The Economic Populist
Speak Your Mind 2 Cents at a Time
Most Popular
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 191423 reads
2009: Recession vs. Recovery (Update 2)
- 67422 reads
May Leading Economic Indicators (1)
- 50877 reads
VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
- 347041 reads
User login
Recent comments
Poll
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 191423 reads
2009: Recession vs. Recovery (Update 2)
- 67422 reads
May Leading Economic Indicators (1)
- 50877 reads
VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
- 347041 reads
The Golden Rule
- 1826582 reads
Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
- 1217012 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 953260 reads
How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
- 363168 reads
VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
- 346712 reads
U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
- 321945 reads
The war on the middle class
- 317331 reads
House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
- 315807 reads
Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
- 280233 reads
.
Who would ever say a bad word about Mrs. Johnson, Centerville's perky, cheery 9th grade geography/history teacher. There she be, long headed, short haired and bespeckled, the very picture of modern womanhood, a shoe-in for Obama, self-pitying about being overworked, never missing an opportunity to remind you how she goes to her own expense to fund materials for the lesson plans she's devised, and, oh, so awfully empathetic, empathetic that is if you can take an airbrush to that late-term abortion over which she so vocally agonized to friends five years ago. The baby and St. Joseph are still having a tough time calling what she did back then "empathetic". But if you thought Mrs. Johnson didn't think getting a college education and an advanced degree at all costs wasn't essential to just about anyone having the experience of coming under her tutelage, you can forget about it.
Mrs. Johnson, as apparently benign as she might seem, together with the entire academic establishment at all levels has for years aggressively sold the idea of the centrality of education to human life, that despite reports that humanity managed to exist without it for roughly 99% of the time its drawn breathe. Wonder why? Could it be that Mrs. Johnson and physics professor Harwood over at State College have an axe to grind? Could it be that they are just as much a part of the whole corrupt song and dance that's been sold to the American people for years about preparation for life in the "new" economy? I think so. I think that Mrs. Johnson and Professor Harwood are as much a part of "the system" as any munitions maker, financier, politician, or AIPAC lobbyist. And, by the way, how much of a drag on your unemployment check is that student loan you took out 10 years ago?
Just a blog/forum post topic request. Anyone an expert, following this entire cap & trade agenda, environment/pollution system and how it will relate to overall costs and it's affects in the global marketplace?
A good overview on the issues, the legislation, complete with graphs, statistics and projections, including overall manufacturing costs (or not) would be great.
We're ignoring this and I haven't tracked on this in the least to write something intelligently.
Of if you know of an expert, go ahead and invite them to cross post (please no philosophy, just the numbers!).
You mean that Trilby Lundberg, the only known oil pricing expert in the whole Universe, could possibly be wrong!
Shocked I am, shocked I am.....
An excert from the brilliant Ms. Lundberg's CNN interview.
hearing Feb. 05, 2009.
You cannot miss the SEC getting reamed and their response is even more shocking. It's on youtube, just those portions.
Also, search engines are your friend.
Actually the Hummer is not a big money loser for GM. The profit margin on the larger vehicles is much more than that of a smaller vehicle like the Saturn brand.
As for fuel economy, you may be surprised that they are not the worst vehicles for fuel economy. They can be better than the F250 that we drove before the Hummer.
Finally, the consumer models are not made identical to the military use Hummers. The H1 is not sold to the public unless you happen to find a used model. Even then, it is not the same grade as a military model.
Try driving an H3 or H3T. I did and it is GREAT. I will keep mine as collectibles!
I am looking for info on the Security Exchange commission's role in the Madoff Investigation.
How is that a two year investigation of Madoff did not reveal that actually had not completed any trades in all those years. Is there anyone in Congress pursuing this?
I want to alert people more to NDD's older post on the argument that somewhere oil futures contracts must have supply associated with them and therefore we must have supply somewhere.
Hoarding in Plain Sight: did Strategic Oil Reserves trigger Oil's Parabolic Move?.
This is where NDD concludes it was the strategic oil reserves where the excess supply was hidden.
Now, that said, I'm reposting the same comment I had in NDD's post:
From the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations they held a hearing, Energy Speculation: Is Greater Regulation Necessary to Stop Price Manipulation? – Part II.
I found in Mr. Fadel Gheit's, Oppenheimer Oil analyst, testimony he addresses these other causes point by point. For example, he says the weak dollar is attributable to about a $10-$15 increase in a barrel of oil. He goes through India/China increased demand, speculators in his analysis.
Then, I hesitate to comment on this part, because I haven't even traded commodity futures, let alone understand this market, but he points out the massive increase in volume of futures trading. Myself, I don't see the correlation to say a tech stock bubble in a company versus their actual product prices increasing for the company is not a physical commodity per say. I also don't see how playing the futures trading game requires someone to hold inventories. I know that's a physical commodity so maybe there is something I'm missing here on oil, but I don't see how the two must follow considering all of the futures trading vehicles. I'll let someone else answer this one but it seems that there are multiple layers of abstractions with all of the methods to trade commodities to separate out the physical commodity from the actual price points out there. To me it's like water in a global oil based economy and when you must have something, you'll be willing to pay anything for it, esp. if a cartel like situation is creating an extortion fee to get it. But does that follow that one must have massive inventories built up somewhere?
Inventories:
Back to the hearing and other reports:
Oil.com analysis paper by Lehman Brothers, has actual supply and demand numbers at the bottom (last page) and they seem fairly inline with each other with certain points supply exceeding demand (a few where demand exceeded supply too). From the title of their analysis, you can see what they think this is, a speculative bubble.
