@anneinak. Forgive me using this thread to answer your query, but using a phone is not conducive to multiple debating. I saw the work austerity did, sadly 5 minutes after I had just done the same. Not going in to the plethora of new arguments on this but really me just closing off my loose end to not appear rude. I think we now agree on where we disagree. For you and @redacted the existing number ceases to exist at the beginning of each mtg and must be reborn through an agreement to a new number, which is reported as maintaining if it happens to be the same as the previous number. For me the previosuly agreed number has the power of existence and must be killed or changed to cease. Failure to change and change mean abondon means the status quo lives. The way the q is phrased made me forecast in my direction. I disagree with @redacted as if they exchange the word for report for announce. They have also reported no change. Our arguments are what the lack of an announcement or report did... if
The q had been phrased will the ceiling be maintained then I would be thinking along your lines. It needs to be maintained to live or it dies in the meeting. The fact the q says will it be changed means it exists to be changed or abandoned. What people are saying outside of meetings at this stage I see as politics for the future. As I say, unless what they say was agreed to unanimously then it is an individual view not the official opec view as I see it. Here we diverge I know. I am not trying to win this, initially I was simply trying to get redacted off 100 as I saw that hurting. Then @Einstein stirred the pot. I see that redacted has since moved to protect score so...... onwards and wait for gj to decide. Edit. I recognise by changing that is not conceding. I was not looking for concession just pragmatism...
I concur with @clinton. Quotas don't silently disappear without paperwork, regardless of unwritten understandings. I don't think GJ can resolve based on unwritten understandings. At best they can void the question, as thankfully they did with Turkey Day Spending.
My prediction: 75% chance that GJ voids this question, for similar reasons as the NRF Thanksgiving shopping question. The question is "Will OPEC announce any changes to its production quota before 1 January 2016?" There has been no announcement, regardless of what has or hasn't changed. Unless the absence of comment on what the output target is currently is interpreted as an "announcement", I would expect this question to remain open until 1 January. Then void.
praedico,
I disagree with your statement that "There has been no announcement". I found the minutes of the meeting under the "Press Releases" tab on the OPEC website.
I am having difficulty with the idea that no action = no quota = change. I have not found anything in OPEC’s governing statute to suggest it. I do not see an expiration date on the current quota in past documents so the current quota should remain in place unless modified up or down by a vote, repealed by a vote, or if OPEC disbands.
There are some practical considerations as well. Think about the way non-OPEC organizations work. If a board of directors for a business wants to amend a policy but the votes are not there to pass it, no one would reasonably argue the existing policy disappeared. Take a legislative body. If Congress does not have the votes on a bill to amend a law, the law stands in its unamended state. Congress does not have to reaffirm the existing law. Under the logic of no action = no quota, Republicans in Congress could repeal Obamacare by failing to repeal and replace Obamacare. That would lead to some strange results. I have never seen a group create an extra procedural hurdle like this one because there is no reason to do so. I cannot find evidence OPEC has.
I suspect OPEC concluded (1) they do not know where to set the quota because of situations like Iran and the concerns about market share and (2) they are not enforcing the quota anyway because individual countries can pump what they want, so it does not really matter at this point. Some of those no quota statements to the press may be expressions of frustration over the lack of enforcement and not an indication that the quota was actually abolished.
For now, I am at 0%. That being said, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the comments in this thread.
@scholarandcat: I miss the ampersand
@scholarandcat & @clinton: This clinton-ite uprising needs to put down immediately.
Unlike a traditional legislative or corporate body, there are no checks-and-balances within OPEC. There are no shareholders, no citizenry of voters, no courts, etc. All these "other things" are designed to restrain the group from doing the one thing inherent in being a corporate body -- the ability to ignore precedent. It is only these "other things" and what is customary, that induces a corporate body to pay any heed at all to previous decisions, whether made yesterday, last week, last month, or whenever. As a cartel, with exclusive authority in the delegates, they are less of a corporate body than we are familiar with (such usually restrained with a variety of checks-and-balances), and more of a confederation of equals without constraint. Quite like a gang of pirates. [I wasn't kidding when I mentioned the Saudi delegate was invoking the name of his King repeatedly. There is no formal control upon the Saudi delegate, only the threat of beheading.) As such, the delegates are bound (and only in a moral sense) to each other and their decisions only by their mutual agreements. For every meeting where they have reached agreement regarding a production quota/ceiling, it was announced. This includes all those times where the quota/ceiling did not change. They did not re-confirm the quota/ceiling each time it did not change for fun; they did it to reflect the fact that they were still in agreement as to a quota/ceiling and to that particular quota/ceiling. This past meeting, they failed to reach an agreement. Lacking an agreement, no delegate is bound (again in a moral sense) to anything. The issue of a quota/ceiling was brought up, and there was no agreement. Now it is true that what binds a cartel together is some agreement to act in unison together, and rather than twist our understanding of cartel to meet reality, it would be best to recognize that OPEC is no longer a cartel at all. It is not surprising that the legacy of the quota/ceiling number is so hard to shake, for it was, after all, the central thing that bound them together. They are like amputees experiencing phantom limb syndrome. They even act and speak as if the number were still there. Without an agreement, there is no number, the delegates have, by not agreeing, agreed to cede no moral authority to the group in respect to quota/ceiling. Each delegate can do as they wish. This, despite whatever formalizations OPEC may have. So, while the issue may seem to be whether a ceiling not-agreed to causes the previous ceiling to lapse or continue, I suggest that by both custom (confirmation of continued agreement) and the very nature of the confederation, a more fundamental change has occurred, the necessary unity of agreement has failed, and hence, an OPEC ceiling no longer exists. (While we may allow little children to run around shouting "I can fly, I can fly," to their amusement; we must not allow them to run off a cliff with such a belief. Likewise, no matter what OPEC says now, the confederation of delegates are independent actors in terms of the production ceiling. It's piratical politics, dress it up as you wish.)
