More politics of peak oil

One can be forgiven for not understanding the state of our world today in terms of oil and its availability. A new article in Forbes assures us that peak oil is off, that the world is awash in oil. Meanwhile, an article from the current issue of The Economist claims the opposite: that oil supply is insufficient to keep up with demand. Meanwhile, the president is blaming high prices on those nasty speculators. So which of these competing claims is a person to believe? For the uninitiated, peak oil is the point in time when maximum extraction of the world's oil endowment is reached. Since oil is a finite resource, we can exploit it in increasing amounts until we can't any longer, and flows begin to decline.

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Read more about the article Secretary of the Treasury doesn’t understand economics
Timmy "Turbotax" Geithner. Image via Wikipedia (commons)

Secretary of the Treasury doesn’t understand economics

Tim Geithner, appointed to Secretary of the Treasury despite being unable to calculate his own taxes, has just proven he does not understand the role of oil prices in modern economies. Speaking at a breakfast today in Washington, Geithner claimed that:

“The economy is in a much stronger position to handle” rising oil prices, Geithner said.... “Central banks have a lot of experience in managing these things.”
This is the opposite of truth. Central banks do not, in fact, have a lot of experience in dealing with rapidly rising oil prices in a worldwide recessionary environment where there is no clear deflation nor inflation. Hell, central banks do not even have a lot of experience in managing an out of control real-estate bubble, or dot-com bubble, or any of the economic crises that hit over the past decade or so. Nor is the American economy in a "much stronger" position than it was in 2008, which was the last time a major oil price spike played a role in devastating the world economy. In fact, there is no shortage of people arguing the opposite of Geithner. Let's start with Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA). Just yesterday, he warned of the danger of high oil price's impact on the economy:

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Bankster agitprop

ZeroHedge has earned a spot in my RSS feed. A diverse group of mostly pseudonymous bloggers who consistently produce excellent financial reporting, many times breaking scandals and should-be scandals before the mainstream media. They focus on the themes of intrigue in the world of high finance, corruption, politics, and the nexus where those areas intersect. Over the past month or so, I've noticed an increasing amount of visual propaganda coming from ZeroHedge, and some of it is quite amusing. For the latest entry, they lampoon the news that Angelo Mozilo (the bankster behind the collapse of Countrywide financial) is going scott-free. Here's some background on Mozilo, from the New York Times:

The conclusion by prosecutors that Mr. Mozilo, 72, did not engage in criminal conduct while directing Countrywide will likely fuel broad concerns that few high-level executives of financial companies are being held accountable for the actions that led to the financial crisis of 2008.

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Anti-communist propaganda alive and well

For some reason, our government and its propaganda arm, the mainstream media, refuses to give up beating the dead horse that is Cuba. We've had it in for them ever since they went Commie, and we're not about to quit now! I just noticed this article from Newsweek entitled "Castro tells the truth about Cuba" which gives us the current bad news:

He has outlasted eight U.S. presidents, survived countless CIA efforts to do him in, and his communist regime has remained in power for a generation after the collapse of his Soviet sponsors. So what does the leader of the 1959 Cuban revolution think now of the system he created? Last week The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported Fidel Castro’s startlingly honest assessment: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” Some observers suggest that the 84-year-old Castro’s unexpected honesty may be a belated attempt to throw himself on history’s mercy. After all, they say, Cuba is in tatters. According to Andy Gomez, assistant provost at the University of Miami, tourism on the island has declined 35 percent this year, and remittances are expected to drop to $250 million—far below the peak of $800 million earlier this decade. Cuba’s own National Statistics Office has reported that economic indicators, such as construction and agriculture, were down significantly in the first half of the year. And last month, President Raúl Castro began a process of dismissing or transferring some 20 percent of state employees—a major move, given that the government employs more than 90 percent of the country’s labor force. Says Gomez, “The Cuban economy is the worst it’s ever been.”
How dare Castro "survive countless CIA efforts to do him in", who does he think he is?? Anyway, some of these numbers are meaningless without comparison, so let's look at the good-old U.S. of A. [More . . .]

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Woody Tasch discusses destructive economics

In this three-minute video, author Woody Tasch compellingly illustrates that "Economic growth is not synonymous with well being." In fact, much of what we call "economic growth" is destructive. Woody concludes: "We can't just continue to grow our way out of our problem. In fact, 'economic growth' is often destructive.'" My strategy is to disparage the ubiquitous media reports that applaud when the GDP is "up," or when the "economy" is humming along. Those numbers assume that strip mining is better for the economy than conservation measures. They assume that rampant crime is better for the economy than fixing many of the root causes of crime-- e.g., the "war on drugs," injects violence into drug use and "allows" us to hire a lot more police officers, whereas decriminalizing drugs might cause the loss of law enforcement jobs. The many commentators who fetishize the GDP embrace a principle that prefers a violence-ridden police state. We need to dramatically shift our focus from measuring numbers of dollars flowing through the system to (admittedly more difficult task of) measuring the real quality of life.

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