CLICK HERE LARGE PRINT EDITION: ENERGY STRESSES CLIMB AS ECONOMIES COLLAPSE « Culture of Life News 2
Many American commentators and ‘thinkers’ [sic] think that when a country has financial problems, this makes them weaker. This is true but power is RELATIVE. If, say, China or Russia have financial problems due to the US economy imploding, this makes them weaker. But the US is even more weaker and in a worse trajectory. This week, Russia is striking back and is making energy more expensive. They will win in this enterprise due to the US and Israel launching yet another anti-Muslim civilian democratic war. And egging everyone into going to war with Iran.
BBC NEWS | Business | Russia-Ukraine gas row heats up
A war of words has broken out in a gas supply row between Ukraine and Russia, amid claims that supplies to Europe could be under threat.
As a midnight deadline loomed, Russian PM Vladimir Putin accused Kiev of threatening to block supplies piped through Ukraine to Western Europe.
Later, Russian energy giant Gazprom said the talks had failed and it would cut gas supplies on Thursday.
Ukraine denies owning Gazprom money and says it has guaranteed gas transit.
A similar row between Gazprom and Ukraine in 2006 led to gas shortages in several EU countries.
Gas is being shut off. Russia caused world energy prices to collapse during the 1990’s. As Russian energy flooded world markets, the situation in Saudi Arabia also deteriorated. The kingdom, run by US-sponsored despots of the worst kind, nearly went bankrupt. Agitation in the ‘Arab street’ rose to a fever pitch. Terrorism sprang up and the Throne of Saud was nearly overthrown. When Putin came in and began to put Russian energy under nationalist controls again, the price of oil began to climb in the late 1990’s.
As per usual, the US economy immediately began to fall into a recession and the stock market crashed. Inflation began to rise since the US always, always, always prints more money to buy energy from overseas. Imports from China were allowed to flood into the country to disguise obvious inflation. Everything came to a head on 9/11 and what Israel and the neo cons in the Bush administration and in the Democratic Party had their lovely excuse to kill millions of pesky Muslims across the entire planet. This planetary population control mechanism doesn’t work since Muslim women still insist, unlike the European and Japanese women, to have babies no matter how cruel things are. So the population controls are flailing.
Europe and the US depend on cheap oil to survive. We are accustomed to living like kings. Not like Gaza residents, just for one huge example. The Afghanis live with very little fossil fuels. Most of China, the same way. But we love our climate controlled houses, our luxuries, our ability to move swiftly about in private chariots drawn by the equivalent of 140 horses. When Russia floundered due to the collapse of the speculator bubble last summer, European and American pundits danced on Russia’s grave. Immediately, they launched the usual right wing sneak attacks on Russian troops in Ossetia. Then crowed as Russia’s stocks fell, etc.
Nine European countries hit by gas shortages amid Russia-Ukraine row – Times Online
Nine countries in and around Europe have now reported problems with their gas supply as a result of Russia’s dispute with the Ukraine, after Slovakia, Greece and Croatia today disclosed they were experiencing drops in gas pressure. The development comes as an emergency mission from the European Commission in Brussels and the Czech Presidency of the EU left this morning, bound for Kiev for talks with the Ukrainian authorities as the international crisis deepened.
Russia’s stock market fell because the oil price bubble popped, not because we ‘won’ something in that Georgian sneak attack. Instead, we alerted Russia to our nasty intentions which is to destroy Russia utterly as a ‘nation’ and replace it with a series of hate-filled ethnic/religious enclaves like Israeli Jews are foisting on the Middle East.
Economics, military matters and philosophical beliefs are all part of one big matrix which I call ‘reality’. People can’t pick and choose what is causing what. We have to look at everything at once. The failure to do this dooms most analysis to failure. One blind spot and poof! The analysis is wrong. In the ‘West’, the majority of mainstream analysts are of the Jewish ethnic group. Collectively, they have decided to endorse national socialist ethnic values. This is a tool for them and for non-Jewish ruling elites [who outnumber the Jews, for the most part] because it allows European powers of the older sort to continue colonial domination of distant lands.
This is why the EU grows and grows while the EU, through NATO, encourages the shrinking of all other power centers. One power center they are desperate to shrink is Russia. Europe is plunging into a massive recession due to several stupid things they did:
- They ran the same ‘export more to the US than you import from the US’ free trade game identical to Japan’s game.
- They played the Japanese carry trade game and used this to fund their entire banking system so lending became ridiculously easy.
- They created huge property asset and stock market bubbles.
- They over expanded the New Holy Roman Empire while excluding all the Muslim parts of Europe like Turkey.
