Jesus healed the sick.
Oil Re-Definitions: The world's oil reserves have been exaggerated by up to a third. Instead of 1,350 billion barrels conveniently on hand, it is far more likely to be about 850 billion barrels. If so, demand will exceed supply by 2014, which is now described as “peak demand” and possibly “peak supply” but not peak oil. Go figure.
Feed The Rich: Obama has come up with another housing plan designed to trap the working poor (and unemployed poor) into paying and paying and paying on overpriced houses forever. First it cuts the losses of the “investor class” enough so the mortgage can be resold to the “homeowner” for the (putative) current price. The premise is that the house then will magically cease to decline in price. The new mortgage will be 'recourse' which means the suckers cannot just walk away when house prices plunge another 15%.
Garage Sale: The Fed has decided to clean out the garage and auction off some of the $1.7 trillion in crappy assets it paid too much for over the last 18 months. Priced as marked, make an offer, no reasonable offer refused.
Words, Words, Words: After all the noise, it turns out that all that was needed to cure Greece's massive deficits was for Greece to agree to undertake to lower its debt levels in the future and for Germany to promise cash, maybe, someday. All talk, no cash. But somehow this “agreement wipes out the risk of default, the refinancing risk and raises the credibility of the government’s austerity plan." Even so, “the U.K. is weak and America is weak,” because soon their debt will climb to 110% [of GDP] and stay there for a while." Just like Greece.
Relapse: In the latest month of the ongoing recovery, 27 states recorded increases in unemployment. Over the past year, jobless rates have increased in 46 states and the District of Columbia. Accept no substitutes.
Fear and Loathing: The anger, fear, and insecurity being vented by the tea party dupes is not about health care, but rather about some perceived threat to identity, to some long gone rugged American individualism. The health care bill creates no new Big Government agency but instead hands the for-profit insurance industry 32 million new sheep to slaughter. The “mandates” are taken from the Romney/GOP-designed Massachusetts bill. Yet many Republicans are running around repeating Reaganite lies and saying “No!” and “Repeal!”. Let's hope they run on that platform and that they let Palin lead them into the wilderness.
The Word: Citing unacceptable risks to its pristine Catskill Mountain water supply, New York City has ruled that there will be no fracking around in its watershed or anywhere near its infrastructures.
Ducks: The Department of Energy now predicts that oil production from current sources will decline both sharply and steadily (at 2% a year) from 87 mbd today to 80 mbd in 2015, while the demand will climb to 90mbd or more by then. If it looks like peak oil and walks like peak oil, maybe it is peak oil? But those words will never cross official lips, instead it will be “an undulating plateau” caused by peak demand.
Nose/Face: Communities around the country are cutting library hours, staff and even whole libraries from their operating budgets. If people want to read a book, let them buy one.
Stuff Happens: Greenspan says that “financial institutions should expect [to be bailed out] only in extremely rare situations.” Why they should ever be bailed out remains unclear and why they should survive the experience isn't even mentioned. But it was a relief to discover that no one, certainly not Alan, was at fault. No one at all.
While I was out: February new house sales reached a new (SAAR) record low, 308,000, after January's data was revised downward 7,000 to 309,000. Existing house sales fell 0.6% from January.
Whose Bull: The US justifies collateral damage done to the innocent civilians in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and several other places where we are not yet at war, by claiming the CIA's use of Predator drones to assassinate people who do not like the US is a defensive act.
Clear and Present Danger: There appears to be an internationally coordinated governmental effort to put whistle-blower website WikiLeaks out of business and their contributors in jail. Go to wikileaks.org, bookmark them, and support them through the PayPal tab at the bottom of their home page. Sorry, contributions are not tax deductible.
Porn O'Graph: Falling in with a bad crowd.
1 comment:
Fear and Loathing: Sorry - this gets me.
First, teapartyism, although peopled by dupes, is not about rugged Americanism. It's about the N... in the white house. Period.
Second, we few, we happy few - liberals who hope righteousness will out as Palin leads dupedom into the wilderness - we are the dupes.
Limbaughites are happy in their wilderness now and they are trying like the dickens to spread the wilderness, and they are succeeding. It won't magically go away. Climate change deniers. Creationists. Obama is a muslim!
Yes, we need to tell the truth, but what's the audience? What's needed is old-fashioned precinct politics, get out the vote, maybe some dirty dealing...
We, at least I, need an action plan.
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