NASA Climate Scientist Says "We're Toast"

Perpetual Freedumb Toward a Devastatingly Lethal Climax - or a Return to Freedom, Life, Liberty, Health, with Limitless, Unbounded Potential for all, in a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires?



Science & Technology had the capacity to promise us the latter back in the late 1940's- Life, Liberty, Health, Unbounded Potential for all - with the revolutionary advanced definitions of Space, Time, Mass, Matter, Energy, Gravity (StarSteps) springing forth from an extended view of E=MC2 embracing the Radius of Curvature of All Natural Law.


The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



NASA Climate Scientist Says "We're Toast"
WASHINGTON, June 24, 2008
(AP) Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action. James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises. "We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance." Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing. To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn't be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants. Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth's atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million. Hansen said he'll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England. "The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the luncheon. "I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this." Frank Maisano, a spokesman for many U.S. utilities, including those trying to build new coal plants, said while Hansen has shown foresight as a scientist, his "stop them all approach is very simplistic" and shows that he is beyond his level of expertise. The year of Hansen's original testimony was the world's hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it's too late to do anything about it. His answer: There's still time to stop the worst, but not much time. "We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would." Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer. Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it." But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., committee chairman, said, "Dr. Hansen was right. Twenty years later, we recognize him as a climate prophet."
MMVIII The Associated Press

Congressman Says Bush, Oil Executives, Criminally Liable For Iraq War,

Perpetual Freedumb Toward a Devastatingly Lethal Climax - or a Return to Freedom, Life, Liberty, Health, with Limitless, Unbounded Potential for all, in a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires?



Science & Technology had the capacity to promise us the latter back in the late 1940's- Life, Liberty, Health, Unbounded Potential for all - with the revolutionary advanced definitions of Space, Time, Mass, Matter, Energy, Gravity (StarSteps) springing forth from an extended view of E=MC2 embracing the Radius of Curvature of All Natural Law.


