Monkeyfister

This war scam has gone on so long, instead of being outraged, I’m telling my children things are just like the good old days. You remember the good old days, over three years ago when the government lost track of $9 billion in Iraq.

Let’s not forget that all these extra hundreds of billions of dollars to fight wars with are on top of the already gargantuan percentage of our tax dollars that are already set aside to keep the military running.

Here’s some numbers for pause from Globalissues.org via Timothy V. Gatto:

Would it upset you to know that China, the #2 country for military expenditures only spends 6% of its budget on the military? Russia, #3, is the same. Iran, the big boogie man of the Middle East that we are so worried about according to Dick Cheney, is #27 with a whopping $4.9 Billion Dollar budget with 1% of their budget spent on the military. It’s estimated that the United States will spend 52% of its budget, and 481.4 Billion dollars on defense this year, and that’s not counting the money for the war in Iraq which so far we have spent $130 Billion Dollars on this year and another $190 Billion that the President has requested. Isn’t this a little bit of overkill?

Labels: The Blogohood

Rumors have been flying recently that Tucker Carlson could soon be on the way out at MSNBC. In a report that aired this morning on NPR, Phil Griffin, a senior vice president at the cable network, described Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as part of the MSNBC "brand". Asked whether Mr. Carlson was also part of that brand, Mr. Griffin replied: "He is right now."

Not exactly a vote of confidence.

Labels: Shitcan, Tucker Carson

Labels: Progressive Movement

This past September, I returned to my home duty station from Iraq. I was greeted rather graciously by home unit when I returned there, and by my family when I returned to visit my home town. Was there a ticker-tape parade, or even a letter from some of the fine folks who claim to “support our troops”, whether by supporting our mission, calling for us to come home, or by putting a yellow magnetic ribbons on their SUVs? No, and I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have wanted any of that. When I returned home, all I wanted was to see and be with my family, because that reunion was not, to my mind, guaranteed, and it was, ultimately, the most important thing in the world to me when I was ducking and covering during rocket attacks on our base. Political considerations took a back seat, and I certainly didn’t want to hear a bunch of insincere praise from people who don’t know or care to know who I am underneath the uniform.

But now that the moment has passed and I’ve returned to my duty section and started the process of leaving that all behind me, certain things have crept up, and I’m not sure what to make of them.

I’ve read the story about former Lance Corporal James Blake Miller, better known in the press as the “Marlboro Marine”. He’s been kicked out of the Marines for having PTSD, is jobless, and divorced. He survived the Iraq War, but he’s still given up the life that he had. He lobbied several congressmen on behalf of the National Mental Health Association, but none had any interest in taking up his cause or, in at least one case, even seeing him. They politely shuffled him along and presumably went on to meet with more “important” lobbyists (and we all know what makes someone “important” in Washington, right?)

I read of the homeless vets, how one in every four homeless persons is a vet, and that Iraq War veterans are finding themselves on the street more quickly than Vietnam veterans. I should have been outraged, but instead I simply thought, “maybe that’s where I’ll end up.” I can’t make any sense of these thoughts, but in the past week or so I’ve had a strong urge to simply drop out of society, to just quit. What would be the loss? My frequent moves while I’ve been in the military have kept me perpetually single, so I have no family obligations. Once my term of service is up, I’ll have no further military obligations. What do I do with my life then? I’ve given thought to going into journalism, but that’s driven by a desire to affect change and make the world a better place. I still have that desire, but I’m no longer certain that I have the ability. For all the writing I do, it seems that nobody with the power to act on my words listens to them, and I honestly have a much better track record of “being right” in recent years than the majority of the power brokers in Washington.

I can no longer abide being a mere symbol in some politician’s crusade. “Support or Troops”, as though we‘re a baseball team. “I Support the Troops and My President”, as though the two go hand in hand. “Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home Alive”, as though clever framing amounts to anything but kudos from your fellow peace activists. Every day that passes, more of my brothers and sisters in arms are dying, and every day more of us are asking why. We have not, to date, received anything but platitudes from the people who support the war or excuses from the people who oppose it. “If I would have known then what I know now…” Known what, Senator? That war is hell, and that every battle plan goes out the window the moment the first shot is fired? People have been saying these things for centuries, millennia. These are not new lessons, but perhaps your study of history is limited to the lessons applicable to your ascent to power. To the millions who marched in the streets trying to tell you then what you know now, you turned a deaf ear.

