AIGI knew they would never let AIG go down. There's too much government dirty laundry there. Covert ops would collapse as well. No, I think it's clear now. What's going down is not Wall Street; it's the government of the United States of America -- to keep Wall Street alive.

It's on the map.

For more information, see the two-part series FTW was running on AIG which was "interrupted" by 9-11.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/part_2.html

MCR

AIG

What's smelly is that AIG's bankruptcy ($632 billion) is ten times larger than Enron at $63 billion. This is the 400 trillion derivatives bubble popping. Total drug flows are only $600-700 billion a year, not all of which goes through US companies. AIG needs maybe $70-100 billion NOW to service its bad debt plus the claims it will face from Ike and Gustav. Their housing paper is never going to recover value because of Peak Oil and already shattered demand. This is bigger than the drug trade can help with. Drug cash was used to keep the system liquid when it was strained and wobbly five years ago. Now it's onlife support.

Recent market rigging only hastened the implosion. I suspect that too much demand may have been destroyed and what we're seeing is that falling (bombed) oil prices are not producing new revenue streams. People are either chosing NOT to return to old patterns or they cannot.

Good, let the shake out happen right now!


MCR

Collapse on Wall Street

This is what collapse looks like on Wall Street. October looks like it is going to be bloody beyond belief. Read the story closely and smell the fear. T here is now a $400 trillion derivatives bubble hanging in the balance. The government has drawn the line on bailouts. That's good but it means the Fed is getting seriously squeezed and it hasn't dealt with Ike yet. We don't have a clue as to how much damage Ike did yet but it was serious. The price of gold has been bombed as bad as the price of oil. Both are due for huge breakouts and capital is looking for the exits. Today is going to be a busy, busy day. We have passed the Plunge Protection Team's pay grade.

I have no way of knowing because I won't take the enormous time to d oit; but I wonder if Lehman was also trading oil. You see all the lies that the short-sighted markets tell themselves have maturity dates beyond the markets' visual range. Then, like two trains, they round ab end from opposite directions and things get "marked to market". Lehman is only one car in the train. Bear Stearns was the first; then Lehman. Fannie and Freddie are a different train wreck with the same cause. B of A just bought Merril Lynch. How many times have I said it was always going to be a liquidity crisis that broke things open? There isn't enough opium in Afghanistan or Coca in Bolivia to fix this one.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/14/news/companies/lehman_brothers/index.htm

(Yes, I live in L.A. and it was a God-awful train crash we had.)

MCR

Richard Heinberg, Perfectly Said
Michael Kane's blog


MCR responds:


Well said, Mike.

Another way to put it is that mother nature may be opposing market manipulations and making them very, very risky. I have no answers but I wonder about what connections Lehman may have as well. If rigged market plays get too far out of the money, the entire derivatives bubble may be at risk and that's around $300 trillion -- with a "t". The key is liquidity.

Bush has just suspended certain (many?) EPA regs for gasoline manufacture and distribution in the wake of Ike. There is quiet desperation everywhere for energy.

Another clue is the sudden emergence of shale gas as a boom commoditywhile the EPA and state/local agencies remain virtually silent on toxic waste and water consumption. There are chemicals used infracking that remain unidentified to the public because they are"trade secrets". Local water tables are being depleted at an alarming yet fully undisclosed rate. In the meantime stories are starting to emerge that show how destructive shale gas production is.

All thing considered, Ike's real damage has yet to be fully seen and I don't know if band aids will hold things together. The scrawl on CNN is talking about the U.S. importing refined gasoline on an emergencybasis. From where? From whom?

MCR

JO then sent: Fearing Bankruptcy, Derivative Traders Hold Emergency Session

MCR responded: "This about sums it up, on the 'understated' side. Another way of saying all this is that this is more than even the Plungd ProtectionTeam can handle."

What was it I said about the markets being rigged here? The following story is just enormous. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike are out-leveraging the Bush administration. It will be impossible to cover the "shorts" that are out there. Oil prices are manipulated and Ike is most likely gong to bust them apart farther than TPTB can handle. They're not that liquid in my opinion. This story leads right to the heart of what's going on. It's not that the the bribery is occurring. We knew that. It's that it's being reported.

