Day: September 20, 2008

Free Markets: Truth Not Spoken

The best short answer is, the illegal drug trade, beyond that and there is not much of a free market. That is about the only part of our economic system that is truly free, the rest is monopolized, controlled and collectvistic.

Competition is a fine thing, but somewhere along the road someone figured out that competition lessens profits where a combining increased those same profits. In reality the whole concept of “free market enterprise” was on the way out by 1875. And by 1888, trusts and monopolies had a strangle hold on the American economy. It was so pronounced that Pres. Grover Cleveland said in a speech to Congress, “As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters”.

Because of this concentration of the “traditional American system of free competitive enterprise” no longer exists. In its place is a concentration of economic power in a few hands—a monopoly. Free markets are an extension of what is called Laissez-Faire economics, which is basically no regulation, no interference in the markets. That brings us to the current economic age where all talk about the free markets, but by definition there are none. There is however, interference by the government on the markets throught regulation and such and because of this interference the markets are failing.

The multinationals that we have today fly into the face of the “free market” concept. Why? Because in this concept there are no large corporations, but rather many smaller units in competition with each other. So when one fails it is negligible not the devastating crush we have now. And the consumer is in control, say coffee and milk are expensive, then the consumer enmasse stop buying the product and the price will come down, at least that is the theory. Why? Because there are so many competitors that it would be impossible for collusion to take place.

So when yiou listen to your politicians rant on about this free market or that, ask them to explain it to you. I would bet a dollar to donuts that their explanation is nothing near what is really meant by the theory. Today, without government intervention the financial crisis would topple the government and the economy, this is the beast that the multinational corporations have created and it cannot be stopped. These imperfections, man made, by the way, is what prevents the markets from existing and operating freely.

Palin Gets To Meet Karzai

Why?  Wait!  Was not Obama chastised for this type of thing?

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will meet next week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in New York, on the sidelines of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, according to Afghan officials in Washington.

The meeting is part of a broader effort to demonstrate the Alaska governor’s ability to handle foreign policy issues, at a time when she has come under fire for a lack of experience on the international stage. The opportunity to speak before the United Nations annually draws the world’s leaders to Manhattan, and the GOP presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), plans to use the occasion to introduce Palin to those officials, McCain aides have said.

“It’s a great opportunity for Governor Palin to meet and interact with some of the world leaders she will deal with as vice president,” said one McCain adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because her U.N. schedule had not been made public. “She’ll talk about the issues facing the world.”

Palin will meet with Karzai, and possibly other foreign leaders, during a midweek campaign swing through New York.

One in effectual politician talking to another……..that is politics, Irene.

Are You Sure Of The Surge?

While the fighting in Iraq continues to kill scores of civilians every week, the relative decline in violence over last year’s levels has been the cause of much optimism among war weary Americans and touted by President Bush as a vindication of his “surge” strategy.

But though both major Presidential candidates having declared the surge a great success and polls show an ever increasing number of Americans believing the same, many have continued to insist that the surge has little if anything to do with the decline in violence. A new report released today has strengthened that position.

The report, published in the Environment and Planning A journal, uses satellite data to show the enormous number of minority Sunnis cleansed from neighborhoods by Shi’ite militias. By the time the surge began, according to study leader Dr. John Agnew of UCLA, “many of the targets of the conflict had either been killed or fled the country”.

In fact, humanitarian groups were reporting a year ago that the number of Iraqis fleeing their homes actually soared after the surge began. The displacement of millions of Iraqi both internally and as refugees into neighboring countries, then, was the primary cause of the decline in violence. The surge, according to the report, “had no observable effect, except insofar as it has helped to provide a seal of approval for a process of ethno-sectarian neighborhood homogenization that is now largely achieved”.

The study’s conclusion, though novel considering the present narrative, is hardly without precedent. In fact, the administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate in August of 2007 had concluded that conflict levels in some neighborhoods were diminishing because of sectarian displacements.

It also sheds additional light on the administration’s persistent warnings that the gains are “fragile and reversible“. With handfuls of the millions of refugees just now beginning to trickle back home, they may find their “cleansed” neighborhoods no more friendly an environment than when they left.