The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



Bush, oil executives, criminally liable for Iraq War, says Congressman
Saturday 28th June, 2008
A U.S. Congressman, who ran for president this year, and in 2004, this week accused the Bush administration of colluding with the nation's oil companies in targeting Iraq's oil reserves.Surprisingly, the U.S. media has failed to report the allegations, notwithstanding they were aired in the House of Representatives on Thursday.Ohio Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat, in a speech to the House on Thursday, tied the secret meetings of the Cheney Energy Task Force to the recent awarding of non-competitive oil contracts in Iraq, and said that both the Bush Administration and the oil company executives who participated in those meetings in 2001, should be held criminally liable for an illegal war and extortion of Iraq’s oil.“In March of 2001, when the Bush Administration began to have secret meetings with oil company executives from Exxon, Shell and BP, spreading maps of Iraq oil fields before them, the price of oil was $23.96 per barrel. Then there were 63 companies in 30 countries, other than the U.S., competing for oil contracts with Iraq,' said Kucinich.“Today the price of oil is $135.59 per barrel, the U.S. Army is occupying Iraq and the first Iraq oil contracts will go, without competitive bidding to, surprise, (among a very few others) Exxon, Shell and BP.'“Iraq has between 200 to 300 billion barrels of oil with a market value in the tens of trillions of dollars. And our government is trying to force Iraq not only to privatize its oil, but to accept a long-term U.S. military presence to guard the oil and protect the profits of the oil companies, while Americans pay between $4 and $5 a gallon for gas, and our troops continue dying,' said the Democratic lawmaker.“We attacked a nation that did not attack us. Over 4,000 of our troops are dead. Over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis have perished. The war will cost U.S. taxpayers between $2 to $3 trillion dollars. Our nation’s soul is stained because we went to war for the oil companies and their profits,' he said. 'There must be accountability not only with this Administration for its secret meetings and its open illegal warfare, but also for the oil company executives who were willing participants in a criminal enterprise of illegal war, the deaths of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis, and the extortion of the national resources of Iraq.'“We have found the weapon of mass destruction in Iraq,' said Kucinich in his speech to the House of Representatives. 'It is oil. As long as the oil companies control our government Americans will continue to pay and pay, with our lives, our fortunes our sacred honor,” he concluded.The Democratic Congressman, who has yet to endorse Barack Obama for the presidential election, should also be in the news for his recent efforts to impeach President George W. Bush, however again the media is almost completely silent on the matter. Without U.S. media attention, international news networks too appear to be loathe to pick up on the story.Earlier this month Kucinich moved a motion to refer to committee Articles of Impeachment concerning the president. 'The sheer volume of the Articles required a referral to provide Members with an opportunity for review,' Kucinich said on June 11.'It is now imperative that the Judiciary Committee begin a review of the 35 Articles. I will be providing supporting documentation to the committee so that it can proceed in an orderly manner. The weight of evidence contained in the Articles makes it clear that President Bush violated the Constitution and the U.S. Code as well as International law.''It is the House's responsibility as a co-equal branch of government to provide an effective check and balance to executive abuse of power. President Bush was principally responsible for directing the United States Armed Forces to attack Iraq,' the Ohio lawmaker said. 'The June 5th Senate Intelligence report convinced me it was time to act.'In the report, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Jay Rockefeller, said: 'In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.''I believe that there is sufficient evidence in the Articles to support the charge that President Bush allowed, authorized and sanctioned the manipulation of intelligence by those acting under his direction and control, misleading Congress to approve a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq,' said Kucinich. 'As a result over 4,000 United States soldiers have died in combat in Iraq, with tens of thousands injured, many of them permanently impaired. Over a million innocent Iraqis have perished in a war which was based on lies, a war which will cost the American taxpayers as much as three trillion dollars,' he said.'Now it is incumbent for the Judiciary Committee to review the evidence. If it fails to hold any hearings on the resolution within the next thirty days, given the gravity of the charges and the moment, I will once again bring a similar privileged resolution of Impeachment to the House. We must not only create an historical record of the misconduct of the Bush Administration but we must make sure that any future Administration is forewarned about the Constitutionally proscribed limits of executive authority and exercise of power contravening the Constitution,' Kucinich said.Kucinich opposed the Iraq invasion and campaigned against it before the Congress authorized it. He reportedly persuaded a number of his colleagues to vote against the authorization bill. He challenged the legality of the war in court, and put forward a detailed plan over four years ago to end the occupation of Iraq.Two weeks prior to the March 2003 Iraq invasion, the U.S. Department of Defense said it had plans to protect Iraq’s oil wells and facilities. “Oil is a natural resource of Iraq that provides commerce, income for education and other needs, and infrastructure,' a Pentagon statement said. In warning that the Saddam Hussein regime had both “the capability and the intent to damage or destroy Iraq's oil fields,” the Defense Department said, “Reliable reports indicate that these activities have been planned, and in some cases, may already have begun. Recent information revealed that Iraq has received 24 railroad boxcars full of pentolite explosives.”“Economically, destruction of the oil fields could have enormous and lasting effects on Iraq's post-war economy. Iraq's oil is vitally important for the future of the Iraqi people. The department estimates the potential income to the Iraqi people from oil at $20 to $30 billion a year,” the DoD statement said.“U.S. plans are first to prevent the destruction of Iraq's oil fields and second, if unable to prevent the destruction, to control and mitigate the damage quickly. The department has crafted strategies that will allow U.S. forces to secure and protect the oil fields as rapidly as possible in order to preserve them prior to destruction. U.S. military forces would be responsible for securing and protecting the oil sites, and under appropriate contractual arrangements, private sector companies would extinguish any fires and assess damage to oil facilities,” the Pentagon statement said.“The department has a plan for dealing, on short notice, with oil well fires that might occur in Iraq. Brown & Root Services a division of Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc., Houston developed the plan, which also addresses assessing damage to oil facilities, for the government,” the statement said. Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc., is a division of Halliburton, the company once headed by Cheney.On July 17 2003 Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contained a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available at www.judicialwatch.orgFormer Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill has long argued that Cheney agitated for U.S. intervention in Iraq well prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Additional evidence that Cheney played an early planning role is contained in a previously undisclosed National Security Council document, dated February 3, 2001. The top-secret document, written by a high-level National Security Council official, concerned Cheney’s Energy Task Force. It directed the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered “the “melding” of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: “the review of operational policies towards rogue states,” such as Iraq, and “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran

Perpetual Freedumb Toward a Devastatingly Lethal Climax - or a Return to Freedom, Life, Liberty, Health, with Limitless, Unbounded Potential for all, in a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires?



Science & Technology had the capacity to promise us the latter back in the late 1940's- Life, Liberty, Health, Unbounded Potential for all - with the revolutionary advanced definitions of Space, Time, Mass, Matter, Energy, Gravity (StarSteps) springing forth from an extended view of E=MC2 embracing the Radius of Curvature of All Natural Law.


