Economists have been attempting to forecast the point of peak oil—the year when oil demand reaches its maximum level—since the 1970s. Despite increasing warnings regarding climate change, global demand has continued to rise over the last few years and could continue.

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist partnered with Range ETFs to explore the global oil demand and determine which region will demand the most in 2045.   

Projecting Global Oil Demand

As per OPEC, Oil demand could be as much as 17% higher by 2045 than it was in 2022. These projections are in millions of oil barrels per day and broken down by oil product.

Oil’s importance in the global economy and its role as a fuel in many nations and industries worldwide contribute to the strength in demand. Additionally, the demand for jet fuel could grow by as much as 60% between 2022 and 2045, as currently, there is no carbon-neutral alternative to kerosene.  

Who Will Be Using This Oil?

The forecasts also describe how much of this demand could flow to each region by 2045. Here is how it breaks down: 

Despite significant investments in clean energy, large economies like those in North America, China, and India are forecast to have the most demand in 2045. This would be driven by each region’s need to use oil in transportation, industrial processes, and energy generation.

The Future of Oil

Oil’s continued importance as a fuel will likely keep demand growing over the next two decades.

Investors can take advantage of the growing potential oil demand by gaining exposure to various companies at the forefront of the offshore oil industry through the Range Global Offshore Oil Services Index ETF (OFOS). 

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Polish-Hungarian relations are in crisis over their polar opposite approaches towards Ukraine, which already just ruined their 700-year-old brotherhood at the state-to-state level and continues getting worse. Tensions had been building since the start of Russia’s special operation, but they finally exploded after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban criticized Poland on Saturday for hypocritically attacking his country over its Russian oil imports and radically reshaping the European balance of power.

This was followed by Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Teofil Bartoszewski suggesting on Sunday that Hungary should withdraw from the EU and NATO in order to form “a union with Putin”. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto responded to that by doubling down on Orban’s claims that Poland is hypocritical and provocative while also conveying to Warsaw that Budapest’s patience is wearing thin. Readers can learn more about their dispute from this analysis here that was published on Monday.

It turns out that the Warsaw-based Visegrad Insight published an interview with Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski later that same day in which this top diplomat continued his deputy’s attacks against Hungary. He practically mocked Orban for not having any support for his peace mission and then scandalously claimed that Szijjarto initially supported his proposal to hold the next EU Foreign Affairs Council in Ukraine as a compromise between Budapest and Brussels before eventually vetoing it.

Sikorski’s other attacks against Hungary inclined throwing shade on its East-West balancing act and implying that newfound cooperation with the Chinese police imperils national sovereignty. Szijjarto was once again pressed to respond to these Polish provocations, which he did in two Facebook posts here and here. He accused Sikorski of lying, clarified that Orban’s peace mission was a national initiative unrepresentative of the EU, and expressed hope that Poland will one day return to Central Europe.

The last part showed that he’s nobly taking the high road by refusing to stoop to Sikorski’s level with lies and smears, which would have amounted to dirtying himself by wrestling with a pig while his Polish counterpart squeals with delight. Poland wants to provoke Hungary into behaving undiplomatically since that could then be spun to discredit the conservative-nationalist opposition that looks to it for guidance on non-Ukrainian-related issues like illegal immigration and still treasures their brotherhood.

Apart from not wanting to deal a deathblow to this relationship at the people-to-people level among those in Poland who still appreciate it, Hungary also doesn’t want to discredit itself in the eyes of its non-Western partners like Russia and China by acting like a typical European country does nowadays. Those two and others respect that Hungary conducts itself differently than its peers, which is why they’d be hugely disappointed if it was successfully provoked by Poland into behaving just like the rest of them.

Hungarian diplomacy is sophisticated enough to never sully the state like that, which is why it’s expected that its representatives will continue taking the high road no matter what Poland says or does, even if Sikorski and others get a lot nastier. This’ll likely take the form of them continuing to explain how far astray Poland has gotten from its post-Old Cold War mission of turning their Visegrad Group with Czechia and Slovakia into a third center of influence in Europe alongside the Franco-German axis and Russia.

