From Jenna Orkin
Davos/Energy
DAVOS-Saudis say don't worry about peak oil
Davos 2010: a new peak in oil production is needed
A 40pc increase in the demand for oil from China and other emerging economies will create the need for an extra 15 million barrels a day of production over the next two decades.
Sovereign debt fears shadow Davos (from Rice Farmer)
"Audience participants voted electronically, with 50.7% declaring sovereign debt to be the top candidate for the cause of the next global crisis."
Davos 2010: George Soros warns gold is now the 'ultimate bubble'
Obama Said to Seek $54 Billion for Nuclear Plants, Triple Current Amount
Brazil Is Sending Technicians to Help Chavez Deal with Energy Crisis
Europe
No EU bailout for Greece
Europe weighs possibility of Greek bailout
Greece's debt could prove 'fatal' to eurozone, German minister warns
Germany triggers panic
US/World
How Japanese Hyperinflation Could Turn The Dollar Into Toilet Paper (from Rice Farmer)
Is China About To Jolt US Markets?
Senate Approves Raising Government Borrowing Limit By $1.9 Trillion
Hey, that's less than 2 trillion.
Bernanke confirmed but is the most unpopular Fed chair ever
Geithner bashing not seen threatening job--for now
Marshall Auerback: Another mistake of Herbert Hoover proportions, and Obama is well on his way to becoming a one-term president
Paul Krugman: Obama never seemed stupid nor evil... until he coughed up this miserable spending freeze
Impact of recession: more suicides, fewer divorces
Goldman Ousts JPMorgan as World's Best Broker as Speed Shakes Up Trading
AIG Coverup Conspiracy Unravels
BlackRock Hires Ex-Goldman Sachs Banker Kendrick Wilson as Vice Chairman
Stiglitz: Regulate Banks. Now. Everywhere.
Roubini, Known as 'Dr. Doom,' Wants a New Nickname
Sunnyside Up?
The Chinese Transportation Boom Will Blow Your Mind
Goldman Sachs' China Problem
'Iran Is a Litmus Test for German-Israeli Ties'
Foreign Influence: Does a recent Supreme Court ruling really allow foreign companies to spend as much as they like in US elections?
ARGENTINA Has mining infiltrated universities?
Blame the Victim Department
Poor Construction, Not Earthquake, Was The Real Disaster
Medicines running out in Haitian hospitals
Red Cross: Stop sending your breast milk to Haiti
JO comment: ...In the fine tradition established after 9/11, when the Red Cross aided the residents of destroyed homes in Lower Manhattan by handing them buckets. The charity then dragged its feet on distributing the hundreds of millions of dollars it had raised, using the money instead to fund long-term projects, according to testimony of then State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
At a meeting of scientists and representatives of 9/11 Environmental Action with Senator Hillary Clinton, I raised the spector of the Red Cross embarrassment in the context of trying to procure funds for further testing and cleanup. Clinton told her aide, "Make a note of that."
The upshot of that lobbying trip, along with the leadership of Congressman Jerrold Nadler, was $20 million to clean the schools of Ground Zero.
Hamas says top commander killed by Israel in Dubai
Intelligence/Technology
Weapon Can Stop a Car Cold
Kiriakou Recants (from Vantage Point who comments:) Infamous CIA defender of waterboarding’s “effectiveness” writes three years later he basically made it all up. Won’t they be breathing a sigh of relief at Gitmo, Bagram and Abu Graib?
Environment/Health
Wind farms can make you ill
Bill Gates Funds Research on Climate Hacking
Massachusetts Mandates Brushing Kids' Teeth
CHILE Lawmakers seek to protect water
Woman will wed you for health insurance
Gates Makes $10 Billion Vaccines Pledge
I found this article to contain some interesting information. It discusses how global currencies may soon be replaced by carbon currency, and how this was an idea originally proposed by M. King Hubbert himself:
ReplyDeleteCarbon Currency: A New Beginning for Technocracy?