The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran
June 24, 2008
(CBS) Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran's nuclear complex. CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn't want to wait for a new administration. "The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize," Oren said. "Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next administration vis-à-vis Iran." Israel's message is simple: If you don't, we will. Israel held a dress rehearsal for a strike earlier this month, but military analysts say Israel can not do it alone. "Keep in mind that Israel does not have strategic bombers," Oren said. "The Israeli Air Force is not the American Air Force. Israel can not eliminate Iran's nuclear program." The U.S. with its stealth bombers and cruise missiles has a much greater capability. Vice President Cheney is said to favor a strike, but both Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates are opposed to an attack which could touch off a third war in the region. U.S. intelligence estimates Iran won't be able to build a weapon until sometime early in the next decade. But Israel is operating on a much shorter timetable. "The Iranians, according to Israeli security sources, will have an operable nuclear weapon by 2009. That's not a very long time," Oren said. For now, the Bush administration is counting on new economic sanctions which took effect Tuesday to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program. But nobody's counting on it.
MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc.

Oil Producers Say Speculation, Not Supply, Is Causing Pain at the Pump

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



Saudis: Supply Is Not the Problem
Oil Producers Say Speculation, Not Supply, Is Causing Pain at the Pump
By LARA SETRAKIAN and DEAN SCHABNER
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, June 22, 2008—
Saudi officials confirmed today that they will increase the country's oil output by 200,000 barrels a day in the month of July, a move that some hoped would help ease prices around the world.
But whatever positive effect the Saudis' production hike might have had on global oil markets was probably wiped out this week by rebel attacks in Nigeria that likely will take more than 300,000 barrels a day off the market, experts at the Jeddah Energy Meeting said today.
Saudi King Abdullah said the country was ready to increase production even further, if customer demand warrants it, but he said -- speaking for most of the oil-producing countries at the meeting -- that supply was not the problem.
Saudi Arabia also announced it is building a new refinery with tthe assistance of the French energy firm Total. Refinery capacity has been a serious bottleneck, limiting supply to the market.
Despite these announcements, Abdullah said he does not believe that problems with oil supply is what is driving up global prices. Instead, he blamed the "selfish interests" of financial market speculators.
"There are several factors behind the unjustified, swift rise in oil prices, and they are: speculators who play the market out of selfish interests, increased consumption by several developing economies, and additional taxes on oil in several consuming countries," the king said.
However, Abdullah said that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer of oil, had always met its customers' demands and would continue to do so.
"We increased because they (our customers) asked for it," a source in the Saudi oil industry told ABC News. But he echoed the king's assertion that supply is not the problem: "Right now, the majority of people think the price of oil is very high. There is no justification for this price."
A draft of the final statement expected to come out of the meeting declares that there is an urgent need to "take the necessary measures to guarantee the stability and permanence of the energy system and raise refining capacities" and "the strengthening of transparency of financial markets having regard to their impact on world petroleum markets," according to a report in Algeria's official APS news agency.
By taking steps to "reinforce transparency," the goal is to gain a more clear understanding "of the impact of international financial markets on prices and their volatilities," the statement will say.
The statement will declare "the need to take steps to collect more information about the actions of investment funds," as well as about speculators and "unreal judgments about the real price of a barrel of oil and the future of the crude market."
U.S. officials have disagreed with the Saudis over the reasons behind the sharp rise in gas prices, saying that it is because of growing demand, particularly in the developing world.
"The world faces an extraordinary time that, in my view, demands responsible action from both consuming and producing nations," U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said. "In the absence of any additional crude supply, for every 1 percent of crude demand, we will expect a 20 percent increase in price in order to balance the market."
Bodman was adamant that the current high prices have to do with market fundamentals -- supply and demand. He noted that supply has been stagnating every year since 2003, while global demand has surged.
Oil market analysts generally blame a number of factors for the high oil prices:
A perception that present supply isn't there, and in the longer term, we've hit a period of peak oil -- growing demand cannot be met, especially by Saudi Arabia, the "Central Bank of Oil."
A weak dollar -- since barrels are priced in dollars, any drop in value pushes up the number. Plus, money has moved into the oil markets as a hedge against the weakness of the U.S. currency.
Political instability, from talk of a war on Iran to actual disruptions, especially the recent rebel attacks in Nigeria, concentrated on the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Tough talk from the Bush administration about potentially attacking Iran instantly drives prices up.
The weak performance of the U.S. economy -- lack of confidence in the American economy accelerates the dropping dollar, which again, raises prices per barrel and puts upward pressure on prices.
The rise in global demand, clearly driven by emerging markets (i.e., the "Chindia" factor -- booming economic growth in China and India).
Saudi Arabia called the meeting of producer and consumer nations, as well as top executives of the world's largest oil companies, after oil prices jumped nearly $11 in a single day on June 6. The price surge was blamed on a combination of weak U.S. employment figures and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz's comments that a military strike on Iran was "inevitable."
As shocking as that one-day hike might have been, the fact is that it is just part of a trend that has seen oil prices double in the past year. Prices closed at nearly $135 a barrel on Friday. The effect of this sharp increase on a world that runs on oil has been dramatic.
Inflation rates have risen around the world, sparking protests from Asia to Western Europe, and forcing the world's major central banks to consider raising interest rates in an effort to slow the rise of consumer prices.
Turning out for the meeting were officials from OPEC, the main body representing oil producers, and from the International Energy Agency, the main body representing consumers; representatives of the Internatonal Energy Forum, a Saudi-based organization that meets every two years to bring consumers and producers together; and representatives from 36 countries, 22 oil companies and seven international organizations.
"I really believe strongly that there is a political will of oil producers and consumers to lower the price and stabilize it; otherwise, they would not have come," the Saudi oil source told ABC news.
Though the meeting today raised hopes that something substantial would come out of it that would ease prices, Libyan oil minister Shokri Ghanem said that was unlikely.
"You can't get any decision on important matters in the energy market in a meeting of three hours," Ghanem said.
He echoed the belief of other oil-producing nations that financial speculation, not supply problems, are raising prices -- and went even further, claiming markets are over-supplied.
"There's oversupply in the market," he said. "We believe the prices are high, but it's not because of supply and demand."
2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

