Strait of Hormuz Closure Triggers Work From Home, 4-Day Weeks In Asia (fortune.com) 114
Asian governments are implementing emergency measures like four-day workweeks and work-from-home mandates to cope with a fuel shortage triggered by the Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. "Asia is particularly dependent on oil exports from the Middle East; Japan and South Korea respectively source 90% and 70% of their oil from the region," notes Fortune. From the report: On March 10, Thailand ordered civil servants to take the stairs rather than the elevator, and to work-from-home for the duration of the crisis. It increased the air-conditioning temperature to 27 degrees Celsius, and will tell government employees to wear short-sleeved shirts over suits. (Thailand has about 95 days of energy reserves left, according to Reuters).
Vietnam also called on businesses to let people work-from-home to "reduce the need for travel and transportation." The Philippines is pushing for a four-day work week, and has ordered officials to limit travel "to essential functions only."
South Asia is getting hit hard too. Bangladesh brought forward the Eid-al-fitr holiday, allowing universities to close early in a bid to save fuel. Pakistan also instituted a four-day week for government offices and closed schools. India suspended shipments of liquefied petroleum gas to commercial operators to prioritize supplies for households, leading to worries from hotels and restaurants that they may be forced to close without fuel supplies. Countries across the region are also considering price caps, subsidies, and tapping strategic oil reserves. On Wednesday, the International Energy Agency "unanimously" agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil and refined products from its reserves.
The Associated Press offers a look at the energy supplies that countries hold and when they tap them.
Vietnam also called on businesses to let people work-from-home to "reduce the need for travel and transportation." The Philippines is pushing for a four-day work week, and has ordered officials to limit travel "to essential functions only."
South Asia is getting hit hard too. Bangladesh brought forward the Eid-al-fitr holiday, allowing universities to close early in a bid to save fuel. Pakistan also instituted a four-day week for government offices and closed schools. India suspended shipments of liquefied petroleum gas to commercial operators to prioritize supplies for households, leading to worries from hotels and restaurants that they may be forced to close without fuel supplies. Countries across the region are also considering price caps, subsidies, and tapping strategic oil reserves. On Wednesday, the International Energy Agency "unanimously" agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil and refined products from its reserves.
The Associated Press offers a look at the energy supplies that countries hold and when they tap them.
what about laws that make the office pay for commu (Score:2)
what about laws that make the office pay for commute / make fuel costs be per tax (up to some cap)
Re:what about laws that make the office pay for co (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:what about laws that make the office pay for co (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this suggestion would be in the spirit of 'in addition to' rather than 'instead of'.
All the hard measures listed are about government controlled offices and institutions, with a less compelling "please do work from home" call to businesses. Businesses that externalize the commute cost so they don't have a particularly strong motivation to be accommodating.
If you made the businesses bear the commute costs, then they at least would have real skin in the game. Not just for the current situation, but ongoing motivation to consider whether the personnel *really* have value to be directly there in general.
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Sure, if it gets severe enough, the workers will nope on out because going to work costs more than it's worth.
However, people will "tuck it" much longer than a business will. If there's "commute budget" that the company can just keep for itself if it can figure out how, it'll be more aggressive about 'work from home' than an employee is willing to push their luck in pushing *against* work in person.
Re: what about laws that make the office pay for c (Score:2)
Paid travel time? The hiring radius just got smaller.
Your value to the company doesn't increase as you move further away so increasing a company's costs to hire you as you get further away doesn't make a lot of sense in the transaction.
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If gas hits $10/gal (300% increase) it can now cost more to get to work then you earn in lower wage jobs.
If lower-wage workers can't get to work, they can't work. Most lower-wage jobs are things like McDonald's, where working from home isn't physically possible.
Secretarial work starts at ~$17 an hour. Even at $10 a gallon, one day of work would be 13 gallons, and approximately nobody uses that much gas to get to work.
