Very top of the article:

Becoming an OPEC member just recently, Angola is set to build one of the strongest economies in Africa, with its GDP growing over 30% annually, the highest rate in the world. Hopefully Oil will be just the trigger of a golden era in a country that possesses other important natural resources.

In my opinion, this growth rate is just plain reckless, and it is doubtful the Angolans, as history has exhibited in many other African countries, will spend that newfound oil money on sustainable economic policies. This new oil money will just fuel internal consumption for food exports and modern goods ect, and result in more and more modern lives that will be born dependent upon fossil fuels for their livelihoods. It is akin to yeast in a jar getting a boost in their growth medium, which will result in an intensification of the overshoot/die-off cycle. In my opinion we should be questioning growth as being something universally good for societies, and seeing it as something that will make us more dependent upon a system relying on increasing complexity and depleting fossil fuels to solve its problems. Increasing complexity, like the transition from horses to cars for transportations requires exponentially more infrastructure to implement and as will some green fantasy to ultra high tech hybrid cars which requires even more infrastructure. Few people seem to think of this background issue which is exponentially increasing dependencies on infrastructure to accomplish our the same simple task which requires exponentially more energy. The net energy cliff is on us in my opinion and a technological fix will further exacerbate our decent, a fundamental change in socialization is what we need similar to what Jeff Vail speaks of. That's why I don't see a 30% growth in GDP based on it's people making it a golden part of Africa, long term, but setting it up for a tremendous amount of difficulties.

Read Joseph Tainter's, The Collapse of Complex Societies, It explains this issue in greater detail

-Crews

Random Wiki tidbits:

The current government has announced an intention to hold elections in 2009. These elections would be the first since 1992 and would serve to elect both a new president and a new National Assembly.

The country is the second-largest petroleum and diamond producer in sub-Saharan Africa, yet its people are among the continent's poorest.

Many African states have developed this tendency post-colonialism:

The concept of a gatekeeper state was introduced by the African historian Frederick Cooper in his book Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present.

According to Cooper, African governments suffer from a peculiar politico-economic dysfunction that derives from a particular historical sequence. Specifically, he contends "Africa was systematically conquered but not so systematically ruled" (2002: 196-197) and hence "colonial states had been gate-keeper states" (ibid.: 5) which had "trouble extending their power and their command of people’s respect... inward" (ibid.: 156) but could control "the interface of national and world economies" (ibid.: 141). The colonial powers wanted specific things from Africa (e.g. natural resources) and hence had only a limited transformational agenda since extraction could occur in the absence of a strong state. Ultimately, the authority of colonial regimes depended on the superior military forces of the metropole, which could easily defeat organised resistance but could neither routinise authority nor gain legitimacy (ibid.: 157). The survival of each colony therefore depended on external resources and support, not on internal factors like in established states. As a result, colonial governments had weak roots in the African countries nominally under their control and therefore could not really govern the social or cultural realms of their subjects. In turn, this external dependence produced an outward orientation focused on ‘guarding the gate’: colonies collected most of their revenues from taxes on imports and exports, controlled entry and exit visas, distributed foreign aid, decided who could move currency in or out, and issued licenses that determined who could engage in business activities (ibid.: 5, 97, 157).

The post-colonial "successor states," Cooper goes on to argue, inherited the mantle of gate-keeper from their former rulers. Independence, however, greatly exacerbated the negative consequences of gate-keeping because whereas before it was taken for granted who would control the gate (along with the power and wealth derived therefrom), in the post-colonial period there was no external military force to impose order. Furthermore, unlike the colonial powers (at least before the "development era" after about 1940) African rulers wanted to impose their authority internally in order to affect a far-reaching transformation of the economy and society. And given, moreover, that control of the gate was an "either/or phenomenon" (ibid.: 159) or a zero-sum game, the stakes of control were extremely high because the winners gained control of resources they could use to entrench their rule. Consequently fierce competition for control of the gate arose soon after independence, and this resulted in the collectively irrational political instablitity that occurred in Africa after independence as evidenced by, among other things, cycles of coups and counter coups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatekeeper_state

Hate to be critical, but the future-prospects part at the end was wanting. I would suggest for TOD to get someone versed in political-economy to maybe contribute a little bit to relevant articles. I could be available (if wanted) maybe the mods could help facilitate the connection with the relevant parties. (provide them with my email, if its not on display--IDK).

