Why Is Congress Agnostic About Natural Gas? -- Seeking Alpha: "The only cure for eventual US insolvency (and loss of sovereignty) is a strategic long-term comprehensive energy policy that reduces foreign oil exports, invests in natural gas transportation infrastructure with an eye toward a future hydrogen based economy, and a reduction in US deficit spending. Still, Congress is asleep and content to support failed 20th century liquid and solid fuels like oil and coal while ignoring the one domestic fuel that is cleaner, cheaper, abundant, and can significantly reduce foreign oil imports: US produced natural gas."
Noe=rton's comment: We are missing an obvious energy future in the USA here. Let's get going for vehicles that run on natural gas!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Will the Downturn in the Baltic Dry Index Lead to a Correction in the S&P 500? greenfaucet
Will the Downturn in the Baltic Dry Index Lead to a Correction in the S&P 500? greenfaucet: "There's been some chatter on the recent down-turn in the Baltic Dry Index, which has been a rough leader of the S&P 500 at key turning points. Let's take a look at the recent relationship between the two indexes and what the current BDI Index is showing."
The Quiet Coup - The Atlantic (May 2009)
first Russia
now USA = Banana Republic!
The Quiet Coup - The Atlantic (May 2009): "
"...Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company...
Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government...
Becoming a Banana Republic
In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September 15, causing all sources of funding to the U.S. financial sector to dry up overnight. Just as in emerging-market crises, the weakness in the banking system has quickly rippled out into the rest of the economy, causing a severe economic contraction and hardship for millions of people.
But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis
"...Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company...
Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government...
Becoming a Banana Republic
In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September 15, causing all sources of funding to the U.S. financial sector to dry up overnight. Just as in emerging-market crises, the weakness in the banking system has quickly rippled out into the rest of the economy, causing a severe economic contraction and hardship for millions of people.
But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis
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