E depois do dólar?

O pico de crescimento americano deu-se na década de 1950. Capiche?

Quando há crescimento há mais energia e petróleo produzidos

É a procura agregada, estúpido!

Lá para 2018... quando o embuste do petróleo/gás de xisto americano ficar totalmente a descoberto, os USA voltarão a comprar no Médio Oriente, África, Canadá, Venezuela, Brasil, etc., mas quando tal suceder, o mais provável é que precisem de comprar euros para comprar petróleo.

Ou seja, o castelo de cartas do sobre-endividamento americano acabará por ruir, e o dólar será então uma espécie de moeda-peste. Quando isto acontecer, o preço do petróleo será marcado em euros, mas não poderá ir além do que for realmente o poder de compra inscrito na procura agregada mundial.

Haverá então mais uns milhões de seres humanos a consumir energia fóssil. No entanto, não terão recursos para comprar petróleo caro. O paradigma do crescimento mudou: muitos mais a crescer, mas todos a crescer mais devagar e com um rendimento per capita decrescente.

Energia e matérias primas terão que manter preços acessíveis (barril de crude a menos de 80 dólares, etc.), sob pena de ficarem por produzir e vender.

Por sua vez, as energias alternativas e a eficiência energética não poderão diminuir as necessidades de petróleo, gás natural e carvão, em mais de 30%, isto se formos todos muito eficientes.... que não somos.

Portugal, descontando a gritaria populista dos partidos aninhados em volta da manjedoura orçamental, irá crescer menos, sempre abaixo dos 2%. E assim sendo, não pode pagar 3,7% de juros pela sua descomunal dívida pública (1). Nem deve continuar a financiar a despesa inútil e burocrática do estado e das suas PPP aumentando criminosamente a fiscalidade que incide sobre a energia e os produtos petrolíferos.

A única aposta correta é produzir mais e a bom preço, exportar mais do que importamos, racionalizar o estado (e o estado social) de acordo com uma fiscalidade adequada, justa, competitiva e transparente, combater a corrupção e alterar sobretudo o quadro legal que a estimula, e melhorar radicalmente a qualidade e o preço da nossa mobilidade interna e externa, física e digital.

BP vê preços do petróleo de regresso aos 100 dólares
JORNAL DE NEGÓCIOS. Patrícia Abreu | 10 Fevereiro 2016, 16:50

Os preços do petróleo têm estado a testar novos mínimos de 12 anos em 2016. Apesar de terem recuperado parte das fortes quedas registadas no ano, as cotações continuam bastante deprimidas. Mas isto pode estar prestes a mudar. O presidente da BP antecipa que os preços acelerem até aos 100 dólares por barril.

If Chesapeake Does Not Go Bankrupt In Just Over One Month, This Could Be The Trade Of The Year
ZERO HEDGE. Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/10/2016 12:53 -0500

É preciso rever os comentários sobre a 'nova Arábia  Saudita'

Back in March 2013, when nat gas, and pretty much everything else, was trading far higher than where it is today, investors who believed in the vision of Chesapeake'snow long gone CEO Aubrey McClendon had no problem writing a check for $500 million of other people's money to the Oklahoma gas giant, hoping to generate a "whopping" 3.25% return by the time the bonds matured on March 15, 2016.

Sadly, since then things changed.

Chesapeake - as we previously reported - is now on the verge of bankruptcy having hired K&E as a restructuring advisor, and these bonds (maturing March 15, 2016) are currently trading at 80.5 cents on the dollar.  As the chart below shows, this results in a yield that is about 100 times where it was at issue, or just shy of 300%. 

Why oil under $30 per barrel is a major problem Our Finite World. Posted on January 19, 2016 by Gail Tverberg 

Experience over a very long period shows a close tie between energy use and GDP growth (Figure 3). Nearly all technology is made using fossil fuel products, so even energy growth ascribed to technology improvements could be considered to be available to a significant extent because of fossil fuels.

[...] 9. Many people believe that oil prices will bounce back up again, and everything will be fine. This seems unlikely. 

The growing cost of oil extraction that we have been encountering in the last 15 years represents one form of diminishing returns. Once the cost of making energy products becomes high, an economy is permanently handicapped. Prices higher than those maintained in the 2011-2014 period are really needed if extraction is to continue and grow. Unfortunately, such high prices tend to be recessionary. As a result, high prices tend to push demand down. When demand falls too low, prices tend to fall very low. There are several ways to improve demand for commodities, and thus raise prices again. These include (a) increasing wages of non-elite workers (b) increasing the proportion of the population with jobs, and (c) increasing the amount of debt. None of these are moving in the “right” direction.

[...] Conclusion 

Things aren’t working out the way we had hoped. We can’t seem to get oil supply and demand in balance. If prices are high, oil companies can extract a lot of oil, but consumers can’t afford the products that use it, such as homes and cars; if oil prices are low, oil companies try to continue to extract oil, but soon develop financial problems. 

Complicating the problem is the economy’s continued need for stimulus in order to keep the prices of oil and other commodities high enough to encourage production. Stimulus seems to takes the form of ever-rising debt at ever-lower interest rates. Such a program isn’t sustainable, partly because it leads to mal-investment and partly because it leads to a debt bubble that is subject to collapse. 

Stimulus seems to be needed because of today’s high extraction cost for oil. If the cost of extraction were still very low, this stimulus wouldn’t be needed because products made using oil would be more affordable. 

Decision makers thought that peak oil could be fixed simply by producing more oil and more oil substitutes. It is becoming increasingly clear that the problem is more complicated than this. We need to find a way to make the whole system operate correctly. We need to produce exactly the correct amount of oil that buyers can afford. 

Prices need to be high enough for oil producers, but not too high for purchasers of goods using oil. The amount of debt should not spiral out of control. There doesn’t seem to be a way to produce the desired outcome, now that oil extraction costs are high. 

Rigidities built into the oil price-supply system (as described in Sections 3 and 4) tend to hide problems, letting them grow bigger and bigger. This is why we could suddenly find ourselves with a major financial problem that few have anticipated. 

Unfortunately, what we are facing now is a predicament, rather than a problem. There is quite likely no good solution. This is a worry. 

NOTAS

1. No dia 11 de fevereiro os juros a 10 anos chegaram aos 4,5% (Jornal de Negócios: Juros de Portugal sofrem maior aumento desde a demissão irrevogável de Portas). Se Marcelo não olhar para isto com olhos de ver, o cenário de um segundo resgate será verosímil antes do verão.... PCP e Bloco, ou formam com o PS uma coligação governamental—opção coerente com as 'posições comuns'—, ou terão que abandonar a geringonça—posição incoerente e antecâmara de um colapso duradouro das esquerdas—, provocando eleições antecipadas em 2017, ou mesmo no final deste ano.

Atualização: 11/2/2016 18:57 WET