To those who still support our mission? I’ll give you credit for staying true to your convictions, but to what end are we fighting? Can I get a straight answer from you just once? Not just a platitude espousing the virtues of freedom being on the march when freedom in Iraq seems to be synonymous with large explosions, gunfire, and flag-draped caskets rolling in front of me? To borrow a phrase, what the hell are we fighting for? Nobody really seems to know, any more -- even the people who insist that we have to keep fighting.

I’m not talking about politicians, pundits, bloggers, or callers on talk radio. I’m talking about my fellow service members, my fellow Iraq War veterans. Many of us are (were) not quite clear on what we’re doing there, and we’ve more or less resigned ourselves to the notion that it’s out of our hands. The powers that be in Washington are going to do what they’re going to do, and it’s going to have little to do with anything we do, for good or for ill. But is that as it should be?
I question whether you, who would ask for my vote (and my money) based on promises you’ve no obligation to keep, really feel as though you are accountable to us for the decisions you either have made or will make in the future. If I, in the course of my duties in Iraq, made a mistake that cost someone his life, I would rightly have to be accountable for that. You, who made a mistake that cost literally thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis their lives, ask for a promotion. Do you feel that you have at least a moral obligation to stop and listen to what I have to say for a few seconds before you turn around and hit me up for cash? The answer seems to be no, based on the response I’ve received trying to contact various Presidential candidates.

But I am here, and I’m not going to go away. My ranks are swelling, and soon we will be legion. You have only yourselves to thank for that.

Labels: Dick "dick" Cheney, George W Bush and the Troops, Iraq, Military Voices, Real Soldiers

Labels: Fight War Not Wars, Iraq

Labels: Civil Disobedience, Iraq

remember the planet where we live

Make Hunger Your Next Target!

More than 11% of Tennessee’s children and 19% of the elderly go to bed hungry.

Hunters for the Hungry is a program of the Tennessee Wildlife Federation in cooperation with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Through this program, hunters and meat processors fight hunger by providing properly prepared venison to food banks and soup kitchens across the state.

Donated venison provides hungry families a high-protein, low-fat supplement vital to a healthy diet. Also, venison donated to soup kitchens lowers food costs and puts more meat on the table at a critical time of year. As an example, donated venison allows the Nashville Union Mission to put meat on the table -- one meal in four -- at a time when many of their clients need the extra protein to keep warm while sleeping on the street.

Accomplishments

Since the rebirth of the program in 1998, sportsmen have donated over 360,000 pounds of venison to help feed the hungry. This has helped hunger relief efforts feed nealy 1 MILLION meals to the hungry.

Join Us in Taking Aim Against Hunger!

Hunters can take advantage of this year’s extra doe harvest, help to manage the state’s deer herd, and feed needy families by donating extra venison to Hunters for the Hungry.

Labels: Deer Hunting

Spiced Winter Ale

OG: 1047/FG: 1015 Ready: 6 weeks

We started with a malty, medium-bodied Scottish-style ale. We added a hand-mixed blend of mulling spices: Ceylon cloves, cracked cinnamon, allspice, cardamom and mace. The result is a pleasant, festive holiday ale, perfect to share with friends and family.

Labels: Homebrewing

HOUSTON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Executives at large oil companies often say that the U.S. public -- unnerved by high gasoline prices -- does not understand or appreciate how expensive it is to keep the nation's engines running.

And now in a first, two big energy companies and the American Petroleum Institute (API), the U.S. oil industry's main lobbying group, have reached out to a conservative band of bloggers to tell their story.

"We recognize here that there are many different channels of communications that exist today," Jane Van Ryan, new media advisor at API, said. "We've been looking into the blogosphere for the last several months, and there were a few people who seemed to be a little more knowledgeable about oil and gas."

Van Ryan noted that the bloggers chosen "have not been particularly critical of the industry."

On two separate trips this month, API has paid for seven bloggers to travel to Houston, Corpus Christi and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico to learn about the industry and tour facilities operated by Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc .

"We developed a trip for the bloggers to help them get a full perspective on the technology it takes to explore and produce in the Gulf of Mexico," Destin Singleton, a spokeswoman for Shell in the U.S., said. "This is just another audience still considered part of the media."