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Did you mean $13 as opposed to 13 gallons? We didn't get a 300% increase in miles to drive rather, we (may) get a 300% increase for the fuel, but the amount used isn't changing anyway. You are correct though, if prices go high enough, it will make it that much harder for pretty much all service industry employees to get to work.
What interesting times we live in.
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Did you mean $13 as opposed to 13 gallons?
No, that was math.
$17 per hour * 8 hours = $136. $136 / $10 per gallon is ~13 gallons. This is, of course, an overestimate because of taxes, but the point is that even at $10 a gallon, you're realistically an order of magnitude away from fuel prices eating your entire paycheck for most non-menial work.
At $10 a gallon, even working at Burger King, you'd have to have a round-trip commute of probably 30-ish miles before you'd lose your first hour's paycheck to fuel. And most people who work at Burger King l
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ahhh okay. I see now. That makes more sense and I agree with you.
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Enjoy the cost of high priced food if the grocery stores need to raise wages to attract workers. Of course, everything we buy at the store arrived on a truck that burns diesel fuel, so that's going to put upward pressure on prices as well.
Enjoy the ride everyone.
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I think this suggestion would be in the spirit of 'in addition to' rather than 'instead of'.
All the hard measures listed are about government controlled offices and institutions, with a less compelling "please do work from home" call to businesses. Businesses that externalize the commute cost so they don't have a particularly strong motivation to be accommodating.
If you made the businesses bear the commute costs, then they at least would have real skin in the game. Not just for the current situation, but ongoing motivation to consider whether the personnel *really* have value to be directly there in general.
And if they go that route add surge pricing if they want to start their day at 0800 and end it at 1700, with incentives or discounts if they stagger the opening and closing times as that would do wonders for scalling back rush hour. They have known for decades you just can't afford to build enough roads to handle every single person having to be to work at exactly the same time.
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This is the norm in Japan, where everyone gets a company railway ticket.
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If there is no fuel to buy, then it doesn't matter who hypothetically would pay for it.
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We very likely produce enough domestic oil for the USA, but the problem is it's a global traded commodity. USA companies will sell to the highest bidder, which doesn't necessarily mean Americans. Still, we should have at least the option in the USA to buy expensive gas, which as you point out, is a lot better then not having any gas to buy.
Also, our transit options aren't particularly great here. Some cities do better then others, but on the average, US cities are definitely car-centric.
"Sippowicz wears a tie on a short-sleeved shirt!" (Score:5, Funny)
"Thailand ordered ... government employees to wear short-sleeved shirts over suits."
Okay, but adding another layer like that is just going to make them hotter.
Re:"Sippowicz wears a tie on a short-sleeved shirt (Score:5, Insightful)
Joking aside... why chill a building to accommodate fashion instead of having fashion adapt to the climate?
You probably still want to cut the humidity and temperature, but it doesn't need to be 20C in there. Have the buildings be a bit warmer and let the fashion designers make short sleeve suits! I'm sure they can come up with something, it's literally their job.
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.......but it would be the downfall if attempted in the United States!
Which is not a tropical country, and where suits would actually work in much of the country, at least outside summers
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Joking aside... why chill a building to accommodate fashion instead of having fashion adapt to the climate?
Such is the influence of 19th and 20th century Western business culture on Asia. People wear western suits because that was what was expected in business in the world after colonialism.
But the YOB started with the piracy! (Score:1)
Not much of a joke, but the one I was looking for would involve the boat sinkings near Venezuela as the "seminal piracy" that led rather naturally to this little fiasco at Hormuz.
However I'm sure y'all know that I don't do funny. For my next failure, let me try a math joke. The basis is how much oil is actually involved. It would seem like it's not yet that much and the world economy shouldn't be shaking in its boots--except that something is amplifying the effects. It's the futures, stupid. Well, actually
Re:But the YOB started with the piracy! (Score:5, Informative)
However I'm sure y'all know that I don't do funny. For my next failure, let me try a math joke. The basis is how much oil is actually involved. It would seem like it's not yet that much and the world economy shouldn't be shaking in its boots--except that something is amplifying the effects.
