meanwhile, the whole ordeal cost him 50X more than it would have if he drove a car and not some jacked up shrine to OPEC.

You are right, both China and Japan wouldn't really benefit on exchanging their dollar reserves and buying up into the Euro. Since they would be essentially losing their value by buying into the Euro. The Euro is politically unstable given that the EU keeps expanding and lacks a cohesive multinational economic policy, instead of tracking one economy you are tracking all the members of the EU, economic shocks are less predictable.

But then they risk holding on to dollar reserves that are quickly dwindling in value, the question is how long will they continue to buy into a currency that is quickly losing it's value? In essence they are basically stuck and locked in, if they start to offload their reserves they do not benefit at all.

But then there is the question of rising US national debt and paying them off that interest rate and if people will still lend money to the US government to offset its debt obligations, for which I suggest reading this:

"So long as somebody is willing to keep loaning the U.S. government money, the debt is largely out of sight, out of mind.

But the interest payments keep compounding, and could in time squeeze out most other government spending — leading to sharply higher taxes or a cut in basic services like Social Security and other government benefit programs. Or all of the above.

A major economic slowdown, as some economists suggest may be looming, could hasten the day of reckoning.

The national debt — the total accumulation of annual budget deficits — is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009.

[........]

For now, large U.S. trade deficits with much of the rest of the world work in favor of continued foreign investment in Treasuries and dollar-denominated securities. After all, the vast sums Americans pay — in dollars — for imported goods has to go somewhere. But that dynamic could change.

"The first day the Chinese or the Japanese or the Saudis say, `we've bought enough of your paper,' then the debt — whatever level it is at that point — becomes unmanageable," said Collender.

A recent comment by a Chinese lawmaker suggesting the country should buy more euros instead of dollars helped send the Dow Jones plunging more than 300 points.

The dollar is down about 35 percent since the end of 2001 against a basket of major currencies.

Foreign governments and investors now hold some $2.23 trillion — or about 44 percent — of all publicly held U.S. debt. That's up 9.5 percent from a year earlier.

Japan is first with $586 billion, followed by China ($400 billion) and Britain ($244 billion). Saudi Arabia and other oil-exporting countries account for $123 billion, according to the Treasury.

"Borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China and OPEC puts not only our future economy, but also our national security, at risk. It is critical that we ensure that countries that control our debt do not control our future," said Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, a Republican budget hawk."

It cut off before the interview... (disappointed)

Ummm, so Cavuto is not saying Dems are "responsible" for the rise in prices by any means... that's... well... obvious. He's simply saying that they did not deliver on their promise to get prices down and in fact prices have risen higher since they were put in power of congress. They said essentially "elect us and you'll pay less for gas." We did and yet we're not. One more reason why congress has a 22% approval rating at the moment. Though, I wouldn't blame congress for the high gas prices either! And saying Bush is responsible is an over-simplification. The dollar is suffering a serious low right now so prices of all imports rise. The state of the dollar is not as Bush-dependent as you'd think. He has influenced it, but any president's influence on the value of the dollar is very limited. The dollar was way over-valued for years and with no physical backing was bound to take a hit. Not to mention that OPEC is bleeding us all dry. Gas prices will stay very high until the dollar is either scrapped in place of the dubious Amero (God help us) or until China and other governments realize that a US economic recession is a global economic recession. When our tanking dollar tanks their entire economy, they'll stop their belly-aching about us.

Just to sort of ellaborate on what MINK said:

If on the other hand OPEC were to decide to accept euros only for its oil (assuming for a moment it were allowed to make this decision), then American economic dominance would be over. Not only would Europe not need as many dollars anymore, but Japan which imports over 80% of its oil from the Middle East would think it wise to convert a large portion of its dollar assets to euro assets (Japan is the major subsidiser of the US because it holds so many dollar investments). The US on the other hand, being the world's largest oil importer would have to run a trade surplus to acquire euros. The conversion from trade deficit to trade surplus would have to be achieved at a time when its property and stock market prices were collapsing and its domestic supplies of oil and gas were contracting. It would be a very painful conversion.

