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And way more from those that do it. Ask shareholders how they feel about that. NARO estimates 12.5MM people in America own royalties. That's about 3.6% of the total population. I estimate about 4.3MM, or 1.3% of the total population have royalty under America's four major shale oil basins. Those 4.3MM folks have earned over $180B from 10 GBO and 117 TCF of gas...and Lord knows how much more from lease bonuses; I guess another $50B, easy. And still counting. They all love shale, talk it up whenever they can, embrace drilling commitments and Pugh Clauses in their leases that would choke a horse. Drilling commitments alone have led to massive over drilling and frac hits in all basins. It makes it difficult to pay back long term debt because shale oil companies have to stay on the drilling hamster wheel constantly. Over leveraged oversupply drives the price of oil and natural gas down and keeps prices volatile. The rest of the domestic oil industry in America is in the toilet and critical investment in exploration around the entire rest of the world stagnant, all because of US shale oil. Its terrific for America now, providing all that debt gets paid back; it won't be in another decade when its all gone.

The majors taking over the majority of shale areas could only be a benefit, long term. The pundits and other independents are projecting how much shale can be produced and mostly exported, which is long term stupid for our economy. Exxon and Chevron have been spending huge amounts of money to buy, expand, and build new refinery capacity which can use shale oil vs. heavy oil. Costs on that extend over decades. At some point in time, their production will flatten when the new construction is full capacity. Their vision on this, is obviously to use this oil in their refinery process, rather than exporting it. I agree with Mike S., that their costs of drilling could not be much different than other independents. However, they make that up with savings on transportation and the spread between WTI and Brent when they refine their own oil. There has been a lot of discussion on the amount of increase the majors are projecting to increase within the next five years. However, when you look at it, that increase will only cover the refining capabilities of the new construction.

Here's a sprawling, wild rollercoaster of an Oil & Gas history tale, mostly around Alberta. @Mike Shellman clearly had fun writing about this true adventure, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. ============================ Through a 40 Acre Choke "... The No. 3 well was drilled to 5,331 feet TD by March, in the D-3 zone, and open-hole logged by Schlumberger. During a clean up trip complete circulation was lost and shit hit the fan when the well came to see them and the Hosmer BOP failed. The well blew out of control for days, then calmed down enough to get tied onto the kelly and a massive 11,000 sack cement squeeze was pumped by Halli to kill the well. Story was that numerous hands quit that day, tired of toting around and ripping open 90 pound sacks of cement for twelve straight hours, which I get, completely. Besides, in late March it was probably still cold enough in Alberta to freeze snot. The squeezed failed but slowed the flow down enough for Atlantic hands to get the Hosmer Button off the casing head. A bladder type Hydrill was then nippled up and pumping down the drill pipe was re-commenced, again, to kill the well. In March 90 sacks of mud were shoved in to the No. 3 well along with 43 tons of cotton seed hulls, 21 tons of sawdust, water, mud, lime and almost a half ton of chicken feathers. I am not kidding. The drill pipe plugged at the bit, probably with chicken feathers, and the well could no longer be circulated. ..." Daily drilling report, March 8, 1948, after the well first started blowing.

I think that's the most succinct description of the problem I've suspected U.S. shale has, which was made pretty obvious during the 2014 crash. Also, it's not a coincidence Total is steering clear of shale. Monsieur Pouyanne said it straight out: shale is very capital-intensive. Imagine someone figuring this out. What a world we would live in then!

@DanilKa Actually, no. If these are Delaware wells, costs will be more like $9.5-10.0MM. I just received some CVX AFE's that were $11.5MM. Remember, all royalty owners love all unconventional HZ plays and you'll NEVER hear a royalty owner question economics. Not ever. Everybody now has their panties in a bunch about how good big integrated companies will do in the Permian. They will not be able to drill better wells, not for many years. They will monopolize services and squeeze those poor dudes until they can't make any money. They will throw R&D money at source water, I hope, and that's good, as is Chevron's no flaring policy. They will soak up takeaway capacity and what they don't make upstream, they'll make amends for it downstream. As some point out they have less to no leasehold costs, Chevron anyway (Exxon paid over $6B for that BOPCO crap), and much higher NRI's make economics a lot better. Across 1.7MM acres Chevron's average NRI's are >0.9500. That reduces time to pay out by a year. The Permian is perfect for the big boys; its like salmon swimming up river to their place of birth to die.