Invest Or Not: Shell Under Attack

Royal Dutch Shell PLC warned Friday that oil-facility attacks in Nigeria this past week have substantially reduced its oil and natural-gas production in the West African country and will hurt earnings.

Shell said militants this past week had killed a second person, an employee of the Shell-operated consortium in Nigeria. The company said earlier in the week that a guard had been killed and reiterated Friday that it was evacuating some staff from production facilities.

The Anglo-Dutch oil company said it was concerned about the damage to the facilities but didn’t provide an estimate on the total amount of oil and natural-gas output shut down as a result, or how long the production closures might last. Nigerian oil officials put Shell’s production losses this past week at about 100,000 barrels a day.

The company said the damage will hurt earnings. “This will ultimately add up to increased equipment downtime, repair and remediation costs and deferred earnings for Nigeria and the joint-venture partners,” Shell said.

Clashes between Nigeria’s main militant group — the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta — and the military helped precipitate the latest attacks on oil infrastructure, coming less than a month after Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua shuffled his military leaders.

Some political analysts say Mr. Yar’Adua may be taking a more forceful approach to MEND, which comprises various factions, and other criminal groups that have had a free hand the past few years, bombing pipelines and crude-gathering stations and kidnapping foreign oil workers for ransom.

A tougher line could worsen tensions and problems for the government, foreign energy companies and the region’s people.

So Nigeria is Shell’s only source of oil?  NOT!  Stop!  They are lying so they can either keep their profits or to make stock more appealing when it comes in over expectation.

Ricky Rat Must Die!

Oh damn! Sorry…..I mean Mickey Mouse…….

Sheikh Saleh el-Lheidan said, “I advise the owners of the shameless satellite stations who distribute programs promoting impudence, insolence and silly humor. I warn them, they’re wasting people’s time and corrupting them. If they don’t heed our call, their killing could be permissible.”

But then, the same cleric turned his power to issue edicts on mice, calling them filthy and unhealthy, deserving death. And if this were not enough, he said the American cartoon character Mickey Mouse should die too calling him “Satan’s agent.”

McCain: No More Bailouts

Republican John McCain said Friday the Federal Reserve needs to stop bailing out failed financial institutions.

The Republican presidential hopeful said the Fed should get back to “its core business of responsibly managing our money supply and inflation” and he laid out several recommendations for stabilizing markets in the financial crisis that has rocked Wall Street and commanded the dialogue in the presidential campaign.

McCain made little mention of the massive proposal being crafted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that could amount to a $1 trillion taxpayer bailout of the mortgage industry. McCain said simply that leaders should put aside partisan differences and “any action should be designed to keep people in their homes and safeguard the life savings of all Americans.”

The Fed engineered an $85 billion takeover of insurance giant AIG this week after seizing control of housing giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. McCain said that to help return the U.S. to fiscal solvency, the powerful central bank should instead focus on shoring up the dollar and keeping inflation low.

Paulson And Bernanke To The Rescue

They come riding in on their white horse to rescue the damsel in distress, the economy.

The U.S. government moved to cleanse banks of troubled assets and halt an exodus of investors from money markets in the biggest expansion of federal power over the financial system since the Great Depression.

“We’re talking hundreds of billions,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a press conference. “This needs to be big enough to make a real difference and get to the heart of the problem.”

The Treasury is likely to run the program, which would involve auctions where the government buys devalued assets, said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. The plan, which will apply to U.S.-based financial institutions seeking to sell mortgage assets, is designed as a comprehensive approach after a series of individual rescues failed to stem the crisis.

Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke‘s plans, which include the removal of illiquid mortgage securities from companies’ balance sheets, sent stocks from the U.K. to China soaring. The dollar gained, while two-year Treasury notes tumbled, sending the yield up the most in 23 years.

The Treasury tapped all $50 billion in the country’s Exchange Stabilization Fund to insure money-market mutual fund holdings, and the Federal Reserve expanded lending to commercial banks. The measures were aimed at credit markets teetering on the edge of collapse, as investors pulled a record $89.2 billion from money-market funds Sept. 17.