[...]

So far only one OPEC country has dared switch to the euro: Iraq, in November 20002, 3. There is little doubt that this was a deliberate attempt by Saddam to strike back at the US, but in economic terms it has also turned out to have been a huge success: at the time of Iraq's conversion the euro was worth around 83 US cents but it is now worth over $1.05. There may however be other consequences to this decision.[ed. my emphasis]

One other OPEC country has been talking publicly about possible conversion to the euro since 1999: Iran2,4, a country which has since been included in the George W. Bush's 'axis of evil'.

http://www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm

thank you so much for taking the time to research that and contribute such a quality post

Q

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
nib, lucky for me they've got a fair amount of that PIG book available for free on Google books so I just took a quick look at it before I head to bed.

One of the things that stood out was a group of pie charts which shows carbon dioxide among a few other greenhouse gases. It's not a greenhouse gas if it has zero effect on global temperature.

The book was apparently written by a lawyer, Christopher Horner, who is a recognized expert on "global warming legislation and regulation". That's something, but he's no climatologist. Chapter 1 is dedicated to calling environmentalists "anti-American communists". The first paragraph was really all I needed to read to understand that this book has no value to me.

It's endorsed by Richard Lindzen, who is a climatologist and has worked in related fields as well. His position seems to be similar to what I said in my initial post; that the temperature is rising but we're not entirely sure why yet. He's been criticized for taking payment of $2500/day from oil/coal companies for consulting services. He's been funded and/or supported by Western Fuels and OPEC.

The book is also endorsed by a few senators, and nobody believes anything they say so I think we can just ignore that.

The following organizations have taken the stance that global warming is at least partially due to human activity:

The aforementioned IPCC
The National Science Academies of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US
The US National Research Council
The American Meteorological Society
The American Geophysical Union
The American Institute of Physics
The American Astronomical Society
The Federal Climate Change Science Program
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
The Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of America
The American Chemical Society
The Institution of Engineers Australia
The American Association of State Climatologists
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists

The American Association of State Climatologists, by the way, is made up of state climatologists, assistant climatologists under the state climatologist and retired climatologists. They state a membership count of "approximately 150". That's 70 more than you claim exist in the country.

nib, lucky for me they've got a fair amount of that PIG book available for free on Google books so I just took a quick look at it before I head to bed.

One of the things that stood out was a group of pie charts which shows carbon dioxide among a few other greenhouse gases. It's not a greenhouse gas if it has zero effect on global temperature.

The book was apparently written by a lawyer, Christopher Horner, who is a recognized expert on "global warming legislation and regulation". That's something, but he's no climatologist. Chapter 1 is dedicated to calling environmentalists "anti-American communists". The first paragraph was really all I needed to read to understand that this book has no value to me.

It's endorsed by Richard Lindzen, who is a climatologist and has worked in related fields as well. His position seems to be similar to what I said in my initial post; that the temperature is rising but we're not entirely sure why yet. He's been criticized for taking payment of $2500/day from oil/coal companies for consulting services. He's been funded and/or supported by Western Fuels and OPEC.

The book is also endorsed by a few senators, and nobody believes anything they say so I think we can just ignore that.

The following organizations have taken the stance that global warming is at least partially due to human activity:

The aforementioned IPCC
The National Science Academies of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US
The US National Research Council
The American Meteorological Society
The American Geophysical Union
The American Institute of Physics
The American Astronomical Society
The Federal Climate Change Science Program
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
The Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of America
The American Chemical Society
The Institution of Engineers Australia
The American Association of State Climatologists
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists

The American Association of State Climatologists, by the way, is made up of state climatologists, assistant climatologists under the state climatologist and retired climatologists. They state a membership count of "approximately 150". That's 70 more than you claim exist in the country.

I don't know there are several ways of looking at the oil factor and how Greenspan saw it and the effects that these will have in the future for the US economy.