For the last 600 years, Europe has always sought to dismember and weaken the Ottoman Empire. When it looked like Russia would suck down the entire empire, England and France opposed Russia. When Germany and Austria began to suck down huge parts of the Ottoman Empire, England and France decided to confront Germany and Austria and we got WWI.
It is very easy to fall off of historic cliffs and that was one big cliff. We are on the verge of another big cliff caused by the exact same historical forces. Russia will win the latest round of tit for tat with Europe because Europe is weaker than Russia since Europe depends on the US for its economic AND military power. And the US is going off the cliff first, not last.
WASHINGTON (December 17, 2008) – Robert Redford joined members of Congress and a coalition of environmental, preservation and business groups to stop the Interior Department from auctioning Utah wilderness to oil and gas companies. Congressmen Baird (D-WA), Hinchey (D-NY), and Holt (D-NJ) are leading the charge on the Hill to stop the auction, which is scheduled to take place on December 19. At a press event today, the environmental and preservation groups—led by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and Earthjustice—announced that they are taking legal action against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to halt the leasing of more than 110,000 acres of land near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dinosaur National Monument, and Nine Mile Canyon.
“You can’t put a price on silence or solitude,” said Robert Redford, actor, director and NRDC trustee. “Future generations deserve to experience the wildness and beauty of these lands, and to leave them as a legacy to generations that follow.”
The Utah Bureau of Land Management has conducted a series of controversial lease sales throughout the Bush administration, but the upcoming sale has been unusually contentious because of the sensitivity of the wilderness lands and because BLM inadequately consulted with the National Park Service. In November, the Park Service asked BLM to omit 93 parcels of land that would impact parks and BLM has since deferred the sale of 33 of these parcels.Friday’s sale would include lands that contain the nation’s greatest density of ancient rock art and other cultural resources. These lands were recently made available to industry through hastily approved resource management plans that will have serious ramifications for 3 million acres of public lands.
The US, frantic to suck down all the energy resources we have left, is doing one stupid thing after another. The entire point of ‘renewable energy’ is that it won’t suck down all the world’s resources, totally. We do have to go into space to use resources from the moon and asteroids and the nation that figures out how to do this first will rule the earth. I am betting, it will be China in an alliance with Russia.
We can utterly trash our own nation if we are dumb and we are pretty dumb. We want to suck down every drop of oil here in order to zoom around in big machines, live in big houses that are totally climate-controlled and feast our way through the world, zooming about the skies to distant lands where we can run riot. This is all a lot of fun! And doomed. Once this party is over, we sink back into a sub-Victorian lifestyle.
Alas, trying to conserve things is a lost cause! This is because it is more fun to eat, drink and be merry and grasshoppers outnumber ants. The ants will wail for more caution, winter is coming but the grasshoppers laugh and act even more irresponsibly. If we visit www.tennessean.com | Nashville Tennessee Green we can see many photos and maps showing the devastation caused by the dam breaking. This has utterly polluted the water table, streams and rivers. This residue from coal burning power plants has now destroyed the landscape FOR THE NEXT TEN MILLION YEARS. Only if we have many violent volcanic eruptions coupled with global dust storms like in the last Ice Ages, can we clean up this mess and it still won’t be clean.
Destroying everything in sight is a stupid thing when the goal was to run millions and millions of homes as climate-controlled pleasure palaces. In my youth, virtually no one in the South had much air conditioning. Movie theaters advertised air conditioning as a lure to movie goers in the fifties. In the 1940’s, there was virtually no air conditioning in any theaters and we used fans to cool ourselves. Now, almost all buildings in the south are climate controlled.
I remember in 1970 when people in NYC got air conditioners. I didn’t have one but many did. And during the summer, we had ‘brown outs’ and even outright black outs due to the increasing numbers of air conditioners sucking down energy. To run these stupid things, Con Edison increased air pollution in the city. So people with open windows choked on the foul air. While the climate control people lived high off the hog.
Iranian commander says to cut oil sales to Israel’s backers | Reuters
An Iranian military commander called on Islamic countries to cut oil exports to Israel’s supporters in response to the Jewish state’s offensive in Gaza, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.
IRNA said commander Bagherzadeh described oil as a commodity that could put pressure on Israel’s European and American backers in the “unequal war” faced by Palestinians in the coastal strip.
“Pointing at Westerners’ dependence on the Islamic countries’ oil and energy resources, he (Bagherzadeh) called for cutting the export of crude oil to the Zionist regime’s supporters the world over,” IRNA said, referring to Israel.
The Arab despots we support with our military won’t do this. They want to keep their own people under lock and key. But the Iranian challenge is ringing in the streets…very quietly. Like all revolutionary forces, this will take everyone by surprise. If the price of energy continues downwards, the revolution will be swift. If it rises, it will be delayed. But only if there is no inflation.
