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September 2 2010
Who Rules America?
Ilene, WordPress
In Robert Frank’s excellent book "Richistan," he points out that "The wealthy weren’t just getting wealthier - they were forming their own virtual country. They were wealthier than most nations, with the top 1% controlling $17 trillion in wealth. And they were increasingly building a self-contained world, with its own health-care system (concierge doctors), travel system (private jets, destination clubs) and language. ('Who’s your household manager?') They had created their own breakaway republic - one I called Richistan."
(This blog is suspended - another link: http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/06/05/why-richistan-why-now/)
Bill McKibben on the Late Show with David Letterman
staff, 350.org
If you are one of the 4 million plus people that watches the Late Show with David Letterman every night, then you've already seen the clip below with 350.org founder Bill McKibben. If not, check it out: Bill lays out the case for the need to get back to 350 ppm, talks about the momentum building for 10/10/10, and announces our upcoming road trip to take one of President Carter's original solar panels back to the White House
Points of departure
Daniel Pargman, Energy Bulletin
I’m a university teacher and by now I have been able to sneak in some peak oil information as background to other things I talk about a couple of times...Based on a couple of these experiences, I have had to think long and hard about some of the starting points I have personally come to take for granted, and I now emphasize these in my talks in order to increase the likelihood of my point to be understood by the audience. These starting points are assumptions that I have incorporated into my own world view and also arguments that might persuade others.
Daniel Pargman, Energy Bulletin
I’m a university teacher and by now I have been able to sneak in some peak oil information as background to other things I talk about a couple of times...Based on a couple of these experiences, I have had to think long and hard about some of the starting points I have personally come to take for granted, and I now emphasize these in my talks in order to increase the likelihood of my point to be understood by the audience. These starting points are assumptions that I have incorporated into my own world view and also arguments that might persuade others.
August 20 2010
Is there anyone the right doesn't hate?
Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Whenever America faces her toughest challenges, you can always count on the right to be there. Sowing hate, stoking fear. So it's no surprise that in the midst of a great economic catastrophe, the right would search for scapegoats instead of answers. And so we have the fabricated crisis of the "Mosque at Ground Zero." Leave aside the fact that it's not a mosque and it's not at Ground Zero. This is really about hate and fear, the right's old friends.
Scientists: Up to 80% of Gulf Oil Remains
CBS News
Georgia scientists say their analysis shows that most of that BP oil the government said was gone from the Gulf of Mexico is still there. The scientists say as much as 80 percent of the oil still lurks under the surface. The Georgia team said it is a misinterpretation of data to claim that oil that is dissolved is actually gone. The report from University of Georgia and other scientists came from an analysis of federal estimates.."Where has all the oil gone? It hasn't gone anywhere. It still lurks in the deep," said University of Georgia marine scientist Chuck Hopkinson.
CBS News
Georgia scientists say their analysis shows that most of that BP oil the government said was gone from the Gulf of Mexico is still there. The scientists say as much as 80 percent of the oil still lurks under the surface. The Georgia team said it is a misinterpretation of data to claim that oil that is dissolved is actually gone. The report from University of Georgia and other scientists came from an analysis of federal estimates.."Where has all the oil gone? It hasn't gone anywhere. It still lurks in the deep," said University of Georgia marine scientist Chuck Hopkinson.
Confessions of a recovering environmentalist
Paul Kingsnorth, Open Democracy
What this adds up to should be clear enough, yet many people who should know better choose not to see it. This is business-as-usual: the expansive, colonising, progressive human narrative, shorn only of the carbon. It is the latest phase of our careless, self-absorbed, ambition-addled destruction of the wild, the unpolluted and the non-human. It is the mass destruction of the world’s remaining wild places in order to feed the human economy. And without any sense of irony, people are calling this "environmentalism".
Economics As If People and Nature Mattered
Robert Costanza, Equal Time Radio
(audio, 57 min.) Robert Costanza is professor of ecological economics at the University of Vermont and director of the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics. He talks about the things most economists overlook, like the fact that growth can't continue forever on a finite planet, and the ways our well-being is not connected with how much money we have..they argue that a simple (in concept) regulatory change could prevent future BP-type oil gushers in the gulf. It requires knowing how much the services of the Gulf ecosystems are worth--and one of Costanza's colleagues has calculated that the Mississippi River Delta alone provides $12-47 billion or more in benefits to people each year.