No... 20% of the world oil is a lot. Oil consumption has some components that are elastic in the short term, but not that much. Mostly of the consumption is pretty fixed in the short and medium term. The supply side has more elasticity, but it can't adjust quickly and much of the elasticity is very price-dependent -- only when the price rises above a certain point do some sources become profitable to extract, and then it takes between weeks and years to get them into production.
If you're thinking that the price adjustments shouldn't start taking effect until the well -> tanker -> refinery -> end consumer pipeline is actually exhausted, you're wrong because that would make the shocks dramatically worse. The futures are doing their job. By predicting the coming shortages and beginning to push the prices up now, we start pushing on what demand-side and supply-side elasticity exists. The higher price serves both to reduce demand and to motivate suppliers who aren't affected by the war to boost supply.
And keep in mind that part of the price adjustment is due to factors that would remain even if the war ended today. Because they have nowhere to put the oil, the Hormuz-dependent oil producers are shutting down production, and those wells will take weeks to restart.
You describe this whole futures concept as a "FinTech game" but it's very real, and very important. Futures act to smooth out pricing information across a whole raft of commodities, enabling both demand and supply sides to adapt early when it's cheaper, reducing shocks. Of course, it requires the markets to predict the future accurately, and predictions of the future will always be wrong, but historically they're quite good; better than pretty much any other prediction system.
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No... 20% of the world oil is a lot.
That's not the only equation. Crude oil despite traded as a fungible asset isn't one when it comes to refining and consumption. The middle east is well known for having medium API sour grade crudes. They are cheaper, high sulphur crudes and refineries configured to run those types of crudes can't just witch to say an American light sweet without reducing refining utilisation, and couldn't switch to heavy crudes at all due to the lack of cracking ability. It may be 20% of the world total oil, but if you're a
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Mostly disagreements on the substance of the branch, but definitely nothing related to my attempted humor. So that means no risk of getting cancelled?
However I did notice a typo in my initial reply, and I hate that.
s/were my Russians/where my Russians/
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That's not the only equation.
All absolutely correct, though the refinery output is almost entirely fungible. So, lopping off the production of one category of crude will heavily impact the refineries that process that sort, but unless we end up balkanizing the world's oil trade the net effect on the supply of the outputs is roughly the same as if crude oil were all the same.
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Almost. The fungibility of refined products is region dependent. It's one of the reasons Australia just temporarily lifted restriction on sulfur content standards in the fuel, attempting to increase market access to refined products that previously didn't meet its high standards. https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
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Almost. The fungibility of refined products is region dependent. It's one of the reasons Australia just temporarily lifted restriction on sulfur content standards in the fuel, attempting to increase market access to refined products that previously didn't meet its high standards. https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
Fair, though the Middle Eastern oil is high in sulfur, so losing it isn't directly driving the reduction in low-sulfur fuels. But it's a global market.
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The English habit of always wearing a scarf and three layers of wool infecting the world was a terrible thing.
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Being rich and having good social security (Score:1)
Oh, good. Can't wait. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm certain this will trigger another round of freak-out stories from the usual suspects about how work from home can never, ever work and people are just too lazy to get anything done when working from home. I knew there was some part of my dystopia missing these last few weeks.
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Yeah, but those people aren't working in the office either.
Pretty much this.
The people that didn't work in the office found working from home a harrowing experience as it highlighted to others how little they did. You can't wander round a virtual office wasting the time of others to look busy, you cant organise meetings to discuss the shade of grey on the office walls, you can't steal credit for the work of others as they were nowhere near you for you to overhear what they did and nor can you pilfer their ideas.
These people were desperate not just to get back
No worries (Score:2)
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More like Putin's plan
1. Makes Europe dependent on Russian oil/gas
2. Keeps US occupied
3. Limits arms that US can send to Ukraine
4. Sets China and Russia up to supply anybody in the region that wants to join fray against US
The only real question is if Trump got tricked into this, or knowingly put US under Putin's heel
Re:No worries (Score:4, Informative)
Iran is a major supplier of critical drone components to Russia for their war on Ukraine.
