Tuesday, September 30, 2008

THE DAY AFTER

Today's rally is just about what I expected. Yesterday $1.2 trillion disappeared and today about half of that came back into the market as brand new money; money that was liquid on the sidelines. In a liquidity crisis, liquidity gets sucked up like water flows down. A lot of this money is probably from brand new investors who have been suckered in, believing they were bargain basement buying. There were probably also a lot of first-time buyers. If this pump and dump crashes again within a month or two it will be wringing the American small investor like a wet towel and it could happen several more times, each one sucking up the last bits of cash Americans have and will need to make it. Look at the market between 1929 and 1932 when the REAL Depression arrived. It's happened before and we are repeating history. Today is only 1929 and I pray we get to 1932 as quickly as possible. Then things can begin to improve, especially if we can get the world more focused on Peak.

I could not agree more with Suze Orman that now is the worst time to buy stocks; the dust hasn't settled; and the worst is not over. Now is the time to watch. Too bad she doesn't get Peak Oil.

Finding out what foreign governments are doing is like pulling teeth.They don't want to start a mad run on US assets but they need out fairly quickly.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY?

Given that many nations are already treating us "poorly"; what do you think international reaction would be if our standard of living remained the same and everyone else's tanked? Will Dick Cheney stand up and feel the wrath? Sorry, the deal's already been struck. We go down first by many painful rungs from which we will not return. That keeps the nukes sheathed (they hope), and they aren't all Russian.

MCR

Monday, September 29, 2008

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TODAY

Sept. 29, 2008

by Michael C. Ruppert


For years I have told you exactly what was going to happen and it has. Today's economic meltdown, with the Dow dropping 777 points and $1.2 trillion in equity lost is no exception. In our second FTW Economic Alert back in 2002 I predicted a market crash that saw $1 trillion in shareholder equity lost in the following three months. -- $1.2 trillion was destroyed just today. That and much more.

In FTW's fourth and last Economic Alert(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/061406_abyss_awaits.shtml)-- just 11 days before our offices were burglarized on June 25, 2006-- I specifically warned that this day (metaphorically speaking) would come. What prompted that alert was an unprecedented move by President George W. Bush to give the National Director of Intelligence, John Negroponte, the authority to exempt "certain" Wall Street firms and banking giants from reporting their financial records to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was this move which permitted everything that has happened over the last month. That move allowed smaller banks and investors to continue buying pigs (without lipstick) in a poke while average Americans were led to believe that everything was OK. If you don't believe me, go read the Economic Alert for yourself. It's all right there -- everything.

And if you had followed every piece of advice I gave in that warning-- two years ago -- today's events would have made you money. They would have strengthened your family. They would have made you immune to the panic that today touched American public consciousness.

Gold is likely to explode in price in short order. $2,000 an ounce is possible within six months.

Since 2003 I have told my readers that the destruction of the U.S.economy was planned, essential and a foregone conclusion. It has to do with Peak Oil. There is no economy without energy. The world is running out of oil faster than almost anyone had predicted. Even previously optimistic opponents of Peak Oil have acknowledged that global decline is now between 5.8% and 9% per year. That means that if the world produces 85 million barrels per day this year, it will possibly produce less than 80 Mbpd next year. Demand destruction is conserving a resource for which there is no replacement and this is what has always been intended. An $8 drop in price today has done nothing to reignite demand. The United States, with 5% of the world's population using a quarter of the world's oil, was/is the ONLY point of demand destruction available that will save human industrialized civilization. I have said that consistently for many years. I told you that the real Powers That Be had gotten or would get their money out and safe before they crashed everything. They did... It was your money. It was our money.

Those who read FTW for years know that time after time, and year after year my predictions have been proven correct. The United States economy is being deliberately destroyed. The fact that it was Republican House members who blocked the bailout today confirms that they are helping the Bush Administration complete its last mission before leaving office: the complete destruction of the American economy and the financial crippling of the American people. I believe the intent is, and has been, to leave a newcomer African-American president with an economy on life support which will expire early in his watch. Every Obama campaign ad that now promises to "turn the economy around" only tightens the noose around his neck. The subconscious "Jerome Corsi" message is, "Blame the blacks" next year when you get it that the Great Depression was a picnic compared to what is coming.

