SAR #12056

The dollar's not the only thing that's no longer worth the paper it's printed on.

Geritoil: Iraq is asking BP to rejuvenate the huge 77-year old Kirkuk oilfield, where production plummeted from 900 kbd to 20kbd in ten years. Maybe the same magic the Saudis are counting on to rejuvenate the old Dammam field which was closed in the 1930's. Wonder how many other old giants are ready to fall off a cliff.

Fear & Loathing: Nearly a year following the Fukushima disaster, all but 2 of Japan's 54 nuclear power plants remain offline.

Survivor Type: Barclays' Peter Newland says that if your hands are dismantled one finger at a time, with a week or ten days rest between amputations, it won't hurt much at all. Or at least that's his explanation for why $4.00 gasoline won't hurt the economy – we've gotten there slowly. Wow, too bad Stephen King didn't figure that out.

Clip & Save: US intelligence agencies think that Iran gave up actively trying to build a nuclear weapon 8 years ago and has no plans to do so now. Of course that means the Iranian regime is breaking one of the main principles of modern government by telling the truth.

Different Views: An economist with Deutsche Bank, not understanding the intricacies of the internal combustion engine, says that high petroleum prices are not a threat to the economy because natural gas is cheap. He also believes that the extra $40 billion spent on gasoline in the last two months due to a 30 cent increase in prices is not a problem because of the improving economy.

The Workers' Paradise: A U of Michigan/Harvard University study reports that more than 1.4 million families live on $2 per day per person. In the United States.

Until The Last Teardrop Falls: Central bank bailouts have become embedded in the modern economy. No effective financial reforms have made it through Congress. Big financial institutions have learned that no matter what they do, the government will bail them out and their management will never be prosecuted. Wall Street has found a way, through a cowed and compliant government, to eliminate risk, socialize losses and privatize gains. And short of depression and armed revolt, these conditions will prevail.

Doing The Math: Gasoline prices in the US vary by about 2.5 cents/gallon with a $1 change in the price of oil. To get to Newt's $2.50 a gallon, the price of a barrel of WTI would have to fall to about $60.00 a barrel. Happy days, or deflationary hell?

Down Memory Lane: Republicans claim that recently unearthed documents reveal a long history of Iranian deceit over their nuclear program. Remember the Niger Memo? Well, they've substituted Iraq for Iran and dropped the stuff about Niger and yellowcake, but it is essentially the disinformation. It's even printed on recycled paper.

Putin On The Ritz: 130,000 showed up at a pro-Putin rally at a Moscow soccer stadium to show support for what bribes and coercion can accomplish in a democracy.

Take Losses and Prosper: Various commentators are annoyed that AIG has manipulated the tax and accounting rules to conjure up billions in profits from tens of billions of losses that the taxpayers suffered. I'm annoyed that there's still an AIG.

Mirror, Mirror: Right-wing Republicans (they are not conservatives) hate, above all, reliance on government programs. Yet the regions of America most reliant on government programs are the same regions that so detest government handouts. The mystery is why the relatively poor and greatly dependent red states are... red states. They have the lowest levels of educational achievement - which may explain why 44% of Social Security recipients, 43% of those receiving unemployment benefits and 40% of those on Medicare say that they do not use government programs and do not want government involved in their lives. It is wrong to characterize America as a fundamentally conservative country. It is not. It is a fundamentally ignorant, confused, and fearful place.

Porn O'Graph: Rooms with a view.