See also the "resource curse" thesis. In a nutshell: Resource rich countries exhibit a startling trend toward economic underdevelopment. Countries whose economies are largely dependant on the extraction and production of primary resources suffer from domestic strife and conflict, poverty, authoritarian rule, and flaccid economic growth. Resource dependence leads to the "rentier state," in which those in power come to depend on rents from resource extraction rather than taxation, making them less accountable to their people.

Ross, Michael. "The Natural Resource Curse: How Wealth Can Make You Poor." Natural Resources and Violent Conflict: Options and Actions. Ed. Ian Bannon and Paul Collier. Washington D.C.: The World Bank, 2003. 17-42.

Collier, Paul. "Natural Resources, Development and Conflict: Channels of Causation and Policy Interventions." Oxford University and the World Bank (2003).

Sachs, Jeffrey D., and Andrew M. Warner. "Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth." Center for International Development and Harvard Institute for International Development (1997).

Above should be deleted for racism.

Isn't it uncanny that wherever there is plentiful petroleum resources discovered there always seems to be some kind of civil war or 'religious' xenophobic violence that takes the lives of untold thousands; conditions that did not exist in said particular area until oil discoveries?
For the past decade Angola has to be considered one of the most dangerous geographical locations in Africa.
Surely this cannot be blamed solely on the autochthonous people.

We gave them Education, Military, Social, and political education

Who are you?

The days of Colonial rule were it's golden days. The African people have neither the will nor sense to govern themselves. We gave them Education, Military, Social, and political education yet once we left the continent decended back into the quagmire it is now.

You really believe that? This kind of ignorant arrogant remark just never ceases to amaze me.
As a Brazilian I can assure you for example that being a colony of Portugal was not that country's golden age. All Colonial rule is, was and always has been exploitative and has never been intended to help the native people. It most certainly wasn't any different in Angola. Maybe they can turn the tables and Colonize Portugal and give people like you an education too.

Interesting comment.

Have you educated yourself on "resource curse", "dutch disease", corruption by western International Oil Companies, corruption by African elected officials, money laundering by western banks, African countries that are developing (without rich natural resources), geo-strategic importance of oil rich part of Africa for US & China, and corruption by western politicians in Africa.

I would hazard a wild guess, that after educating yourself on these matters, you'd be less inclined to put all the blame on the African people for their plight.

It's not as if the African corrupt leaders are without blame, but in most cases they've been put in power and and amply supported by the west.

It is difficult then to blame the 90% of the people who have no access to money, education, news, political system and as such very little power in changing the system.

We the OECD citizens who clearly live in glass houses shouldn't be so eager to throw stones at others.

MARCO=me am racist crud, ok?

So, it isn't less expensive to consume your own refined petroleum than to purchase refined petroleum on the world market (broadly speaking)?

I guess refining petroleum domestically has an opportunity cost: reduced sales of crude on the world market.

You're linked on SeekingAlpha for July 1.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/83302-oil-up-up-and-away?source=yahoo

The chart above is the average utilization of refineries in June. Average refinery utilization is at the lowest it has been since the Energy Information Administration began providing statistics. Now, utilization could be down because demand for gasoline is down, or it could be down because refiners' profit margins are tight and refiners are choosing to produce less gasoline. As Zigler pointed out, refiners' profit margins do tend to shrink right about now. But the lack of oil hitting the market is simply a fact. Despite all the talk, nearly every oil-exporting country is exporting less every year. Tanker shortages? OPEC ineffectiveness? It's all connected.

Maybe the balloon is the wrong metaphor for the summer of 2008. Unraveling oil prices may be more like upsetting a row of dominos - one thing affects another, until everything is lying in chaos. Either way you picture it, the picture is disheartening.

The bolded refers to a link to TOD.

Developed Countries have worked this "two fer" deal for a long time and on many continents.

Get the resources and create demand destruction too.

Seems we all have sooooo much to be proud of.

But then I guess it's probably the peoples fault for just standing by and letting it happen, right?

Well, I was just reading this about Equatorial Guinea.