This is now the fast crash scenario. It is further complicated by two things.

First; today's failure coincidentally occurred at the beginning of Rash Hashana. I am not suggesting that Jewish members of congress had any part of this. It would not be, however, the first time that great crimes have been committed and subsequently blamed on Jews. The subconscious "Jerome Corsi" message is "Blame the Jews". Congress will now not reconvene until Thursday, October 7. Seeing the meltdown and collapse of the U.S. financial system, and the failure of the U.S. government, a two-day congressional stand down will give other nations time to realign and adjust their finances before it is possible to see another House vote. In my opinion foreign economies will been energetically disengaging from the U.S. economy and the dollar in tranches as big as possible without totally destroying the value of their holdings. During that time, with the markets open, giants like Citigroup (not the only one) will be exposed. They have been counting on the bailout. Citigroup may survive but others will not. The ones who do survive will ultimately be corporations that have been in on this plan. Goldman Sachs will most certainly survive. Berkshire Hathaway will undoubtedly survive.

Just a few days ago China ordered its banks to stop lending to U.S. banks.

Second; Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, rebels in Nigeria, and pirates off Somalia are becoming increasingly more aggressive. They do this not with the intent of physically attacking the United States itself, but with breaking its credibility and economic back. The U.S. has been humiliated in Georgia and North Korea is firing up its nuclear plants again. I have predicted this for years also and it is totally understandable given the belligerent, hostile and bullying foreign policy of the United States over the last eight years. I predict tha ton the geopolitical scene we are going to see (or not) some very serious realignments beginning over the next two weeks. They will be irreversible. The world is fragmenting along purely geographical lines. Yes, I predicted that too.

I AM IN PERSONAL DANGER NOW

But it doesn't matter. I have broken an unspoken deal with the government to remain retired and not speak out. The legal harassments against me continue and I have just now crossed my own Rubicon. I am now preparing for physical attacks in the hopes that they do no toccur. You who know how right I have been can help protect me by speaking my name in public, by writing to media outlets, to Congress and telling them about "Crossing the Rubicon" and our incredible record at FTW.

Given that we predicted all of this, is it not reasonable to expect that someone might look to us and our work forsolutions? Isn't it reasonable to point others to the map we made? Isn't that the right thing to do? Given that everything I have predicted is coming true; given that we are witnessing the planned destruction of the U.S. economy; given that it was Republican members of congress who delayed the bailout bill...is it still so impossible to believe that Dick Cheney orchestrated and executed 9-11? They have almost handed off the carcass and evidence to a doomed Obama presidency. Oh yes, he'll win in a landslide... while the Bushes and their "base" will be laughing all the way to the bank. Please help protect me. Speak my name. Please help others. Point them to "Rubicon" and the FTW archives and teach them the map so they canfind their own paths through this.

It is a good day to die.

Michael C. Ruppert


"Fascism ought more properly be called corporatism because it is theperfect merger of power between the corporation and the state." --Benito Mussolini


Here is another piece of anecdotal evidence that the US government has no money, and the crash is here.

Medical professionals across the country have always had difficulty getting paid by Medicare for their services. Medicare is famous for creatively denying medical claims.

This year, Medicare has pulled a new one. Claiming that they are updating their computer systems (which they are---they are trying to electronically centralize medical information from across the country), they have forced medical practices to "re-register". Pending the processing of these new registrations, Medicare has frozen all payments. Medicare has offered no promises on how long "processing" takes.

Some practices have received NO PAYMENTS for almost one year, and 1. have not heard back from Medicare 2. have had their applications denied for no reason, or returned to them for new rounds of "processing", or 3. Medicare has "lost" the paperwork altogether.

