OT the current NYMEX futures price for crude oil is $131.88/bbl. This will go on until the economy collapses.

jus cogens!

It’s about time.

Along with that, I would suggest Anthony De Mello “Awareness.”

A Quote: ” Life is a mystery which means that a thinking mind cannot comprehend it. For that you have to wake up and when you do, you find that reality is not the problem, you are.”

Too many of the Multi-national Corporations still worship at the altar of Calvin Coolidge:

The business of America is business

Not.

Another great ‘hit’, Laura.

but but but, i thought they hated us for our freedom.

The corporate owned media has a double incentive to tilt thing to McCain. Not only is Obama’s campain mostly people powered(which scares them), but Obama has been making anti-trust noises in their direction.

Oil continues toward $200. Wow.

Confessions of An Economic Hit Man is an excellent book. Its interesting and easy to read. I recommend it highly to those who have not read it. Perkins confirms what many of us have suspected with his first-person account of how the the US has worked with other nations.

Might reach two hundred before Richard Branson had recently predicted. IIRC, he said 2013.

Yeah. The recent sharp and escalating run-up is not a function of USD decline vs Euro either (which I track ongoing). A lot of this shit is hedge fund driven, I would think.

Here’s another, much much better, analysis of how W has ruined the model of empire thru economic hegemony:
http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/05/19/mark-engler/

An interesting stat: IMF portfolio has decreased for $100 billion in loans, to only $20 billion, with Pakistan & Turkey accounting for the bulk. As is mentioned in the video, Latin America is just about entirely weaned from the IMF teat.

I have a new one-liner to live by: Never trust anyone who switches sides. The Neocons are the prime example, as they started off as Troskyites.

(Jury’s still out on John Dean.)

Perkins is an example of side switchers not to be trusted. His examples of what to do now are pretty weak tea. Moralistic exhortations to make the world a better place. Gag. I often saw (and often committed the sin myself) people who suddenly learned something new, to assume that it really was new, and that everyone had the same aha moment at the same time. The world just isn’t like that.

I don’t have the answer, but think going back to the mixed economy is probably the boring answer. (Meaning responsible regulation, and a mix of public & private sectors, with plenty of agruments about where the dividing line should be.)

And, of course, more & better Ds.

if that were true there would be a collapse

the rise might not be the actual currency conversion factor but I believe it is the prediction of future equity loss in that conversion factor

this country had not seen the inflation it should be seeing if we compare the amount of dollars being dumped into the world economy by this administration

they are starting to spend those dollars, that to me is the real reason the price of oil rises and it is also why there is speculation on that rise

Eight years of Bushco carte blanche for big oil has put us way behind in the development of alternative energies like wind and solar. Its a good sign that T Boone Pickens is getting into the wind farm business. Such farms will be necessary right-quick like.

Don’t hate me caused I switched to linux!

It will take a more educated electorate that actually holds the Congress accountable for holding the corporations accountable. This is the only way we will survive in this world. This means that we will evolve into this paradigm sooner or later. I vote for sooner.

Is there a hedge fund for the sun I can invest in? (Before all my retirement $ are gone)

*g*

I’ll make an exception, but just for you. *g*

Of course I meant political/economic sides. And of course, I overstated the case to emphasize the point. But since I thought of the world that way a couple of months ago, it is a surprisingly helpful frame.

I’m thinking sea based wind farms are probably the best way to go with that technology

I got your wind farm right here!

Maybe the best thing about Perkins is that he has a good story to tell. It is a good story and he tells it plainly. I have enjoyed seeing S American countries make their own way.

See “0.0143%“

Forgive the OT. Barack Obama is now speaking live in Tampa, FL. It is being carried live by WTSP Channel 10.

if that were true there would be a collapse

the rise might not be the actual currency conversion factor but I believe it is the prediction of future equity loss in that conversion factor

I think you are giving the investment community as represented by hedge funds and investment banks way too much credit. These are not deep thinkers mulling over the vagaries and directions of financial markets. They are pirates out to make a quick buck. And if they are not reined in, as for example by increasing from 5-7% to 30-50% what they have to advance on futures contracts, there will be a collapse.

I’m investing in solar energy and stem cell stocks.

Live coverage of Obama in Tampa.

Thank you :)

I have always favored the Open Source model even tho my entry point was proprietary.

Think you make a valid point. Neocons being most illustrative.
In the words of a con icon, *spit*spit*, “trust but verify.”

I missed the zed but Jane has a fancy interface.

Short selling on the downtick is a share price killer too. “The powers that be” refuse to implement any simple fixes that will stop the bleeding. Too many friends making money this way.

It is always helpful to find one’s conscience AFTER one has made the big bucks.

It is also more convenient.

Nonetheless, people do change.

Maybe the nation can ‘do’ change, as well.

One can hope …

(eCHAN, apparently John Dean hasn’t fallen off the waggin’ … yet. So far, I’ve found him consistently thoughtful and consistently capable of ‘getting it’, remember, he swithched ’sides’ before ’twas fashionable and hasn’t gone back to the old ways. I think it possible fur the human animal to grow and even to change … but as you say ‘time’ will tell, as well as reveal a lot of truth about ALL of us upright [harumph!) apes …
My favorite book on the topic is ‘The Human Race’ by Willie Maykit and Betty Whoant … sadly long out of print and no longer available …)

hmmm……sounds like the strategy China is using on us. Put us in debt and call the loan for a pound of flesh! He does have a good point about corporations becoming more responsible to society. Which is exactly what we have been yelling about the past 20 years. May it began to happen.

Laura, great, great interview. It captures so much. Confessions of an Economic Hitman was one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’ll read his next one.

How would one go about getting a copy of your interview to show to a church group interested in social justice? There are many of us out there who try to do social justice education within our religious fellowships. This would be a great one to show.

My first time watching GRITtv. This was a great interview. Thanks.

I had read The Secret History several months ago, and before that Confessions, and thought enough of them to see and hear Perkins when he was here in the Twin City area for a book signing last week. I frankly was a bit skeptical of his claim in Secret History that several flesh and blood hit men had come out to him following publication of Confessions. That is until I read Enter the Past Tense after stumbling upon the author, Roland Haas, flogging it on BookTV. Any remaining doubts were erased by Tim Wiener’s Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. I highly recommend both of these last two books. Haas’s story is especially compelling. Here is a YouTube video of one of his book tour appearances.

I had hoped to get a question in to Perkins, but wasn’t called upon. In Confessions he writes that when he applied for the job at Charles T. Main, a Boston-based consulting and engineering firm that managed infrastructure projects in the developing world, he was vetted by mysterious government employees who worked for the NSA. I have long been under the impression that that agency’s charge is primarily signals intelligence, and that the kind of stuff he was doing falls (or perhaps fell) under the CIA’’s umbrella.

Another one who switched sides before it was fashionable is Kevin Phillips. His latest, Bad Money, is definitely worth the read.

My first time watching GritTV also. However, its stream must not be in a very efficient format. The action was stopped dead every 10-15 seconds or so, apparently waiting for the incoming bits to catch up. I’ve yet to experience that with YouTube, TPM’s Veracifier or other video streams since I got my new Dell Inspiron.

Forgot to emphasize a title and insert some book links. Enter The Past Tense, and Legacy of Ashes.