Yes, it’s a mid-day blog – two in one day. How cool is THAT?
Will the US Intervene?
Venezuela has land and sea claims over Guyana. The people of Guyana don’t see it that way. The US wants to put its thumb in Venezuela’s eye. For well over a century, the land- and sea-territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela has remained a complex and heated issue.
Venezuela claims the region west of the Essequibo River (the so-called “Guayana Esequiba”), an area of roughly 150,000 km²—nearly two-thirds of Guyana’s territory. The dispute also extends offshore: both countries claim overlapping maritime regions, including sub-sea hydrocarbon rights. This issue has grown since significant oil and gas finds in Guyana’s offshore zone.
Venezuela contests the validity of the 1899 Paris Arbitral Award that established the border; Guyana, on the other hand, has sought to bring the matter before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for legal resolution. With offshore oil discoveries in Guyana’s waters, the stakes are higher than ever.
Each step toward asserting claims—such as maritime activity, referenda, or legislative action—shifts regional security dynamics and could influence broader diplomatic ties. The dispute remains unresolved, and international legal processes, such as those before the ICJ, are ongoing.
The Saudi Royal Visit
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince will do more than tend to a historic alliance during his meeting with US President Donald Trump this week: He is looking to position the kingdom he is likely to rule for decades to come as an indispensable ally. Billions for the US defense industry? Check. Billions more to back US artificial intelligence champions investing at home and abroad? Check. And don’t forget money for US gas exports and nuclear technology.
But this is no longer just a commitment to recycle Saudi petrodollars, freely flowing around the globe under the protection of an American-led global order, into US assets. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) wants to redefine the US-Saudi alliance as a partnership that will shape the future. From Riyadh’s perspective, doubling down on Washington will help its most important strategic partner beat China on everything from AI to security, energy, and critical minerals.
The kingdom hopes to use reserves of uranium and rare earth metals to tie itself into US supply chains eager to keep China out. And in a show of diplomatic usefulness, Saudi Arabia played a role hosting US-led talks to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war, offered help in resolving the Sudan conflict, and served as a temporary home for US military equipment in the lead-up to Iran’s strike on Qatar’s Al-Udeid base. Saudi Arabia, through its oil sales, is also the swing vote in any efforts to shift global trade away from a reliance on the US dollar — a key concern of the Trump administration.
All of that improves the Saudi pitch to the US at a time when its crude reserves are no longer big enough to fulfil MBS’s ambitions. In Trump’s first term, Saudi Arabia was so flush with cash that it needed to find other places to invest its surpluses. Now it spends so much at home, it needs other nations to back MBS’s domestic vision. While closer — or the threat of closer — ties to Beijing are sometimes seen as a bargaining chip for Riyadh, all sides know that Chinese investment is not going to “Make Saudi Arabia Great Again.” For that, MBS needs the US. In that sense, the future of the two countries may be more entwined than ever. Once the pomp and ceremony of this week’s visit has passed, though, the longer-term challenge for the crown prince will be ensuring that all the goodwill he has built up in the Trump era survives into future administrations.
Bullet Points:
** Five-year countdown? Rogan and Musk
** The median age of first-time homebuyers is now 40. That’s the oldest age in more than four decades. It is also a dramatic increase from only four years ago, when the median age was 33. In 1981, the median age of first-time buyers in the U.S. was 29. That isn’t good. It gets much worse. Part of the equation is clearly the age at which people can afford to buy a home. The other part is how many people can afford to buy a home at all. The numbers in that regard are terrifying.
** Coincidences – sometimes they’re disturbing. Only a coincidence? You be the judge.
** Why are the PRC termites always so hysterical? Is it because nobody really cares, and they have to jump up and down like hyperactive (bipolar) children? They’re unhappy that Japan’s defense net has been pulled back from Taiwan. Do they really think that they could take the place without firing a shot?
** The price of diesel vs gasoline.
** Military barriers are rarely designed to deny the enemy access completely, but they will slow the enemy down, which might accomplish the same goal. Here’s how the Poles do landmines.
** I’m at the age where picking up a hot chick at the club means buying a rotisserie chicken at Costco.
** (Bloomberg) “Africa’s population has doubled in three decades and it’s now home to about 1.5 billion people, a figure that’s predicted to grow to 4 billion by the turn of the century. This growth has been driven by improved access to medical care, plummeting infant mortality since 1990, and persistently high birth rates. Already about 60% of people south of the Sahara desert are younger than 25, compared with one-third in the US, according to the United Nations. The expected number of annual births in Congo is more than 800,000, greater than across the US or the European Union’s 27 member states. So while the developed world worries about getting old, Africa is getting younger.”