Larry Chin (from Online Journal)

Friday, September 26, 2008

A Prediction - MCR; New York City Water Supply Threatened by Gas Drilling - JO

A Prediction

From sniffing around, I am beginning to suspect that Citigroup wil be the next to fall if the bailout isn't signed. If that happens, in my opinion, it will reveal the inevitability of (and perhaps trigger) the fast crash scenario. I don't see any way around it. It will provoke the biggest emotional shock wave in history. It will be a great moment of truth and make it possible to save infrastructure, personal wealth and lives. Fast crash leaves infrastructure functioning (in whatever degree) and we need that infrastructure to prepare. From what I just heard at ASPO, Global oil production could drop to 79 or even 78 G/bpd from this year's roughly 85. Nothing else need be said on that subject. Now is when the real lifeboat building begins. Anything before this was just practice.

MCR


China Banks Told to Halt Lending to U.S. Banks

er, now what?

jd (Julian Darley)


New York City Water Supply Threatened by Gas Drilling

Jenna Orkin*

A law which recently passed the New York State Legislature threatens New York City's drinking water, says James Gennaro, Chairman of the City Council's Commission on Environmental Protection, in a recent editorial in the Daily News.

Having apparently slipped under the radar of the city's Department of Environmental Protection, the new law will open up the Marcellus Shale, which sits directly beneath our watershed, to gas drilling.

In addition to the threat of leaks and runoff from hundreds of toxic chemicals which have already plagued similar projects in New Mexico and Wyoming, drilling would require the city to invest over $10 billion in a water treatment facility, says Gennaro, a former geologist.

In testimony to the City Council on September 10, State Commissioner on Environmental Conservation Pete Grannis maintained that a one mile buffer zone would protect the water supply. But the State's reliance on a Generic rather than a Specific Environmental Impact Statement undercuts that assurance.

The impact of the type of drilling involved, hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," is little understood because oil and gas companies are exempt from disclosing the chemicals they use. Those companies, chief among them, Halliburton, maintain that the chemicals are protected as trade secrets.

An EPA report released in 2004 concludes that the process is safe but testimony presented to the City Council by Catskill Citizens suggests that the report was unduly influenced by former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney.

*former plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the EPA


And From the Fiddling While Rome Burns Department:

Mother Russia flexing her muscles again, (bearing in mind, however, the sources for some of these stories.)

Russia May Cut Off Oil and Gas to Europe
Russia to Respond Militarily to U.S. Missile Shield
Russia Successfully Tests ICBM Designed to Beat Anti-Missile Systems
Russia Moves to Secure Arctic Shelf


Can You Spot the Chinese Nuclear Sub?
51 Things You're Not Allowed to See on Google Maps
Check out number 3.

SEC May Let Companies Abandon US Accounting Rules
Warning on Voting Machines Reveals Oversight Failure

Pentagon Brass Meets Secretly with Pakistanis
Flu Antibodies Recovered from 1918 Pandemic
Chalabi Aide Arrested on Suspicion of Baghdad Bombings
Price of Oil, Purging Voters and Election '08
Scientists: Save the Planet: Have Fewer Kids

--JO

Friday, September 19, 2008

We Have Met the Enemy And It Is Us

I will be leaving for the ASPO Conference in Sacramento tomorrow and unable to contribute to or possibly even moderate this blog until Thursday. - JO

Meanwhile:

We Have Met the Enemy And It Is Us


Jenna Orkin

Congress is getting it and they are "stunned." This is where our economic paradigm has brought us, to the brink of destruction. It cannot all be blamed on greed, unless we acknowledge that the greed of the few bastards at the top is only a concentrated version of our own greed, the greed of "everyman." Those of us who thought we could live on borrowed money forever - because didn't real estate values only go up? - were in fact living on borrowed time.

We thought the nebulous, Godlike "they" who ran the world would figure out a solution. Some Bill Gates of economics would come along and get us out of this mess because that's what has always happened in the past and history repeats itself.

