age did not result in Bronze Age collapse, it was caused by it.
Iron has been known for a long time before the collapse, and widely accessible. It was little used because iron at that era was an inferior, substitute material (and is a pain in the ass to make because it involves first producing charcoal to achieve high temperatures). It only became stronger and comparably durable to bronze around 2nd century BC, in late Roman Republic. But the Collapse made long-distance transportation of inputs for bronze production impossible because centralised governments one could depend on for predictable rules and security, vanished. It forced people to turn to then-inferior iron, and start using and eventually, improving it, but it still remained inferior to bronze even in Classic Greece.
> but it still remained inferior to bronze even in Classic Greece.
The Greeks clearly had access to bronze from the archaic period and used large amounts of it to manufacture armor. Yet they still used iron for swords and spear points. This would indicate that iron was already superior to bronze for quite a few use cases.
Iron was mostly perfected by Romans through their conquests as they collected and systemised iron processing tech of the nations they conquered, which all entered Iron Age by then. By the times of early Roman Empire, high quality iron spread around enough to make bronze obsolete.
IIRC there were significant improvements in the early and mid “dark ages” and mass produced Roman steel was generally quite poor by medieval standards.
I think the main benefit of bronze and it still existed in Roman times is that you can cast it instead of forging. It took almost two thousand years to figure out how to make steel cuirasses that resembled the bronze ones Greeks used before the classical period. Of steel chainmail or scale armor was already superior anyway.
One thing that people for some reason don't like to voice out loud: America won this way. Maybe it has become politically incorrect to even voice anything positive at all, like doomerism grasped all sides of society?
Baath party is destroyed and no longer exists, political and underlying ethnic groups that propped it up are deeply marginalised and sidelined, political regime in place in Iraq is exactly the one America wanted to have there, and it WORKS: they have regular competitive elections (in the strictest sense of it: before the elections, no one can predict results in advance) and a well-functioning civil society where people can advocate for, or protest against things without it devolving to tribalism (not "Shia vs Sunni" riots or similar). Iraq as it currently is, is created by America and stands firmly on its feet.
Or "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess"
But this case looks like an outright fraud. The paper doesn't even show the strategy that led to very high returns. It just shows the results. And this was a peer reviewed paper in the top-4 marketing journals.
But unlike in the old days, US wins from higher prices. Even consumers wins (because they make more money on average, and their imported goods are cheaper because balance of payments shifts in US favour because of oil exports).
Voters are furious because of psychological factor of gas prices (purely psychological, it has nothing to do with economy or people's purchasing power). It bites politician's asses real hard.
So, Trump undermined himself by launching that war - but others are fine.
All of that depends on the strength of the Dollar, If the US is to deindustrialise as it aims too it needs a weak dollar.
Secondly theres the Petro-dollar which depends on the Middle East states Reinvesting their profits in the US to keep the dollar strong I don't know if you checked but I don't think they are going to be making any money in the near term. So looks like the dollar will be falling anyway.
Further to that there is the global debt system which largely relies on buying US treasuries if countries get squeezed by the coming inflation, theres the chance these get dumped on the market and if that happens I believe the term is "Well, Fuck."
> If the US is to deindustrialise as it aims too it needs a weak dollar.
Typo for "reindustrialize"? Is the idea to move people from well paying comfortable services jobs to uncomfortable repetitive lower paid factory work by forcibly lowering their standard of living?
De-industrialize, which should not be a new surprising word, as the appalachian factory belt (now mostly rusted out buildings) has existed for decades.
I'm trying to imagine your painted scenario in a positive light ie; "everyone has well paying comfortable service jobs."
Do you feel that the rest of the world will just allow itself to become the "butler" of the US, so we can all make $50 usd an hour doing easy jobs? Of course not. As the dollar weakens, and imports rise, we only get skewered more, while our "comfortable service jobs" become worthless.
>"Typo for reindustialize" We invented the language first so I'll use it as intended.
The plan is for the US to not be dependent on the rest of the world (China) for its needs.
I think GP wasn't pointing out your "s" but rather your "d" at the beginning. At least, I also assumed that you meant "reindustrialise" rather than "deindustrialise".
Do they make more money on average? Does any additional income cover the increase in cost of living? Becoming psychologically poor is much harder than becoming psychologically rich. I doubt that balance of payments goes anywhere near your average Joe’s pocket.
It absolutely does because balance of payments = exchange rate, and average Joe is poor and consumes disproportional part of imported goods vs the rich.
The overwhelming amount of expenses is for domestic products; lumber, food, services, rent, etc. Cheaper foreign shit isn't going to be meaningfully felt by the majority.
The part where the rich come in, is that the rich will disproportionally feel the upside of selling the fuel. The people on below average wage are just going to see prices rise and meager savings dilute, long before their wages grow.
Thats not to say the US isn't going to be well of as history's largest energy producer ever, but the reshuffling is going to be extremely painful for a majority of Americans.