Three different perspectives on Haiti:
ReplyDeleteJohn Pilger: The kidnapping of Haiti
quote
Oil was found in Haiti’s waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington’s “rollback” plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela’s abundant oil reserves and sabotage of the growing regional cooperation that has given millions their first taste of an economic and social justice long denied by US-sponsored regimes.
unquote
The Destabilization of Haiti: Anatomy of a Military Coup d'Etat
A reprint of an article from 2004 describing the interest the US, and the CIA in particular , had in Haiti (and is therefore useful background to the current situation)
quote
Washington seeks to reinstate Haiti as a full-fledged US colony, with all the appearances of a functioning democracy. The objective is to impose a puppet regime in Port-au-Prince and establish a permanent US military presence in Haiti. The US Administration ultimately seeks to militarize the Caribbean basin. The island of Hispaniola is a gateway to the Caribbean basin, strategically located between Cuba to the North West and Venezuela to the South. The militarization of the island, with the establishment of US military bases, is not only intended to put political pressure on Cuba and Venezuela, it is also geared towards the protection of the multibillion dollar narcotics transshipment trade through Haiti, from production sites in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
unquote
From our very own dalex
quote
I was sent to Haiti on the 23rd, and have been learning first-hand about disaster response. If you'd like to see a non-mainstream glimpse of the situation here, feel free to browse my flickr photos
unquote
Thank you dalex for posting these - they show a very different perspective of Haiti from that displayed on the MSM. What a peaceful yet beaten people you show us...
Namaste
Is it possible for the Olympics to be the next 9/11?
ReplyDeletehttp://dprogram.net/2010/01/25/could-vancouver-2010-could-be-the-next-911/
Probably conspiracy hysterics, but then again what if it isn't?
namaste
I'm so relieved to see that Peak Oil is not a problem. Don't worry, be happy!
ReplyDeleteWhat's needed is another planet to rape and destroy. But there isn't one -- thank God.
ReplyDeleteI pray that the people who utter these lies now are still alive when today's children have to live (or not) with the consequences. And I hope those kids remember who told the lies.
MCR
Yeah, I gotta say... After watching that Davos panel video, it's utterly amazing to me the lengths these CEO's go to avoid acknowledging peak oil.
ReplyDeletehttp://energybulletin.net/node/51352
Of the six executives, only 2 mentioned the term -- one, the Saudi Aramco CEO, gave a surface denial that it exists (without anything to support his assertion. Only the French guy, Total's CEO, acknowledged Peak was real and a real problem.
Do they think we're all stupid? They've (IEA) admitted 5-9% annual decline in production from existing pools. They've admitted no significant pools (50bbs) have been found in over 30 years. How in God's name can any of them insist a 40% increase in daily production is even remotely possible?
Do they honestly expect us all to believe that ANWR, Brazil, West Africa, and other kiddie pools can produce an extra 40%?
I hate to quote Darth Cheney himself, but "where is the oil going to come from?"
Yes sunrnr, thank you for reminding the blog of Kinder Morgan's missing nitrate issue.
ReplyDeleteThis is something to watch, as Vancouver approaches rapidly. What most disturbing about this story is that the press whipped up a "nothing to see here" story on Jan. 6, insisting the 2-tons of missing ammonium nitrate was all accounted for, and that it was a "clerical error."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jVSUz8BE81c-vfDJhZJPGiEPgRhw
But two weeks later, the RCMP's come out saying, essentially, 'what are you talking about?' We can't confirm anything yet.' "
http://www2.canada.com/northshorenews/news/story.html?id=5676faf8-fcb9-4945-b93b-23e67aa208d1
Just where IS this fertilizer? Beuller?
@Guy Fawkes -
ReplyDeleteWhere is the oil going to come from?
http://bit.ly/d3ajhp
"Hayward, group chief executive of BP said he hoped Iraq would become a major oil player, producing up to 10mbd in the next decade if the political situation remains relatively stable."
Gee, thank goodness Saddam Hussein and his vast stockpile of WMDs are out of the way.
Hey there Eddie Willers et al, Had existence come into existence only for the purpose of eternally rising into the infinite realms of graven imagery worship, we'd all of us eventually find ourselves first place trophy winners swimming in mountains of, well... take your pick: fiat currencies, gold bullion, bottomless pits of sweet crude, McDonald's Hamburgers, diamonds, black rhino horn-handled shivs... hell... for that matter... anything and everything that fits to one's fundamentally small-minded fancies -- so long as they're damn sure physical and damn sure not spiritual! However:
ReplyDeleteEverything said above speaks of the way it's actually never been, not the way it is now, and not the way it's ever gonna be. Fact is, everything we've been going through down here on good ol' planet Earth since day one has been occurring precisely, clearly, and as comprehensively as necessary to reveal & affirm what eventually every single human being will one day know concerning the fundamental construct & nature of reality.