Great info, thanks! I agree with your assessment on cost to drill 7 wells; $8.5M ea seems reasonable. Would you agree, @Mike Shellman? XTO got it lucky with the acreage - they don't have to pay $100K/acre which would of ~double expenditures. Jan production equates to 429 bopd/well which is not the best initial production but some decline may have taken place. 91 acre/well is probably where they want to be. Infill "child" wells would produce substantially less and likely to drop "parent" wells production. Additional wells can be drilled as there is likely stacked shale. Don't count on that 6-figure check to continue (unless oil price will jump) - production decline is brutal. Here is ExxonMobil wells in Permian (both TX and NM - chose your county) from shalepfofile (thanks, Enno@shaleprofile😞 https://public.tableau.com/shared/BM8SCB9XY?:toolbar=no&:display_count=no

Trump's tariffs on China are working. Chinese exports yoy fell almost 21%. China introduced more stimulus of tax cuts, issuing bonds, and reducing the VAT. Meanwhile US employment is at a 50 year low. It all increases pressure on China to agree to a favorable trade deal because the last thing China wants is millions of unemployed angry proletariat.

There's other factors - See hidden debt - Definition delinquent for this is NO PAYMENTS Also add the UNIVERSAL Income stuff . I made a spreadsheet and the results were scary. Triple the yearly deficit claim $1T - so we can have inflation due to Money Supply increases. ~ 2.4 trillion / yr is not chicken feed.

I prefer employment rates to unemployment rates https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate The country is still in recovery from the great recession. The reason employment rates are higher than, say the 60s, far more women in the workforce. And for many families both have to work to get by. Hard to compare then to now.

@Rasmus Jorgensen Thank you for your comment. I am at the end of my oil career; the shale oil industry is not hurting me personally. There is an incredible amount of propaganda about shale oil's sustainability. It is an amazing resource in my country that is being mismanaged. Low prices and price volatility IS hurting the offshore industry, badly. I agree with you 100% and it is one of many ramifications to the shale oil phenomena that will ultimately hurt our long term hydrocarbon future, not solve it. My "agenda" is to draw attention to how this resource can be better managed. For my country and my kids.

Privacy International finds major Android apps are still sharing data with Facebook OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Despite all the fuss around data harvesting, there are still major Android apps sucking up data and piping it back to Facebook. Anti-snooping group, Privacy International kicked out a report that found apps from sizeable companies like Yelp and Duolingo are harvesting data that could be used to identify users and fuel advert tracking. The data gobbling happens even if users aren't logged into the apps, which also include job search tool Indeed and two Muslim prayer apps. That data is then blasted back to Facebook even if the user isn't logged into the social network's app on their Android device, or more worryingly, doesn't have a Facebook account at all. ...

Just in time for International Women’s Day, NASA announced Wednesday that it will be conducting the first-ever, all-female spacewalk, CNN reports. Astronauts Christina Koch and Anne McClain will exit the International Space Station on March 29, 35 years after the first woman performed a spacewalk. They’ll be guided from the ground by flight director Mary Lawrence, and flight controllers Jackie Kagey and Kristen Facciol, according to CNN. NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz confirmed that the upcoming walk will be “the first with only women,” but added that “it was not orchestrated to be this way.” According to NASA, any time spent outside a vehicle while in space, including fixing equipment and conducting experiments, is considered a spacewalk. Russian cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, who was the second female astronaut, became the first woman to walk in space in 1984 while testing a repair method.

Back in the day you used to be able to buy big bags of chicken feathers to use as LCM. A colleague, after a few drinks while on his off tour, loaded his pickup truck up with this LCM, slit the bags open, and drove around town (it was either Rocky Mountain House or Red Horse in Canada). Law enforcement finally caught him and gave him a broom to keep him busy. I have also heard of sugarcane being cut to short pieces, ground up, and pumped down hole as LCM. Supposedly it worked fine in that application. I personally have seen those cocoa mats, which are commonly used as doormats, lowered over the side of a drillship to plug a hole in the hull caused by a collision with a workboat. It slowed the inrush of water enough, after swelling, to allow a temporary fix from inside of the hull. Before the advent of non-rotating cement plugs, I have heard of people circulating down broken bottles to aid in drilling out the plugs. Thinking 'out of the box' to get the job done used to be fairly common.