** The EBT scam – more of the same, but it’s annoying that the system is set up for fraud. (Walsh)
** Part of the problem with a world (in the US) where everyone survives is that the concept of survival of the fittest has gone out the window. Decent medical care, abundant food, adequate shelter, available transportation, and a lack of significant predation have resulted in a population that lacks almost all common sense. I saw a bum begging curbside, talking on an Apple iPhone openly. I’m sure he has a 50-inch color TV at home and a car that’s no older than 3 years. It passes for poverty in America.
** Senator Fetterman lays it out.
** The US consumes 20 million barrels of refined and finished petroleum products a day. That’s different than “20 million barrels of oil a day.” About four million of the 20 are made up of hydrocarbon gas liquids. The US produces about 14 million barrels of oil a day. We are energy-independent but not oil-independent. It sounds more complicated than it is. West Texas Intermediate (WTI), also known as Texas light sweet. It’s a high-quality, light crude oil with low sulfur content, used as a global benchmark for oil pricing. Canadian oil is often described as thick and sticky, similar to molasses, because it contains a high proportion of heavy hydrocarbons. The main component is bitumen, a substance so viscous that it does not flow on its own at room temperature. To make it flow through pipelines, it must first be blended with Canadian light oil (also from Canada – blend called Synthetic Crude Oil). Western Canadian Select Oil is a heavy, sour oil that is blended with heavier tar sands to create a product that can flow through pipelines. Canada produces 25% of the oil used by the USA.
** What-sized anvil is right for you? I hope that you don’t buy them to try to drop on road runners. (more here)
** Are they in Baghdad, Damascus or Chicago? It has to be Chicago because there’s a lot less violence in Baghdad and Damascus.
** When Beijing is in trouble domestically, it looks for a distraction and a fabricated enemy to allow its domestic nationalists a target to redirect their frustrations away from the CCP. Suppose Xi lets them entirely off the leash, as with the last time. In that case, we will see Japanese consumer brands banned on social media and Japanese auto dealers and restaurants in China trashed, just for long enough to discharge some tension.
End
New homes will be smaller, and young folks will develop other ways to finance a smaller home. I don’t think smaller banks will even consider 50 year loans. Their stock holders don’t want to see their investment only be finally realized by great grandchildren.
It depends on USGOV putting their thumb on the scale.
There’s a lot of well maintained housing stock held by us older folk the younger folk wish would die.
There will be a lot of plugs pulled here. In Canada they are getting the medical professionals to do it for you.
Canada is going at it wholesale. LSP has stories about a family member who was down on his luck and wanted to ice his mom so that he could cash in on his inheritance early. I’m sure that’s a thing.
🤢
“Will the US Intervene”
if I understand it correctly (and I rarely do), this neighborly turf dispute is 100% about who owns the off-shore petroleum; no?
Maybe about gold in that delta as well?
There’s a lot of on-shore petroleum, gold, diamonds, and other mineral wealth.
It’s my impression that there are a lot of foreign actors in Venezuela that wish us harm.
Not to forget that Smartmatic helped steal the 2020.
100% agreement
I’d like to see a listing of organizations, nations and individuals (limited to 50 or less, please) and their particular overt reason: ideology, mineral, etc.
>The US wants to put its thumb in Venezuela’s eye.
Will war (or the practical equivalent of) with Venezuela benefit the average American? If so, how? We need to know in considerable detail regarding practical issues. Not some handwavium about “spreading democracy” or “they hate us for our freedoms”. Or is war with Venezuela something that benefits Blackrock and Halliburton and the international bankster class? Hmmm.
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>Chinese investment is not going to “Make Saudi Arabia Great Again.”
Of course it won’t. And it’s not only the Magic Kingdom: Chinese “investment” helps only China (if that). Why is above my pay grade, but I suspect that this is in large part because the Chinese are extremely ethnocentric and view all non-Chinese as barely human, or frankly subhuman, and therefore view all others as tools to be used for the gain and advancement of the Chinese (which means Han; some filthy Uyghur with a Chinese passport is still a Muslim animal, for example). BAD Chinese! BAD! The only saving grace is that the Chinese have the good taste to not drag God (or “G-d”) into it. Thank goodness we don’t deal with any other peoples who openly consider outsiders to be subhumans who are mere instrumentum vocale, talking animals to be used for their ends. Could you imagine how bad it would be to have a “friend” whom you trust, but that “friend” is openly contemptuous of you and makes sneering public remarks about the influence he has over you? Or imagine having a bitchy girlfriend who gets you into all sorts of fights that she instigates or frankly starts, and you’re not even getting any? Thank goodness that’s all hypothetical. Whew!
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> Housing: That isn’t good. It gets much worse.
Maybe we should be raising a stink about Blackrock and similar … enterprises (trying to avoid libel here) buying up so many private homes, for one thing.