Obama Vows Crackdown On Energy Speculators

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



Obama Vows Crackdown On Energy Speculators
WASHINGTON, Jun. 22, 2008
(AP) Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday said as president he would strengthen government oversight of energy traders he blames in large part for the skyrocketing price of oil.The Democratic candidate's campaign singled out the so-called "Enron loophole" for allowing speculators to run up the cost of fuel by operating outside federal regulation. Oil closed near $135 a barrel on Friday _ almost double the price a year ago."My plan fully closes the Enron loophole and restores commonsense regulation as part of my broader plan to ease the burden for struggling families today while investing in a better future," Obama said in a campaign statement.Obama's campaign blamed the loophole on former Sen. Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican who serves as Republican candidate Sen. John McCain's co-chairman and economic adviser. The Obama campaign accused Gramm of inserting a provision into a bill in late 2000 "at the behest of Enron lobbyists" that exempted some energy traders from government oversight.Houston-based Enron collapsed in scandal in 2001 when it was discovered the company had vastly overstated its income.McCain spokesman Tucker Bonds said McCain has supported efforts to close the loophole and noted the bill in question was signed into law by former President Clinton."The fact that Barack Obama is attacking John McCain, despite McCain's leadership on the issue, shows that Barack Obama is driven by the partisan attacks that Americans are tired of," Bounds said.McCain's campaign supplied a copy of a letter Gramm wrote to Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., on June 13 in which the former senator denied charges that the adoption of the bill was a "secret maneuver." Gramm said he had "nothing to with the writing of the provision" on regulation of energy trading.Obama's plan was outlined Sunday by New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, former chairman and CEO of Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs, during a conference call with reporters. Corzine said the volatility in the price of oil "is absolutely indicative of speculation in the markets."Congress already has acted to close the loophole, including a provision in the huge farm bill that passed earlier this year. But Obama's campaign said the candidate would go further by requiring that U.S. energy futures be traded on regulated exchanges.Obama also would ask the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to consider whether traders should be subject to higher margin requirements. He also would work with other countries to regulate energy markets and press the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to investigate possible market manipulation.The campaign said Obama's proposal is part of his broader energy strategy that calls for reducing oil consumption by 35 percent by 2030. 2008 The Associated Press

U.S.: Speculation Not Pushing Oil Prices (???)