Whatever it takes!😊 https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2016/11/week-68-years-ago-albertas-biggest-well-blowout-gasped-its-final-breath/

● Production growth does NOT equate to profits. This niggling little fact seems to get ignored, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again in the U.S. Shale Oil industry. I'm not holding my breath that Big Oil will actually be able to turn a profit along with that production growth. Has anyone considered that if it costs a company more money to produce a product than it can sell that product for, an increase in production will be an increase in losing money for that company?

Tesla Reportedly Sending Employees Home Mid-Shift, Cutting Assembly Inventory Literally hours after we reported that Tesla was firing even more people at its Fremont, California factory – layoffs that appeared to have not been included as part of a disclosed plan – the company implemented even more significant cost-cutting efforts that have already affected employee work schedules and impacted the supply of parts used to make vehicles. As CNBC reports, Tesla is sending employees home and cutting basic inventory at its Fremont factory. The report stated that there were several new cost reduction measures launched by Tesla, but these haven't made public. First, the company is apparently asking employees to work remotely and keep their travel costs to a minimum. Second, the company is telling hourly employees at its Sparks, Nevada Gigafactory, where Tesla makes batteries and drivetrains, to leave in the middle of their shifts. The company is also telling employees to take paid or unpaid time off, according to the report. ... But what is most troubling - for investors in the $50 billion market cap company - is that this recent slate of layoffs is the third such round of layoffs over the last 12 months. This follows a 9% workforce reduction in June and a 7% cut in January. One wonders if these are all just hallmarks of a "growth story" that deserves a ridiculously premium valuation. Most puzzling of all is that this news all follows a June 2018 e-mail, where Elon Musk claimed to employees that he would never have to initiate another round of layoffs. "I also want to emphasize that we are making this hard decision now so that we never have to do this again," Musk said in June; in retrospect, "never" has a slightly different meaning in "longville."

No splitting between adjacent chargers is as big a deal as 250 KW charging rate. Its essentially 4 times the current speed. While VW’s Electrify America is setting 350 KW chargers, most of VW group’s cars are not capable of using that peak rage, excpet Porsche Taycan which is capable of utilizing 350 KW chargers as of now.

I wonder how pre-warming the battery affects longevity and health. I would assume that they're going to do a lot of testing about dumping that much energy into the batteries that quickly. Batteries get hot when they charge and the faster they charge the hotter they get. I'm no expert on the subject but I would imagine that there would be an upper limit to how fast you could charge a battery safely.

Speed of battery charging is definitely a downside of electric vehicles. We haven't gotten to the point where recharging your car is like pulling into a filling station spending 5 minutes pumping gas and driving off. So this is definitely going to help in that regard because for electric cars truly to be successful they also need to be convenient.

Jan - that's one of the few times in the debate I've had to stop to look up terms. As far as I know you're the only one to suggest these condensers and I imagine its some form of energy storage - there's heaps of suggestion for energy storage, including compressed air, liquid air, batteries and the use of ammonia.. so far none have been made cheap enough to be of any real use..