In that vein, pleased as I am to see increasing Noticing almost daily, all this will not end well for anyone. Of course their tame organs will cry out “Finks hardest hit” (DARVO, as always) but all the people of the West will suffer.
x2 Mike C
Esp. the “han” nd “friend” part
Juan
I’m not exactly certain of the definition of a “home”
I had a very nice 3½ apt (bed, liv, kit, dinette, full bath) on 72nd and York in pre-crazy Manhattan which condo’ed.
Had I married a gal who didn’t want kids, we could’ve DINKed very easily/nicely in that apt til it came time to escape NYC.
There were also very pleasant 4½s for one kid couples.
and then you need the three bedroom, ?sq ft frame houses in the burbs when there are two kids
(are we penalizing the “replacement breeders”?)
what is a home?
The replacements have to be produced. I realize that young ladies are preferring a life of drugs, sex, and rock and roll to nurturing squalling brats. Maybe Musk’s robots will save us?
Home buyers. Here in Arlington, TX mult-story, multi-wing apartment complexes are going up everywhere. All rectangles with straight lines, two, maybe three basic colors. Good luck getting an emergency vehicle down the narrow streets if there is a parked car. Ware housing efficiency at its finest. I call them ant hills. So are families going to be raised there? Will future grand kids be excited to go over Grandma and Grandpa’s apartment? Terrifying indeed.
You’re describing most of Italy, right then and there. We’ve 2/3 the area of California with 1,5x the population, with far less usable land, unless you care to live on mountain ranges that laugh at the Rockies. And even tose are full, by US standards. So the kids will be exited to vist the grandparent’s apartment: thay’s what they are used to. OTOH, they will be quite unused to wide open spaces, but Europe has few of those.
Venezuela/Guyana IS going to blow up, it’s just a matter of time. Maduro ‘thinks’ he’s in control, but I wouldn’t bet on that… Re housing, $625,000 in NOVA for a 2/2 1400sqft house on 1/4 acre vs. $122,000 in Texas. Nuff said…
Fifty year home loans … might as well rent, especially if the rent is lower cost than the potential mortgage. I double blink at being 40 and obtaining a fifty year loan. At 90, if you’re alive, it’s paid off. More likely, the house goes to estate with twenty years left, sold, and if lucky a few crumbs for the estate to divide up.
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There is a lot of our naval equipment hanging around near Venezuela. Gets expensive saber rattling.
*
Been awhile but I read we ship diesel to Europe and Europe ships gasoline to USA to keep the product consumption balanced.
Home ownership – another major problem is that we didn’t used to have gigantic,
national, vastly capitalized real estate companies buying up huge amounts of the
stuff and just sitting on it at ridiculous prices to keep the bubble inflated. We do
now.
*
Gas and diesel – he doesn’t get it all right. In the Rust Belt, New England, and much
of the Northeast Corridor (and maybe other places, but IDK) there are still enormous
numbers of buildings heated with #2 Home Heating Oil, which is just untaxed undyed
diesel fuel. For all my life (well, since the late ’70s anyway) diesel has been more expensive
than gas around here – in the Winter, more expensive than Super, in the Summer, varying
between moderately more then Regular and very slightly less than Regular. So it isn’t just
a new thing. Also, the US tends to use (still) a lot more gasoline in the CONUS than diesel,
so volume helps the gas price.
*
The Saudis aren’t philosophically similar to Americans (except financially), but they have always
been one of our more reliable partners. They often have to say things for domestic consumption
that don’t sound especially friendly towards us, but their actions are almost always pro-American.
I’m a big fan of close ties with them. They might not be the “nicest” country around, but they have
been steadily becoming “nicer” over time.
– Kle.
I trust Elon was talking about no longer needing specific “apps” (I remember when we called them “programs”) to accomplish a task.
No Outlook, Word, Excel….?
Just an amorphous blob AI that does all those functions?
That’s what he said.
nd I have read ( zerohedge & 9to5 Mac) he & Tim Cook said by 2030,
“smart” phones won’t be needed. That (iiirc)” bio-connectivity” will keep us
all continuously online.
🤔
Juan
Diesel Price
He misses one small, but important point. When we adopted ultra low diesel, our diesel met European standards. Tankers who once departed our ports empty now had a back haul revenue source. Europe was a profitable market.
A favorite vehicle I owned was a 1984 Mitsubishi Might Max 4×4 with a turbo diesel motor. I ran it on biodiesel until those sources failed.
Home Ownership
From the time I was twenty six, I had five single family homes with thirty year mortgage. My youngest son was able to purchase a home with a thirty year mortgage. Unless things change, my grandchildren likely will never own a home. I can’t get too butt hurt by Gen X attitudes. They are inheriting a shitty economic world.