Robert Costanza, Equal Time Radio
(audio, 57 min.) Robert Costanza is professor of ecological economics at the University of Vermont and director of the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics. He talks about the things most economists overlook, like the fact that growth can't continue forever on a finite planet, and the ways our well-being is not connected with how much money we have..they argue that a simple (in concept) regulatory change could prevent future BP-type oil gushers in the gulf. It requires knowing how much the services of the Gulf ecosystems are worth--and one of Costanza's colleagues has calculated that the Mississippi River Delta alone provides $12-47 billion or more in benefits to people each year.
US matches Indian call centre costs
James Lamont in New Delhi and Joe Leahy in Mumbai, Financial Times
Call centre workers are becoming as cheap to hire in the US as they are in India, according to the head of the country’s largest business process outsourcing company. High unemployment levels have driven down wages for some low-skilled outsourcing services in some parts of the US, particularly among the Hispanic population. At the same time, wages in India’s outsourcing sector have risen by 10 per cent this year and senior outsourcing managers based in the country command salaries above global averages. Pramod Bhasin, the chief executive of Genpact, said his company expected to treble its workforce in the US over the next two years, from about 1,500 employees now.
James Lamont in New Delhi and Joe Leahy in Mumbai, Financial Times
Call centre workers are becoming as cheap to hire in the US as they are in India, according to the head of the country’s largest business process outsourcing company. High unemployment levels have driven down wages for some low-skilled outsourcing services in some parts of the US, particularly among the Hispanic population. At the same time, wages in India’s outsourcing sector have risen by 10 per cent this year and senior outsourcing managers based in the country command salaries above global averages. Pramod Bhasin, the chief executive of Genpact, said his company expected to treble its workforce in the US over the next two years, from about 1,500 employees now.
A blueprint for blue planet protection
Catriona Davies, CNN
The oceans have become so depleted by over-fishing, pollution and climate change that they can only be saved by a large global network of reserves, according to a growing consensus among marine scientists. Campaigners say that sea life -- particularly at the top of the food chain -- is suffering to such an extent that there will eventually be no fish left if action drastic action is not taken to protect the oceans... The Global Ocean Legacy, a project of the Pew Environment Group, issued a statement to mark World Oceans Day in June signed by 257 marine scientists in 37 countries calling for a large network of highly protected no-take reserves.. According to Greenpeace, 90 percent of the large predator fish stocks are gone or in trouble and 90 percent of exploited fish stocks in the European Union are in trouble.. "Our oceans have been so depleted that scientists don't even know what they should look like when they're healthy. However, where reserves have been set up, we are beginning to see that."
Catriona Davies, CNN
The oceans have become so depleted by over-fishing, pollution and climate change that they can only be saved by a large global network of reserves, according to a growing consensus among marine scientists. Campaigners say that sea life -- particularly at the top of the food chain -- is suffering to such an extent that there will eventually be no fish left if action drastic action is not taken to protect the oceans... The Global Ocean Legacy, a project of the Pew Environment Group, issued a statement to mark World Oceans Day in June signed by 257 marine scientists in 37 countries calling for a large network of highly protected no-take reserves.. According to Greenpeace, 90 percent of the large predator fish stocks are gone or in trouble and 90 percent of exploited fish stocks in the European Union are in trouble.. "Our oceans have been so depleted that scientists don't even know what they should look like when they're healthy. However, where reserves have been set up, we are beginning to see that."
Is this finally the economic collapse?
Keith R. McCullough, Fortune
Slowing growth, both domestically and in China, is core to our bearish views on both the strength of the US dollar and US equities. There will be a downward bias to our US growth estimates as long as debt-financed-deficit-spending continues to be the solution politicians and central bankers turn to as a fix to our financial crisis.
Keith R. McCullough, Fortune
Slowing growth, both domestically and in China, is core to our bearish views on both the strength of the US dollar and US equities. There will be a downward bias to our US growth estimates as long as debt-financed-deficit-spending continues to be the solution politicians and central bankers turn to as a fix to our financial crisis.
August 13 2010
Gulf Coast Fishermen Challenge US Government Over Dispersants
Dahr Jamail, Truthout
"We need to get our government to get a handle on this situation and shut down our fishing waters until they test for dispersants and get the use of dispersants stopped unless they can prove to us they are not harmful," Kathy Birren, a spokesperson for commercial fishermen in Florida, told Truthout. "We are seeing fish kills. They [US Government and BP] are covering this all up."
