June 18, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -   There isn’t much to report that I haven’t already reported. What goes on is more of the same but the attitude seems to have changed. A new development is the Global Eye-Roll and at this rate it may turn into an Olympic sport before long.

The US is on autopilot, cruising toward collapse, swamped by debt and politically dysfunctional but still trying to bully the world. In response, the world has been practicing the coordinated global eye-roll: the Americans (and/or their proxies) damage some oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and blame it on Iran—time for an eye-roll. Since this doesn’t have the intended effect, the Americans (and/or their proxies)… decide that it’s time to damage some more oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and blame it on Iran—time for another eye-roll. Meanwhile, there are lots of US navy ships steaming about the Persian Gulf, and that’s a sure sign that open hostilities with Iran will be avoided because those ships are very expensive, there is no money to replace them, and given Iran’s very advanced rocketry they are sitting ducks.

Another eye-rolling occasion arises whenever US officials talk up their hydrocarbon exports. The only reason the US has a temporary surplus of hydrocarbons is because of the fracking industry, which is drowning in red ink and will never be made whole because the prices it requires are higher than what the world can afford. Shale oil is but a temporary blip, and what comes next is what happens after Peak Oil—which is anyone’s guess, because that’s where all the best economic models and forecasting tools stop working, but my guess is that the world will separate into energy haves and energy have-nots, and the have-nots will have a hard time maintaining anything like a first-world lifestyle by serving each other overpriced caffeinated beverages or psychoanalyzing each others’ pets.