Of course, there is no escape for the US or Europe or even the Israeli Jewish population, all of whom want to live in climate controlled palaces that didn’t exist a mere 50 years ago. Even the royals of Europe didn’t live in climate controlled palaces. They lived in drafty, cold or very hot in summer residences. Ditto, the kings in the Middle East. Now, everyone is consuming vast amounts of precious energy that will run out. In the Saudi lands, they even run ski slopes in the desert. This is something that won’t exist in 30 years.
King Faisal Stood Firm on Oil Embargo’
RIYADH, 4 May 2008 — The United States threatened to use force against Saudi Arabia in 1973 after King Faisal, along with other Arab leaders, imposed an oil embargo on countries that supported Israel during the October War, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, said in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat yesterday.
In the interview, that appeared ahead of a scientific seminar on King Faisal to be opened by Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman on Tuesday, Prince Turki shed light on important events that took place during his father’s rule.
The US wanted to do what England and France tried to do several years earlier: take over Egypt, Saudi Arabia and all of the Middle East via our military. We already took over Iran at that point. We were already importing oil and Europe needed the oil badly, this was before the North Sea oil technology was perfected. Finally, the pesky king was disposed of and we got a pro-pump oil like crazy king on the throne.
BBC ON THIS DAY | 25 | 1975: Saudi’s King Faisal assassinated
1975: Saudi’s King Faisal assassinatedKing Faisal of Saudi Arabia has died after a gun attack in Riyadh despite the efforts of doctors to save him.
And finally, I am utterly aghast at the wild talk from Obama and the Democrats on massive tax cuts and massive, massive overspending across the board at every possible level. So we continue to roam the planet, seeking funds. Everyone knows, this is debt we are collecting and all our rivals who wish to dominate us happily give loans. But not at ZIRP levels. And this is increasingly a problem.
US asks Arab nations for $300 Billion to fund auto bailout
“According to reports published in Al-Seyassah, a Kuwaiti newspaper, and some other Gulf newspapers, the United States has asked four Gulf states for financial aid close to $300 billion to face the fallout of the financial crisis and help prevent its economy from sliding into a painful recession.
Washington is seeking $120 billion from Saudi Arabia, $70 billion from the United Arab Emirates, $60 billion from Qatar and $40 billion from Kuwait.
The Kingdom has dismissed these reports. There is enough evidence that the Federal Reserve is out of ammunition. The Fed can only control the supply of money, it cannot control the velocity of money or the rate of its turnover. The outcome of this crisis will be that the currency will be “devalued” as policy makers seek to weaken it, undermining its role as an international reserve currency…..
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states do not need the protection of other nations. They should depend on themselves and should not trust anybody but themselves for their protection. How could Saudi Arabia help the US auto industry and not help its own stock market that dropped over 80 percent from its value in the last 2 years? Saudi Arabia should help its citizens. Over 50 percent of Saudi families do not own homes. They rent homes.
The monthly income of most Saudi families is below $1,500. To sum up, if there is good business opportunities in the US, let us invest in them but the decision must be based on business calculations rather than other considerations.”
The Gulf currency alliance still hasn’t been finalized but the fact that they are even seriously discussing this is one of many signs that the US dollar will cease soon to be the world’s fiat currency for trade and for oil purchases. Already, Iran has signaled an end to this. Note the amount of money given to Saudis on welfare. This population is forbidden any birth controls and it is rising rapidly. They are the ‘Arab Street’ and will overthrow their government if things get too nasty. And things are getting much nastier.
Your Industry News – China Aims to Add 60-GW of Nuclear Generating Capacity by 2020
China currently has only 9-GW of nuclear power capacity, accounting for only 1.3 percent of its total power generating capacity. Nuclear power accounts for 16 percent of the worlds total power generating capacity.
The NDRC said in November that China would begin construction of a series of large energy projects by the end of this year in order to boost domestic demand to hedge the impact of the current financial crisis.
China, unlike the US, is preparing for the future. They are in a space race and we are the rabbit that raced to the moon and then fell asleep while the Chinese turtle caught up and passes us. One thought about the dam break in Tennessee: if this happened in China, we would see our media crowing all over the place about how evil China is, how reckless China is and how stupid China is. When we do a Chernobyl belly flop, we fall silent.
The toxic mess in Tennessee comes on the heels of the right wingers yelling at Al Gore who lives in Tennessee. The mocking of him talking about how evil coal burning power plants are should end. The pollution problems aren’t just due to air pollution. There is also water pollution and the destruction of a fine, green, growing place of great beauty and charm. We are throwing this all away and making it a lunar landscape so we can live in climate-controlled houses.
* FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT emeinel@fairpoint.net
33 Comments
January 6, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Pipe dream? Maybe. But interesting and feasible for many.
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http://tinyurl.com/8hads4
>
January 6, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I don’t blame the Russians for raising energy prices since the have a captive market and the western world is out to hurt them.
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NATO is encircling them with missiles that clearly send the message.
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China is being ravaged by pollution as their water and land is becoming toxic. They don’t seem to care preferring instead to exploit their land and people.
January 6, 2009 at 5:49 pm
On the coal waste dam breaking, I’m starting
to hear that THIS is the single worst environmental disaster in US history.
Worse than the Exxon Valdez in Alaska.
This just shows how “Pravda”-like the media
in this country is becoming. Holy cow !
They are barely covering this story on page
21 here and everywhere else.
January 6, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Here’s an article about a similar coal slurry
disaster in KY about 5ys ago. And also about a
federal regulator ,Spadero, that saw the disaster coming.
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/13/slurry_coverup/index.html
“A coal slurry impoundment is a reservoir of thick liquid waste from coal processing that is constructed by damming the mouth of a valley with rock and earth. To residents living near these impoundments, they are disasters waiting to happen. The EPA called the Inez spill the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States. Far more extensive in damage than the widely known 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, the Martin County Coal slurry spill dumped an estimated 306 million gallons of toxic sludge down 100 miles of waterways.
Before the change in political administration, Spadaro and his teammates had been uncovering information that had far-reaching implications for both Massey Energy (the parent company of Martin County Coal and a major contributor to the Republican Party) and the coal industry as a whole. Testimony and documents revealed that executives at Martin County Coal and federal regulators were aware that there was potential for a catastrophic failure at the slurry impoundment but didn’t take proper actions to avoid it. In particular, an MSHA engineer had made a list of specific safety recommendations to Martin County Coal and MSHA district officials following a 100-million gallon spill in May 1994. But MSHA and Martin not only largely ignored the recommendations, MSHA actually allowed Martin to add coal waste to its impoundment.
By the end of 2000, Spadaro and other investigation team members felt they were beginning to collect enough evidence to issue Massey Energy citations for willful and criminal negligence. In addition, it looked as though their own agency, MSHA, was going to be held accountable as well. But that all changed when George W. Bush moved into the White House. Within days of Bush’s inauguration a new team leader was brought in to head the Martin County Coal investigation. The scope of the investigation was dramatically narrowed — offering yet another dramatic example of how the wholesale takeover of the White House by the energy industry is having a real impact on real lives, not just on the whistle-blowers like Jack Spadaro but on the people he’s trying to protect.”
January 6, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Russians clearly are not using gas to threaten EU, as they have already started using Belarus and others to circumvent Ukraine; instead, Russia and Ukraine both have lawful claims in this dispute; thus, Russia doesn’t appear to be using this dispute as excuse to threaten EU’s energy supply.
January 6, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Not a comment for this article in particular, but thought you would enjoy this link – especially the Playing Cards from the Great South Sea Bubble!
January 6, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I think wind is dandy but not dependanble if you design a system around wind you can get WAY more or WAY less than you expect in any given HOUR… this means complex EXPENCIVE systems to support a freakish energy supply… right now wind sounds like a great idea so the ’safety sitches’ required to GROUND excess buhgigawhats dont exist and are not built into the system… and they arent necessary but if we get 20 percent of our power from wind or maybee is we power the whole country with wind that is not a great idea some SPRAWLING complex of alternators timed to sync up on a UBER complex grid with MASSIVE high and low current scenarios… wind is the suburbs of energy it beautiful and imaginative, but if times are complex the suburbs are untenable and expencive noone is going to want to live there anymore after spending zillions to produce suburbia… not that suburbia isnt still ‘hot’ but give it a millenia… Nuclear is the best supported by solar and hydro… you can predict solar
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-181259944046452879&q=iluminati&total=111&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4
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vote your paycheck
January 6, 2009 at 8:57 pm
1 Trillion Busywork Bubble
.
* $621,000 for intercom/PA upgrades in Anchorage, AK
* $40,000,000 for 3 new parking garages in Huntsville, AL
* $15,000,000 to “train staff on pre-treatment” of “waste waters” in Avondale, AZ
* $220,000,000 to expand the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA
* My favorite: $65,000,000 for “residential sound insulation” to “mitigate properties from jet noise” in Inglewood, CA
* $111,400,000 for “storm drain replacement” in Long Beach, CA
* $170,000,000 for library and city hall expansion in Pleasanton, CA….(there are literally hundreds of “library” requests)
* Sacramento seems particularly greedy. The California city puts in 29 requests totaling $2.8 billion. Skimming the report, the number of requests is not that large compared to other cities, but the $ scale of the requests seems huge.
