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.”

Surging Oil and Food Prices Threaten the World Economy, Finance Ministers Warn

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 15, 2008
Surging Oil and Food Prices Threaten the World Economy, Finance Ministers Warn
By MARTIN FACKLER
OSAKA, Japan — The global economy faces a one-two punch from slowing growth and soaring fuel and food prices, finance ministers from the world’s richest nations warned Saturday, though they stopped short of offering concrete solutions.
Finance ministers from the Group of 8 industrialized nations wrapped up a two-day meeting in Japan that was dominated by talk of rising petroleum prices, which have set off street protests across the world. In a statement, the ministers said higher prices of oil and other commodities threatened the world economy at a time when it was still reeling from the collapse of the housing market in the United States.
The ministers urged oil-rich nations to increase production to help reverse a trend that has pushed up oil prices to nearly $140 a barrel, a record. The ministers also warned that the rising cost of oil and other commodities could spur broader increases of prices and wages.
The specter of fighting inflation as the ministers try to revive their flagging economies would “make our policy choices more complicated,” the statement said. The combination of inflation and low growth, known as stagflation, is difficult to escape because steps to spur economic activity, like lowering interest rates, can also lead to price increases.
“For a long time, the world economy enjoyed a combination of robust growth and low inflation, but it now faces headwinds,” the statement said. “Elevated commodity prices, especially of oil and food, pose a serious challenge to stable growth worldwide.”
The Group of 8 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — are many of the world’s largest consumers of oil. But most have little say over production, and over drivers of oil prices like rising demand from China and India.
The ministers also failed to find common ground on whether to take action to curb speculation in oil futures markets, which some have blamed for exacerbating price increases. While Italy called for measures like making futures trading more expensive, this was resisted by the United States and Britain, where big futures markets operate.
“It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between an airline that may hedge its fuel price, which is perfectly sensible planning, and someone who is speculating or even gambling on the price of oil,” said Alistair Darling, Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer.
The American Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., attributed higher oil prices to changes in supply and demand and a failure by oil-rich nations to build enough wells and refineries.
“At its heart, this run-up in price reflects long-term trends in global supply and demand and strong economic growth coinciding with a period of minimal investment in oil production,” Mr. Paulson told reporters. “This is not something that lends itself to short-term solutions.”
As a compromise, the ministers asked the International Monetary Fund to look into what was driving the recent surge in oil prices. The ministers also called for aid to help developing nations in Africa and elsewhere deal with higher prices of commodities, particularly food ingredients.
The ministers met to help work out the agenda for next month’s summit meeting of Group of 8 heads of state in northern Japan. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, they said they also discussed steps to soothe financial markets and help developing nations fight global warming.
One item not discussed, despite wide expectations that it would be, was currencies, and particularly the possibility of intervention to prop up the slumping United States dollar. Japan’s finance minister, Fukushiro Nukaga, the host of the meeting, said currencies were discussed only on the sidelines.
At a news conference, Mr. Paulson brushed aside questions about intervention.
“A strong dollar is in our nation’s interest,” he said, adding that solid fundamentals in the American economy would eventually help the United States currency recover.

Booming, China Faults U.S. Policy on the Economy

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 is it 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
Booming, China Faults U.S. Policy on the Economy
By EDWARD WONG
BEIJING — Not long ago, Chinese officials sat across conference tables from American officials and got an earful.
The Americans scolded the Chinese on mismanaging their economy, from state subsidies to foreign investment regulations to the valuation of their currency. Your economic system, the Americans strongly implied, should look a lot more like ours.
But in recent weeks, the fingers have been wagging in the other direction. Senior Chinese officials are publicly and loudly rebuking the Americans on their handling of the economy and defending their own more assertive style of regulation.
Chinese officials seem to be galled by the apparent hypocrisy of Americans telling them what to do while the American economy is at best stagnant. China, on the other hand, has maintained its feverish growth.
Some officials are promoting a Chinese style of economic management that they suggest serves developing countries better than the American model, in much the same way they argue that they are in no hurry to copy American-style multiparty democracy.
In the last six weeks alone, a senior banking regulator blamed Washington’s “warped conception” of market regulation for the subprime mortgage crisis that is rattling the world economy; the Chinese envoy to the World Trade Organization called on the United States to halt the dollar’s unchecked depreciation before the slide further worsens soaring oil and food prices; and Chinese agencies denounced a federal committee charged with vetting foreign investments in the United States, saying the Americans were showing “hostility” and a “discriminatory attitude,” not least toward the Chinese.
All this reflects a brash new sense of self-confidence on the part of the Chinese. China seems to feel unusually bold before the Summer Olympics, seen here as a curtain raiser for the nation’s ascent to pre-eminence in the world. The devastating earthquake last month helped by turning world sympathy toward China and dampening criticism of its handling of Tibet.
The Chinese attitude is no doubt bolstered by the lame-duck status of the Bush administration and by the fact that the United States is widely seen as having squandered its political and military leadership during the war in Iraq, which China opposed. Likewise, Chinese officials and state news media have suggested that the relatively quick mobilization of the Chinese Army during the recent earthquake in Sichuan Province contrasts favorably with the Bush administration’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina.
The aggressive stand comes at an inopportune moment for the White House. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and other cabinet members are to meet with Chinese officials in Annapolis, Md., on Tuesday in the latest round of semiannual economic talks. The Americans have a laundry list of complaints, among them that the Chinese use regulations to favor domestic companies over foreign rivals and that Beijing does too little to police the theft of copyrights and patents held by Western companies.
The United States is also pressing China to address concerns about the safety of food and drugs it exports.
But China has its own list of grievances, topped by management of the dollar and restrictions on foreign investment in the United States. And the Americans could find themselves with little negotiating leverage.
“U.S. credibility and the credibility of U.S. financial markets is zero everywhere in the world,” said Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University who has sharply criticized the Bush administration and praised China’s economic management in the past. “Anybody looking at this from the outside says, ‘There’s been a lot of hot air coming out of the U.S., so why should we listen to these guys when they didn’t know how to manage risk?’ ” ...full text

