Tuesday, December 15, 2009

SAR #9350

Self-interest trumps the future. As always.

It's My Party...   If the Boss holds a party, only the underlings have to attend. Just ask Blankfein, Mack, and Parsons. And if Obama didn't cry, it's because he doesn't understand just who the boss really is. Ain't this a great country?

Copenhagen Collapse:   There is absolutely no way any industrialized nation will take any significant steps to decrease its use of fossil fuels, and no way its citizens would stand for the level of impoverishment that this would entail. Thus the essential hollowness of the Copenhagen meetings. Nothing will get done because nothing can be done.

Shape Shifter: The 'V' shaped recession belonged to W. The 'W' shaped one will belong to O.

Suspicion, Jealousy and Hate:   Senator Nelson (D-NE) has joined Smirking Joe Lieberman (Idiot- CT) in backing away from health care reform on the grounds that the current compromise might lead to what the majority of the country wants: universal single-payer health insurance. Such a challenge to the political fund-raising structure cannot be permitted to pass.

Seven Lean Years:    To get back to a 5% unemployment rate within 7 years, the US needs to add 300,000 new jobs a month for 84 consecutive months.

Asked and Answered:   The price of oil recently rose to $85 a barrel and has now fallen to $70. Is there a message here, one that predicts further slowing of the world's economies? Yes. Did the increase in the price of oil squash the nascent recovery? Possibly. Is there an economic glass ceiling for oil prices at about $85? Sure seems that way.

Call Him in the Morning:   Newt Gingrich promises that if America elects a Republican Congress they will repeal whatever progress gets made on the health care front.

Big Shock:   The drug trade – the illegal one – is a $350 billion dollar business. The money goes through the banks and may well have kept some afloat during the recent unpleasantness. Why it should come a shock to anyone that the banksters get their taste of that big wad of illicit cash is beyond me. It has been obvious for over 20 years that the proceeds of the illegal drug trade – and that of most other major criminal undertakings – flows through those Too Big Too Fail behemoths on Wall Street. That some banks may have turned to the drug barons for help during rough times is only reasonable.

Land Rush:   Every day, Louisiana is losing the equivalent of 30 football fields to rising sea water.

Silence Speaks:   Given a second chance to rule that torture violated an individual's fundamental rights, the Supreme Court again stood mute, mirroring the indifference of the American people to the crimes committed in their name.

Dog Bites Man:    John McCain has accused Senate Democrats of bowing to Big Pharma in banning the import/re-import of drugs.

Buying Indulgences:   The US has offered $85 million dollars over 5 years to spread renewable and non-polluting energy technologies in developing countries. This is conscience money, to permit the US to continue to spew CO2 at will. It comes to six cents per American, per year. Cheap at twice the price. There are individuals on Wall Street whose bonus this year will be more than that.

Oilfield Humor:   Iraq says it will have a 12 million barrel a day oil production capacity by 2015, a 10 million barrel a day increase. WMD: Words of Mass Delusion.

Bad Movie:   Just because a US default on its debt would trigger a world-wide economic Armageddon doesn't mean it won't happen or that contingency planning for such a distant but real threat is inappropriate.

Castor Oil:   A Fox news anchor claims that lowering the minimum wage would create more jobs for more people. After all, it worked in Bangladesh.

Rhetorical Question:   Someone – apparently with a straight face – asked if Americans are no longer Rugged Individualists, no longer fight to resist the whittling away of their freedoms, no longer fight their enslavement. Only on television, pal. Only on television. Where would they go to resist? A government approved, barbed-wire enclosed, free speech area? Could they get a Government grant to fund the protest?

9 comments:

lineside said...

re "asked and answered": i believe it's premature to read any macroeconomic implications into a $15 move in the price of oil. there's too much spec money tail wagging that dog.

re "oilfield humor", 12 mm b/d in 6 years indeed seems farfetched. btw, if we invaded iraq for its oil, how come lukoil, statoil, and cnpc are developing those fields instead of u.s. companies? i believe invading iraq was a mistake, but for crying out loud it wasn't done for oil (oil is a fungible global commodity, and now iraqi oil will continue to find its way to u.s. markets, only with cnpc and lukoil taking a cut as opposed to saddam).

re castor oil: for those who say a minimum wage job is worthless, please consider that for many people, a minimum wage job is a vital stepping stone to gain experience and a better job down the road, present company included.

cheers.

Anonymous said...

Where is the graph? I miss the daily graph when it's not there. Sometimes the graph is the only thing I understand.

Anonymous said...

Re: Obama's Party. Noam Chomsky said it best in a June speech, recently printed in Boston Review: " Obama is fast becoming proof that American democracy is nothing but media performance art, designed to deceive the electorate while the financial elite pillage the treasury".

Anonymous said...

RE: Land Rush:

Of course, Mississippi and Alabama aren't losing any and Florida and Texas are fine, so it must just be the Louisiana Gulf that is rising. To paraphrase Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny. So the laws of physics works differently in Louisiana that any where else.... Wait I was there once, maybe they really do.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Anony 351 Seem's you're reacting to something you think you saw in the Louisiana item. Louisiana has been loosing ground to the Gulf for a long time - mostly, I understand, because of man's interference with the ways of the river... What you so excited about?
ckm

Anonymous said...

Rhetorical question: Perhaps the most absurd piece I've ever read. Thanks for the laugh.

Anonymous said...

CKM, the misleading Louisiana video blamed the land loss on more powerful hurricanes, but offered no further explanation. Apparently knowing that the cause was something else, you nonetheless linked to it. And you're supposed to be a scientist?

SHAME ON YOU.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Ah, caught being slothful and - worse - forgetting my McPhee. Great piece back in '87. Remedial reading assigment: ATCHAFALAYA at http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1987/02/23/1987_02_23_039_TNY_CARDS_000347146

fajensen said...

Is there an economic glass ceiling for oil prices at about $85? Sure seems that way.

No Worries Mate: There be other things we can Inflate & Leverage with all those free-flowing TARP money:

"""
Fastest Food Inflation Since Riots Means Milk Up 39%

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&sid=aBYSp0.XfXZs
"""

Inflation in what you need, deflation in what you have.

Well, it's "Change" and "Yes - We Can (screw you 4-ever)" so it must be good!