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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!

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) : " "...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...