Seven years ago, when I got laid off less than two months after 9-11, I was in panic. Now I see the truth- that I personally am too far outside of "normal society" to count on capitalism OR socialism for my and my family's well being.
So I came up with a strategy based on fear and absolute worst case scenario for me.
And here's my panic strategy that came out of that:
1. Get rid of credit cards - never use them or loans from the bank again. I'm within one big windfall or one year of paying them off and we've readjusted our lifestyle to debit card purchases instead.
2. Refinance the house to a fixed rate- did that during my 4 years of employment between 2004 and 2008.
3. Hoping to achieve this one next time I'm employed- deal with insurance agents to build a comprehensive, full value of my lifestyle, unemployment insurance plan- including unemployment insurance to cover health insurance premiums.
4. Start work on creating a tourism-based, 0 net energy, subscription permaculture food & energy farming project instead of a retirement fund. If I do it right, it will still provide for my retirement; and a few other people's as well, while keeping my money local instead of sending it to the big con artist banks and financial institutions back east. Doing it right means using my tech knowledge to automate the whole thing as much as possible, and prepare for the worst (for instance, even though some of the best farmland around here is 200 feet or less above sea level, I'll want something that is at least 400 feet above, due to worst case global warming predictions). I'll also be looking into farms that fell into the subprime mortgage trap- because around here, the banks usually fall into the mistake of not keeping up the property taxes, and the land gets seized by the local government and auctioned off cheap.
Yes, the sky is falling- but when it falls, there are always opportunities for those smart enough to take advantage of the sucker's game.
OTOH, if all of the suckers were smart enough to see this, I wouldn't give the NYSE more than five months life- because NOBODY would be gambling there anymore with those crooks.
Anonymous, market-based investing is betting in a race you aren't running in and can't win. ONLY if you are in the race can you win it.
WaPo is mainly right except it really is about cheap wages. Truly, that's a major factor in determining overseas offshoring. But the good news is he's talking about how screwed our overall policy is and he's also mentioning a value added tax (VAT) which is used by almost every other industrialized nation. Bottom line the US signed up for deals that are truly "would you like to buy the Brooklyn bridge too" written by and for multinational corporations to play their global capital manipulation, national economies profits game.
Welcome to EP! This is a great post and I especially love multinationals have become the labor version of locusts.
Isn't it interesting how little appears on the internet regarding age descrimination?
One unreported factor is health insurance. A health insurance program director once told me just how the age discrimination occurs:
"Did you know it costs an employer twice as much to cover a 50-year old than a 35-year old? And with each successive year the cost get even greater."
So when you consider that the average policy is costing a company 5 to 10 K/Year it all begins to fall into place.
Fire older Americans and replace them with younger foriegn workers (e.g., H1B's). Sometimes the companies don't even have to pay health insurance, Social Security (their 6.5% part anyway) etc. because of the H!B's "dual citizenship."
That explains the recent firing of US workers at Neilsen (June 2008) and replace the with "US-based workers" (e.g., foriegn H1Bs).
I think it is time to hang some politicians from the hightest trees in our respective neighborhoods.
We have been sold out!!!
Let the 2nd American Revolution start right now, as far as I'm concerned.
-- Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China, said he can't rule out an interest-rate increase to curb inflation near a 12-year high.
....[But]
The central bank's pledge of a ``tight'' monetary policy this year to prevent the world's fastest-growing major economy from overheating has yet to translate into even one rate increase after six in 2007. The government wants to avoid attracting more foreign capital into an economy already flooded with cash.
.... China's key one-year lending rate is at 7.47 percent, and the deposit rate is 4.14 percent. Inflation was 7.7 percent in May and the pace for the first five months was the fastest since 1996.,
.
The bolded paragraph is the crucible of the world economy in a nutshell. Alone among the Asian economies, China simply isn't serious about inflation, and is following the US Fed's easy policy. It's true that the Fed has its own problems, but until China gets serious about curing it's own imbalances (which will also impact demand for oil), the inflation in Asia and the stagnation in the US and Europe will continue.