Having the price of oil go up helps their shadow fleet provide general funding, but now that the fleet is subject to capture and confiscation that's not such a great tradeoff for losing capability to replace materials required for the war effort.
If this was a Trump move at Putin's urging, it may not have been the best one. On the other hand, economic desperation might have made it the least bad choice.
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In an environment of high oil prices and difficultly keeping people onboard with an Israeli crusade and an American debacle, it potentially becomes considerably harder to sell other countries on caring hard
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Interesting tidbit: Right now, about 15% of all electricity in Europe is not even supplied to the grid. Instead, households with Solar just use th
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Currently California is getting 80% from renewables and 2.9% from natural gas.
I'm not worried.
Sucks to live where you're dependent on fossil fuels.
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Caiso.com
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Middle of the day here in Queensland, Australia - renewables are providing 63.2% of our total energy
Turns out we don't need all that fuel (Score:4, Insightful)
All this shows is that society does not need to consume that much fuel, we can adapt.
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Not necessarily. The examples here are of emergency measures that may or may not have serious economic impacts. The adaptation here even in this summary involves less services available to people who need access to government offices and even cites concerns about the closure of two major industries.
We've done barely anything to reduce fuel and already societies are starting to crack even if we limit the scope to just the summary here.
Re: Turns out we don't need all that fuel (Score:2)
I am not saying that we don't need fuel at all, that would be silly. But I am observing that all of a sudden working from home becomes acceptable again. So we were consuming some of that fuel without a need to do it, since home office is fine after all.
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That for sure, but it's missing the point. Work from home even when we did it globally as part of the pandemic had very little impact on our global oil consumption. In fact total global oil consumption dropped 20% during the pandemic and modelling suggest the overwhelming majority of that drop was due to generally lower economic output from nations and very little to do with people working from home.
The impact is a rounding error in our oil use.
Re:Turns out we don't need all that fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
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The amount of copium flowing is insane. Suddenly high gas prices are perfectly fine.
Gasoline? What's that? We barely need it.
Re:Turns out we don't need all that fuel (Score:4, Insightful)
Gasoline? What's that? We barely need it
[2050 historical narration] So complete was Trump's strategic incompetence that in trying to guarantee the free movement of oil, he succeeded in becoming the catalyst that caused the world to finally lose its faith in oil as a reliable energy source. Trump was posthumously awarded an Ignobel Prize for his unintentional role in combatting climate change.
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All this shows is that society does not need to consume that much fuel, we can adapt.
Not in the slightest.
It just shows we have some levers to reduce consumption that we don't normally use.
It doesn't show that we can reasonably use those levers long term, not that those levers are actually sufficient to reduce fuel consumption enough to make up the difference.
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All this shows is that society does not need to consume that much fuel, we can adapt.
Maybe. But how does people working from home solve the issue of ships not being able to cross the Strait of Hormuz? Are they going to upload all that crude or LNG via the internet to vessels in the Gulf of Oman or the Arabian Sea? In other words, how does the closure of the strait affect their going to the office? If one was arguing that due to the IRGC bombing, people were sheltering at home and avoiding the streets and highways, I'd understand. But the closure of the straits?
Qatar's LNG exports hav
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It has already all but fallen. They just don't know it yet
I did that! (Score:1)
Get your freedom gas! [theonion.com]
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On the bright side... (Score:4, Insightful)
The one thing that could erode Trump's support is the rise in fuel prices.
When the MAGAs can't cheaply fill up their F350s, they will become 'restive'.
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The US is near energy independent. The countries in a pickle are China, Japan and South Korea.
Gas lines already happening in China
https://x.com/EnergyAbsurdity/... [x.com]
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Yes, the price will go up. With that said, would you rather have expensive gasoline for your car or no gasoline at any price for your car? I think I'll accept the high price of gas, given the alternative.