In an e-mail, a spokesman for Chevron said the bloggers were invited on the trip as part of API's outreach.

---

Bloggers on the trip to Texas were Ed Morrissey, who blogs for http://www.captainsquartersblog.com, Bruce McQuain at http://www.qando.net and a writer from http://www.newenergyandfuel.com and Carter Wood who writes for http://www.shopfloor.org for the National Association of Manufacturers.

Labels: Big Oil, Conservotard Shill-Bloggers, Peak Oil

By Christine Richard and Matt Miller

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- ACA Capital Holdings Inc., the bond insurer under scrutiny by Standard & Poor's, may have its credit rating cut, forcing banks to take on $60 billion of collateralized debt obligations, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Andrew Wessel said.

S&P; on Nov. 9 began considering ACA's A rating for a downgrade after the New York-based ACA posted a $1.04 billion third-quarter loss. ACA said in a filing this week that it won't meet collateral requirements if its rating falls below A-.

ACA, 29 percent owned by Bear Stearns Cos., is among nine bond insurers under scrutiny by ratings companies after the value of the CDOs they insure fell, prompting $2.9 billion in losses. Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings are examining insurers including MBIA Inc., the largest, Ambac Financial Group Inc. and FGIC Corp. to see if they have enough capital. Those AAA rated insurers may be given a chance to boost capital.

``ACA is a likely candidate to get thrown to the wolves first,'' Wessel said in an interview today. If ACA defaults, banks would then have to bring their ACA-guaranteed CDOS onto their books, said Wessel, who is based in New York and has a neutral rating on the stock.

Bond insurers collectively guarantee as much as $2.4 trillion of municipal and structured finance debt.

Record Defaults

Some of the CDOs are backed by home loans issued in 2006 and early 2007 to borrowers with poor credit, who have been defaulting at record paces.

ACA tumbled 93 percent this year, reducing its market value to $28 million. The shares dropped 18 cents to 85 cents at 10:47 a.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading after falling below $1 for the first time. New York-based Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest U.S. securities firm, has a stake now worth about $8.5 million.

Russell Sherman, a spokesman for Bear Stearns, didn't immediately return a call for comment.

CDOs package debt or derivatives into new securities with varying ratings. Insurers are required by accounting rules to reflect the current market value of guarantees on the securities and bonds they backed through derivatives contracts.

Merrill Lynch & Co. may need to write down $3 billion of CDOs if ACA defaults on its obligations, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. analyst Roger Freeman wrote in a note to clients on Nov. 5.

Jessica Oppenheim, a spokeswoman for Merrill Lynch, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

ACA, which has claims paying resources of $1.1 billion, also has insured bonds with a par value of $7.1 billion, according to the company's Web site. Most of that debt is for tax-exempt organizations, including $51.5 million of bonds sold to finance the construction of a jail in Pinal County, Arizona, and $4.7 million of bonds for the city of Deadwood, South Dakota.

Shares of New York-based Ambac tumbled 73 percent this year and Armonk, New York-based MBIA is down 54 percent.

-- With reporting by Yalman Onaran, Adrienne Toscano and Ellen Braitman in New York. Editor: Bostick (ekm)

Labels: Collapse, Global Economy, Sub-Prime Crash, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy, Wall Street Scam

RHINEBECK, N.Y., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A financial crisis will likely send the U.S. dollar into a free fall of as much as 90 percent and gold soaring to $2,000 an ounce, a trends researcher said.

"We are going to see economic times the likes of which no living person has seen," Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente said, forecasting a "Panic of 2008."

"The bigger they are, the harder they'll fall," he said in an interview with New York's Hudson Valley Business Journal.

Celente -- who forecast the subprime mortgage financial crisis and the dollar's decline a year ago and gold's current rise in May -- told the newspaper the subprime mortgage meltdown was just the first "small, high-risk segment of the market" to collapse.

Derivative dealers, hedge funds, buyout firms and other market players will also unravel, he said.

Massive corporate losses, such as those recently posted by Citigroup Inc. and General Motors Corp., will also be fairly common "for some time to come," he said.

He said he would not "be surprised if giants tumble to their deaths," Celente said.