Iraq holds the second largest reserve in the world. At present, about 200 billion barrels of oil. Saudi holds the very largest reserve in the world. Iraq has an abundance of oil and natural gas. Perhaps they can begin to pay back their freedom from Hussein with oil and natural gas.
Welcome to EP. Just a reminder if anyone wants to post (anything, including a blog post) and not go into a moderation queue on comments just create an account and stay logged in.
I see you stop by and post and have good insight, we'd love to see more of your thoughts.
NDD, the reason I put those comments in the first place is the premise of the supply/demand only argument is there must be inventories (or not), so I went looking around trying to determine if this is true or not. We need a futures commodities trader expert on here for I couldn't figure it out so far and more I want an answer for myself.
I don't see the issue of closing the Enron loophole generally. It wasn't there before 2000 and the world was fine. At this hearing we have the CFTC testifying that even in the regulated areas of futures trading they are understaffed and cannot handle the magnitude.
... Bush administration decision can be readily defended.
If the actual market for oil is in a position where adding 2.5% to world demand can add something on the order of $50 to the price of crude oil over the marginal cost of production, then shifting the strategic reserve from three months to six months supply is one prudent action to take.
After all, that is just shifting forward the growth in world demand for crude oil by a year or two ... and shifting is forward to a time when total exports are higher than they are likely to be in one or two years.
I agree, getting more progressives / populists is the key. I will quite contently vote for Nader. I am however less convinced an Obama will be so much better than a McCain.
My feelings are with a McCain there will be a larger Democratic landslide, and more importantly they will be populist leaning. My fear is with an Obama win the force of populist leaning Dems will be greatly diluted.
I do not think Obama is as much of an empty vessel as some argue. Especially along economic issues he has surrounded himself by the Chicago school for some time. So, why he may be an empty vessel on civil rights, abortion, gun rights, I think he has a pretty consistent world view in the economic realm.
I appreciate your compliment regarding this diary's "excellent argument" about hoarding. I gather your criticism is directed towards one or more comments above.
I purposely stayed away from the "speculation" argument regarding futures markets, because I have no expertise whatsoever, whether professional or as an educated layperson, in that area. In various places I have read comments just like yours, and I have also read/heard traders talk about how the futures market "informs" the spot market about price. Personally, I have no clue about that and would welcome any cites to any articles or source material that you may feel is helpful in that regard.
I trade oil for a lving, and from my perspective, Krugman's argument is correct. You can have all kinds of speculation in futures markets, but when the contract becomes the prompt contract and settles at a price, somebody is taking delivery at that price or a price somehow related to that price.
In markets where there is tons of bullish speculation, the market should be in contango, as players bid up future futures in speculation that prices will rise. At the moment, the oil market is actually in backwardation, at least beyond the end of 2008. That suggest the speculative fervor is actually not that high right now.
Only two things can happen to delivered oil. It can be burned or stored. This post makes an excellent argument that there are significant amounts of storage taking place, and if it is correct, all other things being equal, when those efforts conclude, prices should drop as that marginal demand disappears.
When countries store commodities, they are acting as speculators, but my sense is that the finger-pointing at speculators is not about national reserve efforts but rather some nebulous and evil hedge fund managers someplace. It is silly, and I frankly think politicians use it as an easy scapegoat to escape responsibility for their own contributions to the problem. To that end, the pending legislation to tighten up futures markets is incredibly dumb, and if passed, will only serve to limit liquidity and increase volatility, defeating the purpose of a futures market as a mechanism for price discovery. You won't be able to see it directly, but by weakening the price discovery mechanism, you will create all kinds of bad decison-making and malinvestment.
Incidentally, I thought Masters' testimony was absolute nonsense. He simply doesn't know what he's talking about.
another analysis, the convenience yield, but no one so far has convinced me it's not being caused by unregulated speculation, more now I'm just looking at all of the models/math wondering how someone can hide excess supply or manipulate production to make it all fit and can they do that on paper, vs. not in reality.