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With that said, would you rather have expensive gasoline for your car or no gasoline at any price for your car? I think I'll accept the high price of gas, given the alternative.
You might, for a short period, but if history is any guide, people start switching to electric vehicles once they no longer trust in the inevitability of cheap gas. And once they switch, they don't switch back. That's what the oil industry is likely really afraid of -- that by the time they're back in business, their customers will have already moved on.
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I really want an EV, personally. I just can't yet justify the cost when I have a paid off 80k miles drive Honda Insight. After 7 years, my car is in wonderful running condition. Maybe when I need to replace my battery but then again, 4k for a new battery is a lot cheaper then 40k for a new car. Gas can double in price and I'll still have to tolerate it. Furthermore, I don't really have a good way to charge at home, so I would have to rely on public chargers and all that entails.
A lot of people in colder env
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While the US might not have as *hard* of an impact, prices have shot up quite a bit, higher than they were when they were blasting Biden for high gas prices in 2024 Because even if we can produce enough for ourselves, companies want to sell to whomever is most desperate..
As an aside, the guy you linked to I have not known at all, but was insufferable as soon as he cited Grok as a reason to trust a video, and that thanks to Trump the US doesn't have to worry about this, when it was Trump that made this mess
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Will never happen. USA isn't really country in the traditional sense. We're actually a business. If you look at how the country operates, it makes so much more sense when viewed in that perspective.
Re: On the bright side... (Score:2)
No worry. Trump can invoke the Defense production act, and stop all those oil exports. Might not turn out well at election time, though.
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The US produces enough oil to satisfy its own needs, but that doesn't mean it makes the cheapest oil, and it doesn't mean that oil companies don't try to sell the oil they make to the highest bidder, regardless of whether they're American or not.
When it comes to oil, outside of actual boycotts like that against Russia, no country is an Island, and if oil prices go up for Saudi crude, they go up for Texas crude too.
This is why, in case you haven't noticed, most of us are seeing prices around a dollar a gallo
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He could also declare that exporting oil is illegal.
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Then why is gas going up 10-30 cents daily?
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Because the person you responded to has no idea how global commodity markets work. Still.
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Yeah, that's not how it works. Commodities, especially oil, get priced by the world market. Nobody is going to sell oil to your refiner for half the price they can get elsewhere just so you can have gas at the usual price. Unless... you're proposing communism?
Also, the US isn't really energy independent. It does produce almost as much oil as it uses but all oil isn't equal. The US is the world's biggest producer of oil but it's also the world's second biggest importer, only being eclipsed by China fairly re
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To each according to their need!
Re: On the bright side... (Score:2)
We are not as independent as it would seem. The majority of our refineries are tooled for sour heavy crude, not the sweet light crude we produce. It would take billions and years to transition them.
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Found another guy that doesn't understand that oil is a global commodity with a single global price.
Yes, the US has plenty of supply and is the biggest producer of oil in the world. It's still not enough - we produce 12m bbl a day, and use 20m bbl a day.
So what we'll get is really high prices, which will hit people with fuel-inefficient vehicles harder because stupid people learned NOTHING from the $140/barrel price shock we had in the late 00's.
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The US is near energy independent. The countries in a pickle are China, Japan and South Korea.
Gas lines already happening in China https://x.com/EnergyAbsurdity/... [x.com]
China gets its oil from Iran. But Japan and South Korea could easily get it from Alaska and Canada, which are not too far. And maybe even Russia: US has greenlighted India continuing to buy from Russia, and so if Russia activates its production in Sakhalin and Primorsky/Khabarovsk, then that oil and gas could be shipped to Japan and Korea
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When the MAGAs can't cheaply fill up their F350s, they will become 'restive'.
They'll blame whoever Trump tells them to blame.
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They'll blame whoever Trump tells them to blame.