The Panic of 2008 will lead to a lower U.S. standard of living, he said.

A result will be a drop in holiday spending a year from now, followed by a permanent end of the "retail holiday frenzy" that has driven the U.S. economy since the 1940s, he said.

Labels: Collapse, Credit Crisis, Global Economy, Sub-Prime Crash, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Treasury prices rallied on Wednesday, adding to gains as further stock market losses spurred a safe-haven bid for U.S. government debt.

The Dow Jones , S&P; 500 and Nasdaq stock indices all fell more than 1 percent while two-year Treasury yields fell to nearly three-year lows.

Credit jitters and oil nearing $100 fueled safe-haven bids and expectations of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut, contributing to a yield curve steepening that left the spread between two- and 10-year yields at about 100 basis points.

Recession fears fueled by the continuing troubles in subprime mortgages and surging energy costs also spurred investors to buy lower-risk U.S. government debt in Wednesday's shortened pre-holiday trading session.

The additional losses in stocks and gains for Treasuries occurred at midmorning in conjunction with news that U.S. consumer sentiment was at its lowest level in two years in mid- to late November. The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its final November figure on consumer sentiment was 76.1, above the median forecast in a Reuters poll of 75.0 but below 80.9 in October.

In morning trade, the benchmark 10-year note yielded 4.01 percent, having briefly dipped below 4 percent early in the session for the first time since September 2005.

"The market is trading on emotions," said George Adell, fixed income strategist at Commerce Capital Market in Jupiter, Florida. "No one knows when this credit and housing (correction) will bottom."

Labels: Collapse, Credit Crisis, Global Economy, Sub-Prime Crash, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

Labels: Holiday, My Life As It Is

Malkin must be assuming that "New Orleans" and "leader of one Louisiana advocacy group" = Democrats. Let's look at that because it really bugs me when one acribes something to individuals or groups without facts to support such.

The "leader" and "group" cited would be Anne Milling founder of the Women of the Storm. It was Women of the Storm, "in concert with Dillard, Loyola, Tulane and Xavier universities" that lead the effort to to bring a presidential debate to New Orleans.

Let's look at Women of the Storm. I have followed press accounts of the group and their work since its inception post Katrina because it is an extraordinary group. Malkin obviously has not. It is specifically a "non-partisan, non-political group" founded to "educate the elected leadership of this country about the urgent needs of the areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita." Members are "culturally, socially and economically diverse." Many are also from the upper crust of New Orleans society. For example go read this Times Picayune article about the 6 women who comprise the "core leadership." These are women who are leaders in the community and beyond as illustrated in a portion from that article which involved the networking efforts of one of the core, Peggy Laborde and another member with ties to none other than Laura Bush...

In classic networking fashion, Laborde this week was in the process of orchestrating an audience with Laura Bush's chief of staff, relying on connections through Adriel "Sparky" Arceneaux, a member of Women of the Storm, who Milling said is a former roommate of the president's wife.

I would submit Malkin has no idea who the members of that advocay group are. Rest assured they are not the dirty f&*%ing hippies of NOLA but rather many would be considered the finest example of Southern genteel womanhood.

Labels: Batshit Crazy Motherfuckers, malkin, New Orleans, Scout Prime

Labels: Peak Energy, Peak Everything, Peak Oil

"The dollar peg is doomed"

DUBAI: When central bank officials in the Middle East say they have no plans to end their fixed exchange rates to the dollar, the currency market hears the opposite.

Merrill Lynch predicts that either the United Arab Emirates or Qatar will cut their dollar peg within six months. Standard Chartered says the six Gulf Cooperation Council nations need to raise the value of their currencies 20 percent. And currency traders are betting that Saudi Arabia will sever its 21-year link to the dollar, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

"The dollar peg is doomed," said Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings in New York and a former partner of the hedge fund manager George Soros.

The Gulf countries, which supply 22 percent of the world's oil, according to BP, are under pressure to abandon their fixed exchange rates after the dollar tumbled 10 percent against the Euro so far this year. Inflation in the Gulf region is accelerating at the fastest pace in at least five years because central banks follow U.S. Federal Reserve policy as a result of the dollar link.

The ties are already weakening. Kuwait dropped the dinar's fixed exchange rate in May and the currency has strengthened 4.5 percent.