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



U.S.: Speculation Not Pushing Oil Prices
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia. June 21, 2008
(CBS/AP) The U.S. energy secretary said Saturday that insufficient oil production, not financial speculation, was driving soaring crude prices. Secretary Samuel Bodman's comments on the eve of an energy summit in the Saudi port city of Jeddah set the stage for a showdown between the U.S. and conference host Saudi Arabia, which has largely blamed speculation in the oil markets for record prices. The U.S. and many other Western nations have put increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, to increase production. Saudi officials have been hesitant to do so, arguing that soaring prices have not been caused by a shortage of supply. Bodman disputed that assertion Saturday, saying oil production has not kept pace with growing demand, especially from developing countries like China and India. "Market fundamentals show us that production has not kept pace with growing demand for oil, resulting in increasing prices and increasingly volatile prices," Bodman told reporters. "There is no evidence that we can find that speculators are driving futures prices" for oil. He said commodities markets have experienced a huge influx of money from financial investors in recent years, but they have been following the market upward rather than driving the increase in the price of oil. Saudi Arabia called the unusual meeting in Jeddah between oil producing and consuming nations as a way to show that it was not deaf to international cries that high oil prices have caused social and economic turmoil. "There is likely to be a lot of finger pointing at the energy and oil summit in Jeddah this weekend," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, who was in Saudi Arabia with the U.N. Secretary General earlier this week, "but the expectation is that there will be the formal announcement of an increase in production by the Saudi government and that there is pressure on other oil producing nations to follow suit, without OPEC's endorsement." The Gulf nation has also become increasingly concerned that record oil prices could hinder growth in the U.S. and other major industrialized economies, potentially leading to a decline in oil demand and a sharp drop-off in prices. "What has become clear in the past month," said Falk, "is that speculation in the oil market does play a role, as do taxes on oil in many countries, but the first step to lowering prices at the pump is to increase supply to respond to increasing demand. "Next steps, both in the U.S. and in oil producing countries, will be to look at energy alternatives, additional oil exploration, and to possibly regulate the oil traders," Falk reports, "but what is clearly the focus of the Jeddah summit is oil production increases, and the world is watching." Many on Wall Street see an attempt to equalize the supply and demand picture - to discourage the buying impulse among speculators, who many blame for driving the price up, reports CBS News corresponent Priya David. "All of these moves are a coordinated effort to try to calm the oil markets, calm the price and to make the speculators think twice about the odds of success to try to get the price of crude to go up further in the coming weeks," said Jim Awad, chairman of W.P. Asset Management. Jim Awad But some are not convinced the meeting will have substantive results. "The odds are less than 50-50 that this meeting alone will be successful in driving the price of oil down," said Awad. While Saudi Arabia has been reluctant to drastically increase production, it has announced several small increases recently that it says were made to satisfy increased customer demand. The country has consistently said that it will produce enough oil to ensure the market is supplied. The kingdom increased oil production by 300,000 barrels a day in May, and a Saudi official confirmed Saturday that the country would add another 200,000 barrels a day in July. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi also confirmed the increase ahead of the conference. But neither announcement has done much to stem the run-up in the price of oil, which closed near US$135 on Friday. Saudi assistant oil minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, told a news conference Saturday that the delegates were "congregating to achieve results" and try to draw "a collective way forward for how to attend to this situation." "This situation as we see it today as it exists needs everybody's attention simply because it no longer is a luxury to talk about it or ... to keep bouncing back and forth blame," he added. The prince said that Saudi Arabia has been working with several international organizations to put together a background paper to focus Sunday's discussions and reiterated that the kingdom was ready to meet demand from its customers and foster stable prices. He said it would be "wrong" to judge the success of the meeting by oil prices the day after it ends. Many countries around the world have experienced social unrest by populations angry that rising fuel prices have driven significant increases in the cost of food and other basic goods. Bodman said that every 1 percent increase in the demand for oil requires a 20 percent rise in price to balance the market. Demand in China, India and the Middle East has been soaring in recent years as the countries consume more energy to fuel economic growth. Rising demand in the developing world has coincided with historically low levels of spare oil production capacity, which fell below two million barrels per day among OPEC countries in May for the first time since the third quarter of 2006, according to the International Energy Agency. Bodman made clear that the responsibility for reducing oil prices did not simply fall on the shoulders of producing nations, saying consuming countries must increase energy efficiency and invest in the development of alternative fuels. But he saved his strongest words for oil producers like Saudi Arabia, who he said must step up long-term investment in production and spare capacity. "The incentive (for investing) is simply reasonable prices so that we're not faced with having to drop everything and race to Jeddah for a meeting that was called on a week's notice," said Bodman. Saudi Arabia is completing a US$50 billion plan to increase capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day but has signaled it would not go beyond that. CNBC said Saturday that Saudi Arabia's current capacity is 11.3 million barrels per day, quoting al-Naimi's adviser, Ibrahim al-Muhanna. Previous estimates by the International Energy Agency put current Saudi capacity at about 10.7 million barrels per day. The kingdom currently produces about 9.5 million barrels per day. Associated Press Writers Sebastian Abbot and Donna Abu Nasr contributed to this report.
MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc.