Strong Action Urged to Curb Warming

"There's still a lot of skepticism about whether global warming is man made," Stahl remarked. "I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view. They’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the earth is flat. That demeans them a little bit, but it’s not that far off," Gore said."

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."

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 11, 2008
Strong Action Urged to Curb Warming
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The scientific academies of 13 countries on Tuesday urged the world to act more forcefully to limit the threat posed by human-driven global warming.
In a joint statement, the academies of the Group of 8 industrialized countries — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — and of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa called on the industrialized countries to lead a “transition to a low-carbon society” and aggressively move to limit impacts from changes in climate that are already under way and impossible to stop.
The statement, posted by the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, urged the Group of 8 countries to move beyond last year’s pledge to consider halving global emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and “make maximum efforts” to reach this target.
The academies recommended speeding the adoption of new energy technologies and encouraging changes in behavior that curb energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions. They also urged investing more to improve solar and nuclear energy technologies and in projects to capture and permanently store carbon dioxide produced by power plants. The academies also said it was necessary to study artificial “geoengineering” methods for stabilizing climate, as well as large-scale reforestation.

The Science of Denial

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It!"Its motives were transparent: the less people understood about the causes and consequences of global warming, the less they were likely to demand action from their leaders. This administration long ago secured a special place in history for bending science to its political ends. One costly result is that this nation has lost seven years in a struggle in which time is not on anyone’s side."

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."

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 4, 2008
Editorial
The Science of Denial
The Bush administration has worked overtime to manipulate or conceal scientific evidence — and muzzled at least one prominent scientist — to justify its failure to address climate change.
Its motives were transparent: the less people understood about the causes and consequences of global warming, the less they were likely to demand action from their leaders. And its strategy has been far too successful. Seven years later, Congress is only beginning to confront the challenge of global warming.
The last week has brought further confirmation of the administration’s cynicism. An internal investigation by NASA’s inspector general concluded that political appointees in the agency’s public affairs office had tried to restrict reporters’ access to its leading climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen. He has warned about climate change for 20 years and has openly criticized the administration’s refusal to tackle the issue head-on.
More broadly, the investigation said that politics played a heavy role in the office and that it had presented information about global warming “in a manner that reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate-change science made available to the general public.”
Meanwhile, the administration finally agreed, under duress, to release a Congressionally mandated report on the effects of climate change on various regions of the United States. Some of the report’s predictions, like the inevitable loss of coastal areas to rising seas, were not new. Others were, including warnings of a potential increase in various food- and water-borne viruses.
What was most noteworthy about the latter report was that it made it to the light of day. A 1990 law requires the president to give Congress every four years its best assessment of the likely effects of climate change. The last such assessment was undertaken by President Clinton and published in 2000. Mr. Bush not only missed the 2004 deadline but allowed the entire information-gathering process to wither. Only a court order handed down last August in response to a lawsuit by public interest groups forced him to deliver this month.
This administration long ago secured a special place in history for bending science to its political ends. One costly result is that this nation has lost seven years in a struggle in which time is not on anyone’s side.

CNN reporter talks of pressure to be patriotic

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It!"press corps under enormous pressure from corporate executives to make sure the war was presented "in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings."

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."

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.



