But this is good news for Republicans, right?

After all, I am the only person in America still alive who remembers the OPEC oil embargoes of the 1970s, the Iranian revolution, and the severe economic recessions they caused

Yep. The rest are too fuckin’ busy buying crap at the mall to be payin’ attention.

Reagan was the great pretender but he did invade Grenada because he could.

Yes, Peterr, this is good for Republicans.

Looks like Obama has finally conceded and is now supporting Clinton — for $2300.

I hate that they’re all acting surprised that gas is suddenly expensive when it’s been creeping up for the past five years.

And blaming speculators is such bullshit that I can’t stand it.

The tanking of the economy and the dollar losing value has nothing to do with it, nothing, I say… move along… nothing to see here. OOOH, pretty shiny thing! Did Obama make a gaffe?

Short answer to your heading question, scarecrow: Jimmy Carter.

As Craig Crawford noted on Imus this morning, if we’d listened to (instead of let the Rethuglicans mock) Jimmy Carter, we wouldn’t be in this mess today.

loose thread dangling from attaturk’s post: I miss Raven, too. He may be the only other one who listens to Imus hereabouts.
.
.
Prairie Today: Something’s Gotta Give

Handing her a check for the maximum personal donation in a roomful of others who had maxed out for HRC was a nice touch.

How many more millions does her campaign need, so they can pay off the bakers, caterers, hotels, printers, and everyone else they owe money to? Those are the folks I feel for, especially as the economy tanks.

Of course, we all knew affordable energy could become a problem. But, for our nation to have an affordable food problem, is damn near unbelievable.
Get ready for hunger in America reaching levels even our self-absorbed pathetic media won’t be able to ignore. It’s coming.

As long as we’re going to spy on everyone, why can’t the feds spy on the speculators, make a few insider deals on the information, and use the profits to balance the budget?

They probably are spying on the speculators, and making a few insider deals on the information — except they are keeping the profits for themselves.

that sounds plausible.

Scarecrow
If Bush says he’ll start releasing oil from the Strategic Oil reserve sometime in the next couple months, will that really drop the price of oil?

Good Morning Scarecrow and Firedogs,

As long as we’re going to spy on everyone, why can’t the feds spy on the speculators, make a few insider deals on the information, and use the profits to balance the budget?

Mr Scarecrow – that was my very first thought when the illegal spying story broke – well, except for that whole balance the budget thingy. Just thought someone, somewhere was making cash with a whole lot of vacuumed up inside information. I will go to my grave believing it is always about the commerce for these thugs

and oh yeah – Little Bit and Bodhi’s Dad – miss ya – come back to the friendship shore

Good morning, Scarecrow.

That and continuing worries about banks’ exposure to write downs sent the DOW industrial average plunging nearly 360 points, over 3 percent. The DOW is now at its lowest level in more than a year.

And as the London Times Online observes this morning,

The Dow Jones dived a further 350 points yesterday, giving America’s key economic benchmark its worst June performance since the Great Depression…

From Norske in the previous thread

AND REMEMBER MORALITY MUST COME FROM SOME BASIS OF EXPERIENCE OTHERWISE IT’S JEST SANCTAMONIOUS BULLSHIT!!

Nuff said.

I was reading a bunch of oil articles — can’t remember which — and one noted than an OPEC member thought his country (not in ME) should reduce production, because with Saudis proposing to increase theirs, there was enough supply to meet demand — meaning they didn’t want the price to fall.

So, yeah, abstracting away whatever effect speculation is/is not having, adding supply (or reducing demand by stopping SPR filling) could in theory affect prices, but there are other actors who would likely offset it. No one said the actors behind the “invisible hand” are not calculating.

Yeah, I miss lots of folks, but people have to drop out from time to time — this place and the topics we cover can be emotionally exhausting, and if you’re covering politics, and routing for politicians, it takes a toll when they disappoint.

Everyone who comes here in good faith is welcome, but I understand when they have to back off now and then. I haven’t been here for weeks.

Yes, no question Democrats are clueless on this so ReThugs automatically advance.

As I always do in threads about this I want to mention the:

Solar Grand Plan

This is the answer to our energy needs. No pollution. Affordable off-the-shelf-tech and….

…..already under construction.

The absence of any sort of progressive agenda hampers us greatly. Campaigning on the politics of ID is not working. It allows the growth of things such as Blue Dogs and cheats the citizenry of the measuring tools and litmus tests they ought to have from us.

Let me be clear.

I don’t give a fuck if your black.

I don’t give a fuck if your female.

I don’t even give a fuck if you’re a fat white guy.

What I want from you before you get my $$$$ or support is a pledge that, in this case, you will support sustainable energy research, creation and encouragement by whatever branch of government you are aspiring to as a candidate.

Until we get away from the stupidity of Kos, Bowers and Marshall’s ID politics we are going to continue to find ourselves taking it up the ass as in the most recent case of Barkey and FISA.

And you know….

Sustainable energy generation leading to a sustainable society is just too important for this sort of stupid approach, Not to mention the quite obvious fact that….

It ain’t workin’.