Labels: Collapse, Global Economy, Oil Producers, US Dollar, US Economy

Just in time for the holidays, four beef carcasses hang from the improvised slaughterhouse at Greg Niewendorp's 160-acre farm outside East Jordan, in the north of Michigan's lower peninsula. It should be a happy Thanksgiving because, for the first time in eight months, his farm isn't under quarantine by Michigan's Department of Agriculture (MDA) and Niewendorp is free to slaughter cattle from his herd of twenty and fulfill contracts in time for the holidays to the couple dozen friends and neighbors who prize the specially bred grass-fed beef he produces.

Yet it's also a bittersweet time, because the scars from his battle with the MDA are still fresh. Last February, he refused to subject his cattle to a mandatory state program to test cattle in his region of Michigan for bovine tuberculosis--a program he argues, among other things, is unnecessary because he distributes his beef privately to people who trust his animal-raising techniques, but which the state insists is essential to ensure the beef isn't tainted.

The state immediately slapped a quarantine on his farm, prohibiting the movement of animals onto or off the property. Then, in August, an MDA inspector arrived, escorted by two Michigan State Police officers, and attempted to convince Niewendorp to have his cattle tested by a vet waiting down the road. Niewendorp angrily ordered the inspector and police off his property, telling them that, without a search warrant, they were trespassers.

Finally, in early October, a team of MDA inspectors and vets arrived again, this time with a search warrant and two sheriff's deputies--and backed up by a half-dozen state trooper SWAT team members and three emergency medical vehicles down the road.

Niewendorp is convinced that "they would have liked to have killed me," but this time he didn't resist, so the vets did their deed and left. All the tests came back negative and the state lifted its quarantine last month.

While the matter is over for the state, Niewendorp says it's just begun for him. "They'll need a search warrant to do the test next year." He's also organizing the Michigan chapter of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association and says next year more Michigan farmers will refuse the test.

These should be happy times for owners of small farms. Not only are commodity prices way up, but the buy-local movement has caught fire around the country. Rapidly growing numbers of people are embracing the romantic notion of buying food directly from area farmers, sometimes driving hours into the countryside to buy veggies, meat and milk.

The number of farmers markets over the last five years has increased more than 50 percent, to nearly 4,500 from 2,800, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Since the European idea of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) was adopted by a handful of US farms twenty years ago, enabling consumers to buy shares in the output of local farms, the concept has been adopted by as many as 3,000 small farms across the US. Thousands of consumers are trekking out to dairy farms to purchase suddenly popular unpasteurized milk for its perceived health benefits over the pasteurized stuff, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation, a promoter of raw (unpasteurized) milk consumption. (Retail sales of raw milk are prohibited in most states).

Labels: American Fascism, Local Economy, Local Farming

The long-awaited, long-feared consumer crunch may finally be here. That might not mean an economywide recession, but the pain for American households will be deep.

In recent years the U.S. mostly has seen narrowly focused downturns, where a few sectors are hit hard while the rest of the economy and financial markets remain relatively unscathed. In the dot-com bust of 2001, for example, tech companies and stocks took it on the chin, while consumer spending and borrowing sailed through without a pause. This time the positions will be reversed, as consumers tank while much of the corporate sector stays on track.

It's been a glorious run for the consumer. In the past 25 years, Americans have kept shopping through good times and bad. In every quarter except one since 1981, consumer spending rose over the previous year, adjusted for inflation. The exception was the first quarter of 1991, and even then the decrease was a mild 0.4% dip.

The main fuel for the spending was easy access to credit. Banks and other financial institutions were willing to lend households ever increasing amounts of money. Any particular individual might default, but in the aggregate, loans to consumers were viewed as low-risk and profitable.

The subprime crisis, however, marks the beginning of the end for the long consumer borrow-and-buy boom. The financial sector, wrestling with hundreds of billions in losses, can no longer treat consumers as a safe bet. Already, standards for real estate lending have been raised, including those for jumbo mortgages for high-end houses. Credit cards are still widely available, but it may only be a matter of time before issuers get tougher.

What comes next could be scary—the largest pullback in consumer spending in decades, perhaps as much as $200 billion to $300 billion, or 2%-3% of personal income. Reduced access to credit will combine with falling real estate values to hit poor and rich alike. "We're in uncharted territory," says David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, who's forecasting a mild drop in consumer spending in the first half of 2008. "It's pretty rare we go through such a pronounced tightening in credit standards."