Hungary wants to remind Poland that the greater geopolitical good is served by returning to this mission instead of continuing to contribute to continental instability by serving as the Anglo-American Axis’ wedge between the aforementioned traditional power centers. Polish policy won’t change as a result, but Polish patriots will know that Hungary has Poland’s best interests in mind no matter what the ruling liberal-globalist coalition claims, thus keeping their brotherhood alive at the people-to-people level.  

Authored by Nathan Worcester and Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

PHEONIX—Kari Lake has won Arizona’s Republican Senate primary, defeating Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and Elizabeth Reye.

“If you think this is a battle between Democrats and Republicans, you’re still sleeping,” Lake said in her victory speech, calling on Trump Republicans, traditional Republicans, “disaffected Democrats,” and others to come together.

Lake, a former Phoenix-area television news anchor and Republicans’ 2022 gubernatorial nominee, was favored to win the primary with a significant lead in most polls.

Her victory sets up a general election contest with Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who ran unopposed in the Democratic Senate primary.

During her victory speech, the Iowa-born Lake brandished what she described as an opposition research file on Gallego, calling him extreme and highlighting his Chicago origins.

Gallego’s victory was called shortly after the polls closed at 7:00 p.m. local time. The Associated Press called Lake’s victory in the primary at 8:44 p.m. local time.

As of 9 p.m. local time, Lake had won 53.3 percent of the vote, according to the Associated Press, and carried all but two counties in the state. Lamb had 40.7 percent as of that same time, while Reye had 6.1 percent.

Lake and Gallego are seeking to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who is not seeking reelection. Sinema was elected as a Democrat in 2018 but left the party after the 2022 midterm elections.

Matthew Martinez, who leads the legal ballot-chasing effort for conservative advocacy group Turning Point Action, lauded Lake’s win in a speech at her victory party.

“This is a good victory… but we have to win our general,” Martinez said on stage.

Senators from Arizona, a battleground state, have often received a spotlight in national politics. The late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ran for president in 2000, where he was Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s primary opponent, and in 2008, when he won the nomination but was defeated in the general election by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

McCain later attracted national prominence for his criticism of candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and, later, during his presidency. McCain succeeded the late Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), who was the Republican nominee in the 1964 presidential election against President Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater later played a key role in defense policy and is often regarded as a pivotal figure in the conservative movement.

Arizona’s other senator, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), is named as a possible running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

“I don’t understand why Kari Lake is afraid of an even, grounded debate,” Gallego said.

Lake said she didn’t want to work with the debate commission, citing her treatment during the 2022 midterms.

“We’ve seen how they treated people the last election cycle back in 2022, where people who decided not to do the debate, namely Hobbs, ended up getting her own half-an-hour. That was my problem,” Lake told reporters on July 30.

She indicated that her campaign would consult with Gallego about a possible debate in another forum.

Campaign financing, whether for supporting or opposing a candidate running for public office, can be costly, even more so when the stakes are who will become the next President of the United States. Data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) collected and analyzed by the nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets shows that for this election cycle, President Joe Biden, potential Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have collected roughly $781 million from a variety of partisan interest groups up until June 30, 2024. Not included: the reported $100 million in funds the Harris campaign raised in just over a day after Biden dropped out of the race.

While there are bipartisan groups that support more than just one candidate, the chart below, vis Statista’s Florian Zandt, shows only contributions made by organizations or individuals directly supporting either Harris’s or Trump’s election bid. At first glance, it is already apparent that the Trump campaign relies on the funds of so-called super PACs. The prefix super stems from the fact that donations to these committees are not as tightly regulated and can exceed the donor limit of $5,000 per year.

While, in theory, super PACs are independent and their expenditures “not made in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, any candidate, or his or her authorized committees or agents, or a political party committee or its agents”, the reality is often different. For example, Make America Great Again Inc spent almost $100 million of its roughly $200 million raised in support of Donald Trump and opposition of his competitors in the Republican primary and incumbent President Joe Biden. The largest donor with $75 million is Thomas Mellon, heir to one of the richest families in the U.S.