Oil Trading's Powerful "Dark Markets"

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



Oil Trading's Powerful "Dark Markets"
CBS WASHINGTON, June 17, 2008
(CBS) As gas prices skyrocket, attention has turned to public "pits," where brokers trade "oil futures" - the right to buy or sell crude oil at a specific price, on a future date. But far away from the hue and cry, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil futures contracts are traded electronically every day, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports. More than 30 percent, experts say, exchanged in so-called "dark markets," the exact size and scope unknown to U.S. regulators. "If you can trade out of the sight of U.S. regulators, you can manipulate these markets," said Michael Greenberger, a former top staffer at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, which regulates the trading of commodities like oil in this country. He recently told Congress that speculation is placing a huge premium on the price of oil. "How much per barrel?" Keteyian asked. "Well, there have been various estimates - anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent," Greenberger said. "People can actually corner the market and drive up the price," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. "When there is no policeman on the beat, you know that crime can go up." More and more fingers are pointing at one of the least-known but most powerful foreign exchanges - the InterContinental Exchange, or ICE. By the end of 2007, the all-electronic exchange accounted for nearly a 50 percent market share of all global oil futures contracts, a total of 138.5 million contracts - up 49 percent from 2006. Today it boasts more than 2,100 individual traders representing virtually all of the major players in oil - banks, hedge funds, energy companies, investment giants. And according to a securities filing, two of those giants, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, were founding partners of ICE. "The fact that they started this shows the intent of where they wanted to go," Greenberger said. "Which was to trade crude oil and energy products without any police in the United States supervising it." That's because it's considered a foreign exchange. Taking advantage of a loophole created by the CFTC, the company says its "energy futures business" is conducted in London, it is not subject to U.S. laws. Over strong criticism, the CFTC agreed. All this despite the fact ICE headquarters are on the fifth floor of a building in Atlanta, it's primary data center in Chicago, and nearly all its trades settled in U.S. dollars. "It is a charade, and ... it defies explanation," Greenberger said. In a statement, ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher told CBS News that ICE is committed to providing "the same visibility in our oil markets that exists for U.S. Exchanges," and that ICE Futures Europe is "fully regulated" by the British government. But British financial authorities are notoriously lax. Now Congress and others are asking just how much of the crude oil futures market is being manipulated by either excessive buying designed to drive up the price, or phony transactions that imply a supply problem that does not exist. Today, under pressure, ICE finally agreed to impose stricter limits on certain trading, shedding some much needed light on the dark side of oil.
MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc.

CEOs' Pay Climbs While U.S. Economy Sinks

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.