Bottom line: It's strictly up to each one of us to right now try personally catching on to, or not, what Life is all about; The Truth always proves itself, for all of us.
*****
Yes, profit motive driven capitalism has damn sure been an indispensible socio-ideological instrument for bringing the human condition to where it is today. But it's also winding down to being worth squat for getting us beyond where it's brought us. Meaning: We who feel ourselves being motivated by our human condition's current circumstances will do well to begin consciously connecting with the source of our -- and everything else's -- existence. If 'a significant number' of us fail to do that in our current bodies' lifetimes... it's gonna be one helluva long time before we're back to this point again. Guaranteed.
I decided to google "Haiti" and "offshore oil" and what came up first but an except of an article by Cynthia McKinney,with this passage:
ReplyDeleteMs. Marguerite Laurent - attorney for ousted President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide - reminds us of Haiti's offshore oil and other mineral riches and recent revivial of an old idea to use Haiti and an oil refinery to be built there as a transshipment terminal for U.S. supertankers.
"There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up. This is detailed by Dr. Georges Michel in an article dated March 27, 2004 outlining the history of oil explorations and oil reserves in Haiti and in the research of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin.
"There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti's deep water ports either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or depots where crude oil could be stored and later transferred to small tankers to serve U.S. and Caribbean ports. This is detailed in a paper about the Dunn Plantation at Fort Liberte in Haiti.
"Ezili's HLLN underlines these two papers on Haiti's oil resources and the works of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin in order to provide a view one will not find in the mainstream media nor anywhere else as to the economic and strategic reasons the US has constructed its fifth largest embassy in the world - fifth only besides the US embassy in China, Iraq, Iran and Germany - in tiny Haiti, post the 2004 Haiti Bush regime change."
Full article can be found at GlobalReasearch.com. (Date is Jan. 30).
I've got a question to those here who are still invested in the market. I am right now looking over my portfolio and making some significant changes. I am Leary of going all in on gold, and am looking at allocating 20% of my portfolios value to physical gold. Right now I have about 50% exposure to stocks thru a managed fund, which I want to get away from. I waited for the market to come back to where it is now to do this, but need to get it done now before the stock market takes it's double dip. I am thinking of allocating 25-30% to a commodities basket that has just about everything including a good amount of food. Any advice about what to do with the other 50% of my money would be appreciated. I can't sell all out now bc of enormous penalty fees and tax issues. I really feel like commmodities are the only thing to be in today with the coming currency crisis. My broker thinks bond funds are safe, I feel they are junk as everyone and everything are on the verge of bankruptcy. If anyone knows of a good financial planner that has our worldview, I would definitely consider talking to them. It seems that most brokers I talk to don't see things like we do, and are stuck in the box of the current paradigm. I found a guy I like who's cautious, but still isn't of my worldview. I think he thought I was somewhat of a doomer, but quite impressed with the things I told him. I refered him to the blog to supplement his reading. My biggest deliema is putting too many eggs in one basket, and while I feel confident in gold, this new bubble talk is making me even more uneasy even though I know that it really is one of few sound investments with the collapse looming. I see the bubble talk and who it's coming from as a last ditch effort to continue to surpress the price of gold, but who knows anymore, maybe these oligarchs will end up with a carbon based currency.
ReplyDeleteHey now Mr. Ruppert, Gosh, you need not have such a vindictive attitude toward them thar poor dumb baloney-brained billionaire liars, thieves, & murderers for doin' their jobs controlling this world's trip to its (and their) end. Hell! Somebody has had to do it while the ultimate Power That IS has had us all sucking up this world's resources to keep us exploding our human population via producing & consuming every imagineable thing we needed to to ensure our species' grand final step into IT's/the/our future. Hell! In one way or another, we've ALL been involved in getting this job done, right as I'm sitting here on my comfortable ass clacking out these R & D words on this Sony 'puter for whoever's gonna read 'em hopin' maybe at least one of 'em catches on to what we're sayin'!