CNN reporter talks of pressure to be patriotic
2008-05-30 09:59:31.0CNN reporter talks of pressure to be patrioticcnn, patriotic,iraq1159076Newsmaker2@webnews/enpproperty-->(Agencies)Updated: 2008-05-30 09:59

NEW YORK - CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin said Thursday she was referring to her time spent at MSNBC when she said she felt pressure not to report stories critical of the Bush administration during the time leading up to the Iraq war.
In this Nov. 6, 2007 photo released by CNN, CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin is shown. Yellin said Thursday, May 29, 2008, she was referring to her time spent at MSNBC when she said she felt pressure not to report stories critical of the Bush administration during the time leading up to the Iraq war. [Agencies]
Yellin's initial comments, made during a discussion with Anderson Cooper on CNN Wednesday, shifted attention to the news media's performance following release of a critical assessment of the Bush administration by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. He wrote that Bush's strategy for selling the war was less than candid and honest.
During her CNN appearance, Yellin said the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives to make sure the war was presented "in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings."
The higher Bush's approval ratings, the more pressure she felt from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, she said. Pushed by Cooper to explain, Yellin said her bosses would turn down critical stories about the administration and try to put on positive pieces.
Yellin, a Harvard graduate, worked at ABC News as a White House correspondent from 2003 to 2007. She joined CNN in 2007 and is now a congressional correspondent; she was in Puerto Rico Thursday reporting on the upcoming Democratic primary.
Interest in her comments immediately exploded on the Internet, prompting her to issue a statement through CNN on Thursday. She was not made available by CNN to answer questions.
"Suddenly I'm being reported on," she wrote on a CNN Web log. "It's not the most comfortable position for a reporter."
She said she didn't mean to leave the impression that corporate leadership edited her work; she was referring to senior producers who "wanted their coverage to reflect the mood of the country." She didn't identify any of the producers or give a specific example about how things were changed because of this.
MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said Yellin was a "freelance overnight news reader at MSNBC for one year who was not renewed." But he didn't dispute Yellin's claim that she did some Washington and Pentagon reports while there.
"She had little to no contact with editorial decision makers, and certainly was not a part of the editorial process on a daily basis," Gaines said. "Given how her story has changed so dramatically since her appearance on CNN -- her current employer -- less than 24 hours ago, we find it hard to believe that anyone would take this disgruntled former employee's comments seriously."
The charges against MSNBC aren't new, however. A prime-time show with Phil Donahue received consistent pressure to present panels tilted in favor of the war, said Jeff Cohen, that program's former senior producer. Donahue's show was on for less than a year before being cancelled less than a month before the war began.
He once witnessed a producer scolded for organizing a discussion with pro- and anti-war sentiments presented equally, said Cohen, a liberal activist who wrote a book about his experiences with TV networks.
"It's a great day for the American public that finally, after five years of such well-documented criticisms of the media's failure ... to see them finally having to come clean and do a self-examination," Cohen said.
"The irony is that it's one of the Bush prevaricators that is forcing it," he said.
Five years later, Donahue's former time slot is filled by Keith Olbermann, who has drawn attention for his sharp commentaries against the Bush administration.
From the other side of the podium, McClellan offered criticism of the media's performance. He said reporters were "complicit enablers" by covering the preparations for war instead of more aggressively questioning the need for it.

Russia Warns U.S. on Missile Defense

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 these expanded/holistic/scientific/sustainable/survival parameters which new energy systems would reveal. Unlike Schrödinger's Cat '...is Dead. No, wait. Schrödinger's Cat is Not Dead. No, wait....." our destiny is sure and certain. For the power of the 'forces in motion' as noted by the media headlines in this blog, are of such magnitude, that nothing short of profound scientific revelation and energy breakthroughs can offset and reverse the 'clear and lethal' present danger. http://www.fuel2000.net/

NYT June 3, 2007
Russia Warns U.S. on Missile Defense
Russia's Putin Warns of Retaliatory Steps if U.S. Installs Missile Defense in Europe
By MARIA DANILOVA
The Associated Press MOSCOW
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow could take "retaliatory steps" if Washington proceeds with plans to build a missile defense system for Europe, including possibly aiming nuclear weapons at targets on the continent.
Speaking to foreign reporters days before he travels to Germany for the annual summit with President Bush and the other Group of Eight leaders, Putin assailed the White House plan to place a radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland. Washington says the system is needed to counter a potential threat from Iran.
In an interview released Monday, Putin suggested that Russia may respond to the threat by aiming its nuclear weapons at Europe.
"If a part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States appears in Europe and, in the opinion of our military specialists, will threaten us, then we will have to take appropriate steps in response. What kind of steps? We will have to have new targets in Europe," Putin said, according to a transcript released by the Kremlin. These could be targeted with "ballistic or cruise missiles or maybe a completely new system" he said.
On Monday, Iran's top security official called the U.S. plans for the missile defense shield a "joke," saying Tehran's missiles do not have the capability to reach Europe.
"Claims by U.S. officials that installing a missile defense system in Europe is aimed at confronting Iranian missiles and protecting Europe against Iran is the joke of the year, ..full text