The Biden-Harris campaign, on the other hand, saw the most money raised outside of the official campaign committee come from so-called carey committees. These committees are a mixture of a super PAC and a regular PAC. They hold two accounts, one for unlimited donations and spending and another that adheres to the strict aforementioned caps. Around $148 million out of the $152 million coming from carey committees was raised by Future Forward USA and The Lincoln Project. The former received donations by, for example, a variety of unions and Silicon Valley venture capitalist company Greylock Partners. It has also been accused of receiving large amounts of secret donations towards the end of the 2020 presidential election. The considerably smaller Lincoln Project’s donors include donors like the University of California, Bank of America, Google parent company Alphabet and AT&T. The largest donors, however, are the designer outlet mall company McArthurGlen and Silicon Valley’s Sequoia Capital, the latter of which has also given money to the Trump campaign.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Ever since President Biden announced he would stop campaigning for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the new Democratic candidate, Republicans have questioned whether Harris could utilize the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars from the war chest of the Biden reelection campaign. According to many experts, among them the director of the progressive nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections & Government Program Daniel I. Weiner and Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law at Harvard, Harris is cleared to use the funds since she ran on a combined ticket with Joe Biden.

However, a current President stepping down from his reelection bid and passing the torch to his Vice President has no precedent in U.S. history, so it’s more a question of established practice than a clear legal ruling. According to Stephanopoulos, the FEC is still dealing with official complaints connected to the 2016 election, so there is virtually no chance that any decision barring Harris from utilizing the Biden campaign funds will be made before the election in November.

Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

A lot of people would like political solutions to their problems, i.e., getting the government to make other people do what they want. People with any moral sense, however, recognize that can only create more problems.

Clever players, therefore, use the government as a tool but do so from behind a curtain. They know that it’s more effective, and a lot safer, to pull the puppet’s strings from offstage. Sometimes, they step into the limelight, depending on the circumstances and the depth of their personal narcissism. But they’re all about two things: Power and money. Call them the Deep State.

Once a country develops an entrenched Deep State, only a revolution or a dictatorship can turn things around. And probably only in a small country.

The American Deep State is a powerful informal network which controls most institutions. You won’t read about it in the news because it controls the news. Politicians won’t talk about it or even admit that it exists. That would be like a mobster discussing murder and robbery on the 6 o’clock news. You could say the Deep State is hidden, but it’s hidden in plain sight.

The Deep State is involved in almost every negative thing that’s happening right now. It’s essential to know what it’s all about.

The State

The Deep State uses and hides behind the State itself.

Even though the essence of the State is coercion, people have been taught to love and respect it. Most people think of the State in the quaint light of a grade school civics book. They think it has something to do with “We the People” electing a Jimmy Stewart character to represent them. That ideal has always been a pernicious fiction because it idealizes, sanitizes, and legitimizes an intrinsically evil and destructive institution, which is based on force. As Mao once said, political power comes out of the barrel of a gun.

The Deep State

The Deep State itself is as old as history. But the term “Deep State” originated in Turkey, which is appropriate since it’s the heir to the totally corrupt Byzantine and Ottoman empires. And in the best Byzantine manner, our Deep State has insinuated itself throughout the fabric of what once was America. Its tendrils reach from Washington down to every part of civil society. Like a metastasized cancer, it can no longer be easily eradicated.

In many ways, Washington models itself after another city with a Deep State, ancient Rome. Here’s how a Victorian-era freethinker, Winwood Reade, accurately described it:

“Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo.”

The Deep State controls the political and economic essence of the US. This is much more than observing that there’s no real difference between the left and right wings of the Demopublican Party. Anyone with any sense (that is, everybody except the average voter) knows that although the Republicans say they believe in economic freedom (but don’t), they definitely don’t believe in social freedom. And the Democrats say they believe in social freedom (but don’t), but they definitely don’t believe in economic freedom.

Who Is the Deep State?

The American Deep State is a real but informal structure that has arisen to not just profit from but control the State.

The Deep State has a life of its own, like the government itself. Within the government, it’s composed of top-echelon employees of a dozen Praetorian agencies, like the FBI, CIA, and NSA…top generals, admirals, and other military operatives…long-term congressmen and senators…and directors of important regulatory agencies.

But the Deep State is much broader than just the government. It includes the heads of major corporations, all of whom are heavily involved in selling to the State and enabling it. That absolutely includes Silicon Valley, although those guys at least used to have a sense of humor, evidenced by their defunct “Don’t Be Evil” motto.

It also includes the top people in the Fed, and the heads of the major banks, brokers, and insurers. Add the presidents and many professors at top universities, which act as Deep State recruiting centers… top media figures, of course… and many regulars at things like the WEC, Bohemian Grove, and the Council on Foreign Relations. They epitomize the status quo, held together by power, money, and propaganda.