Calling people's anger purely psychological is simply wrong and extremely out of touch. Perhaps you personally are in a privileged position where this is all great, but most people aren't. Most Americans work a regular job and don't have a huge amount of wealth. They make the same amount they did at the beginning of the year, but all of their expenses have increased by a significant amount since then.
Maybe down the line they'll be able to enjoy marginally cheaper socks or TVs or whatever, but that does nothing to help them afford higher gas and grocery prices this month.
But for the US, there's no question like that. It produces a lot lot more than it consumes anyway. There can't be a shortage.
Yes US produces mostly light crude and production of refined products requires also inputs of heavy one, but it's not produced in the Middle East anyway, so current situation can't impact that, either.
> But for the US, there's no question like that. It produces a lot lot more than it consumes anyway. There can't be a shortage.
It's a global commodity. The reason there likely won't be a shortage in the U.S. has little to do with our production volumes, and has more to do with the fact that we're rich enough to be able to afford the higher prices when many other countries will have to forgeo using oil.
But if we weren't a rich country and we couldn't afford to pay a higher price for oil than many other nations on earth, we would produce and export oil to people that can pay more.
Ireland during the famine produced enough food to feed every person. But much of it was exported to other places, that could afford to pay a higher dollar amount to survive.
The US is also sovereign and if things would become really bad the government would just ban exports.
Ireland wasn't sovereign and it turns out, as much as other countries act brotherly (not that the UK really did), nobody really cares about you like you care.
Depends what 'sovereign' implies. The will of the people? Or maybe the will of those that lobby government the hardest (e.g. oil companies)? If the latter, then export bans might not arrive anytime soon.
Sovereign doesn't mean any of those in this context. It means that the US can set its foreign and domestic policies as it pleases. How it decides those policies is another matter.
'Sovereign' here means that the US govt is able to impose export restrictions, not that the People's will or special interests' desires are relevant. Of course 'can' != 'will'.
For example, in the UK Parliament is sovereign, not the people. That's effectively how it is in representative democracies or republics where there is no fast representative recall mechanism.
The U.S. Constitution doesn't say that Congress is sovereign, but the effect is the same. For that matter, the U.S. President has a great deal of power.
Some countries rely on oil imports to produce agricultural products, and suddenly cutting them off the global market would kill hundreds of millions from hunger over the next year. Look at what happened in Cuba. Without china giving them old solar panels and used batteries, they would have revolted already. They still have a huge food insecurity issue for next year, especially if the huricane season gets bad.
Britain was barely democratic at the time of the famine. It’s silly to blame the current generation for something their ancestors did. Even if the people you are complaining about were alive then they were unlikely to have any influence over the situation.
Thing is, if there is a worldwide shortage, US wins.
To the benefit of those on the political left, an oil shortage shows itself almost exclusively in poor countries (because they actually don't have money to pay), and these tend to not have automotive industries of their own, thus have no reservations about switching to electric cars, which means that any oil consumption decline these days tends to be sticky - when the oil flow resumes, these people won't need it anymore. No one is going to get back to driving an ICE car once they tried electric, even if they initially did it under duress.
It’s a global commodity unless there are export restrictions. Russia maintains petrol/diesel prices way below world level thanks to export ban among other things. China did impose temporary export restrictions too. I would not be surprised if Trump will eventually impose export restrictions on refined products to maintain low domestic prices.
About as quickly as the Canadian Oil patch would be flooded with money.
All that would do is push oil investments out of the country, and your surplus would become a deficit in the drop of a hat.
Oil is not a single good. Different types of crude produce different products at various grades hence why diesel is so expensive in the US compared to something like natural gas
Why do you think Republicans would institute an export ban? Trump has been touting every export deal he can (especially promises to purchase petroleum), he has even been measuring import/export levels as if foreign countries are cheating the U.S. if they export more to the U.S. than they import from it.
I am not confident that the Democrats would even implement such a ban, as they get pretty big campaign donations from the oil industry as well.
There absolutely can be a price shock that will make current prices look economical. Oil is priced on a global market, and if the price is high enough, that might mean many Americans are priced out of some of their own oil. The only way to decouple the domestic and international markets is export and price controls. One need only look to Canada's NEP of the 80's to understand how that's likely to turn out.
Also, the U.S. is currently prosecuting a trade war against Canada that has, thanks to Trump, become a question of sovereignty for Canadians. The U.S.'s largest source of foreign oil is, potentially, one outburst from Trump away from Canada placing export duties on oil. It has been discussed in Canada, and it's viewed as an extreme option, but an option nonetheless. Trump would have to say or do something truly outrageous for that to happen, but his ability to turn allies into enemies should not be underestimated.
Bottom line, fuel could become a lot more expensive, quickly. Even if there's still gasoline to be had, it still qualifies as a shortage if it becomes unaffordable. Fuel prices affect food production, delivery of goods to markets, and pretty much every aspect of the economy.
