Newsflux - the latest

Kunstler: ....many observers were amused by last week's cute trick of releasing sixty million barrels of oil from the world's strategic reserves at the rate of two million-a-day in an effort to pretend that the world doesn't have a basic oil production problem. It is, of course, at the bottom of the world's financial disarray, because if you can't increase energy inputs that feed an industrial economy you don't get growth and then the whole idea of compound interest falls apart because it is predicated on a perpetual increase in wealth.  Hence, debt collapses in on itself. The world is caught up in an epochal contraction now, and it manifests in situations like the Greek emergency. But soon it will be a universal emergency.
Read the rest.

And from Jeremy Wakeford:

Interesting recent developments:

(1) OPEC fail to reach consensus on production quotas (Saudi wanted to increase, others not)

(2) IEA to release oil from stockpiles

According to this article

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/iea-opec-nash-equilibrium-collapses-1973-style-opec-embargo-next

Saudi Arabia has effectively been kicked out of OPEC. Saudi interests (keeping the US sweet to support their royal regime militarily) are diverging from those of other key OPEC players, especially Iran and Venezeula (anti-US and wanting maximum revenues from high prices).

 

The 1970 peak in US oil production dealt a death blow to the Texas Railroad Commission (their oil cartel). When global peak oil really kicks in, OPEC won't be much use as they could all pump flat out and still the price will rise as world production declines yearly. Individual producers also don't have much leeway to reduce production as they are so dependent on the oil revenues.

 

Meanwhile, the US-NATO steps up its interventions in MENA, apparently preparing for deployment of ground troops in Libya. Syria seems to be next in line for major intervention (already covert ops supporting the rebels there). US continues drone bombing attacks on Pakistani soil; China says a war against Pakistan would be a war against China.

SHOOT: The prospects of the world economy and thus all of our hopes are starting to slip...and the slope is getting more and more slippery.