Looks like Trump is singlehandedly wanting to take the credit for the USAs oil revolution! He may well be unleashing a monster that will have huge repercussions long after he is out. “The Trump administration is set to unleash its offshore, five-year oil drilling plan within weeks, Reuters reported, quoting an unnamed source in the know. The plan is being prepared amid strong opposition from the local authorities of coastal states. Last year, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposed to open up more than 90 percent of the coastal waters in the U.S. outer continental shelf in 47 lease sales that would include areas off the coast of California that were last leased during the 1980s. The U.S. outer continental shelf holds technically recoverable reserves estimated at 550 million barrels of oil and 1.25 trillion cu ft of natural gas. The Gulf of Mexico was made the focus of the 2017-2022 plan because of the consistent interest of oil and gas explorers in the area, the high resource potential, and not least, the extensiveness of production infrastructure, a statement from the Department of the Interior from 2017 said. During this period, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will hold two lease sales for the Gulf of Mexico every year. However, the Trump administration has made it perfectly clear that it would like to open more acreage to drillers along the coast of the country. That has drawn opposition from both Democrat and Republican leaders in the coastal states. For example, USA Today earlier this month quoted South Carolina’s Republican Governor Henry McMaster as saying “The administration is well aware of the state’s position, which is why we oppose the drilling." Georgia’s also Republic governor said "I support offshore drilling. I just don't think we need to be doing it off the coast of Georgia.” These two are a small part of the opposing group that has had the Department of the Interior struggling to find a way to accommodate individual state interests and Trump’s America-First energy strategy. So far, one proposed solution has been to shrink the size of blocks to be offered under the new five-year lease sale plan, or to even remove some blocks from the plan.”

Make sense, but if they are not paying >50% of AFE for completion - they are not doing it right. Best of luck with ramp-up. Drawing down too hard could be detrimental to EUR due to loss of near-wellbore conductivity. Cycling of pressure is generally not a good idea as it deteriorates fracture conductivity. HEAL downhole system getting popular as it reduces slugging and pressure cycles it causes. But XTO won't take any advise from you how to operate their wells. $20 is a very high operating cost; I sure hope it not anywhere close to it. there is no way of squeezing 7 wells into one section and keep 1300 ft between them - only if you blessed with multiple formations and can do "wine rack". Hence I question viability of 25 wells. Enjoy it while it lasts! Fresh free report on Permian https://shaleprofile.com/permian-basin-report/

I talked to the XTO company man at the site about costs to drill and each well is less than $1m to drill. The rest of the cost is completion and that can range from $2-5m. My independent operator is paying a little more to get them drilled but less for the completion because his working interest partner is HAL. Our first well drilled in 2014 cost about $15m but that was because it was sidetracked. The second well cost about $6m and I know this on these wells because I received the daily reports on the wells and on other wells he drilled. With respect to production, this is not a full month I don't believe. There was no production reported for December and the plan was to begin ramping up the flow from the wells during January. My experience with these wells is that the largest production occurs in the third or fourth month of operation. In the first few weeks they are adjusting the flow by changing choke settings and also having to switch between chokes because of plugs flowing back. It takes a while to get optimal flow on one well much less 7. I expect the wells to produce 4kbbl/day when they hit the peak flow. The operational costs here will be low because they have put so much automation into the infrastructure. That first picture is the LACT unit which will allocate production to each well and determine when to dump to the pipeline. No trucks needed for anything. The last picture is of the 12 inch water takeaway pipe which is in addition to an 8 inch pipe that goes to a different disposal facility. This is a fully automated site and should have low operating costs. My independent has his own water source, his own water disposal wells and his own gas processing facility as well as connections to three different pipelines for product sales. He has put all of his wells on LACT units and automated water disposal so that there is no more cost for trucking. He told me three years ago his operational costs were about $35/bbl but now they are less than $20 with all the automation he has put in. There is a lot of misinformation being promoted about shale from people who don't actually do it. As to frac interference, that happens as far a way as 2600 feet. Horizontal spacing should remain at 1300 ft from all indications but a wine rack geometry with 330ft vertical separation that maintains 1300 feet horizontal spacing seems to be what most operators are using right now. @MikeShellman, Royalty owners like making the most money and we do care about economics as it's important to maintaining production. What we don't like is being HBP for a few dollars per year.