* $527,600,000 for renovating Terminal 2 at the San Franciso airport
* Miami and Miami-Dade together have 38 pages(!) of requests running well into the billions. It includes two pages (from 209-211) of “landscaping and beautification requests” and $203k for new bleachers in the gym at Redland Middle School.
* $5,000,000 for a new police station in University Heights, OH
* $250,000 for asphalt paving and “alley upgrades” in the “Townside area” of Sand Springs, OK
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http://www.cahrecords.com
.
Its ‘SO’ worth it
January 6, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Elaine,
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To the best of my knowledge, energy from the moon would have to be in the form of heavy hydrogen. There are perhaps a half-dozen technologies being developed for burning heavy hydrogen. So the lunar travel probably implies that nuclear fusion is contemplated?
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The policies of the U.S., Britain, and Israel, taken as a whole, seem to fit no coherent, rational pattern. This besides their being vicious and evil. How will these apparently insane policies provide any positive outcome? It looks like it makes no sense. Are these people really involved in a Cult of Doom? Do they intend to just roll over and die once the energy and water are used up — party like mad and then simply jump off the roof when the bubble bursts?
January 6, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Blues:
The foreign policies of US and ISR are not just coherent, but the ratio[ital] at base is as clear as one of those phosphorus shells exploded over Gaza. Don’t despair though: the same phosphorus shells that illuminate Hamas defenses also illuminate attacking Jew soldiers. Ask yourself this: why would US/ISR act in a way that draws fire and injects a durable hatred into all others?
January 6, 2009 at 9:45 pm
My spouse is a water utilities professional. His resposnse to the TVA mess was “Uh oh.”
the contaminants that were released are not routinely tested for at water treatment plants because they are costly to test for and costly And difficult to remediate. Large rural utilities that have the ability to tax may be able to contain the cost on but small rural utilities are in trouble if their water is contaminated. (Typically they have a smaller customer base and no taxing authority so they MUST raise their rates)If you have a private well that is contaminated you are SOL.
In our area (Texas) the state sets the levels of contaminates that are allowed in drinking water and if a utility fails to meet these standards they are fined and in some cases disolved and put under management that can and will provide safe drinking water. We just cringe when the EPA says the level of contamination is abouve tha allowable limits but still “safe.”
If I lived anywhere that had its water even potentially affected by this I would put in a cistern and pray for rain.
January 6, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Maybe I missed it in the above, but Ukraine, which has been cuddling up to NATO of late (well, the western half of it, anyway) has been getting its gas at much lower prices than the stuff that transits to Europe. Russia wants to charge them the same as their new buddies pay. They want to have their cake and to eat it, too. (Ukraine, remember, was one of the “Colour Revolutions”. Wiki tells me it was “Orange”,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_revolution
but it was far from universally welcomed there.)
~
Just as an aside, a friend/colleague of mine went to Eastern Europe a few decades ago, when it was still under Russian control. He was in Bulgaria or somewhere like that (difficult to keep track of) and was there to familiarise the engineers at a power station with our company’s products. Apparently, the normal practice at the start of the day, when most of us would be heading for the coffee machine, was to knock back a shot of schnapps, with a second for luck. Then they’d get started. If this is still normal practice around there, it would explain a lot.
January 6, 2009 at 10:10 pm
“They want to have their cake and to eat it, too.”
Ukraine, that is.
January 6, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Here is what really happens at a coal mine. I used to work in one.
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If a state inspector shows up, everyone cracks jokes and shakes hands, drinks coffee and chit-chats until it is time to go into the mine. The state inspector does not go in. He goes into the trailer where the mine manager’s office is and they “talk”. He leaves with a brown envelope.
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If a federal inspector comes, he either calls first or if it is a “real” inspector, he tries to arrive at an opportune time, but usually families living at the head of the hollow will spot his truck and phone the mine up the road. The mine shuts down in less than 10 minutes and everyone goes home or hides in the hills.
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The federal inspector then waits for 30 minutes or so and then leaves. The mine then reopens and we all go back to work.
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I know what it feels like to be a mile and half underground and suddenly have the air flow stopped. Your body starts to heat up like you are in an oven and then you feel like you are going to explode from the inside out. It’s a terrible feeling.
