There are other factors affecting the price of oil. The prospect of an Israeli/U.S. attack on Iran has increased current demand in order to build stocks against disruption. No one knows the consequence of such an ill-conceived act of aggression, and the uncertainty pushes up the price of oil as the entire Middle East could be engulfed in conflagration...

The crisis that looms for the U.S. is the loss of world currency role. Once the dollar loses that role, the U.S. government will not be able to finance its operations by borrowing abroad, and foreigners will cease to finance the massive U.S. trade deficit. This crisis will eliminate the U.S. as a world power. [More]

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. . . read more

The oil companies' staggering profits are a windfall of the purest sort (Websters' definition: "an unexpected, unearned, or sudden gain or advantage"). This is not a moral judgment about the oil companies, it is just a description of what's happening. A windfall profits tax could generate substantial government revenues. Allocated to investment in renewable energy, it could significantly increase funds directed to renewables, and be a small but important down payment on the massive investment needed in mass transit, energy efficiency and renewable energy...

Re-regulating energy markets, imposing margin requirements and lessening investors' ability to trade with borrowed money, and cracking down on market manipulation will all slow the Wall Street frenzy and limit price spikes. For the long term, however, oil demand will continue to shoot up and supply cannot keep up. Ultimately, new sources of oil may become available, including from deep water sites and tar sands and shale, but these will be more expensive to obtain. The world is likely witnessing a long-term, steady (if bumpy) and permanent rise in oil prices. This price increase will impose major economic hardships, unless there is a massive effort to shift to oil-displacing technologies and renewable energy. [More] . . read more

A major flaw of Peak Oil is that it is based on a static, or technology-neutral, assumption: it implicitly assumes that limits to oil are set as natural, innate, and immutable. Yet, limits to oil, like those to most other resources, are determined as much (if not more) socially as they are naturally. Research, development, and technological advances have made (and will continue to make) both the amounts of oil reserves and of oil production much more fluid or elastic than perceived by the champions of Peak Oil.

Another equally-flawed proposition of Peak Oil is that it implicitly views the limits of oil supply independent of substitutes or alternative sources of energy. These include solar, wind, non-food bio-fuel, and nuclear energies. They also include natural gas. Further, they include “unconventional” oil: Tar Sands, Heavy Oils, and Oil Shale. Although, with the exception of natural gas and nuclear technology, the use of these substitutes is sill quite expensive, and therefore, limited, technological advances are bound to reduce their cost and increase their sue. [More] . . read more

Commercialism is overrunning the Olympics. It is undermining the professed ideals of the Olympic Games, and subverting the Olympics' veneration of sport with omnipresent commercial messaging and branding. The Olympics have auctioned off virtually every aspect of the Games to the highest bidder. In addition to multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals between the International Olympic Committee and international companies, smaller firms are paying for designations from “official home and industrial flooring supplier” to the “frozen dumplings exclusive supplier” of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games...

To its credit, the Olympics do prohibit advertising in sports stadia or other venues. The Olympics also prohibit advertisements on uniforms (other than uniform maker logos)... Besides celebrating sport, there is an official ideology of the Olympics, called "Olympism." It aims to promote a pure blend of sport, culture and education. Sports, of course, remain at the center of the Olympics, but commercialism has overwhelmed whatever other values the Olympics hope to embody. The overwhelming cultural influence at the Olympics is now commercial culture; and the overwhelming informational message is: buy, buy, buy. [More]  . . read more

First, corporations do not like to fight each other because they may need each other on other matters. Second, they also have exposable skeletons in their own closets. Third, they do not have to initiate a business war of retaliation. Fourth, they do not want to give their traditional labor, environmental and consumer adversaries cause to strengthen their own power by, in effect, siding with these groups’ traditional causes.

If investors had any power over the companies they own — as individuals, or through mutual funds and pension trusts — an inquiring process could open up on this fascinating question. But as Robert Monks, a leading shareholder activist and writer, has said many times, those same CEOs have their own economic interests — think CEO compensation — in keeping investors powerless. [More] . . read more

In this provocative new book, The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy, David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith present evidence that the fundamental problem causing environmental destruction - and climate change in particular - is the operation of liberal democracy. Its flaws and contradictions bestow upon government - and its institutions, laws, and the markets and corporations that provide its sustenance - an inability to make decisions that could provide a sustainable society.

(The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy by David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith, Published by Praeger) . . read more

Its trade surplus continues to deteriorate, while its foreign military spending adds to the overall balance-of-payments deficit. This means that the United States is pumping more and more dollars into the rest of the world without any means of repaying them – or any intention to do so. That is why foreign countries are beginning to treat these dollars as “hot potatoes,” trying to get rid of them as fast as they can.

But how can they all do this? China is using its new dollar inflows to try and buy up foreign raw materials assets, land and other assets needed for its long-term growth. And some Middle Eastern countries are buying long-term supply agreements for food and raw materials produced abroad. But fewer countries are eager to accept these dollars. And the U.S. Government is blocking foreign investment in the most desirable and remunerative domestic U.S. sectors as its politicians become more nationalistic. This threatens to limit foreign investment in the United States to the junk-mortgage market, to real estate that is falling in price, and loans to bail out U.S. banks and financial institutions as they fight off insolvency and their stock-market prices plunge...

This means that Middle Eastern oil exporters – and indeed, European industrial exporters – are in effect giving their oil and other products away to U.S. consumers in exchange for paper IOUs that are in danger of becoming unspendable and hence worthless. [More] . . read more

Right on, Hugo. There is no shortage of food; it's just the prices that are making food unaffordable. Bernanke's "weak dollar" policy has ignited a wave of speculation in commodities which is pushing prices into the stratosphere. The UN is calling the global food crisis a "silent tsunami", but its more like a flood; the world is awash in increasingly worthless dollars that are making food and raw materials more expensive. Foreign central banks and investors presently hold $6 trillion in dollars and dollar-backed assets, so when the dollar starts to slide, the pain radiates through entire economies. [More] . . read more

Private and corporate jets give the super-rich not just ease and comfort, convenience and luxury - including an escape from the bothers of security lines and flight delays - but a way to distinguish themselves from everyone else. Private jet marketing explicitly emphasizes the elite status and conspicuousness of this consumption. And, because the ultra-rich are always eager to distinguish themselves from the very rich, private jets are becoming more luxurious and expensive...

To the extent that private jets are symbols of an economic system gone awry, remedying the problem will require big picture policy changes - steep wealth and income taxes and other measures to redress inequality, and comprehensive policies to address global warming. But soaring private jet use also demands its own response. Tax breaks for buying and flying private jets should be ended... And a hefty luxury tax should be imposed on private jet sales and flying. We shouldn't be supporting the High Flyers in their luxury indulgence. If such heavy-polluting opulence is to be permitted at all, the super-rich should pay a stiff price for the privilege. [More] . . read more