Masters testimony requests a hording investigation, due to referencing a report which he summarizes:
I must recommend this hearing testimony. I've been reading it and there are arguments for all elements in this debacle. Prof. Greenburger, Center for Health and Homeland Security, is the one who lays out the most detailed legislation and policy fixes. I sure don't think they just went and "said" what "Congress wanted to hear", each witness presents some in depth analysis and when you look at all of the commodities futures trading graphs, from almost every witness, it brings home the argument on speculation driving up prices.
I have a side comment, perhaps Krugman, an economist, who lives in the real Supply/Demand world just isn't in tune with fictional money world of wall street complex investment vehicles? Krugman is one intellectual powerhouse, (plus a blogging fool!), but I notice that those debating the causes on oil price spikes on the blogs, well, I'm not seeing too much awareness on all of these new credit swaps and other investment techniques in commodity futures trading. I for one have little clue on all of it, maybe that's the overall case here?
Now that a tad of oil prices was attributed to dollar deflation in this testimony. So CreditWritedowns (who is the guest poster on Naked Capitalism) isn't coming from outer space in his post, to me he more attributed way too much cause and effect to dollar devaluation, it's not the primary cause.
But, considering the above congressional testimony from last summer and that hedge funds at the same time started getting margin calls, running out of funds due to subprime, it is possible they had to liquidate their commodity speculative positions to deal with the impeding subprime/financial crisis...
which would imply that speculation and market manipulate by very large institutional investors...without some supply hidden somewhere, is still possible.
Where I thought that was possible (to not have real inventories associated with a price bubble) was with derivatives, i.e. default swaps and other new trading vehicles on commodities.
The commercial Hummer and the military Humvee are two different vehicles. The Hummer is built on the Suburban platform. Nothing to worry about regarding military secrets!
Is that the best way to end the financial industry's control over our economy and lives, is for the borrowers to default en masse?
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Thanks to the HDTV reset.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
and thought, OMG, because in my view, Harvard has been pumping out some real garbage lately in terms of policy.
As Sterling Newberry pointed out, no one knows exactly how the anticipated economic "recovery" will play out, but everyone knows it will involve burning more oil. So, since there are no other decent-looking investment "opportunities", idle money (and there is what, $2 trillion to $3 trillion or more that was "injected" these past nine months) is being parked in plays on oil, and other commodities.
This is speculation, but to be entirely accurate, I believe, we should recognize it as rent-seeking behavior. As such, it is a horrible mis-allocation of capital - and mis-allocation of capital into speculation, usury, and rent-seeking behavior is exactly THE problem of the past three decades that we need to solve.
What is that the French say? The more things change the more they remain the same. Sigh. . . . .
almost out of Harvard, getting his first government job and will be restructuring GM. Is it true? Nothing against age but come on, experience does count for something.
Hm? But maybe not because the experienced folks screwed us to the wall.
I feel I am living the lyrics of that old Stealers Wheels song..."Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right".
Who is the next World Wonder that our President is going to parade down the isle?
Speculation that world economy is improving but when it comes to the oil market some thing about "too much of a good thing" comes to mind.
The market is anticipating increased demand from improved economic conditions - it is not the dollar. We can't blame the dollar for everything.
I expect Republicans to be greedy little swine trampling on each other at the feeder. I use to expect more from Democrats until Clinton and now Obama proved they are a part of the problem.
MI has also been a donor state for as long as I can remember. Working with unions and the autos, a controlled downsizing was taking place. It was balancing GM against the people it owed. Obama, to GM's glee I'm sure, just said hell and plowed on through straight to bankruptcy court.
If you need saving, think twice about calling him. Geithner has been calling all the shots.
YES WE CAN doesn't necessarily mean he will.
I was in a tangle against someone else a couple months back on this very same issue. Someone came on here to defend ICE's apparantly monopoly on CDS clearing. The problem is, you have no real competition. At least the CME is honest in saying they want to create a true regulated cleared market for new swaps. Their plan was to go totally electronic so that everyone sees what everyone else sees, and to expand the dealer beyond the limited number ICE uses.
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
The stats where that in 2007, 51% could find a job, while in 2009 only 20% could. Folks thought well maybe they've gone on to graduate school, but then CNN followed up that only 1 in 4 went to grad school. Honestly, I think this past decade has been awful for college degree holders. A lot are finding that the promises made about getting that sheepskin were just that words. That isn't to say going to college is bad, I think the stats overall still point to higher wages. But now you're competing, especially if you're studying in a degree where the field has applicants all over the world or is prone to outsourcing, like never before.
You know, it always amazes me when someone who can't find a job starts their own business. There should be initiatives to promote such a thing, especially for young graduates fresh out of school. It just seems like so much talent is being lost or wasted, look if you're not going to be able to find an employer why not start a business? It's hard, it's a challenge, but if your only other alternative is the unemployment line, why not?
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
Most U.S. retailers likely saw sales fall in May
Another article with great graphics -
The Fall of the Mall
was Iraq. Where we had to end up financing the whole damn debacle, and ended up losing what remained of our imperial ambitions. Only this time, instead of one single phone call threatening us, it's been a prolonged ordeal, where Eisenhower this time around is Hu Jintao.
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
Which are really bonds based off of LIBOR, nothing fancy, you are seeing what you mentioned already. Front months are sliding, but nothing like what you're seeing far down the road. You are really seeing backwardization going on in the futures for LIBOR and other debt instruments. Now normally, you would see a positive yield curve on longer term instruments, you'd expect a 10-year to have a higher rate than a 2-year. That isn't what catching attention, but the velocity of the fall, not to mention the spreads widening between say a December 09er versus a Dec 10. To give you an idea, GEZ9 dropped .0800, while GEZ0 dropped .2000!
I have included below a chart between the two contracts. Note the spread.
-------------------------------------------- www.venomopolis.com
Pages