Forty-three years ago, my favorite writer published an essay on Woody Allen’s late- ‘70s oeuvre titled, “Letter From Manhattan”. In it, Joan Didion described a body of work whose popularity she professed to find “interesting, and rather astonishing.”
She went on to say that Allen’s characters possess “the false and desperate knowingness of the smartest kid in the class”, and further, that in their preoccupations and pretensions, they were overgrown teenagers.
A few months after Didion’s review appeared, the NYRB published a selection of responses from readers. These readers were, for lack of a better word, pissed:
· Randolph D. Pope (Dartmouth College), congratulated Didion on providing “a perfect example of how a mind too full with culture is unable to understand humor.”
· Roger Hurwitz (MIT) said that “Ms. Didion” would “do better to be alarmed by than morally superior to the attitudes, concerns and mores Mr. Allen’s characters reflect.”
· John Romano (Columbia) spent 4 rambling paragraphs chastising her for treating Allen’s characters’ brand of self-absorption as tiresome rather than placing them in an intellectual lineage that stretched back centuries.
The NYRB also published Didion’s response to these letters.
It reads, in its entirety, “Oh, wow.”
What does this have to do with the worlds pending energy crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict? Very little. In fact, there is no correlation at all. I just figured I’d write about a good-something before delving into a bad-something. So here goes.
The more bad-something news about the Ukraine that will very much effect your gas prices:
At the end of last week, I was bombarded with headlines that looked like this: “The world could be on the brink of an energy crisis rivaling the 1970s, says IHS Markit’s Yergin”
I hate to admit that I only understand the first half of this and am fairly unaware of the catastrophe that went down in the 70s. (Clearly, I only stay up to date on what Joan Didion was doing in the 70s – and she didn’t seem too effected by the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian revolution). No matter, it is a problem.
Just give me the bullet-point news, I don’t want to keep reading.
-Oil prices have skyrocketed to their highest levels in 10 years over concerns that supply could dry up from Russia, (one of the world’s biggest oil exporters).
-One week ago, at the dawn of the war, US oil prices were at $92.
-As of last week, they hovered around $109.
-In Canada it is costing up to $2.10 a litre for gas. $2.10. (Vladimir, you seriously need to get your shit together because I just went on vacation and really cannot afford this right now).
Sanctions! Russia, you can’t sit with us.
If you don’t already know, Western leaders have responded to the Russia-Ukraine crisis with sanction-warfare. I imagine this to be the equivalent of cyberbullying in today’s high schools. It is deeply debilitating but does not involve physical combat or exercise in any form.
The problem is, Russia has the cool mom who lets us drink alcohol at their house (the cool mom = oil), so we don’t want to cut off ties completely. (Even though Russia is being, like, a total bitch right now).
Europe’s hands are tied with respect to Russian energy. The EU relies on Russia for 40% of its gas consumption, which is used for critical things like heating homes and powering businesses and driving to the store to pick up the last box of Annie’s mac and cheese. Unlike the US, (which could theoretically replace lost Russian gas with supplies from Canada and Mexico), Europe doesn’t have many fallback plans.
Basically, the US has cool friends with cool moms at other schools that they could drink alcohol with, but the EU is a little more socially awkward so still needs the in with Russia. (I am stretching but you get the point).
The solution thus far has been to proceed with caution. While Western leaders have effectively vaporized the Russian economy with a barrage of sanctions, they’ve deliberately spared Russian energy companies from the worst of the penalties…
This minor mercy still hasn’t stopped the apocalyptic energy crisis headlines though?
Despite proceeding with caution, Russian energy exports have slowed dramatically since the war began. Because of the sanctions on financial institutions, about 70% of Russian crude oil exports “can’t be touched,” energy analyst Amrita Sen told CNBC. (I didn’t even know there was such thing as an energy analyst). To harken back to the aforementioned headline… IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin, says that this could result in the “worst crisis since the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian revolution in the 1970s.”
A brief history and economy lesson for those of us attending pretentious dinner parties:
Apparently, it’s never a good sign when your energy situation is compared to the 1970s.
This was when OPEC (the organization of the petroleum exporting countries – I’m not making this up, it’s a real thing) cut off oil exports to the US for helping in the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. As you can imagine, this led to soaring oil prices and a fun little something called stagflation.
This Econ 101 term basically mashes 2 awful things into one stressful situation: An economy with stagnating growth + high inflation.
- Economists initially thought of stagflation in the abstract – not something that could exist in the real world. (Inflation is usually driven by demand for goods and services, which happens most often during a growing economy). But the 1970s came calling and decided that they should take stagflation out for a spin. Stagflation came over the US and UK as the oil crisis pushed prices for gas, and in turn all other goods, skyward. In the early 1980s the US was sent into a recession.
If my 25 years on this planet have taught me anything it is that your wildest, most abstract nightmares can become reality. Nothing is off the table. And yes, of course, I am referring to the murder hornets of 2021.
What are we going to do next weekend?
The murmurings of WWIII and the end of the world may force Western governments to decide that they need to completely cut off Russia. She is, as a high school girl would put it “really toxic”.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she’s “all for” a ban of Russian oil and old man Biden said that “nothing is off the table.” (Easy for the popular kids to say).
Meanwhile, socially awkward Europe is discussing contingency plans for their Friday night if Russian oil supplies were to dry up completely.
Until next week.