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The law requires everyone to have an oxygen tank with them, but no one ever does. In the event of a mine explosion, anyone who survives the fireball must hold their breath and crawl as fast as possible to the dump (where the coal is dumped onto a conveyer belt that leads out of the mine). There might be an oxygen tank at the dump. Regardless, you have to get on the conveyer belt and hope it takes you out of the mine. Those who don’t make it to the dump in time die.
January 6, 2009 at 10:44 pm
From Gazprom earlier today:
‘Calling it “unprecedented,” Medvedev said Ukraine had unilaterally shut off three important pipelines to central and western Europe at 2.30 a.m. central European time.’
http://tinyurl.com/87hbzj
I also heard something about Ukraine syphoning off what they needed, but wasn’t paying much attention.
From Bloomberg a short while ago:
‘“If Ukraine fully stops delivery of gas to the west, for consumers in central and western Europe, we do not see sense in supplying gas to the border with Ukraine,” Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller said at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Novo-Ogarevo residence near the Russian capital.’
http://tinyurl.com/7ram68
Since our “peak power” is provided by gas turbines (jet engines) running on natural gas, this is not good. And it’s been quite chilly lately. Nasty ‘ol Russian bear.
January 6, 2009 at 10:48 pm
You said:
The toxic mess in Tennessee comes on the heels of the right wingers yelling at Al Gore who lives in Tennessee. The mocking of him talking about how evil coal burning power plants are should end.
Lets take a look at Al Gore shall we? First you buy yourself a media platform,
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/117/features-gore.html?page=0%2C2
Then you buy yourself a guhvmuhnt official,
http://riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2007/03/al_gores_inconv.html
To cover your ass so you can buy into these when they are broke,
http://groups.google.com.eg/group/aus.general/browse_thread/thread/ae741ef4fb50c6d7
Then you get a lame duck president to git yo’self a “contract for “playing ball”"
http://www.gereports.com/tag/energy/
‘Green Energy’ is a tax write off for giant corporations. Thats it. The jobs that they will create sound good. But the fact of the matter is now with the economy like it is with both Democrats and Republicans crying for a wage haircut means simply that you will recieve your wages with taxes removed hiddenly. What you will receive will go to deposit into one of the new bank holding companies that are evolving in Wall Street as we speak. So they in turn can use these ‘reserves’ to loan internationally. Makes you feel all fuzzy inside no? MWHAHAHHAHHA Comrades! Lets get green!
January 6, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Elaine: it’s not only energy that is stressing, the mid-level big boys are starting to fall on their swords like flies: ‘Broken’ Billionaire Merckle Killed Self, Family Says @ http://tinyurl.com/8laokt
[..]
“Merckle, whose holding company owes banks about 5 billion euros ($6.7 billion), owned stakes in HeidelbergCement AG and drug wholesaler Phoenix Pharmahandel AG. He had been seeking emergency financing for more than two months from a group of more than 30 banks led by Commerzbank AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg.”
[..]
Too big to fail?!!! This is real capitalism working as it should, that or someone took out the garbage. My guess is a hostile takeover has just been completed. Expect more of the same all over.
January 6, 2009 at 11:00 pm
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/index.html
Excellent article by denninger today.
PS: Whoever wrote The Old Testament (whether you believe it was God or man) understood this, which is why “Jubilee” – that is, the wiping of all debt by decree on specified intervals – was written into the Torah. They understood that only such an act halted the exponential “runaway” in the economy and thus prevented the ruin of the economy and the people. Is it not amusing that we claim to be “so advanced” and yet not one person in 100 in this country seems to understand that which an ancient people, living in a time before electricity, automobiles, The Internet and even running water had figured out exponents – but the huge majority of our citizens haven’t? And you wonder why I rant and rave about our so-called “education” system and “teachers”?
He is absolutly correct here, Levitical Law truly does prevent monopolies. Read it for yourself.
(KJV respectivly)
January 6, 2009 at 11:02 pm
ALL IMPERIALISTS are jokers when it comes to ’saving the environment.’ Why is this?
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If you read me more carefully, I mention over and over and over again how we insist on driving big, luxury vehicles as well as living in climate-controlled large buildings including offices, etc. ALL Americans INCLUDING GORE who is supposed to be worried about all this, are energy hogs.
;
I lived off the grid in a tent for ten years and running water was either rain or a person moving fast while carrying a bucket.
January 6, 2009 at 11:02 pm
By the way Elaine, thank you for your research and this excellent article. Love your blog. Keep up the good work!
January 6, 2009 at 11:09 pm
@ Gary
The media is covering Zilch right now! Nothing! No Galveston, no New Orleans, no Gaza! No Tennessee spill, Nothing on the ‘burst’ water main in Maryland. ( How the fuck does a 6 foot water main explode!). On a lighter note I cant even find out who the next coach of the Denver Broncos is going to be!