Sure, but they'll also expect Trump to "fix it". If Trump can't fix it, will they just shrug their shoulders and accept it as the new normal that they can no longer afford to drive their land yacht? Possibly, but I wouldn't be money on it.
But at least gas prices are down! (Score:1, Flamebait)
Just ask Trump!
All this could have been avoided (Score:2, Insightful)
By electing anyone but a war-mongering child rapist well known for his ties to organized crime for half a century, who antagonised all his allies while cozying up with mass-murdering psychopath like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un or Benyamin Netanyahu.
War in Iran "very complete" my ass. It's as complete as the war in Afghanistan where US and other allied soldiers died for nothing, having had their asses kicked for 20 years before running back home with their tails between their legs to shattered lives and brok
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Not really sure why this is being moderated "Troll" when 100% of it is objective fact.
This place is such a shit show now.
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Only sure thing would be that the new Iran would be secular and democratic.
I don't know what makes that a sure thing. Every previous time we opened up a power-vacuum in the Middle East, ISIS-style criminal organizations stepped in to fill it. Is it going to be different this time because we don't put American boots on the ground and just trust that something good will happen in our absence? That's a remarkably optimistic view!
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Maybe the fact that most people demonstrating against the regime have been hurling abuses not just at the regime, but at islam in general. I have seen videos of them abusing everyone from the founder of islam Muhammad to his descendants that shi'a clerics adore. That, backed by surveys that suggest that only 20-30% of Iranians are still muslim would suggest that any future regime, be it Left leaning or Right, would at least be secular, if nothing else
A lesson. (Score:5, Insightful)
This should be a lesson to everyone that using petroleum-based energy makes you subject to the whims of foreign dictators If you are relying on an external source for fuel (or it's refinement) then you are dependent on everything between you and that external source.
Actual energy independence means you aren't subject to interruptions by a physical supply chain. If you are using a fuel then you never truly have energy independence.
Note: Idiots who want to tell me that sunlight can blocked, the wind can be stopped, or the Earth can be cooled are either talking about science fiction or literal mass extinction events which isn't relevant to this topic since a supply chain disruption (mass panic) is nearly guaranteed in those situations.
Euphemisms suck (Score:5, Insightful)
... triggered by the Iran conflict ...
At least have the guts to call it what it is. It's an illegal and unnecessary war, not a mere "conflict".
Either have the balls to call a spade a spade, or get the fuck out of journalism. The willingness on the part of so-called journalists - and others who should know better - to use mealy-mouthed euphemistic spin, is a big part of what landed us in this fucking mess in the first place.
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It would seem that so-called "mainstream journalists" are so afraid of shrinking their audience by pissing them off with facts, that they just don't even bother anymore; or are so obsessed with bothsides justifications of shitty things that they can't even tell what they're trying to report any more.
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The willingness on the part of so-called journalists
* The word "Iran conflict" is from the Slashdot Editor (not from a journalist).
* The word is linked to an URL, which is from Wikipedia (not from a journalist either).
* The Wikipedia article it links to is titled "2026 Iran war".
You can potentially complain about the Editor, but nobody else. Personally I find it fine. "Conflict" is just shorthand for "armed conflict", which is a war. Also, what happens in Iran can be worded as a war, a conflict, a situation. One does not have to use the most specific word ev
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Thank you for pointing out that I didn't do my homework and didn't correctly attribute the use of the word "conflict".
That said, I guess we'll just have to disagree over the implications of the word "conflict". I still say that for most people it connotes much less urgency and gravity than "war". Even calling it an "armed conflict" doesn't quite get the job done IMO.
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The reason why the term "war" isn't being used sometimes is that the targets in Iran are either purely military - as far as the US goes, or political, as far as the Israelis go. Even more than Gaza where the population hates them, the Israelis have been bombing only symbols of the regimes power - their main TV broadcasting station, their political institutions like the "Assembly of Experts" meeting, IRGC and Basij stations and bases, and people connected w/ the regime. But while they are doing all this, m
WFH due to war? sign me up! (Score:1)