History is indeed repeating itself, but it is not our recent history of ups and downs always to be followed by another up; it is the history of an economic 9/11, the history of an unimaginable, unprecedented event.

In fact, the event was not so unimaginable by those who looked more deeply into how the system works. It was "imagined" if that is an appropriate word to use for a real future event; it was warned of and it was described, sometimes in unbearable detail which is why the vast majority of the population preferred to ignore the distant rumble of thunder. Maybe it would go away.

At the same time as we are witnessing our house of cards tumble while we're still inside, both presidential candidates speak of change, the need for an overhaul of Washington.

But in their next breath both candidates speak of restoring growth.

They have not faced the depth of change needed, away from growth and towards what Herman Daly describes as a steady state economy. We have to get out of the house of cards and build a new, more sustainable house.

This would undo centuries of dependence on an economic spiral which, like Woody Allen's description of relationships and sharks, must continue ad infinitem or die.

The notion of interest, when it was first introduced, was considered diabolical by all three major Western religions: Islam, Judaism and Christianity. They understood that making money without doing any work or undertaking any risk could only lead to no good. They may have also understood that in a finite world, nothing can grow forever except cancer.

Over time all three religions came around, even Islam, to some extent.

Interest came to pass, then paper currency based on gold, then paper currency and forget about the gold, then derivatives.

Derivatives are an order of magnitude more potent than interest. Now nobody's doing any work. The whole game is risk. And the risk is infinite, because you can bet with money you don't have.

Nice work when you can get it, especially if you're so big, the government can't afford to let you fail. Instead they bail you out.

Thus there are now more derivatives in the ether than there is money in the world.

Congress must grab the ironically metaphorical bull by the horns. It will not be enough to put a bandaid on the system or even do surgery on it. A detective who solves a case doesn't just explain one or two aspects of it; he or she puts together the whole puzzle, understands the whole story.

Until Congress looks at the WHOLE picture, tracing it down to is roots, its original sin, we will continue ever closer to the abyss.


I.O.U.S.A.
Ebert review
Russian Aims in Georgia
Stability in Russian Chechnya and Other Regions of the North Caucasus: Recent Developments
Russian Political, Economic and Security Issues and U.S. Interests
Russian Natural Gas: Regional Dependence
Biden, McCain and PNAC
Note that both Biden and McCain signed this.

The Standard of Living Bubble
New Guidelines Would Give FBI Broader Powers
McCain Office Mailed Threat: White Powder
Hair Samples Don't Match in Anthrax Case
Criminals Dumping Dollar for Euro
Connected Dots

USDA Seeks Georgia Scientist to Clone Virus
Satellite Pictures Reveal More Ice Melt

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Real Reason Commodities Are Tumbling

NOW IS THE TIME – THERE IS HOPE

by Michael C. Ruppert

Wednesday, September 17, 2008, 7 P.M. PDT –

Let me paraphrase something I once saw George H.W. Bush say: "Everything I am; everything I have accomplished; and everything I hope to accomplish I owe to David Rockefeller." Today I saw some thing I never thought possible. I saw a Rothschild endorse a fundamentally Rockefeller candidate – John McCain. DNC Platform Committee Member Lynn Forester de Rothschild quit her post to endorse McCain as she also ended her longstanding role as a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. The Clintons also have strong Rockefeller "lineage" so I'm guessing that Hillary understands the move perfectly with a wink and a nod.

I'll give you the punch line now, without making you read further.

If Rothschilds and Rockefellers are taking the same side it is because the entire economic paradigm is threatened. There is good reason to believe it. The Dow has lost almost 10% in just two days. The bailouts are lining up at the door before the Fed goes bankrupt; before our government goes bankrupt. Lehman was ten times bigger than Enron. AIG was much bigger than Lehman. Still to come are Washington Mutual, Goldman, J.P. Morgan, the automakers and the airlines, to name a few. Not all are going to be saved.