I'm over reading these latest models Krugman and Economists view are working on and also looking at the idea that physical inventories must exist somewhere. I found a pretty good analysis of that on Econ browser from about a month ago.
Then they are saying there is "paper oil" versus the actual commodity and here is their argument for driving up the futures. They are also blaming Iran tankers plus a series of refineries "shut down for maintenance".
One thing Krugman said was that Congress finds witnesses to testify before Congress to tell them what they want to hear. Well, that might be true in terms of who they invite but I sincerely doubt experts put their reputation on the line to go before Congress and simply lie (unless they are a corporate lobbyist, then they sure do!)
I found in Mr. Fadel Gheit's, Oppenheimer Oil analyst, testimony he addresses these other causes point by point. For example, he says the weak dollar is attributable to about a $10-$15 increase in a barrel of oil. He goes through India/China increased demand, speculators in his analysis.
Then, I hesitate to comment on this part, because I haven't even traded commodity futures, let alone understand this market, but he points out the massive increase in volume of futures trading. Myself, I don't see the correlation to say a tech stock bubble in a company versus their actual product prices increasing for the company is not a physical commodity per say. I also don't see how playing the futures trading game requires someone to hold inventories. I know that's a physical commodity so maybe there is something I'm missing here on oil, but I don't see how the two must follow considering all of the futures trading vehicles. I'll let someone else answer this one but it seems that there are multiple layers of abstractions with all of the methods to trade commodities to separate out the physical commodity from the actual price points out there. To me it's like water in a global oil based economy and when you must have something, you'll be willing to pay anything for it, esp. if a cartel like situation is creating an extortion fee to get it. But does that follow that one must have massive inventories built up somewhere?
Inventories:
Back to the hearing and other reports:
Oil.com analysis paper by Lehman Brothers, has actual supply and demand numbers at the bottom (last page) and they seem fairly inline with each other with certain points supply exceeding demand (a few where demand exceeded supply too). From the title of their analysis, you can see what they think this is, a speculative bubble.
Masters testimony requests a hording investigation, due to referencing a report which he summarizes:
It has come to my attention that some Wall Street Banks are offering commodity swaps based on actual physical commodities
I must recommend this hearing testimony. I've been reading it and there are arguments for all elements in this debacle. Prof. Greenburger, Center for Health and Homeland Security, is the one who lays out the most detailed legislation and policy fixes. I sure don't think they just went and "said" what "Congress wanted to hear", each witness presents some in depth analysis and when you look at all of the commodities futures trading graphs, from almost every witness, it brings home the argument on speculation driving up prices.
I have a side comment, perhaps Krugman, an economist, who lives in the real Supply/Demand world just isn't in tune with fictional money world of wall street complex investment vehicles? Krugman is one intellectual powerhouse, (plus a blogging fool!), but I notice that those debating the causes on oil price spikes on the blogs, well, I'm not seeing too much awareness on all of these new credit swaps and other investment techniques in commodity futures trading. I for one have little clue on all of it, maybe that's the overall case here?
I have a question...
If the reason for high gas prices is the sinking dollar and gas is traded in dollars, how does that affect european countries who use euro.
In late 90's 1 euro could buy just around 0.80 US dollars. at the same time gas prices in europe where around 0.80 - 0.90 eurocents per litre.
Now, 1 euro can buy about 1.60 US dollars. If oil is traded in dollars, even with the higher prices per barrel of oil in US dollars, Europe shouldn't have felt the rising of the gas prices as much. Although the price for a litre now in europe is around 1.30 euro...
In 2000: 1 $ = 1.2 Euro and 1 barrel of oil = $60
that means: 1 barrel = 72 euro
Today: 1 $ = 0.62 Euro and 1 barrel of oil = $115
that means: 1 barrel = 71.3 euro
!!