Wasn't the chair of yesterday's OPEC meeting new? I'm wondering if what we're seeing with OPEC is the consequence of poor, inexperienced leadership. When an organization has an inexperienced chair, confusion often ensues . . ."What are we doing? What did we do? Oh, we forgot to . . . ".
@redacted. You are not sucking me back in, I tagged with s&c. Saying that, There seems to be reliance on precedent (custom) in the format on the one hand for you whilst saying precedent it is not something I can rely on for continuation. I keep also thinking that the key summary is nothing is actually going to change until we know what iran is doing next once sanctions are lifted. Oh well, thinking given how we are responding there will be some pointed qs raised we can pick through and debate or clarify ... edit qs raised by press that is
OPEC fails to agree production ceiling
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-opec-meeting-idUSKBN0TM30B20151204
“We have no ceiling now.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-meeting-ends-with-no-production-cuts-1449248892
"failed to agree on an overall crude output ceiling"
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/oil/vienna/opec-fails-to-agree-crude-output-ceiling-to-meet-21568484
"We cannot put a number now"
http://m.apa.az/en/news/235976
"sheds symbolic output ceiling" ... "abandoning an official output ceiling"
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/12/04/opec-to-keep-pumping-crude/#36898101=0
"Ceilingless" ... "The ceiling of 30 million barrels a day, in place since 2011 and now abandoned"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-04/opec-unity-shattered-as-saudi-led-policy-leads-to-no-limits-ihs9xu51
I beg to differ with some. If they have eliminated, or failed to agree upon, a so-called ceiling; that would indeed be a change.
@anneinak. Forgive me using this thread to answer your query, but using a phone is not conducive to multiple debating. I saw the work austerity did, sadly 5 minutes after I had just done the same. Not going in to the plethora of new arguments on this but really me just closing off my loose end to not appear rude. I think we now agree on where we disagree. For you and @redacted the existing number ceases to exist at the beginning of each mtg and must be reborn through an agreement to a new number, which is reported as maintaining if it happens to be the same as the previous number. For me the previosuly agreed number has the power of existence and must be killed or changed to cease. Failure to change and change mean abondon means the status quo lives. The way the q is phrased made me forecast in my direction. I disagree with @redacted as if they exchange the word for report for announce. They have also reported no change. Our arguments are what the lack of an announcement or report did... if
The q had been phrased will the ceiling be maintained then I would be thinking along your lines. It needs to be maintained to live or it dies in the meeting. The fact the q says will it be changed means it exists to be changed or abandoned. What people are saying outside of meetings at this stage I see as politics for the future. As I say, unless what they say was agreed to unanimously then it is an individual view not the official opec view as I see it. Here we diverge I know. I am not trying to win this, initially I was simply trying to get redacted off 100 as I saw that hurting. Then @Einstein stirred the pot. I see that redacted has since moved to protect score so...... onwards and wait for gj to decide. Edit. I recognise by changing that is not conceding. I was not looking for concession just pragmatism...
I concur with @clinton. Quotas don't silently disappear without paperwork, regardless of unwritten understandings. I don't think GJ can resolve based on unwritten understandings. At best they can void the question, as thankfully they did with Turkey Day Spending.
My prediction: 75% chance that GJ voids this question, for similar reasons as the NRF Thanksgiving shopping question. The question is "Will OPEC announce any changes to its production quota before 1 January 2016?" There has been no announcement, regardless of what has or hasn't changed. Unless the absence of comment on what the output target is currently is interpreted as an "announcement", I would expect this question to remain open until 1 January. Then void.
praedico,
I disagree with your statement that "There has been no announcement". I found the minutes of the meeting under the "Press Releases" tab on the OPEC website.