Sticking together in tough times
Chuck Collins, Yes! Magazine
In northern Indiana, Lewandowski and other workers formed the Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Initiative. In March, they successfully mobilized against legislation proposed in Indiana that would have cut unemployment benefits and eligibility.
"We had thousands of people go to lobby in Indianapolis and they completely revamped the legislation," said Lewandowski. "Our folks saw that through collective action they could initiate something."
Chuck Collins, Yes! Magazine
In northern Indiana, Lewandowski and other workers formed the Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Initiative. In March, they successfully mobilized against legislation proposed in Indiana that would have cut unemployment benefits and eligibility.
"We had thousands of people go to lobby in Indianapolis and they completely revamped the legislation," said Lewandowski. "Our folks saw that through collective action they could initiate something."
Poor countries suffer a hangover for a party they didn't attend
Duncan Green, The Guardian
As revenue from raw material exports and taxation slumped, the crisis created a huge "fiscal hole" in the 56 poorest countries, decimating their budget revenues by $53bn ..nearly 10% of their pre-crisis revenues. A further $12bn will be lost in 2010, creating a total fiscal hole of $65bn over the two-year period. That hole ensures that the poorest countries will share the rich world's pain of cuts in essential services (while countries in the middle like China, India and Brazil steam on relatively unharmed), even though they missed out on the preceding financial boom. It's like suffering a monumental hangover when you weren't even invited to the party.
Duncan Green, The Guardian
As revenue from raw material exports and taxation slumped, the crisis created a huge "fiscal hole" in the 56 poorest countries, decimating their budget revenues by $53bn ..nearly 10% of their pre-crisis revenues. A further $12bn will be lost in 2010, creating a total fiscal hole of $65bn over the two-year period. That hole ensures that the poorest countries will share the rich world's pain of cuts in essential services (while countries in the middle like China, India and Brazil steam on relatively unharmed), even though they missed out on the preceding financial boom. It's like suffering a monumental hangover when you weren't even invited to the party.
Temporary recession or the end of growth?
Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
A case can be made that dire events having to do with real estate, the derivatives markets, and the auto and airline industries were themselves merely symptoms of an even deeper, systemic dysfunction that spells the end of economic growth as we have known it..For several years, a swelling subculture of commentators..has been forecasting a financial crash, basing this prognosis on the assessment that global oil production was about to peak..Continual increases in population and consumption cannot continue forever on a finite planet. This is an axiomatic observation with which everyone familiar with the mathematics of compounded arithmetic growth must agree, even if they hedge their agreement with vague references to "substitutability" and "demographic transitions."
Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
A case can be made that dire events having to do with real estate, the derivatives markets, and the auto and airline industries were themselves merely symptoms of an even deeper, systemic dysfunction that spells the end of economic growth as we have known it..For several years, a swelling subculture of commentators..has been forecasting a financial crash, basing this prognosis on the assessment that global oil production was about to peak..Continual increases in population and consumption cannot continue forever on a finite planet. This is an axiomatic observation with which everyone familiar with the mathematics of compounded arithmetic growth must agree, even if they hedge their agreement with vague references to "substitutability" and "demographic transitions."
Book review - Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects
Rembrandt, The Oil Drum: Europe
Difficult as it would be, reducing the energy use would be much more rewarding than deploying dubious energy conversions operating with marginal energy returns.., sequestering the emissions of CO2.., and making exaggerated claims for non-fossil electricity production.. ..After all, a dedicated but entirely realistic pursuit of this goal could result in reductions on the order of 10% of the total primary energy consumption in a single generation, an achievement whose multiple benefits could not be matched by the opposite effort to increase the overall energy use.
Rembrandt, The Oil Drum: Europe
Difficult as it would be, reducing the energy use would be much more rewarding than deploying dubious energy conversions operating with marginal energy returns.., sequestering the emissions of CO2.., and making exaggerated claims for non-fossil electricity production.. ..After all, a dedicated but entirely realistic pursuit of this goal could result in reductions on the order of 10% of the total primary energy consumption in a single generation, an achievement whose multiple benefits could not be matched by the opposite effort to increase the overall energy use.
Matthew Simmons: a tribute
Matthew Wild, Peak Generation
Energy Investment banker and leading peak oil proponent Matthew Simmons died suddenly on Sunday [Aug. 8], following an apparent heart attack. While Simmons..did not come up with the idea of peak oil - geophysicist M King Hubbert first published the theory in the 1950s - he arguably did more than anyone to publicize it.
