It certainly applies to Norway, Canada, Australia (commodities) and Saudi Arabia as well, among others.
It doesn't apply much to the US. Among the major oil producers, the US is by far the least dependent on the oil market for the domestic economy's well being. It's arguable the US benefits more from cheap oil (industry, consumers, gasoline), than it takes a hit due to the loss of oil jobs and growth in the oil field in general. $40 to $50 oil has slowed oil well expansion and exploration, but US oil production is still sitting near all-time highs, and that will continue so long as oil doesn't go to eg $25-$30 or so for an extended period of time. At a range of $40-$50 for 2016, current projections are that US oil production will expand by another 500,000 barrels per day.
The dollar turning, which has crushed commodities, has pushed Canada into a serious recession, and is threatening to push Australia into one. To make matters worse, China's growth has been trending down for ten years - they temporarily spiked it back up after the great recession at the cost of tens of trillions in debt. China's economy tanking, is hitting any commodity dependent economies very hard.
In Norway's case, they get to start from an amazing position of strength overall. They have extremely low unemployment and a very high standard of living. They have the sovereign wealth fund to lean on if times get really bad. It's very likely that five years of cheap oil will hit Norway very, very hard. They're already facing a scenario where they'll have to tap the sovereign fund to deal with their budget demands. That's not going to get any prettier any time soon. The party is over, but Norway has a lot of wealth accumulated from it, and can weather this storm better than most.
Saudi Arabia has $640+ billion in foreign reserves that they're depleting by the month. It'll get worse over the next year, but they can weather it for a few years yet without a threat to their stability or economic well-being. Saudi is of course also among the low cost leaders on production, so while their budget demands $100 oil, on the other side they have among the best margins on what they are producing.
Out of the group, Russia is drastically worse off. Not only have they been trying to significantly increase military spending at exactly the wrong time, not only are they under international sanctions, but they're starting from a position of national weakness compared to eg Norway: their people are not well off, their Ruble is being hammered, and they're run by a dictator that is not good at managing the economy (as witnessed by their complete non-diversification the past decade plus, which has left them vulnerable to this outcome in the commodity market).
I almost entirely agree with you, just wanted to add a bit more colour to your comments on Canada and Saudi Arabia.
Canada is clearly in recession but I don't think we can call it a "serious" recession yet. So far more of a mild contraction (but pretty terrible if you focus in on energy). I do think the rest of the economy is lagging behind energy and bad times are ahead overall, especially with so much of Canadian growth/prosperity tied to the housing boom. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but seriously: when the prime minister promises a home renovation tax credit during his reelection campaign - and explicitly states he's doing to help boost the value of Canadians' homes - you've gotta know people are captured by the real estate boom narrative.
On Saudi, they can afford low oil prices for a while and can just borrow if they need to. Super low debt around 3% of GDP, low cost basis as you say, and they've done this before and come back from it (100% debt-to-GDP in the 90s o the back of low oil prices). I've seen interesting speculation that Saudi is willing to hurt a bit from cheap oil because it'll hurt an increasingly-economically-integrated Iran more.
I agree with alot of what you have said. However, here is what I am trying to understand. Who will buy US treasuries, when all its major buyers are getting in serious trouble? How will US government fund itself?
It doesn't apply much to the US. Among the major oil producers, the US is by far the least dependent on the oil market for the domestic economy's well being. It's arguable the US benefits more from cheap oil (industry, consumers, gasoline), than it takes a hit due to the loss of oil jobs and growth in the oil field in general. $40 to $50 oil has slowed oil well expansion and exploration, but US oil production is still sitting near all-time highs, and that will continue so long as oil doesn't go to eg $25-$30 or so for an extended period of time. At a range of $40-$50 for 2016, current projections are that US oil production will expand by another 500,000 barrels per day.
The dollar turning, which has crushed commodities, has pushed Canada into a serious recession, and is threatening to push Australia into one. To make matters worse, China's growth has been trending down for ten years - they temporarily spiked it back up after the great recession at the cost of tens of trillions in debt. China's economy tanking, is hitting any commodity dependent economies very hard.
In Norway's case, they get to start from an amazing position of strength overall. They have extremely low unemployment and a very high standard of living. They have the sovereign wealth fund to lean on if times get really bad. It's very likely that five years of cheap oil will hit Norway very, very hard. They're already facing a scenario where they'll have to tap the sovereign fund to deal with their budget demands. That's not going to get any prettier any time soon. The party is over, but Norway has a lot of wealth accumulated from it, and can weather this storm better than most.
Saudi Arabia has $640+ billion in foreign reserves that they're depleting by the month. It'll get worse over the next year, but they can weather it for a few years yet without a threat to their stability or economic well-being. Saudi is of course also among the low cost leaders on production, so while their budget demands $100 oil, on the other side they have among the best margins on what they are producing.
Out of the group, Russia is drastically worse off. Not only have they been trying to significantly increase military spending at exactly the wrong time, not only are they under international sanctions, but they're starting from a position of national weakness compared to eg Norway: their people are not well off, their Ruble is being hammered, and they're run by a dictator that is not good at managing the economy (as witnessed by their complete non-diversification the past decade plus, which has left them vulnerable to this outcome in the commodity market).