Just a few months ago, analysts believed the collapse of subprime mortgage securities and related investments would lead to losses of $50 billion to $100 billion, a large but manageable number. Now, a new report from Goldman Sachs (GS) says losses from subprime exposure could be much larger than recently assumed, hitting as much as $400 billion. But that's not the extent of the financial carnage: Goldman said the full impact on the economy could be even more substantial, because the losses could compel banks and other lenders to curtail lending by as much as $2 trillion.

If banks trim their lending by that amount, consumers and businesses won't be able to borrow the money they need to maintain strong economic expansion. "This is a large shock. It corresponds to 7% of the total debt owed by U.S. nonfinancial sectors," wrote Goldman Senior Economist Jan Hatzius, the author of the report. "The drag on economic activity could be substantial."
Doing the Math

How does a $400 billion loss in the credit markets translate into $2 trillion of economic damage? The answer is debt, or leverage. Banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms often borrow $10 or more for each $1 of equity they use in a transaction, according to estimates by the New York Federal Reserve. When the investments pan out, the use of debt boosts their return. When the investments go south, the use of debt exacerbates the loss and often leads lenders to be more conservative in the future.

Citing a recent analysis by Tobias Adrian of the New York Fed and Hyun Song Shin of Princeton University in the Goldman report, Hatzius estimated about half the $400 billion in losses will fall on the shoulders of highly leveraged investors such as banks, hedge funds, and brokers. He said they typically cut back on lending when the value of their assets falls, to maintain their targeted ratios of capital to loans. If those lenders take half of the $400 billion hit, they will have to reduce lending at a rate of $10 for every $1 of loss, which would add up to $2 trillion.

Labels: Collapse, Global Economy, Sub-Prime Crash, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

Much of Transport Revolutions is taken up with reviewing previous revolutions in transportation and describing transportation today, its impacts and energy use. The energy analysis notes that 95 per cent of motorized travel and freight movement by land, sea, and air is fuelled by oil products, accounting worldwide for consumption of some 60% of crude oil. Just over 50% of oil-based transport fuels moves people, just under 50% moves freight.

Motorized movement of people grows by about 2% per year worldwide, totaling some 20 trillion person-miles; about a quarter of this comprises travel in, to, and from the U.S. Motorized movement of freight grows by about 4% per year, totaling some 40 trillion ton-miles; about a sixth of this comprises freight movement in, to, and from the U.S. Oil use for transportation grows more slowly than transport activity but more quickly than use for other purposes.

Overwhelmingly, motorized movement of people is by land, about 90% of total person-miles, and movement of freight is by water, about 75% of total ton-miles. More than a third of all freight activity is movement of oil and oil products.

Motorized transportation provides enormous benefits. It facilitates and even stimulates just about everything now regarded as progress. It also produces major costs, notably fatalities and injuries from road traffic crashes, and the adverse effects of emissions from the burning of oil products in vehicles’ internal combustion engines.

Modern societies require prodigious amounts of transportation for their functioning, now almost wholly fuelled by oil products. During the next decade major shortfalls are likely to emerge between ‘business-as-usual’ projections of oil consumption and oil production. The resulting scarcity and high oil prices will present what may be humankind’s greatest challenge, more than climate change, at least for the short and medium terms.

Our assessment of numerous alternatives to oil as a transport fuel concludes that, as oil depletion progresses, only electricity could reasonably power acceptable levels of land transportation. Oil products will be increasingly limited to fuelling marine transportation and aviation.

Movement over water can be highly fuel efficient if speeds are low; and oil use can be further reduced by exploiting wind energy. (Transport Revolutions’ cover portrays a ship deploying a towing kite.) There are no feasible alternatives to oil products for aviation, which could undergo the most radical changes over next few decades. It could be increasingly confined to large, fully occupied aircraft flying a small number of mostly intercontinental routes.

Electricity is an advantageous energy source for land transportation in every respect except one: it cannot be stored on board vehicles in acceptable quantities. This disadvantage can be overcome by delivering electricity to vehicles while in motion. Grid-connected electric vehicles have provided transportation for at least as long as vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. As electric trains, streetcars, and trolleybuses, they provide most public transit in most of the world’s major cities. We anticipate substantial expansion in the use of this kind of vehicle, with development and some deployment of unfamiliar systems including trolley trucks and personal grid-connected vehicles.