It was Simmons’ 2005 classic Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, that turned discussion of peak oil from a fringe environmental concern into something with business pages credibility.
And now for some good news
Johann Hari, The Independent
We'll never know the names of all the people who paid with their limbs, their lungs or their lives for the goodies in my home and yours..An epic rebellion has now begun in China against this abuse - and it is beginning to succeed. Across 126,000 Chinese factories, workers have refused to live like this any more. Wildcat unions have sprung up, organised by text message, demanding higher wages, a humane work environment, and the right to organise freely. Millions of young workers across the country are blockading their factories and chanting, "There are no human rights here!" and, "We want freedom!" The suicides were a rebellion of despair; this is a rebellion of hope.
Johann Hari, The Independent
We'll never know the names of all the people who paid with their limbs, their lungs or their lives for the goodies in my home and yours..An epic rebellion has now begun in China against this abuse - and it is beginning to succeed. Across 126,000 Chinese factories, workers have refused to live like this any more. Wildcat unions have sprung up, organised by text message, demanding higher wages, a humane work environment, and the right to organise freely. Millions of young workers across the country are blockading their factories and chanting, "There are no human rights here!" and, "We want freedom!" The suicides were a rebellion of despair; this is a rebellion of hope.
World’s first grid-scale flywheel energy plant to go online soon
Staff, Greenbang
How can a technology known to ancient potters and spinners help create a 21st-century smart energy grid? A company based in Massachusetts aims to demonstrate when it begins operating the world’s first grid-scale, flywheel-based energy storage plant in New York later this year.
Staff, Greenbang
How can a technology known to ancient potters and spinners help create a 21st-century smart energy grid? A company based in Massachusetts aims to demonstrate when it begins operating the world’s first grid-scale, flywheel-based energy storage plant in New York later this year.
August 5 2010
Four Deformations of the Apocalypse: How My Republican Party Destroyed the American Economy
David Stockman, NY Times
Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts - in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance - vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.
99 Weeks Later, Jobless Have Only Desperation
Michael Luo, NY Times
In June, with long-term unemployment at record levels, about 1.4 million people were out of work for 99 weeks or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not all of them received unemployment benefits, but for many of those who did, the modest payments were a lifeline that enabled them to maintain at least a veneer of normalcy, keeping a roof over their heads, putting gas in their cars, paying electric and phone bills.
Michael Luo, NY Times
In June, with long-term unemployment at record levels, about 1.4 million people were out of work for 99 weeks or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not all of them received unemployment benefits, but for many of those who did, the modest payments were a lifeline that enabled them to maintain at least a veneer of normalcy, keeping a roof over their heads, putting gas in their cars, paying electric and phone bills.
Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Truthout
We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war. Israel’s leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel. This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Truthout
We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war. Israel’s leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel. This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens.
The crisis of middle-class America
Edward Luce, Financial Times
Mention middle-class America and most foreigners envision something timeless and manicured, from The Brady Bunch, say, or Desperate Housewives in which teenagers drive to school in sports cars and the girls are always cheerleading. This might approximate how some in the top 10 per cent live.
Hollow men of economics
Gregor Macdonald, Energy Bulletin
As states see their budgets collapse and start a new round of layoffs, we should consider the fact that house price inflation masked the lack of wage growth in the United States. And now that house prices continue their descent for a 5th year, American workers are more fully exposed to the decade-long march higher in energy costs. They can experience this individually through energy prices, or more generally through the overall energy cost to the economy. Hence, the chart above.
Gregor Macdonald, Energy Bulletin
As states see their budgets collapse and start a new round of layoffs, we should consider the fact that house price inflation masked the lack of wage growth in the United States. And now that house prices continue their descent for a 5th year, American workers are more fully exposed to the decade-long march higher in energy costs. They can experience this individually through energy prices, or more generally through the overall energy cost to the economy. Hence, the chart above.
How Disney Magic and the Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in the Digital Age
Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock, Truthout
It is estimated that the average American spends more than six hours a day watching video-based entertainment and, by 2013, the numbers of daily hours spent watching television and videos will match the numbers of hours spent sleeping.[3] The American Medical Association reports that the combined hours "spent in front of a television or video screen is the single biggest chunk of time in the waking life of an American child."
Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock, Truthout
It is estimated that the average American spends more than six hours a day watching video-based entertainment and, by 2013, the numbers of daily hours spent watching television and videos will match the numbers of hours spent sleeping.[3] The American Medical Association reports that the combined hours "spent in front of a television or video screen is the single biggest chunk of time in the waking life of an American child."
July 29 2010
The church, the peak, and my old watch
Ugo Bardi, The Oil Drum: Europe
I finish my talk pointing at one of the windows of the church. I say, "and a vegetable garden is sustainable as well, as the one I have seen when I came here." They smile. One of the old men says, "Yes, we are cultivating it. The young ones don't care too much about it." I say, "They'll learn and they'll be happy that you left it to them."
Storms of My Grandchildren by Dr. James Hansen
Dr. Jeff Masters, Wunderblog, Weather Underground
Storms of My Grandchildren focuses on the key concepts of the science of climate change, told through Hansen's personal experiences as a key player in field's scientific advancements and political dramas over the past 40 years. Dr. Hansen's writing style is very straight-forward and understandable, and he clearly explains the scientific concepts involved in a friendly way that anyone with a high school level science education can understand..Storms of My Grandchildren is a must-read, due to the importance of the subject matter and who is writing it.
July 23 2010
What If He's Right?
James Howard Kunstler, kunstler.com
Simmons's current warning about the situation focuses on the gigantic "lake" of crude oil that is pooling under great pressure 4000 to 5000 feet down in the "basement" of the Gulf's waters. More particularly, he is concerned that a tropical storm will bring this oil up - as tropical storms and hurricanes usually do with deeper cold water - and with it clouds of methane gas that will move toward the Gulf shore and kill a lot of people.
How Much Does a Gallon of Gas Cost?
Ezra Klein, Newsweek
Some of the best work on this subject has been done by Ian Parry, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. His calculations suggest that adding all the quantifiable costs into the price of oil would increase the cost of each gallon by about $1.23. If you’re very worried about global warming, kick that up to $1.88. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average price of a gallon of gas is $2.72 right now. If Parry is right, it should be as high as $4.60.
Ezra Klein, Newsweek
Some of the best work on this subject has been done by Ian Parry, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. His calculations suggest that adding all the quantifiable costs into the price of oil would increase the cost of each gallon by about $1.23. If you’re very worried about global warming, kick that up to $1.88. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average price of a gallon of gas is $2.72 right now. If Parry is right, it should be as high as $4.60.
Howard Zinn's The Bomb
David Swanson, Warisacrime.org
The late Howard Zinn's new book "The Bomb" is a brilliant little dissection of some of the central myths of our militarized society. Those who've read "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments," by H.P. Albarelli Jr. know that this is a year for publishing the stories of horrible things that the United States has done to French towns. In that case, Albarelli, describes the CIA administering LSD to an entire town, with deadly results. In "The Bomb," Zinn describes the U.S. military making its first use of napalm by dropping it all over another French town, burning anyone and anything it touched. Zinn was in one of the planes, taking part in this horrendous crime.
David Swanson, Warisacrime.org
The late Howard Zinn's new book "The Bomb" is a brilliant little dissection of some of the central myths of our militarized society. Those who've read "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments," by H.P. Albarelli Jr. know that this is a year for publishing the stories of horrible things that the United States has done to French towns. In that case, Albarelli, describes the CIA administering LSD to an entire town, with deadly results. In "The Bomb," Zinn describes the U.S. military making its first use of napalm by dropping it all over another French town, burning anyone and anything it touched. Zinn was in one of the planes, taking part in this horrendous crime.
Netanyahu: I Deceived US To Destroy Oslo Accords
Jonathan Cook, countercurrents.org
Seated on a sofa in the house, he tells the family that he deceived the US president of the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He boasts that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process.
Jonathan Cook, countercurrents.org
Seated on a sofa in the house, he tells the family that he deceived the US president of the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He boasts that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process.
July 15 2010
Merchants of Doubt
John Atcheson, Energy Bulletin
Oreskes and Conway are historians who focus on science. What they do best is to sort through history’s discarded headlines and peak into the nooks and crannies of scientific literature to weave together their tale and to reveal the hypocrisy and hubris of a few scientists who show up again and again in contrarian positions against established science. The trip exposes an unlikely link between Manhattan project scientists and the cult of denial that confronted virtually every major public health and environmental initiative of the last sixty years.