January 6, 2009 at 11:21 pm
The other news story not being covered is how state governors are revolting to our new prez! Blago senate pick and Ahnolds telling Obama to take his ‘highway’ package and shove it.
January 6, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Dutch: Debt forgiveness is a good way to go considering a lot of these loans have been fully paid by interest within 6 years. I fully subscribe to this. Denninger makes good on this article: Lyin’ Bankers, Meet Mathematics @ http://tinyurl.com/axjol6
[..]
…MOST people in this country don’t think that’s so bad, because they’d only pay 50% (in total) interest on the money. WRONG. Here’s the math:
[..]
In the first year, $100 @ 10% interest is $110.
In the second year, $110 @ 10% interest is $121 (oh oh, here it comes!) In the third year, $121 @ 10% interest is $133.10 (heh, what’s going on?)
In the fourth year, $133.10 @ 10% is $146.41 (why is my butt sore?) In the fifth year, $146.41 @ 10% is $161.05! And it gets worse from there. A lot worse.
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Now let’s do it the “simple way” – 10% interest over 10 years. You pay “twice” for that item, right? 10% interest, 10 years, 100%. Right? WRONG.
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…you pay 2.5937 times for that item, or nearly sixty percent more than a simple doubling, due to the exponential nature of interest. Now let’s take your 29% interest that the credit card companies want to charge nowadays, and figure out how badly you get screwed by that in ten years.
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Ready folks? You will pay NOT roughly three times the original purchase price but rather TWELVE POINT SEVEN SIX TIMES the price.
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That $10 pizza at 29% interest over 10 years will cost you ONE HUNDRED TWENTY SEVEN DOLLARS AND SIXTY CENTS, WITH ALL BUT $10 OF IT BEING INTEREST!” ~ Denninger
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The only questions I have about debt forgiveness are, who decides and when? It’s playing a game by fixed rules then changing them when you start loosing. What kind of a game is that? If you forgive the debt then forgive the interest as well, eh?
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Compounded or exponential interest should be banned completely. It is inflationary, and usurious. And it creates Greed monsters the like of Paulson who end up destroying the world economy.
January 7, 2009 at 1:25 am
Super-high interest rates are usurious ONLY if the central bank is charging bankers 0% interest on Treasuries, etc. The spread is now totally obscene and the Congress could demand this be rectified by establishing a ratio of differential. So if the rate at the Fed is only 0.5% then the credit cards can charge only 7%, for example.
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But the bankers pay Congress a billion a year to not do this.
January 7, 2009 at 1:54 am
CS Monitor has two interesting articles. Green revolution: still possible amid deep recession?
“…. Mr. Brown is looking to wind power, particularly offshore. He reckons that the world could generate 40 percent of its electricity from wind by 2030. This would require 1.5 million turbines producing 2 megawatts each. ….we already have 100,000 in operation and deployment is increasing exponentially
“The state of Texas,” Brown notes, “has become our leading generator of electricity from wind, with 6,000 megawatts installed and several thousand more under construction and in the planning stage. When these are completed, they will supply more electricity than the 24 million people in Texas can consume.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0107/p05s01-wogn.html?page=1
This next article may be the wave of the future as the economy tightens and communities return to the basics; co-ops and simpler living standards.(Why people can’t do for each other without religion as the catalyst in this day and age is well, ridiculous.) Photos of Montana and mountains:
Evangelists for local food
Even in winter on their Montana ranch, the Sabos eat local, and they encourage others to do the same……The Sabos – Jenny and Mark and their two boys, Riley, 8, and Kiril, 5 – are extreme locavores. Almost all of their food is produced locally; they purchase only 5 percent commercially at grocery stores. On their 500-acre ranch, 50 miles west of Bozeman, Mont., the Sabos grow many of their own vegetables. They raise free-range chickens for meat and eggs, grass-fed pigs and cows for meat, and other cows for dairy. Mark, an avid hunter, fills their freezer with wild game. What they don’t produce themselves, they trade or buy from area farmers.”
http://features.csmonitor.com/backstory/2009/01/05/evangelists-for-local-food/
Denmark has an awesome website. They should be seriously considered as a role model for government (minus the royal family), healthcare, and particularly for green energy and resources.
Denmark official website
http://www.denmark.dk/en
January 7, 2009 at 2:01 am
100% correct Elaine! What a bunch of cheap bastards, aren’t they!??? A billion dollars divided by the lot of them, in exchange for Trillions, what a deal, excellent return on bakshish, what a bunch of monkeys. (I find this offensive my Chinese sign being Monkey). They should be paid in rotten bananas instead, these congressional twits!