Look, you're just putting out opinion here. Many of us have already pointed out it's regressive so you need to either run some numbers or something more in depth besides just writing opinion stating this is a good idea. We already told you why it wasn't and why it's regressive and will burden the middle class.
We also pointed you in depth to VAT proposals, which are taxes on imports (sales), and perfectly legal under the WTO.
Check out tradereform.org in the middle column. My impression is they are coming from the Paleo-conservative view in some respects but their proposals really make a hell of a lot of sense.
The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on Monday is the latest in a series of committee meetings focused on probing the role of speculators.
A first panel of energy experts told the committee crude prices would fall with stricter regulation about 50% from current levels above $135 a barrel, with retail gasoline that's now over $4 a gallon following suit.
"Prices would probably drop over a reasonably short period of time back to somewhere closer to the marginal production cost of oil, to $65 to $70...and I think gas prices would reflect that in a relatively short order," said Mike Masters, a hedge fund manager testifying before a Congressional panel probing speculation in the energy markets
and today there appears to be an emergency bill introduced in the house to try to stop speculation.
he U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly approved legislation that directs the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use all its authority, including the agency's emergency powers, to "curb immediately" the role of excessive speculation in energy futures markets
Just "overwhelmingly" passed.
does:
would require the CFTC to act against "sudden or unreasonable fluctuations" in energy futures prices and other trading activities that "prevent the market from accurately reflecting the forces of supply and demand for energy commodities
Now what that means in specifics, looks like we need to understand.
I haven't seen much if that has any effect on subprime/foreclsoures or not, but you know they are doing that not for any philosophical reason to save their souls. $$$$$.
Seems to me if one can set up an entire life on a fake ID then it might also be pretty easy to walk away from that life if things so South.
No surprise really but I sure as hell hope they get something for their money this time. Endorsing a corporate agenda and pouring money into a candidate who turns around and sets up policy that hurts US workers is getting very old.
Avoiding luxury taxes is a prime example that the wealthy have the means to hire lawyers and accountants to find creative ways to avoid paying their fair share, an advantage most of us do not have.
On corporate taxes, there should not be tax breaks without strings attached. In order to qualify for a corp tax break, companies must be able to show how many domestic jobs they created, how much energy they conserved, what new domestic R&D did they invest, how much did they invest in domestic capital equipment and so forth. And by all means there should never be any loopholes or tax breaks for job offshoring and foreign profits. The US taxpayer should not be funding the decimation of our jobs, expatriating our capital and the resulting destruction of our economic health
Seven years ago, when I got laid off less than two months after 9-11, I was in panic. Now I see the truth- that I personally am too far outside of "normal society" to count on capitalism OR socialism for my and my family's well being.
So I came up with a strategy based on fear and absolute worst case scenario for me.
And here's my panic strategy that came out of that:
1. Get rid of credit cards - never use them or loans from the bank again. I'm within one big windfall or one year of paying them off and we've readjusted our lifestyle to debit card purchases instead.
2. Refinance the house to a fixed rate- did that during my 4 years of employment between 2004 and 2008.
3. Hoping to achieve this one next time I'm employed- deal with insurance agents to build a comprehensive, full value of my lifestyle, unemployment insurance plan- including unemployment insurance to cover health insurance premiums.
4. Start work on creating a tourism-based, 0 net energy, subscription permaculture food & energy farming project instead of a retirement fund. If I do it right, it will still provide for my retirement; and a few other people's as well, while keeping my money local instead of sending it to the big con artist banks and financial institutions back east. Doing it right means using my tech knowledge to automate the whole thing as much as possible, and prepare for the worst (for instance, even though some of the best farmland around here is 200 feet or less above sea level, I'll want something that is at least 400 feet above, due to worst case global warming predictions). I'll also be looking into farms that fell into the subprime mortgage trap- because around here, the banks usually fall into the mistake of not keeping up the property taxes, and the land gets seized by the local government and auctioned off cheap.
