“Oil prices are set on the global market, and the best a president can do is to push for policies that ensure that demand doesn’t outpace supply. But due to the global nature of the oil market, they are limited in the impact they can make. If Bachmann thinks she is going to increase supplies by flooding the market with shale oil, then she is exceptionally naive. If she is just making hollow campaign promises, then she is another dishonest politician. Neither trait is one I want in a president.”
—Robert Rapier, from his piece on The Oil Drum: Keeping Michele Bachmann Honest on Gas Prices (in response to her claim that if she were president, the price for gasoline would drop down lower than $2 per gallon).
August 2011
10 posts
“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
—Jack Layton, Canadian politician (1950-2011)
Play
The Difference
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad finds it hypocritical that the UN Security Council does nothing while the riots in London rage.
“The U.N. is silent. Human rights bodies are silent … If one percent of this happens in countries that oppose the West, they scream until they are hoarse … Why is the Security Council silent?.”
Iranian state media is apparently going so far as to dub the riots a “civil war”.
Dear President Ahmadinejad & Iranian state media:
There is a vast difference between this:
…and even this:
Versus this:
Perhaps you should learn the difference.
“
The economist John Kenneth Galbraith provided the best introduction to the creation of money by banks when he said,
“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
It works like this:
A man walks into a bank. He asks to borrow money. Let’s call the amount requested P (for principal.) The bank creates the money by typing some numbers into a computer to add the funds to the bank account. The money has now been created out of nothing. At the same time, however, a legal obligation is created: the man must pay the bank back an amount P plus some interest. We’ll call that amount I. So P dollars have been created by the bank and P plus I dollars are owed to it.
The interest, I, will of course be profit to the bank. For this profit, the bank had to produce nothing. The borrower, though, will have to work to earn the amount P plus I to pay the bank back. In other words, the wage earned by the borrower as he works to create some tangible product or service of value will be transferred to the bank that has produced nothing.
Bad enough, but here’s the catch: when the bank lends the money to the borrower, only money in the amount of the principal is created. The interest on that principal is not. Therefore, in aggregate, people owe banks more money than has yet been created!
” —Robin Koerner, publisher (from his piece, “Inflation: Where Cronyism Meets Poverty”)The United States Loses Its AAA Rating
S&P said in its report issued late on Friday: “The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilise the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.
“More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges.”
The agency said it might lower the US long-term rating another notch to AA within the next two years if its deficit reduction measures were deemed inadequate.
S&P noted that the bill passed by Congress this week did not include new revenues—Republicans had staunchly opposed President Barack Obama’s calls for tax rises to help pay off America’s deficit.
The credit agency also noted that the legislation contained only minor policy changes to Medicare, an entitlement programme dear to Democrats.
“The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed,” it added.
FOX News Now Taking Cues from The Onion
August 4, 2011:
August 5, 2011:
That is all.