Oil tankers travel at about the speed of a bicyle. If a price shock does happen it will last for months. If the war with Iran is not resolved promptly, this is precisely what will happen.
Demand is genrally destroyed in places where people can't afford the higher oil price which is most definately not the US. Poor countries are ehere people will suffer.
Can't the US producers sell oil outside of the United States, where it's more expensive, thus generating more profits for their shareholders, thus creating a shortage in the United States, thus dragging the prices up to the global equilibrium, thus dissipating any effects of the US producing more oil than it consumes?
Venezuelan oil production has declined by about half since Chavez took power. Given the losses they suffered from expropriation, the oil majors aren't particularly keen on returning to Venezuela without stronger guarantees, and oil executives aren't idiot--they understand that Trump is not a reliable partner and that there's a good chance that any deal he strikes with Venezuela will fail to be honored past 2028 (or possibly even before then).
There's also the fact that Venezuelan crude oil is basically among the worst grades of crude oil, the sort of stuff that the refineries don't want to use unless they have no other options. Which also means that as global oil demand hits its maximum (likely within decades), this is also going to be some of the first oil production to be permanently mothballed. With massive necessary investment to get anything running, subpar product, and a very uncertain political situation for the necessary long-term investment, most oil companies are reluctant to invest.
As a result, the only major oil company to have really been contemplating investing in Venezuela is Chevron (which itself appears to be mostly hedging its bets); Trump more recently announced another deal with a supposed major investment in an unnamed operator to extract oil from Venezuela, but without any companies being named, I'm skeptical of how real it is as opposed to merely being a vehicle for graft.
As AnimalMuppet says, if anything does get built, it's on the order of years before anything starts flowing.
I think I heard 3 years at a minimum (don't take that number as gospel, but the order of magnitude is roughly right as a best case). The issue is that Venezuela's oil infrastructure is basically trashed by decades of neglect and mismanagement. It's going to have to be rebuilt, which is billions of dollars and several years.
That's the best case. Worst case (for Venezuelan oil) is that the Republicans lose the House and Senate in November, then the new Congress starts investigating the Venezuela deal, and court cases start flying, and oil companies back out, and the date for the impact of the deal becomes "never".
The issue is that they never expended the infrastructure, never exploited new fields, their old oil field started giving less, so they pumped more water in, which probably lowered the quality of oil, and made it harder on the refineries.
Venezuela oil also need a lot of refinement in any case, and this is where the US made a mistake, because they could just have insisted on refining Venezualan oil rather than directly taking a cut, which will be seen worse by the locals. Basically help more venezualan crude oil to get out of the field than their refinment capacity can afford, and loan them tankers to sell the crude to US refineries. US corpos could have profited a lot more (and if the US could tax them, the US government could have taken a cut) than this weird, dumb and aggressive position of taking a cut.
> I think I heard 3 years at a minimum (don't take that number as gospel, but the order of magnitude is roughly right as a best case).
I appreciate the sentiment but order of magnitude is thrown around to the point of meaninglessness. What is the 'order of magnitude' of 3 years in this case? 1-9? How is 3 years roughly the same as 1 or 9 years? Same order of magnitude, off by a factor of 3 to 9, in years is not close enough I'm afraid.
There is a dumb ass simple explanation: in about the same time it took to build rockets that took people to the Moon, we figured out that there was nothing to do there for humans. Or anywhere in the Solar System for that matter.
I mean until 1960 people expected to find whole civilisation or at least intelligent life on Venus and until 1964, at least some life on Mars. By then, it was too late to stop Apollo, but already no point to go anywhere else or expand Moon presence.
I wonder what happens to China when this factor disappears. China workforce peaked in 2016, and city workforce will peak in the next few years. With the economy still growing, acute labor shortage is less than 10 years away.
This is a total joke. This kind of numbers are a drop in the bucket vs what's needed. US needs to install at least 10x as much simply to cover daily fluctuations in demand.
Glass is half full. We'll get back up to speed eventually. It is a marathon, not a sprint. California is the future of the rest of the US. If the world's fourth largest economy can do it, the rest will be easy.
We will go faster in this regard if we decommission coal and older fossil gas generators more rapidly, as the only quick, cheap generation option forward will be renewables and batteries (no new coal plants will be built, it takes a decade to build new nuclear, and fossil gas generator manufacturers have wait times for delivery measured in years). How those fossil generators are taken offline isn't terribly important, only that they are and in a manner ensuring they cannot come back online in the future. Batteries will only continue to decline in cost, and be deployed faster, into the future.
> California has built one of the largest battery storage fleets in the world. Battery storage capacity has grown from less than 700 megawatts (MW) at the beginning of 2019 to more than 21GW by mid-2026. This rapid growth is helping transform how the grid operates by reducing reliance on fossil fuel generation, increasing grid flexibility and reliability, and supporting the integration of renewable energy resources. [41% towards projected need met, as of this comment]
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