There is only one run on the bank taking place. This time it's the Federal Reserve and we know who will get screwed. The Fed and our Treasury are being looted at the one moment in time when we most need them to be full.

All of this has everything to do with Peak Oil. For those of you who have followed my work – and the work of everyone who was FTW – this is exactly what we said would happen, and were trying to prevent. The fact that we are going to have a fast crash now is the best possible outcome because it has given us a unique and perhaps fleeting moment –a window – to change things. There is plenty left to salvage.

There are other signs of a fast crash. For months now the prices of oil and gold have been ruthlessly suppressed. Oil reached $147 a barrel and broke demand so badly there was not even a dead cat bounce in demand at $100 a barrel. Energy is the economy. Money is useless without energy. There is no credit available to finance renewed demand and get some cash circulating. It is interesting to note that narcotics seizures are at all time highs. Cocaine shipments in the thousands of tons are being seized on almost a daily basis. That is taking enormous amounts of cash out of the system. There's just one problem with that cash. It must circulate through many hands to multiply before Wall Street gets it. That takes time and they don'thave time.

One would think that illegal drugs would be cheap now to lubricate the wheels of a nation in panic. But this is beyond that. Enron was in drugs. It operated several hundred subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands. Its bankruptcy was $63 billion. Lehman all by itself was $632 billion. The last time I estimated the total amount of cash generated by the drug trade it was only $600 billion a year. Lehman was just one bankruptcy. Add in Fannie and Freddie and Bear Stearns; soon Washington Mutual (which I suspect may be allowed to fail) plus all the rest – and anything the drug trade could do is vastly overwhelmed.

This is the derivatives bubble popping. That bubble is now in excess of $450 trillion dollars. I warned about it when I returned from Moscow in 2001 and again in our first-ever economic alert on September 9, 2001. There isn't enough cash in the world to cover the "monthly minimum payments" on $450 trillion. If I had to speculate, my guess would be that Wall Street wants people to pay their bills right now. All of Wall Street needs quick cash flow. That's what put AIG in a bind because AIG was so deeply connected to money laundering. That's how desperate they are; just as desperate as the United States is for energy. When people don't spend money on drugs they pay their bills instead, is the government's hope. The U.S. is now seizing a lot of drug cash and other properties through asset forfeiture. So my guess is that the U.S. government is acting like a drowning man.

If I had serious debts to major banks and credit companies now I would be seriously thinking about not paying them at all. I might decide to put my money into gold or things that might help me endure the crises that are coming. A lot of those walking carcasses won't be around soon and why should I give them money that may save my life? I am already in the right position. Although it was a monumental effort I did what I was begging people to do back in 2005. I got out of debt.

This is exactly what I spent all these years trying to warn people about.

What we are watching being taken away, right in front of our eyes, is the money – the wherewithal – to prepare for the now-certain energy shortages that are coming very quickly. Today gold saw its biggest one-day price jump ($70) in history. And it's still the best bargain in town… although CNBC won't tell you that.

Hurricanes Gustav and Ike were remembrances from the planet that there are some things the markets cannot control. This is what I warned about in New York in May of 2006 and I am not at all surprised by how sparse the reporting has been on oil and gas infrastructure damage since they struck. I am only seeing unsupported cliff notes. What is very clear is that the populations of Houston and Galveston are devastated and in dire need of help.

But there's a run on the Fed and their money's going out the door too.There is no victory until the paradigm is broken. Until we change the way money works, we change nothing. Right now, the entire economic paradigm of infinite growth is vulnerable, weak, and exposed. The dribble being offered by Obama and McCain only exposes the fact that everything is broken; that the system itself is the enemy.

Now, we who have labored so long and paid such prices to warn have a real shot at breaking public consciousness.

Now, we who understood all this and who have been marginalized, have authority to stand up and command the floor.

Now, we who cried as voices in the wilderness, have a chance to actually reach the minds of those we love but who have refused to listen.

We can do all this because the elephant in the living room has started to trample people.