Saddam used to either max out or dry out production in the oil market, this would destabilize oil prices, most OPEC countries and the western world would want price stability in such a commodity.

With the removal of Saddam and the promises that the Iraq war would quickly we actually made the situation worse with oil prices rising to around $80/barrel. OPEC countries don't mind this because it’s direct profit for them, nor do the oil companies.

Saddam also threatened to move away from oil trade in US dollars to oil trade in Euros. This scenario would also collapse the US economy as it relies on the printing of the US dollar to bankroll its huge foreign debts.

However with the economic instability in the subprime markets, exposure of bad loans, credit squeeze, expenditure on war, huge foreign debts coupled with high import expenditure in the US. We are seeing the US dollar slowly being put away as the currency of reserve in favor of the Euro since it promises more sustained value then the US dollar at the moment and in the coming future. The Euro has just reached the highest level against the dollar; the Canadian loonie has reached parity with the US dollar for the first time in 31 years.

Consumer expenditure is one of the largest driving forces in the US economy and it's slowly waning as well, since much of it was bank rolled on debt via credit.

Is the US headed for a recession? Well that really depends, if the current course of events prevails and there is no economic shock then a general recession can be avoided. There will be a growth recession, as these factors are the same ones that MNCs look at in projecting growth and doing capital expenditure. Will it be all that bad? Probably not, but you will see a further increase in the income gap because those on the lowest bar will be the most effected.

Let’s not forget that the myriad range of cuts in state expenditure meant that large parts of the infrastructure have depreciated, The American Society of Engineers gave an average grade of D, and the highest grade of C+. Not to mention the $59 trillion that tax payers would need to foot for future Medicare and social security. Not to mention the continuing the Iraq war is close to half a trillion so far with a realistic, if things remain the same, projected cost of 2 trillion. Tax cuts are nice and all, but they are unrealistic if they are made on infrastructure and parts of the government that have sustained the US way of life for so long, you do away with them and the system starts to depreciate.

How did the US come to be exposed so badly to these economic shocks? Poor fiscal planning by an administration that is only conservative on the surface.

You do realize that you basically answered your own question?

The war in Iraq wasn't about freeing a country from tyranny but assuring a steady oil price for OPEC, by taking out Saddam who used to either dry the pump or maximize the output. The other set of reasons are simply morale posturing infront of world leaders who know better. Not to mention the case for WMD was cherry picked information from unreliable sources to justify an incursion in into Iraq in the first place.

Is this worth the price in American lives? More importantly look at the high price of oil currently. Clearly this hasn't benefited the US at all, but rather meant we are stuck in a quagmire.

The war in Iraq to me is nothing but the establishment of a American hegemony through military force.

Screw the religious shit and look at the tiny little bit of historical timeline it describes. I've expanded on it somewhat, below, as this video really focuses on religion too much.

It starts with 200 years ago, when England made usury legal.
As per Ben Franklin's own words, among others, the Revolutionary War had more to do with money than it did with independence.

1913 - Federal Income Tax and the Federal Reserve created.

1933 - USD no longer redeemable for gold for American citizens, but since it is still redeemable for gold for foreign citizens and foreign countries, it becomes the reserve currency of the world.

August 15, 1971 - USD no longer redeemable for Gold for foreign citizens/countries(even though foreign citizens/countries had tons of it). Essentially, Nixon defaulted the reserve currency of the world.

1972/1973 - Nixon and OPEC work out a deal where all OPEC countries would accept only USD as payment for oil.

November, 2000 - Iraq starts accepting Euro for oil. Since it is an OPEC country, they are directly threatening the global value of the USD by doing so, as demand for the USD would drop if oil could be purchased in something other than USD.

May, 2006 - Iran opens it's oil commodities exchange

Technically, this guy's right that if the Third World defaults, and we support it, the banking system would screech to a technical halt...but not for long - they've dealt with worse calamities than that in just some media play.

As for the amount of people needed to carry off such an operation, well I don't see how it would be in the thousands.