Altogether, I’ll guess these people number a couple thousand. You might analogize the structure of the Deep State to a huge pack of dogs. The people I’ve just described are the Top Dogs.

But there are hundreds of thousands more who aren’t at the nexus but who directly depend on them, have considerable clout, and support the Deep State because it supports them. This includes many of the wealthy, especially those who got that way thanks to their State connections… the 1.5 million people who have top secret clearances (that’s a shocking but accurate number), plus top players in organized crime, especially the illegal drug business, little of which would exist without the State. Plus mid-level types in the police and military, corporations, and non-governmental organizations.

These are what you might call the Running Dogs.

Beyond that are the scores and scores of millions who depend on things remaining the way they are, like the 50%-plus of Americans who are net recipients of benefits from the State—the 70 million on Social Security, the 90 million on Medicaid, the 50 million on food stamps, the many millions on hundreds of other programs, the 23 million government employees and most of their families. In fact, let’s include the many millions of average Joes and Janes who are just getting by.

You might call this level of people, the vast majority of the population, Whipped Dogs. They both love and fear their master; they’ll do as they’re told and roll over on their backs and wet themselves if confronted by a Top Dog or Running Dog who feels they’re out of line. These three types of dogs make up the vast majority of the US population. I trust you aren’t among them. I consider myself a Lone Wolf in this context and hope you are, too. Unfortunately, however, dogs are enemies of wolves and tend to hunt them down.

The Deep State is destructive, but it’s great for the people in it. And, like any living organism, its prime directive is: Survive! It survives by indoctrinating the fiction that it’s both good and necessary. However, it’s a parasite that promotes the ridiculous notion that everyone can live at the expense of society.

Is it a conspiracy headed by a man stroking a white cat? I think not. It’s hard enough to get a bunch of friends to agree on what movie to see, much less a bunch of power-hungry miscreants bent on running everyone’s lives. But, on the other hand, the Top Dogs all know each other, went to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, socialize, and, most importantly, have common interests, values, and philosophies.

The American Deep State rotates around the Washington Beltway. It imports America’s wealth as tax revenue. A lot of that wealth is consumed there by useless mouths. And then, it exports things that reinforce the Deep State, including wars, fiat currency, and destructive policies. This is unsustainable simply because nothing of value can come out of a city full of parasites.

A SOLUTION?

Many Americans undoubtedly believe Donald Trump is a solution to what ails the US. They think he’s a maverick who will smash the Deep State. That’s understandable since he’s a cultural conservative. He wants the country to resemble the happy days of yesteryear, when Mom, apple pie, and Chevrolets were more important than Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He’s a nationalist, a traditionalist, and business-oriented. That’s all very well. But irrelevant to the Deep State.

The problem is that Trump will almost necessarily surround himself with Deep State players; they’re really all there is in and around the Washington Beltway, Wall Street, Academia, or the media. He’s not about to abolish government agencies (although he might prune a few) and fire scores of thousands of government employees. His lack of a philosophical core will guarantee that instead of trying to abolish the State (in the manner of Millei or Ron Paul), he’ll just use it in ways he thinks are righteous. The proof of that is the trillions of new government spending and deficits he approved of when he was in power. He’ll spend trillions more if he’s re-elected. And all of it will feed the Deep State.

On the bright side, if Trump is elected, his rhetoric will be less objectionable than Kamala’s. There will probably be less overtly disastrous legislation enacted, and some regulations will likely be cut back.

On the not-so-bright side, I’m afraid the Democrats could win come November. They have control of the apparatus of the State, and they absolutely don’t want to give it up. The Deep State will be just fine if Trump wins, of course. But nobody wants to take a chance; there might be some broken rice bowls. He might turn into a loose cannon. So the Deep State, the Establishment, will be even fatter and happier if the Dems take control.

That’s what they’ll work for. And that’s the way to bet.

*  *  *

It’s clear there are some ominous social, political, cultural, and economic trends playing out right now. Many of which seem to point to an unfortunate decline of the West. That’s precisely why legendary speculator Doug Casey and his team just released this free report, which shows you exactly what’s happening and what you can do about it. Click here to download it now.