"It may not be profitable to slow decline." -- Quote from Dutch Economist Martin Van Mouren; [Paris - ASPO 2003].

[CORRECTION to last post -- It's not Minerals and Mining Service.It's Minerals Management Service of the Department of Interior -- MMS]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/10/oiil.scandal/index.html

Keep watching the blog. There's a lot of heavy stuff going on. I will be commenting. There's nothing to lose."And it's One, Two, Three..."

---MCR

Ike has made a hard right, directly to the heart of oil and gas infrastructure. LOOP is there. The Lousiana Offshore Oil Port. It is the ONLY place where large supertankers from the Mideast, Venezuelaand Africa can offload.

I ask again, "So why are oil prices falling?" This is just plain obvious market manipulation. According to the Minerals and Mining Service, 77% of Oil and gas in the Gulf is now shut it. This price manipulation is way out of hand. Like someone once said, "Those who win in a rigged game get stupid." The press mentions that the Gulf holds 25% of US oil and gas production. What they don't mention is that the Gulf is 40% of America's energy when LOOP is accounted for. The shorts are getting so far "out of the money" that it might just break someone's bank.

Did the Russians ever master weather control? Weather manipulation? Georgia is having massive repercussions throughout the world. There is blood in the water.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/031306.shtml?5day#contents

--MCR--

Two Russian Bombers Land in Venezuela

Watchgroup Sues Cheney Over Records

If I ruled the press of the world -- which obviously I do not -- this would be the lead story everywhere. This is the one place where the Empire is most exposed -- weakest. If this were a movie, now would be about the time -- at the end of Act II -- when the one you thought was the real bad guy left the movie and you realized that there was something moving behind the curtain. I am certain that Mr. Cheney has analyzed his position well and prepared for it.

There was a powerful story told in HBO's "Conspiracy" from a few years back. It starred Kenneth Brannagh and it was just a brilliant piece of filmmaking about the meeting undertaken by the Third Reich to approve and implement the "Final Solution". Kenneth Branagh played Reinhard Heydrich and Stanley Tucci played Eichman. In discussing the Final Solution, one holdout Nazi leader told Heydrich the story of a man who hated his father for his entire life -- bitterly. Ho loved his mother. When his mother died, the man wept only a little. But when his father died, he broke down completely and cried for days -hysterically.

Oh, if we could only get the NEPDG records. I have called them the Holy Grail from Day One.


MCR

Russia Says to Send Nuclear Warship to Caribbean

Georgia Update (MCR); Palin, Perfect Patsy (JO)

GEORGIA UPDATE -- Saturday September 6, 2008 -- 6 PM PDT


Michael C. Ruppert

As the linked story reveals, someone has pushed the Stupid Button on both sides. I have had a concern since Day One that this might be match point play. If so, then both sides are going (pardon the mixed metaphor) "all in". These are the baby steps of escalation. Once the trickle starts, the dam will have to burst quickly because each delay in response will signal weakness. I am not ready to say that this is it yet, but I have thought that this might be the answer to Peak Oil that we all wanted least.

Be concerned. I do not see a collusion between elites here. I see elites at war.

As Jamey Hecht or Sophocles might say, "The Gods fight themselves." The only good news if that if that be true is; then they can't be Gods. God does not fight Itself.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/06/cheney.russia/index.html


Palin, Perfect Patsy


Jenna Orkin

In an era when what counts above all is selling toothpaste, Sarah Palin has it all: Looks (the Barracuda even has toothpaste-selling teeth); the Reaganesque savvy to disarm her critics with self-effacing humor ("What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick;") and to top it off, Wonder Woman prowess at hunting and skinning a moose. We know-it-all East Coast city slickers are impressed in spite of ourselves. Even the Peak Oilists have to admit that, however perversely, she has some of what it takes to make it through the hard times, at least on a personal level.

What makes the package even better for the Repubs is that the Powers That Be, operating, as always, on a need-to-know basis, will keep her pumped with disinformation so that she'll continue to preach the party line: Drill, Baby, Drill! Nukes! "Clean" Coal! Then, as an afterthought, wind/solar/geothermal and whatever other renewables you want to throw into the kit, what the hell.