CEOs' Pay Climbs While U.S. Economy Sinks
CBS NEW YORK, June 16, 2006
(AP) As the American economy slowed to a crawl and stockholders watched their money evaporate, CEO pay still chugged to yet more dizzying heights last year, an Associated Press analysis shows. The AP review of compensation for the heads of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index finds the median pay package added up to nearly $8.4 million. That's a comfortable gain of about $280,000 from 2006. The 3½ percent pay increase for CEOs came even as the landscape for both workers and shareholders darkened considerably and the economy was choked by a housing market in free fall, layoffs and soaring prices for fuel and food. At the top of the AP list: John Thain, who took the reins of Merrill Lynch on Dec. 1, 2007. His $83 million pay package was supercharged by a signing bonus and other enticements that lured him from the New York Stock Exchange to lead the investment bank as it was suffering its worst-ever losses. Collectively, the 10 best-paid CEOs made more than half a billion dollars last year. Yet half the members of this stratospheric club were leading companies whose profits shrank dramatically. The AP examination of CEO pay in 2007 mined data from the 410 companies in the S&P 500 that filed compensation disclosures with federal regulators in the first six months of this year. The AP's formula, based on data from the past two years, adds up salary, perks, bonuses, above-market interest on pay set aside for later, and company estimates for the value of stock options and stock awards on the day they were granted last year. That provides a clearer picture than pay totals required by the Securities and Exchange Commission, compensation experts say, because the SEC totals include expenses companies book during the year for previously granted stock compensation and retirement benefits. The value of stock and options given to CEOs may turn out to be significantly higher or lower if they are ultimately cashed out, but the numbers in the AP formula do reflect the board of directors' estimate of the likely eventual payout. The median salary figure of about $8.4 million means half the CEOs in the AP analysis made more than that and half made less. There were some signs companies were pulling back on pay at the top: Out of the 316 companies in the AP survey that had the same CEO two years running, about two-fifths lowered the total pay package for their CEOs. However, the primary culprit for some was falling stock prices that cut into the value of the shares included in pay packages. In many more cases, overall pay ballooned. Rick Wagoner, chief executive of General Motors Corp., announced earlier this month the company had to close four plants that make trucks and SUVs because of lagging demand as fuel prices soar. That followed the posting of a $39 billion loss in 2007, a year when its stock price fell by about 19 percent, without adjusting for dividends. And Wagoner? His pay rose 64 percent, to $15.7 million. Last year was rocky for the economy and the stock market, making it a useful test of a concept called pay for performance - a term companies use to sell shareholders on the idea CEOs are being paid based on how well the company does. According to this concept, trotted out frequently by the compensation committees of corporate boards in their proxy statements, a big chunk of CEO pay is considered "at risk," meaning it could disappear if CEOs don't meet established metrics. But the AP analysis found that CEO pay rose and fell regardless of the direction of a company's stock price or profits. Take KB Home, battered by the subprime lending crisis and the weak housing market. According to the Los Angeles-based homebuilder's proxy statement, CEO Jeffrey Mezger is entitled to a cash bonus based on a percentage of KB's profit. The problem was there was no profit. KB Home lost almost $930 million in 2007 and its stock lost 60 percent of its value. But Mezger still made $24.4 million, as valued by the AP, including a $6 million cash bonus. He pocketed that bonus because he exceeded certain objectives the board had set out for him. Among them were improving performance on a customer satisfaction survey and developing senior leadership in his first year as CEO. "Compensation has become a shell game," said Richard Ferlauto, director of pension and benefits policy for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a Washington labor group representing government workers. "So they take away the bonus," he said, "but then they still come up with ways to make sure the executive gets a big payout." Pay packages were somewhat smaller in the financial industry last year - banks, investment firms, mortgage companies, insurers and other institutions, all were roiled by the subprime lending disaster. For companies in the financial sector that had the same CEO two years in a row, median pay dropped 4¼ percent to $8.7 million in 2007. But that was still a smaller decline than the 6 percent drop in earnings and 15 percent slump in stock prices before dividend adjustments, according to Standard & Poor's Capital IQ data service. In some cases, companies appeared at first glance to have kept their promise to base pay on performance - only to have a different picture emerge on closer inspection. For example, Washington Mutual Inc.'s stock took a nosedive last year - almost 70 percent - because of fallout from the housing and mortgage crises. The Seattle-base banking and mortgage lender lost $1.87 billion in the fourth quarter alone, and $67 million for the year. WaMu's board decided not to give CEO Kerry Killinger a bonus for 2007. But board members also eliminated real-estate foreclosures and mortgage defaults as factors in whether to award him a bonus this year. After a shareholder revolt, the board decided to revise the formula, though it has not yet announced what metrics will be used. Profit at insurer XL Capital fell more than 80 percent last year, and its stock price slumped about 30 percent. But Chief Executive Brian O'Hara made $7.5 million, a raise of 23 percent. In its proxy statement, the company called its profits "unsatisfactory" but said operating earnings, which exclude certain factors, were better than planned. O'Hara, who plans to retire later this year, was also given 62,500 shares of restricted stock and 250,000 stock options, which were not included in the calculation of his total compensation. The company said that was to "reflect the importance of Mr. O'Hara's role in the CEO succession process." "The cracks in the idea of pay for performance really start to show when performance falters but pay still rises," said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at The Corporate Library, an independent corporate governance research firm. "It's always a win-win scenario for executives." Even companies with huge profits and soaring stock prices can be faulted for not following the principle of pay for performance, according to some experts on corporate pay. As an example, these experts cite the energy industry, where CEOs in the AP survey chalked up a median 32 percent gain in 2007. It's no secret that profits at oil and gas companies have raced higher in recent years, and stock prices have followed. But that's not necessarily because CEOs are more skillful at operating their businesses. The boon has more to do with the surge in the price of oil, which this year topped $130 a barrel for the first time on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "The issue of an escalated price of oil shouldn't flow back in to executives' wallets, but to shareholders in the form of higher dividends," said activist investor Gerald R. Armstrong of Denver, who owns shares in XTO Energy Inc. XTO's CEO Bob Simpson, with annual compensation of more than $50 million, has ranked in the AP's list of the 10 highest-paid chief executives for the past two years. Pay consultants say that illustrates a weakness in executive pay programs. When outside factors help the bottom line, CEOs tend to benefit personally as well. But the opposite is not generally true, said Bill Coleman, chief compensation officer for Salary.com, which provides corporate pay information. "How convenient," he said. "I take credit for everything good and I blame external factors for anything bad, but say that shouldn't affect my pay." There were examples of companies that really did cut back on pay during a bad year. Department store operator Dillard's Inc., plagued by falling sales, profits and stock value, cut CEO William Dillard's pay package by two-thirds, to $1.1 million, according to the AP calculation. Of course, compensation is not always designed to reflect how the company does in the year it's handed out. Sometimes boards give out bonuses to the CEO for a strong performance a year earlier, and sometimes they are pegged to future performance goals. At investment bank Morgan Stanley, CEO John Mack was paid a total of $41.7 million for 2007, a rough year for the bank. That made him No. 8 on the AP list of CEOs. But Mack's pay was largely tied to his performance in 2006. The investment bank said in February that Mack would not be taking home a bonus for 2007 because of the company's heavy losses in the subprime lending crisis. At Merrill Lynch, part of Thain's $83.1 million pay package hinges on whether the stock rises. He got options on 1.8 million shares as part of his signing agreement, but two-thirds of them will only vest if the price of Merrill stock clears specific hurdles for 15 straight trading days. Right now Merrill shares trade at about $35, far from the $80 a share level that has to be reached for the first bundle of Thain's options to be in the money. Shareholders aren't in the boardroom when pay decisions are made, but at some companies they are gaining clout and holding directors more accountable. In May, insurer Aflac Inc. became the first major U.S. company to give investors a vote on how senior management is paid, and shareholder proposals requesting an annual nonbinding vote on pay received slightly more support at U.S. companies this year. This issue has also spilled onto the presidential campaign trail. Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain support giving shareholders some say on executive pay. Obama wants to legislate it, while McCain says companies should make the move themselves. The votes would be nonbinding, but they would still shine more light on executive pay.
MMVIII The Associated Press

