A Very Short Post.

I am still in awe from many people who still exercise illusions that manipulating, OK, printing, currency, makes any difference--other than hyperinflation down the road, of course--for real economy in a sense that tangibles, allegedly, do not matter. Well, actually they do matter and "free market" delusion is taking a horrendous beating these last weeks. Judge for yourself:

(Reuters) - Energy traders bailed out of the expiring May U.S. oil futures contract in a frenzy on Monday, as the contract dropped by more than 70% to less than $5 a barrel and opening the widest gap ever between it and the next contract with storage rapidly filling. That yawning gap has opened because a glut of oil is heading towards the United States while demand has dropped by 30% due to the coronavirus pandemic. While oil-producing nations have agreed to cut output and major global oil companies are also trimming production, those cuts will not come quickly enough to avoid a massive clog in the next couple of weeks. As a result, futures traders, who would normally be able to shift from the expiring contract to the next, are finding few buyers for the expiring May contract to take delivery of barrels. As more traders dump the May contract, it has crashed, lately trading at $8 a barrel.

As I already stated many times before--I am not oil industry specialist, but I sure as hell, as do most people, understand the difference appearing between costs and prices. Fair, non-manipulated that is, prices. I understand desperation of a title in Oilprice's article: 

 Do U.S. Shale Drillers Deserve To Exist In Free Markets?

But can we really cut the BS and speak in broadsides? Where did they see "free markets"? What kind of a unicorn is this thing. A white board abstract taught in useless "economics" programs in universities? There are NO "free markets", there never was, only geopolitics, geoeconomics and bottom line. Bottom line now is that Saudis do not like US shale oil, Russians also do not like it. The rest are fantasies by journos from the US "economics" house of smoke and mirrors who have to now live with the reality of not just 2 million (or whatever was announced after OPEC++ meeting) bpds cuts but, it seems, more like... drum roll... half of US whole oil industry output. 

Of course, there is this way of printing a shitload of USD to "support" the industry but one cannot cheat economic laws which are supported by empirical evidence--you print more money, you begin to turn into Zimbabwe, simple as that. That is, unless you force the world to absorb your hyperinflation. Good luck doing it today, very few takers are out there, if not to count economically "soft" and poor third world. Or as FT notes: 

Bailing out the oil industry brings a fate worse than death. Whenever things went wrong growing up, my dad would tell me, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.” Dying was supposed to be the worst-case scenario. He never mentioned zombies. But that’s what a bailout for the oil industry would create: zombie companies that can’t earn the cost of staying in business, kept afloat with taxpayer dollars.

My question is, are they even capable to answer the main question of who the REAL zombie is. I know who and it is easily found in NYC at Wall Street. Good luck killing it, before it kills you.  

UPDATE: 

The May contract for U.S. West Texas intermediate crude oil (CL=F), which expires on Tuesday, dropped 93.5% to $1.19 per barrel as of 1:34 p.m. ET Monday, hitting a record low. The June contract for the commodity (CLM20.NYM) dropped 12.23% to $21.97 per barrel.