Now, it is clear that under the current economic paradigm, people themselves will and must become the disposable resources to keep corporations alive.

Now, is the time that we can force the mainstream media to choose between its audience and its sponsors; between corporate masters and neighbors and families.

So many in the Peak Oil movement have burned out, given up.

Now is the time to get off your asses and get back in the fight. People are listening. Quit goofing off!

I am just finishing my second book. It's title: "A Presidential EnergyPolicy". It will be a short book, maybe 130 pages or so. That's all that is needed to make the case now. In writing this book and in sticking my head up on the blog I have broken an unspoken, but very real agreement that I would not be harassed anymore by the government if I stayed retired. I paid a serious price to get Pat Tillman's story researched, written, edited and published but we did it. And we took down nine general officers and a Secretary of Defense in the process.

It is no coincidence then that a two-and-a-half year old sexual harassment claim against me in Oregon was just reactivated and scheduled for a hearing in November. It was just lying fallow. I have wanted this hearing from the start. I did nothing wrong. I was set up. I can prove that in a fair hearing, but the State of Oregon's political machine has not played fair since Day One. The Ashland Police Departments has apologized to me and my attorney for grossly mishandling the investigation of the burglary of our office in June 2006. I have accepted that apology.

But the Oregon State Labor Department has made many procedural errors and treated me from the start as if I were a criminal, a lunatic and a nutcase. It has demonstrated bias on the part of the complainant and treated me in a personally demeaning manner when all I have ever done is to respond quickly to anything they ask for. I'm tired of apologizing for what I believe in.

I am not afraid of the outcome if I get a fair hearing. But given everything I have documented over many years that may not be likely.

It doesn't make any difference. Now is the moment to go for it. Tostand up and stop being defensive. For all of you who remained so loyal for all these years; for all of you who continue to send the letters and emails of support -- if I can get a fair hearing in Oregon we will all be vindicated.

Just this week a two--and-a-half year old sales tax bill turned up; a sales tax bill that was inflated by about 60% with interest and penalties and had supposedly been handled by the same employee who we know smashed our computers. I'm taking that one on too. California now admits they didn't count one of two full quarters that was paid two years ago.

So I am standing up again and that's what I ask you to do as well.

Now is the time to start talking again about Peak Oil.

Now is the time for everyone who knows the map to dust off their copy of Rubicon or back issues of FTW. Take the risk and start talking again.

Now is the time to buy a copy of "Rubicon" and send it to someone you love or want to teach. Tell them, "It's not about 9-11. It's about what's happening today, right now. It's the story of how we got here."

Now is the time to start pointing again at all of our great leaders: the Colin Campbells, the Richard Heinbergs the Matt Simmonses, the Julian Darleys, the Ken Deffeyeses, the Jim Kunstlers, the Matt Savinars, the Jenna Orkins, the Megan Quinn-Bachmans, the Mike Kanes, the Mark Robinowitzes, the Dmitri Orlovs, the Barry Silverthorns, and so many more. Mention their names. Shout their names.

Start now to organize meetings and seminars. As you "market" them tell people that this is the explanation for everything that is happening around them. Show the record. Show our predictions. It is certain to make sense and resonate – if for no other reason than because nothing else anybody is saying is.

Now is the time when we can break the back of infinite growth and stumble our way to a steady-state economy that we can use to help prepare for Peak Oil. We can do this before the moment in time comes when (as I wrote in "Global Corp") the last CFO of the last corporation, after the last merger, says to himself, 'Hooray we did it!" – as he turns out the last light on all of us.

Today a Rothschild sided with a Rockefeller… They are scared. And John McCain will loot the Fed faster than Barack Obama will. The old paradigm is trying to cash out with our money. Neither candidate will do a damn thing for us. We must do it for ourselves.

"It is a good day to die."

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

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

Monday, September 15, 2008

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

Sunday, September 14, 2008

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."

Thursday, September 11, 2008

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--

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

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

Saturday, September 06, 2008

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