After 75 Years, the Working Poor Still Struggle for a Fair Wage

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.




June 17, 2008
Editorial Observer
After 75 Years, the Working Poor Still Struggle for a Fair Wage
By ADAM COHEN
At the height of the Great Depression, industry convinced President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress to enact a law allowing companies to collude to drive up prices. To balance out this giveaway to big business, the law gave workers something that they had long been fighting for: the first federal minimum wage.
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the National Industrial Recovery Act — which Roosevelt signed June 16, 1933, at the end of his famous first 100 days — and of the federal minimum wage. It was a grudging, almost accidental win, and the road since then has been rocky. Advocates for low-income workers have had a hard time keeping the minimum wage at a reasonable level and passing other laws necessary to fulfill the original goal: ensuring that people who work hard can achieve a reasonable standard of living.
When progressives set out to establish a national minimum wage, they faced stiff opposition. Industry insisted that government should not interfere with its relations with its employees. Organized labor was also opposed. (“If you give them something for nothing,” one labor leader objected, “they won’t join the union.”) The pro-business Supreme Court presented the biggest obstacle, ruling that minimum wages were unconstitutional.
The Depression provided an opening. Progressives injected minimum-wage and maximum-hours provisions into the NIRA. These provisions were technically voluntary, but if companies wanted the government to approve the minimum prices and production limits they desperately wanted, they had to agree to minimum wages. Most industries adopted a minimum hourly wage of at least 40 cents.
The Supreme Court declared the NIRA unconstitutional, but the idea of a federal minimum wage had taken hold. In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act — which a more progressive Supreme Court upheld — creating a mandatory federal minimum wage.
The new law was enormously effective: within a year, it brought millions of low-paid workers up to a wage of 30 cents an hour. It also had major weaknesses, notably that it was not indexed to inflation. Congress has to raise it, which leaves low-income workers at the mercy of politics.
The minimum wage continues to have powerful enemies. Businesses that pay low wages lobby strongly against increases, arguing that they cause jobs to disappear. The Bush administration has been hostile. When Elaine Chao was nominated to be the next labor secretary, she called for states to be able to opt out of the federal minimum wage — which would destroy the whole idea of a national minimum wage.
Last year, the new Democratic-controlled Congress raised the minimum wage for the first time in 10 years. The increase was a real victory. But even with it, the minimum wage — which reaches $7.25 an hour in 2009 — is still far below where it was in the 1960s, in real dollars. A family of three earning the 2009 minimum wage would still be well below the federal poverty line. And because the minimum wage remains unindexed, low-wage workers will fall even further behind before Congress rouses itself to grant another increase.
Economists, who are more sophisticated today than they were in 1933, now place more emphasis on raising the Earned Income Tax Credit. Because it is tied to family income rather than wage levels, the tax credit can be targeted precisely at workers who need it most. There has also, understandably, been considerable focus this year on trying to provide the working poor — and everyone else — with affordable health care.
In this year’s “change” election, more attention should be paid to the working poor, who were hit especially hard by the economic policies of the last eight years. There should be talk of tax credits and health care — and the minimum wage. Advocates for the working poor argue for a better raise than the one Congress passed last year — perhaps one set at half the national average hourly wage, which would bring it roughly to where it was in the 1960s, and tie it to the rate of inflation.
The minimum wage can play a vital role in lifting hard-working families above the poverty line. But as Roosevelt understood, it is also about something larger: what kind of country America wants to be. “A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy,” he said in the Congressional message that accompanied the Fair Labor Standards Act, can plead “no economic reason for chiseling workers’ wages.”