January 7, 2009 at 2:06 am
Onto economic commentary; “On the Economy” show on Bloomberg Television, Bill Poole took uncharacteristically sharp exception to the latest decisions by the Bernanke FOMC from their December Meeting minutes.
“The Fed is now expanding its balance sheet by printing money.”
He was also visibly perturbed that the FOMC appears to no longer be stepping up to managing the money supply which is its mandate, but rather is allowing the Board of Governors to expand the money supply ‘willy-nilly’ with no eye to targets, just an uncoordinated roll out of special facilities……….Jimmy Rogers has it right. “Bernanke’s going to keep printing money until they run out of trees.”
And:
The Treasury Bubble and the Central Banks: Imbalance à Go Go
The astute observer may notice a trend change in the way that foreign central banks choose to deploy their dollar reserves while supporting their industrial policies.
There should be little doubt why there is a bubble in Treasuries, and why the Federal Reserve is in the market buying mortgage debt.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/
January 7, 2009 at 2:24 am
rockpaperscizzors, the media are starting to come out and tell the truth of late. Too late the heroes? Have you watched the 60 Minutes report on the second wave of mortgage defaults? Check out, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IeixTAzhjE & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kin1fxZAJZE&feature=related, in that order.
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And for some interesting humor, watch The Black Hole, a short film which depicts what happened on Wall Street quite accurately! Enjoy!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_Msrdg3Hk
January 7, 2009 at 11:46 am
I live about 15 miles from the site of the TVA ash pond disaster, where 5.4 million cubic yards of coal fly ash containing arsenic and other toxic metals are now being “cleaned up” according to TVA and EPA and where, again according to EPA and TVA, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Everything is safe, safe, safe.
TVA and EPA have not explained, however, why they will not allow independent public organizations to sample wells and surface water in the area.
If you want to understand TVA’s environmental incompetence, you have to understand its management structure. Not one single high-level executive (http://www.tva.com/abouttva/leadership.htm) at TVA has a background in environmental sciences–not even the Senior Vice President, Office of Environment and Research and Environmental Executive.
And look at the Board of Directors (http://www.tva.com/abouttva/board/members.htm). Try to find one that can tell a nuke plant from a fly ash pond. But there are many who know how to head a venture capital firm–and they know how to award contracts to their cronies for the clean-up of the fly ash mess.
I could write a book about TVA’s systematic corruption, insider dealings, and environmental ignorance, but I won’t. The corruption that outrages thinking people is merely business as usual for the people of the New World Order.
January 7, 2009 at 11:47 am
And by the way, the other problem is regulatory. Coal fly ash isn’t regulated as a true hazardous waste, so TVA can simply pile it up behind an earthen berm and hope for the best.
January 7, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I heard someone describe the US Senate as ‘The Millionaires Club’. I think it was Dennis Kucinich. HaHa. Good One Dennis.
January 8, 2009 at 1:12 am
In case you don’t get this quite yet, CARBON is a very strange chemical. DNA has a CARBON “backbone,” for instance. The thing about this carbon atom is its absolute affinity for other atomic configurations. The carbon-carbon chemical bond is the strongest chemical bond that exists. It is why DNA is stiff and straight, while RNA is squiggly and foldable.
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Okay, diamonds, for example, are harder than any other things. But you cannot cut steel with them, because they are carbon, and they want to associate with heavy metals. Like iron, platinum, or uranium, for example.
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So, this carbon is both an ally and an enemy.
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All carbon, like the pure carbon that gets burned in power plants as anthracite, is loaded with Mercury and lead and uranium. The ash is very radioactive, in fact.
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Five atoms of this carbon are so tightly bound that it has been calculated that they could survive a supernova explosion.
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When you burn carbon (as coal), you are not burning a hydrocarbon, which also contains hydrogen. You are burning nearly pure carbon. Which naturally contains iron, platinum, or uranium, etc. The carbon burns. The other stuff REMAINS!
January 8, 2009 at 1:54 am
Very true, Blues!
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If you burn ANY mineral you ‘refine’ it since most things in nature are mixed bags. This is why we process stuff. Gold, for example, is nearly always around quartz. Refining gold uses arsenic which is a poison in nature.
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The very cells of our body have traces of many chemicals, toxicity is due to excess amounts. Life on earth used whatever free chemicals and minerals which were floating around in the primeval seas. Burning and processing anything creates ‘pollution’. Which is concentrates. Just like, zillions of dead bodies of water life forms 50 million years ago, when burned, releases all the sulfur these tiny creatures had in each of their microscopic bodies. Crushed by geological forces, the trace sulfur in each cell has great volume!