So, here's what's happening.

Typically, oil contracts are sold in units of 1,000 barrels for a period of 30 days. At the end of the 30 days, you have to pick up the oil... in person.

But you can't; you're a Wall Street trader. So you normally just "roll" the contract over.

That is, you get another 30-day contract to replace the old one and avoid having to pick up 1,000 barrels of oil in your pinstriped suit.

This works well enough... except when you're in the middle of a pandemic.

An evil virus has taken hold. No one's buying stuff. No one's flying. People aren't driving. Business is closed! LIBERATE MINNESOTA!

This is all stuff for which we — being the backwards capitalist society that we are — still need oil. And no one's buying.

All of a sudden, a bunch of traders find themselves unable to roll over their contracts.

So they start selling them in bulk just before the maturity date — like a last-minute homework assignment.

But that causes the price to tank.

So, they soon start PAYING PEOPLE to take the contracts off their hands.

Wall Street traders, being immune to actual work, cannot stomach the idea of... handling physical goods. (And have no physical capacity to do so in any case).

So we get a crash in oil prices, which may or may not have anything to do with the actual use value of oil.

I have no idea what's coming next — whether the era of oil is ending or the era of arsonous, planet-ending bailouts is beginning — but it's a wild ride.

And it's pretty clear that we need to:

- Keep it in the ground;
- Nationalise fossil fuel companies;
- Deliver a transition plan for their workers;
- Invest massively in renewable energy; and
- Abandon the dogma of endless growth.