New Jersey AR-15 fans were handed a big victory on Tuesday, after US District Judge Peter G. Sheridan issued an order declaring that the Colt AR-15 rifle is not an “assault firearm” as defined in the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice Section 2C:39-1, and that doing so is incompatible with recent precedent set by the US Supreme Court.

“The AR-15 Provision of the Assault Firearms Law is unconstitutional under Bruen and Heller as to the Colt AR-15 for use of self-defense within the home,” Sheridan wrote in an accompanying memorandum citing the two cases decided in 2022 and 2008 respectively.

Under the Heller decision, the right of Americans to own and keep firearms in their homes for lawful self-defense is covered under the 2nd Amendment, while Buren established a history-and-tradition-based test for owning guns.

According to Sheridan, New Jersey’s AR-15 prohibition therefore cannot stand, as it’s inconsistent with America’s historical tradition of gun regulation by banning an entire class of commonly used firearms that are used for home defense.

“In this court’s understanding of Supreme Court precedent, a categorical ban on a class of weapons commonly used for self-defense is unlawful,” he wrote.

That said, Sheridan declined to extend his determination to roughly 60 other guns defined under New Jersey law as “assault firearms,” as the court had only been fully briefed on the AR-15 and none of the other firearms on the restricted list.

“Given the variety of firearms regulated in the Assault Firearms Law and the nuances that each individual firearm presents, the Court’s analysis of the Assault Firearms Law is limited to the firearm with which the Court has been provided the most information: the AR-15,” he wrote.

Sheridan also upheld the state’s ban on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) which can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The only way residents can possess them is if they’ve registered an “assault firearm” in line with state law, and use said LCM in connection with sanctioned competitive shooting matches.

As the Epoch Times notes further, Sheridan argued that the LCM ban is different than the categorical ban on AR-15s because the law doesn’t restrict the number of magazines a person can own, just their capacity. He also reasoned that the “unprecedented rapidity and damage of mass shootings support a nuanced reading” of the historical analogs under the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen.

He argued that large-capacity detachable magazines can be traced directly to military heritage and brought up the historical analogy of restrictions on Bowie knives.

“Like these restrictions, the LCM Amendment is precisely that—a restriction responding to safety concerns present in our time,” he wrote, arguing that the burden on New Jersey residents’ right to self-defense is comparable to that imposed by historical laws restricting the way that Bowie knives could be carried and used.

“As such, these historical analogues provide the basis for the following conclusion: that the State may regulate the permissible capacity of the large capacity magazines.”

The judge ruled that the LCM ban is constitutional. He issued a 30-day stay on his decision, meaning the AR-15 ban remains temporarily in effect.

Several of the plaintiffs in the consolidated case have already filed an appeal.

New Jersey residents Mark Cheeseman and Timothy Connelly (dubbed the Cheeseman plaintiffs in the case) and gun rights advocacy group Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed a notice of appeal on July 30.

FPC said in a statement that the appeal targets “legal deficiencies” in the judge’s opinion and that the motion seeks the “full relief” that was originally requested from the district court, which included a request to overturn the “assault firearm” restriction as it applied to the list of 60-plus guns and ones that are “substantially similar.”

“Bans on so-called ‘assault weapons’ are immoral and unconstitutional. FPC will continue to fight forward until all of these bans are eliminated throughout the United States,” FPC President Brandon Combs said in a July 30 statement.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, one of the defendants in the case, said in a statement posted on social media that he plans to appeal the portion of the ruling that declares the AR-15 ban unconstitutional while praising the other aspects of the ruling.

“I am disappointed that the district court has held that individuals have a constitutional right to possess the Colt AR-15,” he said, calling such firearms an “instrument designed for warfare.”

“All New Jerseyans should know that the overwhelming majority of our law remains intact today.”

Platkin noted that the court upheld the LCM ban and didn’t allow individuals to possess any other guns classified as “assault firearms.”

He said he remains committed to defending the entirety of New Jersey’s firearm law and looks forward to pressing the state’s arguments on appeal.

Restrictions on magazine capacity ranging from 10 to 20 rounds of ammunition are in effect in 14 states and the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Concealed Carry Association (USCCA).

Bans of so-called assault weapons have been adopted in nearly a dozen states, according to the USCCA.