
Originally Posted by
Melonie
For starters, I was naive enough to think that the US gov't ... after having announced an official act of gov't foreign policy in support of an important ally ... would actually follow through on that official act of policy ( i.e. Iranian Sanctions ). Instead the US gov't has granted waivers to certain allies to continue buying Iranian oil above board, and has ignored 'bootlegging' of Iranian oil ( i.e. direct oil for gold sales which don't show up in your official sanctions effectiveness link ).
Next, I was naive enough to think that the US gov't and state gov'ts, when faced with a glut of natural gas coming from newly drilled fracking wells, would actually allow the construction of comparatively short natural gas pipeline extensions to connect to those wells. Instead, gov't regulatory opposition has stymied pipeline extensions ... resulting in the well drillers actually shutting off 'dry' natural gas wells and drilling / pumping from 'wet' wells that also produce oil. As a result regional US natural gas prices are up more than 50%, while regional US oil prices are down.
As to China's growth rate being an official 7%, that's a major reduction from the 12% they were previously running. Japan's growth rate was devastated by the Fukushima reactor incident. And growth rates in countries which were major Chinese trading partners ( i.e. Brazil ) are down as well.
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