SamuM,

You're exactly right about the big corps aiding the corrupt governments by supply the income which allows them to control the populace. And it's good to remember that this practice won't stop until the owners of ExxonMobil et al decide they want the companies to change their policies dealing with these governments. And it's good to remember that the majority owners of ExxonMobil et al are the pension funds of most of the major unions and corporations in the US. And it's good to remember how we Americans value satisfying our needs compared to justice in the third world.

Not a very pretty picture. Thank goodness most Americans have learned to look the other way.

I think this is another example of concerned personnel within the Pentagon leaking information to to front-load the discussion. One reason why Bush was able to get away with pushing the invasion of Iraq on such shaky facts is that enough insiders didn't leak their concerns until it was too late, and therefore there wasn't enough time for an effective opposition to form before the invasion. Here (and, I think, with the prior "unauthorized" statements from the intelligence community about Iran's nuclear program that Cheney later rejected) I think the hope is that getting these concerns out in the open now will at least force more debate, and therefore more transparency, before any action.

I'm not very convinced that this tactic will work--I don't think the US has the ability to stop Israel from acting in what they perceive as their own self interest. They have a long history of taking those steps they see as necessary, and the consequences be damned. Even IF these kinds of leaks force the current administration to publicly pressure Israel against striking Iran, I think they will make clear, either through back channels, or by not taking any serious steps to prevent, that they are actually behind the strike. I'm planning a series of posts on Iran in the near future, one of which will look at Israel's capability to conduct such a strike...

That is a very interesting theory, and seems pretty plausible. Will have to give it a read.

Great addition to the commentary here.

However, I differ with you on one point. I don't think the youth bulge is a particular male phenomenon. Don't get me wrong, I think the young males of the country will be the source of most of their problems, but the demographic is not strongly shifted towards males.

They report a sex ratio of 1.05 boys to girls. That sounds off, but it's actually *relatively* biologically consistent. In developed nations the number is reported to be 1.03. It's a proven fact that this differs by country/ethnic group, but at the same time, infantcide is by it's very nature covered up, so it's unreliable to say 1.05 m-to-f ratio proves infantcide isn't regularly practiced, but either way it makes up a small portion.

Even more interesting is infant mortality from the factbook:

male: 194.38 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 169.64 deaths/1,000 live births (2008 est.)

Apparently the baby girls are a little more resilient for some reason, though I expect almost all of the differences are due to cultural factors. If you started with 1-to-1, this infant mortality rate would give a final ratio of 0.97 m-to-f. Odd isn't it?

A possible explanation is assume the biological ratio is 1.03 (still a number prone to error), and assume some girls are intentionally killed (because the family wanted a boy?) and not reported. Then you could estimate the prevalence.

--
This analysis is applicable to most any country. I make a big deal of it here because I think people all too often take sex ratio for something that it isn't. Having a demographic shifted strongly towards men would create problems, but this is a phenomenon rarely seen in the world.

Almost all of the time problems are instead created by having an artificially large fraction of the power in society held by men. This can be shown to be the case for Angola by multiple metrics. Literacy:

male: 82.9%
female: 54.2% (2006 est.)

And with 6.2 children per women, it's fairly easy to see who's making the decisions in the country. Equally distributed power among the sexes is a key ingredient for a stable society. The case for this is easy to make; if it was the woman's choice, she wouldn't have had 6 kids, it's much easier to decide on 6 versus 2 kids when you're not the one who has to give birth!

This is why I think missions directed towards educating women in countries like this is a very good thing. The female literacy rate is shocking low and promises to increase volatility and continue damaging trends.

If I were charged with doing missionary work in Angola, I wouldn't know where to start.

Thank you so much Rockman--very helpful for me to sort out my thinking.

In case you don't know already, China has an official--on the record--strategy of engaging Africa most specifically. It is a keystone of their foreign policy and is obviously mostly resource-driven.

On the other hand, if I remember correctly, there are often big variations in which country is the big exporter to China. For example, in 2006, if I remember correctly, Iran was for a few months by far the largest exporter to China. (Their oil industry is tied directly to the Chinese military and for a while in the 80s I understand that oil was exchanged for military technology / hardware.)

Given that Angolan oil is mostly sweet, medium to light, that is exactly the grade that is tightest just now. All other concerns aside, and given that a lot of new sophisticated refining capacity is coming on line in the next 1-5 years, Angolan production will likely make a considerable difference in price (even if you don't exactly buy the theory that light sweet oil has an elasticity of -0.04.)