ReplyDelete*****
It's time for all of us to start working together, dear human kind friends & family members, and start winding down as best we can our dumb habit of variously frowning & throwing rocks at each other for all of us merely doing what each one of us was born to do. Yeah, knowing everything this way can sure seem weird for a while; but those of us who are up for learning how to do it also get to know the interminable future! whereas those who aren't up for learning?.. well... they're headed for what some call the bottomless pit -- no exceptions: evolutionary progress reigns absolutely supreme, you know.
*****
Also, btw/fyi, we mere humans write these words according to how their Source guides us to. For real, it's the same for all of us in terms of everything we do. Catching on to that fact counts a whole bunch.
Cheers to all!
Mark Robinowitz wrote:
ReplyDeletehttp://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/01/oregons-death-spiral-business-owners.html
>
>
>
> yes, some people don't like that businesses might have to pay more than $10 per year ...
>
> it's a progressive income tax, a rare event anywhere
>
> Oregon has no sales tax and underfunds schools. Sure, some tycoons are greedy and don't believe in public education of the others (the unwashed masses) but
> I'm sure that those who give a shit will do just fine with the passage of 66 and 67. Half of the businesses that the "global analysis" blog cites as no longer in Oregon are the types of businesses no longer functioning anywhere. RV manufacturing. Timber companies that stripped their forests and now have stumps and small trees. Financial speculators. None of this is unique to Oregon.
> And no one who actually lived here and had a slight interest in fact checking would claim that unions control Oregon. Unions are used by the Democratic Party, but the idea that they're in control is right wing paranoid bullshit.
>
> No need to include drivel like the "global economic analysis" on your blog,
it's a form of right wing disinformation even more toxic than the demolition theories.
Ammonium nitrate fertilizer might be used to blow up something, but can't it also be used to grow food? "GOOD AS GOLD" describes commodities like fertilizer (an excellent investment for Stu), which will be absolutely essential and appreciate in value at least as much as (and probably more than) inflation rises.
ReplyDeleteBut better than commodities are capital equipment. Why stockpile juice and neglect to buy a quality juicer? With energy at a premium, generation equipment -- and also tools that can use human power or some other easily obtained input -- would make a lot of sense.
Here are some investments I can see as highly desirable:
Dynamo-driven items, hand-powered grinders (or bicycle-driven ones), hand drills, good nails, screws and brackets, bicycles and spare parts, LED lights, solar panels, rechargable batteries of all kinds, garden tools, heirloom seeds from your area, spare shingles, copper wire, solar stills for making alcohol, solar food dryers, cider presses, weaving looms, treadle sewing machines, blankets, medical supplies, rocket stoves, cookpots, water purifiers -- all the stuff we'll know we need later (but can get easily today) would make great investments.
I suppose it would also pay to have a secure basement where this stuff could be discretely stockpiled.
A friend of mine said, "A list of Mormon households would be vital to any pirate when TSHTF." In other words, if everyone knows you have a stockpile, you might as well paint a target on your house. For the same reason, I don't recommend zealous personal accumulation. Make sure your friends have what they need -- and your community has what it needs -- and when TSHTF you'll have what you need.
I'm with eyeballs as far as the investments go. Stu might also consider acquiring a nice plot of land with good soil in a rural environment to live on. Or what about some rental property? You don't have to be a slum lord, but people still need a place to live, and once all those folks have all been foreclosed on, they will all be looking for a nice apartment to live in. If you find something you like, have it inspected first and do the math to be sure its not a money pit. Mine was for a good long time, but I did much of the work myself and now the relatives who thought I was a lunatic are now saying how lucky I am to have the place. If the dollar collapses, you still have the tangible property, but I am wondering who would have anything to pay the rent with once TSHTF.
ReplyDelete* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As far as the Depletion of Resources article goes, I was supposed to go to the John Jeavons sustainable agriculture course in NJ this week, but got stuck in the horrible weather and turned back. Jeavons claims it IS possible to grow all one's own food on a small parcel of land without use of outside fertilizers, etc. My rough calculations give roughly 3500-4600 square feet to fit his 21 bed biointensive garden plus 2 compost plots. Of course the more family members one has, the more plots one needs, and one can't expect record harvests until one has improved the soil. It's a lot of work, but then, we soon won't be doing the old 9 to 5 anymore, so what else will we have to do?
It would be good to start thinking about this kind of set up now to establish a skills base and get the soil improved before the real emergency occurs. Someone once said "Once disaster strikes, the time for preparation has passed".