Yes, the sky is falling- but when it falls, there are always opportunities for those smart enough to take advantage of the sucker's game.
OTOH, if all of the suckers were smart enough to see this, I wouldn't give the NYSE more than five months life- because NOBODY would be gambling there anymore with those crooks.
Anonymous, market-based investing is betting in a race you aren't running in and can't win. ONLY if you are in the race can you win it.
WaPo is mainly right except it really is about cheap wages. Truly, that's a major factor in determining overseas offshoring. But the good news is he's talking about how screwed our overall policy is and he's also mentioning a value added tax (VAT) which is used by almost every other industrialized nation. Bottom line the US signed up for deals that are truly "would you like to buy the Brooklyn bridge too" written by and for multinational corporations to play their global capital manipulation, national economies profits game.
Welcome to EP! This is a great post and I especially love multinationals have become the labor version of locusts.
That's no lie and a great image!
Isn't it interesting how little appears on the internet regarding age descrimination?
One unreported factor is health insurance. A health insurance program director once told me just how the age discrimination occurs:
"Did you know it costs an employer twice as much to cover a 50-year old than a 35-year old? And with each successive year the cost get even greater."
So when you consider that the average policy is costing a company 5 to 10 K/Year it all begins to fall into place.
Fire older Americans and replace them with younger foriegn workers (e.g., H1B's). Sometimes the companies don't even have to pay health insurance, Social Security (their 6.5% part anyway) etc. because of the H!B's "dual citizenship."
That explains the recent firing of US workers at Neilsen (June 2008) and replace the with "US-based workers" (e.g., foriegn H1Bs).
I think it is time to hang some politicians from the hightest trees in our respective neighborhoods.
We have been sold out!!!
Let the 2nd American Revolution start right now, as far as I'm concerned.
The Solution: the "New Agenda for America."
www.newagecitizen.com/naa.htm
The bolded paragraph is the crucible of the world economy in a nutshell. Alone among the Asian economies, China simply isn't serious about inflation, and is following the US Fed's easy policy. It's true that the Fed has its own problems, but until China gets serious about curing it's own imbalances (which will also impact demand for oil), the inflation in Asia and the stagnation in the US and Europe will continue.
Iraq holds the second largest reserve in the world. At present, about 200 billion barrels of oil. Saudi holds the very largest reserve in the world. Iraq has an abundance of oil and natural gas. Perhaps they can begin to pay back their freedom from Hussein with oil and natural gas.
Welcome to EP. Just a reminder if anyone wants to post (anything, including a blog post) and not go into a moderation queue on comments just create an account and stay logged in.
I see you stop by and post and have good insight, we'd love to see more of your thoughts.
Let's here this other side.
NDD, the reason I put those comments in the first place is the premise of the supply/demand only argument is there must be inventories (or not), so I went looking around trying to determine if this is true or not. We need a futures commodities trader expert on here for I couldn't figure it out so far and more I want an answer for myself.
I don't see the issue of closing the Enron loophole generally. It wasn't there before 2000 and the world was fine. At this hearing we have the CFTC testifying that even in the regulated areas of futures trading they are understaffed and cannot handle the magnitude.
So, what is the issue?
... Bush administration decision can be readily defended.
If the actual market for oil is in a position where adding 2.5% to world demand can add something on the order of $50 to the price of crude oil over the marginal cost of production, then shifting the strategic reserve from three months to six months supply is one prudent action to take.
After all, that is just shifting forward the growth in world demand for crude oil by a year or two ... and shifting is forward to a time when total exports are higher than they are likely to be in one or two years.
I agree, getting more progressives / populists is the key. I will quite contently vote for Nader. I am however less convinced an Obama will be so much better than a McCain.
My feelings are with a McCain there will be a larger Democratic landslide, and more importantly they will be populist leaning. My fear is with an Obama win the force of populist leaning Dems will be greatly diluted.
