It goes without mention, but tankers are getting hit by mines or drones every day. One of these incidents would normally be an incident but in the new abnormal it's like meh. However, in base reality, debased as it is, there is a finite quantity of these things. Less than 900 Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) carry, as the name implies, a very large portion of the world's crude. Nearly 40%. Yet I have personally seen many of them burning and this is now a weekly if not daily event. This is bad, one would think, but I guess we're not thinking.

Ryan Perkins has a good piece on why the White Empire (America, 'Israel', whatever) is blowing up oil supplies to drive 'gray' countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh into the ever-grubbing arms of the IMF and World Bank and yes, that's happening. He also goes on about how this is pressuring China, and yes, they have limited reserves as well. This is the chemotherapy theory going round, that America is trying to kill its enemies faster than it kills itself. I can understand this theory, one last huzzah for capitalism, except for one thing. Capitalism needs, as the name implies, capital, and that's no good if you burn it. Which is what's happening.

These tankers are capital. Machines that make machines, in the sense that the oil they move moves everything. And the White Empire doesn't make tankers any more than it makes boy/girl bands, that's been outsourced to occupied Korea, which doesn't make that much. Most of this capital is made by commies in China. So after the chemotherapy kills off the frankly unrelated and inconsequential darkies what are you supposed to do? Replenish your capital stock from the communists? When you've banned or are banning them from shipbuilding contracts? What's the plan here? They don't have one because central planning is a bad word to them. But failing to plan is planning to fail, as the saying goes.

The White Empire under America is blindly trying to replay the greatest hits of last century, when Europe blew up its capital stock and when South-West Asian oil was largely offline, leaving America to profit from afar. They're attacking Russia with new Nazis and causing an oil crisis, hoping to get the old spark back. But like their culture, where everything is a reboot and people are getting bored of it, this is a flop. Europe is irrelevant and West Asia is a devil to keep a hold of, even if you're the Great Satan.

I have seen a friend go through chemotherapy in college and he made it, but he was young. But if you're old, sick, and in bad shape already, this will kill you faster than the cancer. Which is what I think is happening to White Empire. After World War II the United States had an industrial base with which to replace the things destroyed by war. Now what can they do? Just issue press releases and profit in the here and now. But they can't actually build anything. And at some point stocks will collapse without physical stocks to back them up.

I repeat that as of 2023, there were only 866 VLCCs total, carrying 2 million barrels each, about 40% of the crude oil on the water. Of the 7,500 tankers in general, around 1,600 are in the 'shadow', ie non-White fleet. If the Empire is banning them and the Resistance is blowing up imperial stock, what are you left with? Less and less ships and more and more bullshit. Capitalism is destroying its capital stock, which leaves it just an -ism attached to nothing at all.

They can manipulate oil markets, they can besiege competitors, and they can impoverish already poor people, but oil is, by definition, a liquid market and the effects slosh around. Even oil producing countries see prices go up because it's not countries that produce oil, it's corporations, which are beasts of no nation at all. The Empire can manipulate prices with its reserves and its shameless traders and media, but this just makes the oil run out faster. It's like pretending your legs not broken by huffing bath salts and running further. You can do that, I guess, but it makes the problem much worse.

The pressure is building and building at the very base of the world economy and the Empire is operating on the basis that it's not of this world. But it is. It's trying to replay the 1970s oil crisis/opportunity when the Whites took some hits at the pump, but successfully vassalized West Asia and discredited and toppled socialism all over the world. I get the playbook, but the player is just too old. America does not have the monetary flexibility to raise rates to 20% like it did in the 1980s. The debt is way higher now and they're just not as flexible as they were. And America does not have the military supremacy to fight a multi-front war in Asia, as it's doing all across the West-Asian front. It can do this for a while, but it can't sustain the pressure or consolidate it into political gains. Literally all it can do is front. They can make money on the volatility in capital markets, sure, but they cannot rebuild the capital stock that they're losing.

This is not post World War II where America had the industrial base nor is it the 1980s where they could freebase what had been built before. This is the 21st century which they're trying to conquer with a 20th century technology and even more atavistic imperialism. They can burn the world this way, yes, but they cannot rebuild it, no no. Which is where the real money and power is. That is to say, you cannot reboot capitalism without capital, and if your capital is sinking to the bottom of the ocean, that's where capitalism will end up at this rate, inshallah.