Charlie Crist’s
numbers are dropping even faster than McCan’t’s. – how’s that Acme Offshore Drilling Anvil working for ya gov :D

Scarecrow – glad you’re back, that’s for damn sure

full disclosure – that is me and not mr cbl at 13 & 14 (undercaffeinated)

No one said the actors behind the “invisible hand” are not calculating.

The oil companies are going to ride this train as long as they can and use every means they can to increase “shareholder value.”

Hugh Hewitt is on CSPAN, it’s my first time experiencing the guy. He just asserts all his big ideas as if they are fact. He’s bogus through and through.

All we need to do is drill off the coasts and of course we HAVE to drill up ANWR, and all will be well. And the alternatives to oil, you know, clean coal and nuke, we need those to. the real alternative energies ehhe not so much.

And if John McCain isn’t elected, we’ll be annihilated by the terrarists

He left the summit yesterday after making his final little speech and taking no questions from reporters. Folks here are not happy with Chain Gang Charlie.

it’s my first time experiencing the guy

Isn’t he special? The folks over at Sadly, No have taken a special interest in him. Hilarity generally ensues…

Who is Barkey?

thanks, I’ll go check that out. This guy’s a piece of work.

That’s our current number one concern troll’s name for Barack Obama.

And now he’ll prolly call me pal or chump or some other name from a 60’s punk gang movie.

I didn’t realize the Senate already voted on the most recent FISA fiasco.

Shoulda stayed on as me then we coulda had dualing Mr.Cbls.

Good morning Cbl, Scarecrow and pups.

The vote on the bill itself won’t come until after the Senate returns from recess. 8 July is the date I saw on yesterday’s threads.

mornin’ baby miss you much

gak! outta half n half – thank god for cool whip :D

I couldn’t tear my eyes away. What a lying POS. They better have somebody like Thom Hartmann on real soon.

Oh, yuk!

Just got back from the States and am ensconced in my Montreal apartment, from where I can walk to all my groceries, bars, bread stores and work. I was visiting my mother. Her retirement home is about a mile from the mall, which is close enough to reach on foot, but a long hike for a 93 year-old woman. Everybody drives. After a week in that environment, I couldn’t wait to get out. No wonder ordinary Americans are so obese. It’s a terrible way of life. Sad thing: I grew up in that community. We were too poor to have a car and we walked or bussed everywhere. No worse for the wear.

As to the effect of high gas prices — $4.45 in Poulsbo WA — I didn’t remark much diminution in driving or speed. It’s hard not to drive when your groceries depend on it. There must be exploding credit card debt in working class families right now. It’s hard to see how they can otherwise pay their gasoline.

Off to see if I can get through the day until Min’s appointment with Rainbow Bridge later this afternoon.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

(((SouthernDragon & Min)))

Hope your day is smooth and easy, SD.

(((SouthernDragon)))

The folks at calcuated Risk have their hair on fire.

In particular, there are a whole lot of mortgage securities with offers only–traders stating prices they’d accept to sell, but nobody offering to buy.

the senate fisa vote that mattered: cloture

TBogg provides us with all you will ever have to know about Hewitt

How many more millions does her campaign need, so they can pay off the bakers, caterers, hotels, printers, and everyone else they owe money to? Those are the folks I feel for, especially as the economy tanks.

The reports I read said that he was asking his big donors to help her pay off the $10M in vendor debt.

She and Bill are swallowing the $11M “loaned” to her campaign themselves it looks like.

Scary stuff when the “experts” tell us they’ve never seen it this bad.

Those guys are on the ball over there, and I suspect this is what was behind the Dow crash. If you look up a post, you’ll see that Schumer did something weird–essentially encouraged a run on an institution.

lol! thanks

like you said, who could have predicted…

indymac

One of things that nobody ever talks about is that repaying these loans with campaign contributions puts the contribution right into the candidate’s bank account. Maria Cantwell, for example, loaned a lot of money to her campaign. Then, after she won, the contributions she received went to her. Pretty much directly.

Selise–

Yep.

There must be exploding credit card debt in working class families right now. It’s hard to see how they can otherwise pay their gasoline.

- I work in a restaurant – for about the last 18 months I’ve been sharing with mr cbl my concerns about this very thing. it is only an anecdotal observation but Discover Card usage is up by about 1000%. we used to see about 1 or 2 a week – now it is at least 2 per shift. also been observing more folks picking through their selection of cards, appearing to determine which one is “safe” and lots more of “$ X (in cash) and put balance on card” – yikes!

Yves Smith over at naked capitalism calls attention to a Der Spiegel article this morning and says,

Der Spiegel, in “The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve,” (hat tip reader Saboor) discusses how the US is submitting to a detailed, comprehensive investigation of it financial system under the Financial Sector Assessment Program.

While Der Spiegel claims that this program is a humiliation to the US, the real significance may be that this is another blow to American exceptionism. While the exam is far-reaching, which means intrusive, Canada, the UK, Italy, indeed 2/3 of the IMF members have participated in the program. However, the Bush Administration has resisted it strongly, and agreed only on the condition that it be completed after a new President is at the helm.