Electric vehicles offer the important advantage of independence from how their fuel is produced. Electricity generation can transition among a variety of sources—from coal generation to solar thermal generation—without changes in the transport system. Electric traction is well suited to the necessary transition from non-renewable to renewable energy.

Increased use of electricity could bring greater reliance on coal generation. We demonstrate that such reliance can be avoided through ready reduction in electricity consumption for other purposes and development of numerous opportunities for renewable generation.

At the heart of planning for oil depletion is whether it will be anticipated in a timely manner. If anticipated, the result could be a ‘soft landing’ into oil depletion. If not, scarcity and price increases during oil depletion could produce a ‘hard landing’ involving economic and social disruption and dysfunctional panic responses.

Labels: Global Economy, Peak Energy, Peak Everything, Peak Oil, Transportation, US Economy

DHAKA (Reuters) - Relief workers and the Bangladesh army, air force and navy intensified efforts on Tuesday to reach millions of survivors of a cyclone that killed nearly 3,500 people along the Bay of Bengal.

A huge relief operation was under way with the aim of reaching almost all the affected areas.

Bangladesh army relief and rescue teams have reached 70 percent of the affected areas, said officers manning a military control room opened after Cyclone Sidr smashed into low-lying coastal areas on Thursday.

Here's a message on this from Sheril Kirshenbaum who is a marine biologist at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. She also blogs at the science blog, The Intersection.

Labels: Bangladesh, Hurricanes

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P; 500 closed at their lowest levels in three months on Monday after a broker downgrade of Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) sparked concerns that more mortgage losses may lie ahead, compounding doubts about the outlook for the economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI: Quote, Profile, Research) was down 217.86 points, or 1.65 percent, to end unofficially at 12,958.93. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX: Quote, Profile, Research) was down 25.44 points, or 1.74 percent, to finish unofficially at 1,433.30. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC: Quote, Profile, Research) was down 43.86 points, or 1.66 percent, to close unofficially at 2,593.38.

Labels: Global Economy, US Economy, Wall Street, Wall Street Fairy

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Ethanol, the centerpiece of President George W. Bush's plan to wean the U.S. from oil, is 2007's worst energy investment.

The corn-based fuel tumbled 57 percent from last year's record of $4.33 a gallon and drove crop prices to a 10-year high. Production in the U.S. tripled after Morgan Stanley, hedge fund firm D.E. Shaw & Co. and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla helped finance a building boom.

Even worse for investors and the Bush administration, energy experts contend ethanol isn't reducing oil demand. Scientists at Cornell University say making the fuel uses more energy than it creates, while the National Research Council warns ethanol production threatens scarce water supplies.

As oil nears $100 a barrel, ethanol markets are so depressed that distilleries are shutting from Iowa to Germany. An investor who put $10 million into ethanol on Dec. 31 now has $7.5 million, a loss of 25 percent. Florida and Georgia have banned sales during the summer, when the fuel may evaporate and create smog.

``I don't anticipate any sort of immediate rebound,'' says Barry Frazier, the 50-year-old president of Center Ethanol LLC in suburban St. Louis. ``It's going to take 12 to 24 months before the market is able to absorb the large amount of new capacity.''

Labels: Bill Gates, Bush Administration, Bush Economic Policies, Collapse, Corn, Ethanol, Farm Bill, Peak Oil, US Economy

Labels: Iraq

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Shareholders in the securities industry are having their worst year since 2002, losing $74 billion of their equity. That won't prevent Wall Street from paying record bonuses, totaling almost $38 billion.

That money, split among about 186,000 workers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos., equates to an average of $201,500 per person, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The five biggest U.S. securities firms paid $36 billion to employees last year.

The bigger bonus pool derives from a record $9 billion of fees for arranging acquisitions and $5 billion for underwriting initial public offerings and sales of junk bonds, the most lucrative securities, Bloomberg data show. Bankers' record fees help explain why 2007 will prove to be the industry's second- most profitable after the subprime mortgage market collapse led to losses at Merrill and Bear Stearns. The last time bonuses declined was 2002 when the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 23 percent, and Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. went bankrupt.

