Thursday, February 19, 2009

SAR #9050

And you just sit there?

Stand Up: The plan is to spend $275 billion to prevent 7 to 9 million foreclosures, at a cost of about $30,000 a house. "All of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis," Obama said. Apparently many of us are going to pay twice.

Nose, Face: Republican governors from Alaska, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are considering rejecting federal stimulus funds. Fine. Let them that don't want none have memories of not having had none. And let them explain it to their voters.

Housebroken: The Republicans in the California Senate deposed their leader for negotiating with GOP Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Democrats in an attempt to solve the budget crisis. The Republicans do not want it solved, somehow perceiving ruining the state as manly and morally correct. They are more afraid of talk radio than voters.

Future Farmers of America: Horse manure, not plastics, young man. That's the future for those who want to prosper survive the long slump headed our way as the self-imposed curses of peak oil and global warming arrive on the heels of the housing/credit exhaustion. Think small. Small farms.

Barber Shop: The Plan requires that "lenders" bring the mortgage payments down to 38% of the borrowers' monthly gross income. This is going to be fun for all the 'stated income' folks and the newly unemployed. There are no "lenders"; there are those who bought up mortgages and bundled them into mortgage backed securities, and there are the holders of sliced and diced mortgage backed derivatives cut from those MBS. So does each one of those investors get to say yea or nay on each mortgage?

Resource Wars: I understand invading Iraq to get the oil, but do we actually want to corner the world market on heroin? Why else increase the Bush expeditionary force in Afghanistan? We could learn from the Brits and sell it to China...

Crashing In: CNBC's thought police didn't screen Howard Davidowitz closely enough and the Capitalism Now, Beloved Capitalism crew was treated to his views: The US will never recover from this downturn, living standards will not recover. The party is over. Nothing makes sense, especially the insane bailout programs. The deficit will run a trillion or more for a decade. There's a 50% chance of a depression... Sounded like they were interviewing me.

Peak Oil Did Not Go Away: With OPEC's cutbacks and the reduction in demand, Peak Oil has gone away, right? Nope. Every million barrels per day that is withheld from the market Peak oil puts off the eventual decline by about 3 weeks. If the decline in use is 4 mbd and goes on for 5 years, it might delay paying the Peak Oil piper by about 3 months.

Gamblers Anonymous: Why is the government is bailing speculators who bought homes they couldn't afford? Why am I being punished?

Fishing, Gone: Warming oceans are driving fishing stocks poleward and by 2050 US fleets will find few cod, herring and prawns. In general, northern fisheries will increase while those in the tropics will suffer major losses.

How Dry They Are: For the first time in 20 years the LA Water Department is imposing water rationing, reducing allotments and doubling prices for over-use. Shower together.

Growing & Not: The UN predicts the world's population will grow about 50% by 2050, while food production will fall about 25% from today. If we start tapering off now, by 2050 we'll all be used to getting by on 50% fewer calories.

Not All Bad: Fewer new homes and apartments were built last month - fewer than any time since records began in 1959. This is good news; there are too many new homes sitting around already - over a year's worth at the current snails sales pace.

Clean (Out Of) Coal: Turns out the 200 year supply of coal may be gone in 20 or 30 years. It may last longer simply because we've not enough rail capacity to use it up sooner. Then where will electricity come from?

Porn O'Graph: Building, or not, to an end.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

ck:

you can criticize the iraq war for any number of legitimate reasons. but please don't echo the canard say we invaded iraq for its oil.
for god's sake, we've been there almost six years and the fact is we haven't taken their oil. (yes, we buy some of it, as we buy from everybody else).

Mark Derricott said...

CKM:

Great CNBC video--just imagine how much more often we would watch the were people like Davidowitz able to break through more often.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Catching up: Best I can tell 3 of today's items criticize the Big O's plans, 3 take on the GOPers - 2 of which just report their votes and party discipline. The rest seem bipartisan or non-political.
As for Iraq and Afghanistan, if we did not invade both to gain control of and access to the region's oil I can find no logic whatsoever for 7 years of armed conflict in both places.
Lighten up.

Mark Derricott said...

I have a hard time with the argument that the invasion and occupation in Iraq was not about the control of its resources.

Officially, the reasons were about terrorism prevention, then reduction of weapons of mass destruction, eventually it became about creating a democracy to recast the region as stable trading partners and counterweights to Iran. In the end, it was because we could not let the terrorists "return".

These may have been the sincere beliefs and motivations at the time. Over our history, if these are the standards for the use of the U.S.'s military, we happen to apply them only where valuable resources are available.

Anonymous said...

I have a hard time with the argument that the invasion and occupation in Iraq was not about the control of its resources.

IMO it was to protect the Saudis; i.e. about control of the Saudi ressources!!

Anonymous said...

afganistan's resources? what resources? come on.

iraq: we haven't taken their oil. we don't control their oil. any proof to the contrary? (please provide facts, not beliefs or slogans).

p.s., i am not in favor of us being anywhere near either iraq or iran. we got in both for the wrong reasons but not for oil.

cheers to all.

Anonymous said...

re the immediately preceding comment i meant iraq or afganistan. (re iran, hope not..).