My bold

hey Peterr, you did the post on berlin/FISA didn’t you, the other day? loved it.

man, Bush thinks he’s gonna duck history on all this? Nice try pal

But you don’t understand. It will be the NEXT President’s fault, not his. After all, that’s when the study will be done… [spit]

Which of the two would anyone want in their backyard…a ‘wind turbine’ or a stinkin’ oil derrick?

I was playing with numbers last week and concluded that an improvement in US fuel efficiency for motor vehicles of 30% equals saving an amount of oil per day that all of INDIA uses per day for all purposes combined.

That pretty much blows away any drilling that can be done in and around the US and depending on the estimate could be twice as much as ANWR production at a hypothetical projected peak from today occurring in 2027.

.

How about a wind powered oil derrick? /s

Yes, Muzzy, there is an enormous amount of low-hanging conservation fruit.

Especially when the the “liberal” MSM runs with it. For them, bad stuff that happens when a Thug is in power is the fault of any handy previous Democratic president; when a Democratic president is in office, it’s his fault.

Great post, great comments.

Yep — that was me. Thanks.

digg

This just popped up on my screen. In case it’s useful for debugging:

New post has been published -
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This tells us that the problem is definitely NOT in line 430 of the PHP script. ;=)

Ruh roh… are the squirrels breaking bad again today?

Scarecrow, glad to have you back.

One tip about the EIA forecasts for the nonenergy geeks. Those of us who provide short and long-term energy price forecasts for clients in the real world view the EIA forecasts with a skeptical eye–basically, they’ve generally been falling into the “best case” scenarios, not the real world actuals, at least in the past several years…

From Mel at Calculated Risk this morning:

Bumper sticker:

Bush legacy, No Child Left a Dime

Christy has a new post up if you can get past the squirrels

Those guys over in the M.E. including OBL are laughing their collective asses off, not out load of course (most of ‘em). That is, the ones that don’t live in Iraq or Afghanistan. And the ones that do live there are thinking “What goes around, comes around.”

Keep the light shining…

christy’s upstairs…

The Republics’ calls for more drilling, more nukes, more, more, more aren’t really about energy production at all. It’s about keeping the economy going.

The core issue regarding energy policy is keeping the U.S. (and world) economy chugging along. If goods and services can get to the market, and we need LOTS of energy to keep that supply going, then all will be fine-at least that’s what the Republics are counting on.

The Dems’ calls for more alternatives and conservation is really the same thing. They’re just hoping the economy can hold on until the “new” forms of energy become mainstream.

Of course, none of it means shit if you don’t have a job, you’ve lost your house, you go bankrupt because of your overwhelming credit debt, or an earthquake or flood or hurricane destroy your community. You may experience some psychological affects.

Look at the bright side, though. If terrorists attack, it’ll be good for Krusty.

Ah, the Nacilbupers and the Tarcomeds appear to be oscillating non-sychronously again, and, thus, the wavering electrons, undecided and, no doubt, a trifle confusaluted, have, apparently decided to seek their greater destiny amidst the ether myths of time.

Servers, serve humankind, desist in your uppity-ness, lest you shall come to rue your presumptions.

Might some tech-wizard not administer a solid thwack! upon the offending uncooperativeness? Kick the tires, slam the hood, threaten immediate banishment to the junkyard … you know, sweet, subtle blandishment?

For some reason, when other sites ‘go down’, I remain serene and essentially unconcerned, but I do lament the loss of FDL.

Where else may I rant and rave, fume and foment, roll on the floor, chase the dogs and startle the goldfish than amongst such wise and sensitive souls as gather here?

Dumb question for the shrubbies. What happens when we (ultimately) run out of the stuff? I mean, y’all tell us how much its going to cost and how long its going to take to wean us off our hydrocarbon addiction — an addiction you so delightfully feed and enable… and then you just propose to avoid those costs and by drilling more, producing more, whatever. But ultimately, your own logic dictates that we run out of the stuff. Or it gets very scarce, which is the same thing. What then? Stuffing our economy and our energy under the bed to avoid looking at it isn’t policy. It’s suicide. Well.. actually not, it’s murder-suicide.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/…..index.html

Well.. North pole’s gone. All melted. And, of course, the drug pushers that are the rethug party must already be salivating that there might be more black crack underneath it, now accessible, for them to sell to us, to feed our addiction. Unbelievable.

It is the new century “hostage crisis.” The car lots have all the hostages now. Those SUVs are a goin’ nowhere. And BushCo can’t cry “uncle” nor send in the Blackhawks to release ‘em.

Although the media have begun to have a few stories on speculation, most of them still refer to other causes and other opinions. This is much what they did with the housing crisis. First, they hyped cheap housing. Then, they said there was no problem. Then, there were a few bad apples but the fundamentals were OK. Then, there was a shock but markets had corrected and the worst was over. Then, a repeat of that last one several times. Then, there might be a recession but probably not. Then, it would probably be mild. etc. etc.

Most of the reporting on the increase in commodities pricing is just as far off. The most recent and noticeable speculative binge has been going on fo nearly a year. Aside from some Congressional hearings and few minor gestures by the CFTC, nothing has been done.

late to thread…

(((Southern Dragon & Min)))