I do not think Obama is as much of an empty vessel as some argue. Especially along economic issues he has surrounded himself by the Chicago school for some time. So, why he may be an empty vessel on civil rights, abortion, gun rights, I think he has a pretty consistent world view in the economic realm.
I appreciate your compliment regarding this diary's "excellent argument" about hoarding. I gather your criticism is directed towards one or more comments above.
I purposely stayed away from the "speculation" argument regarding futures markets, because I have no expertise whatsoever, whether professional or as an educated layperson, in that area. In various places I have read comments just like yours, and I have also read/heard traders talk about how the futures market "informs" the spot market about price. Personally, I have no clue about that and would welcome any cites to any articles or source material that you may feel is helpful in that regard.
Cheers.
I trade oil for a lving, and from my perspective, Krugman's argument is correct. You can have all kinds of speculation in futures markets, but when the contract becomes the prompt contract and settles at a price, somebody is taking delivery at that price or a price somehow related to that price.
In markets where there is tons of bullish speculation, the market should be in contango, as players bid up future futures in speculation that prices will rise. At the moment, the oil market is actually in backwardation, at least beyond the end of 2008. That suggest the speculative fervor is actually not that high right now.
Only two things can happen to delivered oil. It can be burned or stored. This post makes an excellent argument that there are significant amounts of storage taking place, and if it is correct, all other things being equal, when those efforts conclude, prices should drop as that marginal demand disappears.
When countries store commodities, they are acting as speculators, but my sense is that the finger-pointing at speculators is not about national reserve efforts but rather some nebulous and evil hedge fund managers someplace. It is silly, and I frankly think politicians use it as an easy scapegoat to escape responsibility for their own contributions to the problem. To that end, the pending legislation to tighten up futures markets is incredibly dumb, and if passed, will only serve to limit liquidity and increase volatility, defeating the purpose of a futures market as a mechanism for price discovery. You won't be able to see it directly, but by weakening the price discovery mechanism, you will create all kinds of bad decison-making and malinvestment.
Incidentally, I thought Masters' testimony was absolute nonsense. He simply doesn't know what he's talking about.
another analysis, the convenience yield, but no one so far has convinced me it's not being caused by unregulated speculation, more now I'm just looking at all of the models/math wondering how someone can hide excess supply or manipulate production to make it all fit and can they do that on paper, vs. not in reality.
I'm over reading these latest models Krugman and Economists view are working on and also looking at the idea that physical inventories must exist somewhere. I found a pretty good analysis of that on Econ browser from about a month ago.
Then they are saying there is "paper oil" versus the actual commodity and here is their argument for driving up the futures. They are also blaming Iran tankers plus a series of refineries "shut down for maintenance".
One thing Krugman said was that Congress finds witnesses to testify before Congress to tell them what they want to hear. Well, that might be true in terms of who they invite but I sincerely doubt experts put their reputation on the line to go before Congress and simply lie (unless they are a corporate lobbyist, then they sure do!)
From the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations they held a hearing, Energy Speculation: Is Greater Regulation Necessary to Stop Price Manipulation? – Part II.
I found in Mr. Fadel Gheit's, Oppenheimer Oil analyst, testimony he addresses these other causes point by point. For example, he says the weak dollar is attributable to about a $10-$15 increase in a barrel of oil. He goes through India/China increased demand, speculators in his analysis.
Then, I hesitate to comment on this part, because I haven't even traded commodity futures, let alone understand this market, but he points out the massive increase in volume of futures trading. Myself, I don't see the correlation to say a tech stock bubble in a company versus their actual product prices increasing for the company is not a physical commodity per say. I also don't see how playing the futures trading game requires someone to hold inventories. I know that's a physical commodity so maybe there is something I'm missing here on oil, but I don't see how the two must follow considering all of the futures trading vehicles. I'll let someone else answer this one but it seems that there are multiple layers of abstractions with all of the methods to trade commodities to separate out the physical commodity from the actual price points out there. To me it's like water in a global oil based economy and when you must have something, you'll be willing to pay anything for it, esp. if a cartel like situation is creating an extortion fee to get it. But does that follow that one must have massive inventories built up somewhere?