Far too late. I stopped using Facebook long ago because of the many breaches of customers’ trust. Never going back. Facebook is about to suffer unrepairable damage due to their nefarious activities. Even Mr Z admitted in an interview after Cambridge Analytica was unveiled, that FB had become a monster he cannot control. https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/04/10/mark-zuckerbergs-testimony-shows-facebook-is-a-monster-too-big-to-control.html

I don't know what it cost but I am guessing $60m to develop my section. XTO inherited a very old lease signed by my grandmother and her siblings back in 1950. That lease gave us 1/8th but allowed the operator to hold the entire 640 acre section with only one producing well when these wells could only drain about 40 acres. It was a short-sighted and bad lease and now we are stuck with it. The deep rights were separated and the top lease was sold back in the 70s. Humble was the original developer and XTO was the eventual holder of the deep rights. XTO drilled a well back in 2016 before the strippers finally failed to produce enough to hold the lease. We kept pushing the stripper operator to prove paying quantities and they did it by cheating into 2016 but XTO got the new well in during a one month period because it was so easy to get crews back then. They started telling us in 2014 that they wanted to drill 25 wells on our section and I just couldn't fathom that because the operators for the other two sections we owned didn't have anything like that in mind. So they permitted a bunch of wells and sat on them until last spring and then they went in whole hog. XTO drilled and completed 7 wells during March through December of 2018 and brought them on line at the beginning of this year. The January production was 93,000 bbl oil and 383,000 mcf gas. Even at 1/8 our monthly check is mid six figures which exceeds the checks we have gotten from our section with a modern lease where we get 25% and cost free royalty with payment for any flared gas. We currently have two wells on that section. The two other sections were developed by BHP and a small independent. We have done well with the independent but sold the BHP section altogether because it was Minerals Classified which isn't worth owning and it was encumbered by one of the old leases held by strippers for years. BHP ended up selling out and nothing has been developed there since we sold it at the end of 2016. Color me impressed by what XTO has done. They have the infrastructure built to support about 120,000 bbl/mo and have permitted more wells that can be drilled to keep the production rate up for several years. After that, who knows but for now, they will be making $5-7m/mo gross with 12.5% removed for royalty and about 7.5% tax on gas and 4.5% on oil. So figure it out for yourselves, a lot of the acreage in the Permian was held by old stripper leases and isn't encumbered by 25% royalties. To the extent those sites are in the good pay zones, the operators will make good returns.

Oversupply? May be better to say too much to sell at higher prices. Nobody is taking much more than they can consume in the near future. All OPEC needs to do is SAY they are not producing as much as they were before now and that magically means they have curbed "oversupply". OPEC pumps as much as they sell, nothing more, nothing less. Perception vs reality, and the speculators set the prices.

OPEC is having to pull double duty since US production (and more importantly, US inventory) is still going gangbusters. US crude oil inventory, before last week, was down just 4 million barrels net for the year. But today's massive oil inventory build just wiped that away and then some. Not to mention Libya's restarting Sharara. They've got their work cut out for them.

I thought the US government just refused to buy phones from Huawei for government employees? They are still available at retail outlets in America?

Huawei sales in January reached 6.82 million phones in China (not counting Honor brand phones sold 5.13 million) which is up 46% from January last year!! Whereas Apple suffered 28% decline in sales!

"... silent lambs" - when you come to country and spying, how do you call that?

Won’t be perfect all the time, but still hiring.

or producing ANYTHING in addition to oil... they need to diversify their manufacturing too.......

Amen. Good governance is, IMHO, far more important than the philosophy of the governance. When there is a lack of accountability at some point it will go sideways.

US Census responses since 1850. And of course anglicized names all over. And yes, Czechs and Germans are different, but when you get to what is now the eastern part of Germany, todays borders are quite different than the 1850s. A Bavarian is quite a bit different than a Prussian. We need diversity, it's a strength, and buying into the system as well. The point was there was concern inside the Federal Government for the "great wars" over German heritage. And guess what, German Americans were (and are) by and large true Americans, no Germans. The Japanese interments are a blotch on our history, and yet one of the most decorated units in WWII were Japanese American soldiers.

Fascinating!

Don't know about Chevron but on this website there's an article where Exxon claims they can make 10% return even if oil went to $35. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Majors-Are-Taking-Over-The-Permian.html

Surprised...No.It's so clear. Britain and France are the No. 2 and No. 3 arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The EU, meanwhile, is a big user of of Saudi oil and an eager recipient of investment from Riyadh’s $230 billion sovereign fund....

nice propaganda here ,ofcourse murica want get this gold and oil

Everywhere Muslims have gone, As soon as ~1/3 becomes becomes Muslim the civil wars start. History has shown, they win them and then subjugate everyone under Sharia "Law". After all, if you denounce being Muslim you are killed..... right in their religious texts. No apostates are allowed. After all it is a religion of "peace".... 😂 Partition saved the Hindus from being finally wiped out into a mass grave.