Think about it - Dick Cheney orders a couple of different exercises to be carried out by the Nation's military on the day of the event, to keep them busy. Those exercises have the nicely added effect of putting false radar signals on various control tower's radar, etc - as they are taking part in the exercises, and thus NEED to be able to instruct various military personnel as to where the false planes are, all as part of normal military exercises(yes, former mil here, too - all of what I'm saying is actually well documented).

To get some form of explosive in the tower - well, I don't know where you heard the "proposed 26 hours" that you cite above, but the WTC towers were being worked on for about 2 weeks prior to 9/11. Various parts of the towers were having power turned on and off, and only during the last weekend, both building's power and security systems were shut down.

Now, the people to plant the explosives, etc - would they really have to have very little moral character? How did 9/11 benefit the American economy?

Well, prior to 9/11, Iraq's Saddam Hussein had announced that it would start accepting Euros as payment for Oil("In November 2000, Iraq became the first OPEC nation to begin selling its oil for Euros." - http://www.projectcensored.org/Publications/2004/19.html). Due to our embargo on Iraq, and the subsequent "Oil for Food" program that the UN announced, it made sense that, in order for them to get at least some funding to feed their economy in at least the slightest way...maybe to be able to afford weapons - maybe even just to be able to buy building materials for their own country - who knows?

Thing is, as part of a 1972-1973(can't remember which year) agreement between President Nixon and OPEC, OPEC agreed to accept only USD as payment for oil. This subsequent agreement occurred one or two years after Nixon stopped the backing of the USD by gold for foreign investors, on August 15, 1971. The USD hadn't been backed by gold for citizens of the U.S., but foreign investors could cash in their USD for gold up until that point.

What does this mean? Well, basically it means that the USD stopped being backed by gold in 1971 and OPEC started accepting ONLY USD for oil in 1972 or 73...essentially backing our currency by what?....oil!

So, as you can probably understand, it's quite a threat for Iraq to start accepting Euros for oil(and the USD has taken a hit because of it - around 17% loss in value, so far).

Now, however(and this might explain a lot to you), Iran has opened it's "Oil Bourse" - accepting what for oil?....Euro and Yen. What further complicates matters with Iran, however, is that China is now buying 50% of it's oil from Iran in Yen, because, of course, it's easier for them(easier than having to try to get USD to buy oil from OPEC with).

Well, that kindof complicates things on a global geopolitical stage. What it means is that, as more countries start buying oil with Euro and Yen, they will stop trying to get USD, and even use the last of their USD and not really have a need to get more(since they can now buy oil in Euro or Yen - or even diversify between Euro, Yen, and USD - either way, the demand for USD lowers).

On a global scale, this will most certainly disrupt the value of the USD like never seen before.

Had Iraq actually gotten clients for his "Oil for Euro/Yen" program, it would have been devastating for the USD back in 2001...but 9/11 happened, giving us a "reason"(even if only superficially and even a lie) to go into Iraq.

In effect, those that may have taken down the towers did us a favor - they stopped millions from being killed by what would be an ensuing recession/depression in the value of the USD(as is kindof happening now) by killing only 2000 people in the towers, and a couple thousand killed in a war to hold onto Iraq's oil as a type of backing for USD.

Don't believe me, though - look into it yourself. All of the above described events and places are well documented. Look into the "Iranian Oil Bourse" in particular.

"you're forgetting that OPEC pretty much controls worldwide oil prices"
I'm not forgetting that. OPEC does play a role but if the government was actually serious about getting off foreign oil, we could easily drill our own. Both China and Mexico can drill in the Gulf of Mexico, but environmentalism we can't. Does that make any sense to you? We can drill it, refine it and use it all within our own borders...that is problem solved. Does anybody disagree with that?

And just for fun, what does Exxon's profits have to do with it?

hey Wumpus, you're forgetting that OPEC pretty much controls worldwide oil prices. US oil sells for the same prices as Saudi oil. Oil companies have no reason to sell oil cheaper than OPEC prices. Actually, if they do that, OPEC will stop selling them oil. The same companies that import Saudi oil are the same companies that would be handling US oil.