July 8 2010
My Tea Party
James Howard Kunstler, kunstler.com
My tea party would reduce legal immigration to a tiny trickle and get serious about enforcing sanctions against people who are here without permission..My tea party would systematically dismantle Too-Big-To-Fail banks into smaller units subject to real reforms..My tea party would get the government out of the housing business..My party would undertake a rebuilding of the US passenger railroad system - not a flashy new "high speed" system, which we cannot afford, but the system that is lying out there rusting in the rain waiting to be fixed.
Oceans facing 'irreversible' deterioration, report says
Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspapers
A sobering new report warns that oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change affect temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather. The report in Science magazine doesn't break a lot of new ground, but it brings together dozens of studies that paint a dismal picture of deteriorating ocean health.
Stocks and Bonds Are Now Hazardous to Your Wealth
Chris Martenson, Yahoo Finance
If my thesis and data are correct, corporate earnings will falter in the coming years. The vital ingredients needed for economic growth will be in short supply, and stocks will fail to grow. Similarly, bonds require repayment of both the principal and the interest components, which means that, in aggregate, bond values are explicitly dependent on growth. Yet Peak Oil looms in the near distance. With this in mind, our financial models go straight out the window. We'll need new thoughts, tools and expertise to guide us towards wealth creation and maintenance.
Who Will Pay, Wall Street or Main Street - the Tobin Tax or the VAT?
Ellen Brown, truthout.org
Wall Street banks have been saved from bankruptcy by governments that are now going bankrupt themselves; but the banks are not returning the favor. Instead, they are engaged in a class war, insisting that the squeezed middle class be even further squeezed to balance over-stressed government budgets. All the perks are going to Wall Street, while Main Street slips into debt slavery. Wall Street needs to be made to pay its fair share, but how?
Worse Than a Nightmare
Bob Herbert, NY Times
We are sinking more and more deeply into the fetid quagmire of Afghanistan and neither the president nor General Petraeus nor anyone else has the slightest clue about how to get out. The counterinsurgency zealots in the military want more troops sent to Afghanistan, and they want the president to completely scrap his already shaky July 2011 timetable for the beginning of a withdrawal. We’re like a compulsive gambler plunging ever more deeply into debt in order to wager on a rigged game. There is no victory to be had in Afghanistan, only grief.
June 25 2010
What happens when energy resources deplete?
Gail Tverberg, The Oil Drum
..oil prices may bounce up, but they will soon come back down again, because of recessionary impacts and credit crunches caused by high oil prices. Most of the time, oil prices will end up in the uncomfortable middle--too high for the economy to buzz along, but too low to encourage much new oil production, or much new renewable production. The result is likely to be continuing recession, getting worse over time, because of what will be generally viewed as inadequate demand for oil.
Mismanaging Contraction
James Kunstler, kunstler.com
Earth to Krugman: we're mismanaging contraction. Further expansion is just not in the cards right now for the human race. We don't need more people on the planet and we don't have the means to accommodate them. There will be no 'recovery" to "growth" - especially by means of pumping more oil into the system. There is no techno-miracle alt-fuel panoply waiting in the wings to take over from oil. And there is no research-and-development program that will make it happen, no matter how many acronym-studded incantations we drone out.
Message for OFA from the President
Organizing for America
President Obama recorded a message for OFA supporters to update us on the crisis in the Gulf and ask us to stand with him to build a new foundation for energy in this country.
Watch the President's update: http://my.barackobama.com/CleanEnergyUpdate6?keycode=320a39f8a4fc662890aec97ed6a95fd21ae31606d73a57f745e86433807e0fff&email=bobwise32952@bellsouth.net
See the message:
http://my.barackobama.com/CleanEnergyUpdate6?keycode=320a39f8a4fc662890aec97ed6a95fd21ae31606d73a57f745e86433807e0fff&email=bobwise32952@bellsouth.net
June 17 2010
The peak oil crisis: a speech to the nation
Tom Whipple, Falls Church News-Press
After 17 months in office, it now seems clear that the Obama administration is not going to confront the peak oil issue straight on, unless absolutely necessary. Like the Bush administration, the hope remains that gas prices will remain affordable and economy-disabling oil shortages will not develop until after the administration leaves office.
Afghanistan, and the world’s resource war
Paul Rogers, Open Democracy
A notable feature of the Afghanistan war in 2010 has been the way that assessments of its progress have varied regularly between optimism and pessimism. The current mood in Washington, evident in congressional hearings that have thrown some light on the problems, tends to the bleaker end of the spectrum - in marked contrast to the optimism of a few months ago..