Goldman's record earnings and gains at Morgan Stanley and Lehman mean all the New York-based firms will be forced to pay more in a year when all but Goldman lost more than 20 percent of their market value, said Charles Geisst, finance professor at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York.

Labels: Collapse, Credit Crisis, Sub-Prime Crash, US Economy, Wall Street, Wall Street Fairy, Wall Street Scam

November 19, 2007 - Builder confidence in the market for new single-family homes remained unchanged in November due to continuing mortgage market problems, a substantial inventory overhang and ongoing concerns about the effects of negative media coverage, according to the latest National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), released today. The November HMI held even with October’s upwardly revised 19 reading, its lowest point since the series began in January of 1985.

“Consistent with what builders said in last month’s survey, many are reporting that their special sales incentives are having limited success in terms of getting buyers in the door,” said NAHB President Brian Catalde, a home builder from El Segundo, Calif. Of particular concern, he noted, is that negative media reports are dissuading buyers and fueling unrealistic expectations regarding home price discounts.

“To be more specific,” Catalde said, “builders are worried that the national media has tended to report negative housing stories as if there is one real estate market, when, in fact, there is no such thing – all housing markets are local. As a result, some healthy markets are being unfairly impacted by this negative media coverage.”

Labels: Collapse, Credit Crisis, Sub-Prime Crash, US Economy

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks fell, erasing last week's gain, after Goldman, Sachs & Co. told investors to sell shares of Citigroup Inc. and Lowe's Cos. cut its earnings forecast for the second time in two months.

Citigroup retreated to a four-year low after Goldman said credit-market losses may cause the biggest U.S. bank by assets to report $15 billion in writedowns over the next two quarters. Merrill Lynch & Co. and Morgan Stanley also slumped after Goldman cut its share-price estimate on both companies. Lowe's, the second-largest home-improvement retailer, slid the most since May 2003 after the housing slump caused a drop in profit.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 22.72, or 1.6 percent, to 1,436.02 at 11:15 a.m. in New York, its lowest since August. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 172.82, or 1.3 percent, to 13,003.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index decreased 44.57, or 1.7 percent, to 2,592.67. The Dow Jones Transportation Average slid 69.77, or 1.5 percent, to 4,494.07, the lowest in 13 months. Almost nine stocks dropped for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange.

``Downgrades in the banking sector and issues with the retailers, all of these things are spooking the market right now,'' said Ed Peters, chief investment officer at PanAgora Asset Management in Boston, which manages $26 billion. ``We have to wait a little bit to be sure that all the news is out'' before buying shares of financial companies.

Lowe's lost $1.70, or 6.8 percent, to $23.31. Net income fell to $643 million, or 43 cents a share, from $716 million, or 46 cents, a year ago, Lowe's said. Revenue rose to $11.6 billion, trailing analysts' estimates.

Recession Concern

The report from Lowe's added to concern that retail sales growth this holiday shopping season may be the worst in at least five years and signal an economic contraction. The number of economists forecasting the U.S. will slip into recession almost doubled over the last two months, a survey by the National Association for Business Economics showed.

Citigroup slid $1.67 to $32.33. Goldman cut the largest U.S. bank by assets to ``sell'' from ``neutral'' and reduced its 2008 earnings per share estimate to $3.80 from $4.65.

Stocks Fall on Downgrade of Citigroup; Street Awaits Homebuilders' Index; Lowe's Cuts Forecast

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks slid further Monday as Wall Street absorbed a gloomy outlook for the banking sector and anticipated bleak news from the National Association of Homebuilders. The Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Dow Jones industrial average each lost more than 1 percent.

Setting the tone was Goldman Sachs' downgrade of large banks, and its estimate that Citigroup Inc. would have to write down $15 billion due to its exposure to risky debt over the next two quarters.

The worry on Wall Street is that the housing market is getting so weak that it will crimp consumer spending, which until now has helped keep the economy afloat. Ahead of the holiday shopping season, any signs that Americans are pulling back could prevent a December rally.

Later Monday, the NAHB releases its November housing forecast. Economists polled by Thomson/IFR expect the index to hold at 18, having dropped to that level in October after eight consecutive months of declines.

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