Inventories:
Back to the hearing and other reports:
Oil.com analysis paper by Lehman Brothers, has actual supply and demand numbers at the bottom (last page) and they seem fairly inline with each other with certain points supply exceeding demand (a few where demand exceeded supply too). From the title of their analysis, you can see what they think this is, a speculative bubble.
Masters testimony requests a hording investigation, due to referencing a report which he summarizes:
I must recommend this hearing testimony. I've been reading it and there are arguments for all elements in this debacle. Prof. Greenburger, Center for Health and Homeland Security, is the one who lays out the most detailed legislation and policy fixes. I sure don't think they just went and "said" what "Congress wanted to hear", each witness presents some in depth analysis and when you look at all of the commodities futures trading graphs, from almost every witness, it brings home the argument on speculation driving up prices.
I have a side comment, perhaps Krugman, an economist, who lives in the real Supply/Demand world just isn't in tune with fictional money world of wall street complex investment vehicles? Krugman is one intellectual powerhouse, (plus a blogging fool!), but I notice that those debating the causes on oil price spikes on the blogs, well, I'm not seeing too much awareness on all of these new credit swaps and other investment techniques in commodity futures trading. I for one have little clue on all of it, maybe that's the overall case here?
I have a question...
If the reason for high gas prices is the sinking dollar and gas is traded in dollars, how does that affect european countries who use euro.
In late 90's 1 euro could buy just around 0.80 US dollars. at the same time gas prices in europe where around 0.80 - 0.90 eurocents per litre.
Now, 1 euro can buy about 1.60 US dollars. If oil is traded in dollars, even with the higher prices per barrel of oil in US dollars, Europe shouldn't have felt the rising of the gas prices as much. Although the price for a litre now in europe is around 1.30 euro...
In 2000: 1 $ = 1.2 Euro and 1 barrel of oil = $60
that means: 1 barrel = 72 euro
Today: 1 $ = 0.62 Euro and 1 barrel of oil = $115
that means: 1 barrel = 71.3 euro
!!
Look, you're just putting out opinion here. Many of us have already pointed out it's regressive so you need to either run some numbers or something more in depth besides just writing opinion stating this is a good idea. We already told you why it wasn't and why it's regressive and will burden the middle class.
We also pointed you in depth to VAT proposals, which are taxes on imports (sales), and perfectly legal under the WTO.
Check out tradereform.org in the middle column. My impression is they are coming from the Paleo-conservative view in some respects but their proposals really make a hell of a lot of sense.
US Panel Told Oil Could Slide If Speculation Restrained:
and today there appears to be an emergency bill introduced in the house to try to stop speculation.
Just "overwhelmingly" passed.
does:
Now what that means in specifics, looks like we need to understand.
I haven't seen much if that has any effect on subprime/foreclsoures or not, but you know they are doing that not for any philosophical reason to save their souls. $$$$$.
Seems to me if one can set up an entire life on a fake ID then it might also be pretty easy to walk away from that life if things so South.
No surprise really but I sure as hell hope they get something for their money this time. Endorsing a corporate agenda and pouring money into a candidate who turns around and sets up policy that hurts US workers is getting very old.
Avoiding luxury taxes is a prime example that the wealthy have the means to hire lawyers and accountants to find creative ways to avoid paying their fair share, an advantage most of us do not have.
On corporate taxes, there should not be tax breaks without strings attached. In order to qualify for a corp tax break, companies must be able to show how many domestic jobs they created, how much energy they conserved, what new domestic R&D did they invest, how much did they invest in domestic capital equipment and so forth. And by all means there should never be any loopholes or tax breaks for job offshoring and foreign profits. The US taxpayer should not be funding the decimation of our jobs, expatriating our capital and the resulting destruction of our economic health
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