I wish my arguments are paid.. Have to probably start seriously thinking about it after not so "honest Serhii" called me "a troll".

So many lies in one comment! qte it was the USA that responded to the 911 calls for help in establishing peace and order unqte Right.. When the USA staged false flag operation in the Gulf of Tonkin to fight "commies" and then kill 7,8 million people there (including in Laos and Cambodia), then we should call it "call for help in establishing peace and order"? What a profound lies! qte Also remember that it was not just in soldiers that Americans paid. When you have 55,000 dead soldiers, you also have 55,000 American women who will have no husband. When you have 2,000,000 battle wounded, then you also have 2 million American women with crippled husbands. The costs of being the world's policeman extends well beyond the military price. unqte Right.. 55,000 dead soldiers is obviously bad and 55,000 american women "with no husband" is not good either. But how about 7,8 millions vietnamese, cambodians and laotians who were killed by the americans in that war? How about many more millions that were left wounded? Crippled? Agent Orange defoliant maimed babies are still being born in Vietnam. How about millions of others that were killed in perpetual US wars? Shouldn't they have been mentioned in your touching essay about americans suffering because they are the only ones responding to other nations' "911 calls for help" in establishing war, terror and destabilisation around the globe? What a profound ignorance and hypocrisy!

Look. It's getting funny, really. Why every time an American, like you, must necessarily prove that any opinion of other people, especially those from the ex-Soviet bloc, is a priori unimportant for him? Why should one like you always speak in a lecturing manner and ridicule other’s arguments? What is it? Omnipresent American exceptionalism? Or simple denialism? Or something else? How did we end up discussing Russia at all? I remind you again that I have started my comments on this topic (about Venezuela and USA) by stating that “I sincerely hope the US doesn't start another war just to lose that one too”. I meant Afghanistan. You immediately jumped in and, having noticed my Slavic name, brought Russia into discussion by responding “Well, the Russians would be experts on losing a war in Afghanistan”. Why the hell Russia needs to be discussed in this topic? Even if S300 was mentioned by some1 else b4. Aren’t we discussing the Venezuela and the US relations? If you want to say that, in your opinion, USA, on the contrary, is winning war in Afghanistan, then argue as an adult plse. Don’t change the subject in a way a schoolboy does it – “Ah! You do know that Russia lost there, don’t you?” And what is all about your love for changing subjects? The whole world knows that the Americans have killed more people in the world after WWII, than anyone else. ”20 million people” by some moderate estimates. 7,8 million just in Vietnam war. https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-world-war-ii/5633111 When I mention it to you, then, rather than argue about that fact, you come up with all that your favourite changing subject strategy – this time with the bullshit about 20 million allegedly killed by Stalin. Why Stalin? Unlike proven facts about deaths from American worldwide actions, those “facts” about Stalin are incorrect, if not to say they are all ridicules lies and fiction, that he killed 20 millions of his people. That was long ago proven by many historians and by mere figures of statistics in USSR. In Russia, had you used such an argument, you would be considered as somewhat retarded, sorry. Or just as a schoolboy. And when I hint you on the views of the American historian about Stalin, you immediately come up with – “Ah! That guy is red! He is not historian, he is not even American! In fact he IS an american. At least you can 't deny this fact. Don’t you find it funny? You haven’t argued in ANY style other than changing the subject! OK, you are implying that I, supposedly, had learned a history that "is a lie". I’m afraid, judging by your “knowledge” and set of terribly overage clichés you use, I can definitely say that my history books were much more accurate than yours. At least, unlike you, I know that there is no any other country in the world like USA, that had so many lies, deceptions and mass killings in its history. Starting with the genocide of native Americans and blacks and ending with the two most violent wars of the last decades. Both of them have started with the lies: Vietnam from the false flag operation in the Gulf of Tonkin, and Iraq with a lie about the Saddam chemical weapons. I’m not bringing the issue of Afghanistan. Not as yet. OK, I perfectly understand that everyone has his own "confirm zone". It must be easier for you, rather than to argue, just to apply your view of american exceptionalism (or your personal denialism) and jump to conclusions accusing others in “hating America”. Calling them “reds” also seems to work perfect for you. If you think that deception and hypocrisy won't sound that bad if they are called the “truth” then yes - stay in the confirm zone of your deceptive lies.