I am having difficulty with the idea that no action = no quota = change. I have not found anything in OPEC’s governing statute to suggest it. I do not see an expiration date on the current quota in past documents so the current quota should remain in place unless modified up or down by a vote, repealed by a vote, or if OPEC disbands.
There are some practical considerations as well. Think about the way non-OPEC organizations work. If a board of directors for a business wants to amend a policy but the votes are not there to pass it, no one would reasonably argue the existing policy disappeared. Take a legislative body. If Congress does not have the votes on a bill to amend a law, the law stands in its unamended state. Congress does not have to reaffirm the existing law. Under the logic of no action = no quota, Republicans in Congress could repeal Obamacare by failing to repeal and replace Obamacare. That would lead to some strange results. I have never seen a group create an extra procedural hurdle like this one because there is no reason to do so. I cannot find evidence OPEC has.
I suspect OPEC concluded (1) they do not know where to set the quota because of situations like Iran and the concerns about market share and (2) they are not enforcing the quota anyway because individual countries can pump what they want, so it does not really matter at this point. Some of those no quota statements to the press may be expressions of frustration over the lack of enforcement and not an indication that the quota was actually abolished.
For now, I am at 0%. That being said, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the comments in this thread.
@s&c...Tag....
scholarandcat,
I'm not sure that your comparisons are apt. I know of no board or legislative body (other than OPEC) that requires unanimity.
@scholarandcat: I miss the ampersand
@scholarandcat & @clinton: This clinton-ite uprising needs to put down immediately.
Unlike a traditional legislative or corporate body, there are no checks-and-balances within OPEC. There are no shareholders, no citizenry of voters, no courts, etc. All these "other things" are designed to restrain the group from doing the one thing inherent in being a corporate body -- the ability to ignore precedent. It is only these "other things" and what is customary, that induces a corporate body to pay any heed at all to previous decisions, whether made yesterday, last week, last month, or whenever. As a cartel, with exclusive authority in the delegates, they are less of a corporate body than we are familiar with (such usually restrained with a variety of checks-and-balances), and more of a confederation of equals without constraint. Quite like a gang of pirates. [I wasn't kidding when I mentioned the Saudi delegate was invoking the name of his King repeatedly. There is no formal control upon the Saudi delegate, only the threat of beheading.) As such, the delegates are bound (and only in a moral sense) to each other and their decisions only by their mutual agreements. For every meeting where they have reached agreement regarding a production quota/ceiling, it was announced. This includes all those times where the quota/ceiling did not change. They did not re-confirm the quota/ceiling each time it did not change for fun; they did it to reflect the fact that they were still in agreement as to a quota/ceiling and to that particular quota/ceiling. This past meeting, they failed to reach an agreement. Lacking an agreement, no delegate is bound (again in a moral sense) to anything. The issue of a quota/ceiling was brought up, and there was no agreement. Now it is true that what binds a cartel together is some agreement to act in unison together, and rather than twist our understanding of cartel to meet reality, it would be best to recognize that OPEC is no longer a cartel at all. It is not surprising that the legacy of the quota/ceiling number is so hard to shake, for it was, after all, the central thing that bound them together. They are like amputees experiencing phantom limb syndrome. They even act and speak as if the number were still there. Without an agreement, there is no number, the delegates have, by not agreeing, agreed to cede no moral authority to the group in respect to quota/ceiling. Each delegate can do as they wish. This, despite whatever formalizations OPEC may have. So, while the issue may seem to be whether a ceiling not-agreed to causes the previous ceiling to lapse or continue, I suggest that by both custom (confirmation of continued agreement) and the very nature of the confederation, a more fundamental change has occurred, the necessary unity of agreement has failed, and hence, an OPEC ceiling no longer exists. (While we may allow little children to run around shouting "I can fly, I can fly," to their amusement; we must not allow them to run off a cliff with such a belief. Likewise, no matter what OPEC says now, the confederation of delegates are independent actors in terms of the production ceiling. It's piratical politics, dress it up as you wish.)
Wasn't the chair of yesterday's OPEC meeting new? I'm wondering if what we're seeing with OPEC is the consequence of poor, inexperienced leadership. When an organization has an inexperienced chair, confusion often ensues . . ."What are we doing? What did we do? Oh, we forgot to . . . ".
@redacted. You are not sucking me back in, I tagged with s&c. Saying that, There seems to be reliance on precedent (custom) in the format on the one hand for you whilst saying precedent it is not something I can rely on for continuation. I keep also thinking that the key summary is nothing is actually going to change until we know what iran is doing next once sanctions are lifted. Oh well, thinking given how we are responding there will be some pointed qs raised we can pick through and debate or clarify ... edit qs raised by press that is