Consider this: if they sell US oil cheaper, that means a few things will happen:
1. Other countries (i.e. China) will have more access to OPEC oil
2. the oil companies will make less money on american oil than on selling OPEC oil in other countries
3. once we use up all our national supplies, OPEC oil will cost huge ammounts more.

The most sound business ddecision, is to continue burning off foriegn oil, while keeping local supplies untouched. When foriegn supplies start to get thinner and more expensive, there's all that easily extracted local supply that can then be sold at the high rates set by limites forien supplies, thus maximizing profits.


Google "exxon profit"
please note, these numbers are not annual profits, but QUARTERLY.

24 July, 2001 $4.38bn

May 2, 2003 $7 Billion

10/27/2005 $10B

April 26 2007 $9.28 billion

See my most recent video submission... EV-1 : Who Killed The Electric Car ? OPEC ? US Govt ?

Some other wonderful things about Tom you may not know....


1887 - Edison conducts demonstration in West Orange, New Jersey, in which he kills large numbers of
cats and dogs by luring the animals onto a metal plate wired to a 1,000 volt AC generator. The press
describes these proceedings in detail.

1887 - Edison publishes pamphlet A Warning, comparing AC and DC, including of AC victims. (because Tesla was showing him up....)

...and then, later...(on what happens to be my own freekin' B-day)
June 4, 1888 - New York Legislature passes Chapter 489 of Laws of New York of 1888 establishing
electrocution as the state's method of execution. Medico-Legal Society of New York is designated to
recommend how to implement new law.


soo. upvote for some rollicking footage, taken by the inventor of such bullshit as, the light bulb, the eye-poppin'-out-wathcer's-society-of America, and the "Charge the World For Energy" invention of, power and money, and ego.......oh wait, Thomas Edison was a great innovator, and humanitarian......."Fuck Thomas Edison!", he and his cronies are why we pay for electricity now.....instead of gathering it to us from the ether.......god bless Nikola Tesla...(maybe god will let him put OPEC in a chair later........

Related sifts

Iraq is in chaos, with sectarian violence, any force increase will only increase the exposure of US forces to enemy action.
Iraq - The Hidden Story

Russia has been conducting it's own form of energy supply assurances by holding Chechnya under the banner of fight the war on Terror. Which gives them the carte blanche on action as long as they give the Americans the same at the moment.
Dispatches - The Dirty War in Chechnya

The reason the American Energy companies, Oil lobby groups and their contacts (Cheney) in the US goverment would want to flood the market with cheap Iraqi oil is because they are afraid of recent steps in Venezuela, discussions in OPEC towards putting crude oil off the US dollar due to it's military incursions and foreign policy actions. Which would threaten the US current account which relied on the printing of US dollars for oil trade to stabilize the debt. China has the largest US reserves in the world, the US owes them billions. We have become complicit in supporting a communist regime that still oppresses it's population. Even large corporations such as Google that *ahem DO NO EVIL are involved in the Chinese economy.

The Chinese Communist goverment of course finds this a perfect position, they have the US politically by the pursue because at any moment they can pressure OPEC to stay on the US dollar or not, since they are quickly foreshadowing the US in terms of energy usage. If however OPEC would switch to the Euro if say the US continues on it's war path, the US economy will crash rapidly far worse then the great depression.

If we continue to push for war and lack of diplomatic action our position only gets worse, if albeit OK for the short-term. Leading us to only one path and one solution a war for energy supplies, until the lights go out... and there is no Oil left for fight for, and just when we need international cooperation it will be marred by previous hostile actions.
China has US by the purse.

The threat of energy depletion in the long run is more important issue then global warming, and in many ways totally related. As it is better to tackle it when Oil supplies are high and related R&D would be easier compared to when the lights go out and we're fighting wars of dwindling energy domination.
Robert Newman's - A History of Oil

RE: Related sifts, I mean seriously I understand Lara Logan. But Chris Rock + Senator Boxer?