Between Iraq and Afghanistan sits Iran. If you see something else then check the map you yourself provided. "Battle hardened troops" for 18 long years can't even beat goat herders wearing flip-flops. Your war is lost. Again (remember Vietnam?) If you don't trust me then go check the facts: https://nordic.businessinsider.com/the-us-is-losing-in-afghanistan-but-the-trump-admin-wont-admit-it-2018-9?r=US&IR=T https://www.weeklystandard.com/thomas-joscelyn/the-afghanistan-war-is-over-we-lost

Have you lived in Iraq ? You would be surprised as I was by the number of people missing Saddam. I don't say it's the majority of the population, but it really is baffling when you hear Iraqi, even Kurds (!), saying that the situation was better under Saddam and that it's a pity he was toppled. At your age, still believing in Hollywood fairy tales ? The bad guy kills his own people, the US and democratic hero comes, free the people, everybody is celebrating and the economy recovers... After hundreds of US coups/wars/destibilizations, even a 5-years old kid couldn't believe this bull....

Everything is biased out there. The Western presstitute clearly is on the usual propaganda bandwagon, as in Iraq, Syria... Pro-Guaido's rallies are shown 24/7, Maduro's ones are ignored : https://twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1098591077072814081 The problem with Venezuela is that the population is deeply divided. It's not the Western fairy tale : a nice and photogenic Guaido supported by the population while Maduro is a brutal dictator despised by everybody. Each side have millions of supporters and all that can end with a years-long civil war. As for the boots on the ground, you know how it always starts. DC and mediatic campaign against a country/leader, so-called NGOs jump in the wagon, then CIA... Vietnam, Mossadegh etc. The opposition didn't want to participate in the election because they knew they would loose. When they participated in the 2013 election, a completely fair scrutiny dixit Carter, they just lost. Maduro killed by his own troops ? Maybe, everything is possible. Or a CIA black-op, a Pig's Bay-style operation... What's sure is that Maduro has millions of supporters and they won't accept a US coup. But Guaido also has millions of backers. Dangerous time, bloodpath in sight... You're not wrong in that. But less puppet than US puppet Guaido who propose to sell off Venezuela to Washington.

True. It won't be difficult to start a war neutralizing any isolated S300 or even 5 or 10 of them. Quickly and fiercely. What will be difficult is to win or merely finish that war. It's been 18 years since the United States invasion of Afghanistan. That war is far from being over and is considered to be lost by the U.S.. It's just the facts. And Taliban don't even have a single S300. I sincerely hope the US doesn't start another war just to lose that one too.

Nope, it's an independent polling company. As for 90% of Venezuelans wanting Maduro to go, you should stop watching CNN and other fake news medias. The situation is far more complex than that and the society really is divided between people who want Maduro to go (a lot) and people who want him to stay (even more). Clearly, a few S300 batteries isn't enough to repell a US attack, but it's a deterrent meaning : ''You want to invade us, it won't be on the cheap, you'll have to put some extras''... An unelected ''president'' who proclaims himself president ? What about Pelosi doing the same in the US ? 70 nations = 1/3 of the world. 2/3 of the world doesn't recognise his coup attempt. pps & ppps : sure, just like in Iraq, Afghanistan... So many US successes, heh ?

You're right but France and England were earlier, i.e. the had a century or more to change. Russia only removed the serfdom in mid-19th century. Poor b-tards didn't have time to come to grips with the fact they were free (sort of) before the communism doctrine started spreading its tentacles. OK, I'm making a separate thread on feudalism!

Do as I say; not as do... Yeah, that'll work. As with all things in life - balance is needed. Had the white house been a little balanced in their rheteoric we would not be been having this discussion. I particularly like @Marina Schwarzs take on this...

haven't you all heard? there aren't any 'oligarchs' anymore. They've all re-invented themselves and are now pretending to be legit.