Americans, who every day become more incapable of analysis any deeper than tabloid level, respond to her poignant yet sitcom family dilemmas, her spunky ability to bounce back and what's more, to project her own problems onto a national scale, promising, for instance, that other famililes with special needs children will have a voice in the White House (one of the few real issues she addressed in her acceptance speech.)

In sum, What a great package! And the fact that there's nothing inside - that can do us any good, anyway - makes her all the more perfect as a choice for running mate. Her ignorance of the true facts behind our energy crisis only makes her a more effective proponent for economic growth which is the original cancer of our mortally ill civilization. If you want to convey the impression that your solutions to various impending crises are innocent of environmental or social havoc, there's nothing like sending out a messenger who genuinely doesn't know any better.

Like W, she's being bought with power. After all, look where her zealous promotion of the party platform has gotten her so far. And like W, she's being set up to take the eventual and fatal fall. That the rest of us will fall with her is just part of the Darwinian scheme of things.

Air Force Wants Coal as King of Fleet's Fuel
Cement from CO2: A Concrete Cure for Global Warming
Weather Wars
Price of Oil, Purging Voters and Election
I'm the Chimpion! (sic)
Ape vs Human memory test

Thoughts on Sarah Palin and Hurricane Gustav - MCR One Giant Step Backwards For Womankind - JO

Thoughts on Sarah Palin and Hurricane Gustav

The selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be John McCain's running mate is terrifying. It would be good news if McCain were just out of his mind or desperate. Remember Dan Quayle? Quayle was also a lightweight. But in Quayle's case there was little to suggest what his influence in Indiana could do for the Bush I administration. In Palin's case what she can do for a McCain administration is all too obvious. She can help turn Alaska into one giant oil field quickly and without any concern for the environment. She can redefine the term"fast track". She knows the state and can wheel and deal in the places that will most quickly open up protected areas for drilling. Damn the torpedoes... That realization was instantaneous for me. Then came the second epiphany. McCain is acting as if the election is irrelevant and it just may be. The Republicans did steal the last two didn't they? Is this one already so far in the bag that McCain doesn't care what she does to his national ticket? I pray there is some other explanation.

I am finishing a new book called "A Presidential Energy Policy". No details yet but we'll announce it for sure when the time comes. As Ihave been researching it I have come to see that this nation is absolutely desperate for energy. Desperate to the point of utter recklessness.

And Hurricane Gustav homes in on the biggest concentration of oil and gas rigs in the Gulf. Like a sniper's round destined to impact NewOrleans with a head shot after tearing through the vital organs of our energy infrastructure we can only watch helplessly and pray for the well being of those in its path. We are all in its path.

-- MCR


One Giant Step Backwards For Womankind

Whether to cry or vomit, that is the question that so readily and so often pops into mind these days. Any woman, possibly disgruntled at the defeat of Hillary, who cheers the choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate for a Presidential candidate needs to stop and think ahead a step or two: Say McCain, who, whatever theoretical good qualities he may have, has rarely been accused of youth, becomes indisposed to the point of no longer being able to govern. We now have our first female President. Wow. Inexperienced and, in a party not short on machismo, anxious to prove herself one of the boys, Palin is a tad overzealous in an era that calls for depth of thought and understanding.

As the world is on the brink of disaster anyway, her mistakes are magnified and the results, calamitous.

The country, or whatever is left of it, says, "You see? We had a woman President and what happened?"

It will be the end of female power for aeons; again, if there are any.

If Obama wins, he too, will be biting off more than he can chew (since it's more than anybody can chew) and will be destined to fail. But he does not face the same fate as far as history goes. He will be blamed for what happens but only as an individual and not, I think, because of his race (except among racists who were against him anyway.)

In other words, racism is alive and well but it is not so pervasive as anti-feminism. It's not politically correct to be a racist and there has been a sea change in progress over the last fifty years.

Feminism has seen progress in tangible areas such as admission to medical school and token CEOs but less in intangibles such as attitudes, assumptions and beliefs. The supposed differences between men and women are still the stuff of arguments and sitcoms. Nobody would ever write a book saying that one race is from Mars and another, from Venus.

So if the moment the wrecking ball strikes, McCain steps out of the way (possibly via a heart attack) and Palin is poised to catch it, then like Eve, she will earn her honorary male status as the fall guy.

--JO


Best insights on web so far re Palin