I have read somewhere that several refineries in the southwest are "down for maintenance".How much would that impact prices?Who owns these facilities?

Ed Pawalec, of "Price Shock Trader" (Institute For Individual Investors, LLC) has sent out a pretty good analysis of the JOBS Act -- which he calls the "Boiler Room Act of 2012." You don't have to be a registered member of PriceShockTrader, just a subscriber to 'The Tycoon Report'. It's in the March 23 email.

Here's the opener --

In theory, the bill is supposed to open up access to funding for “emerging growth companies” (EGC), which are any businesses that have up to $1 billion in revenue.  Clearly there are a lot of unlisted companies with revenues in that range.

The JOBS Act (H.R. 3606) allows these companies to raise funds from the public through the internet or nearly any other form of solicitation.  

These companies can raise up to $1 million per year without providing any information other than their address and 2 years of unaudited financial statements.  Companies that provide audited statements can raise up to $2 million per year.  The caveat in the latter case is that although the statements need to be audited, the auditor does not have to approve them, which would be required for a listed company or one that was intending to go public through the normal channels.

The bottom line here is that, while Robert Oak doesn't provide investment advice and EP isn't investor oriented -- EP followers do get the important 'signals' along with the objective economic news and analysis.

Chinese demand, Greek drama, OPEC, Iran, weather reports and so on, are not responsible for high oil and gasoline prices, which are causing the recession and could lead to a depression. The oil price is dictated by the fraudulent "round-trip" trades of the "dark pool" trading in the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) in Atlanta. The international Big Oil/big banking cabal, or an international gang of criminals, owns ICE. ICE operates outside of US law, considers itself to be above the law amd can commit fraud and law enforcement cannot do anything. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has no jurisdiction over ICE, influenced by Big Oil. ICE's energy traders and speculators can ratchet-up the oil price anytime they feel like it, or their own profits and on the behalf of Big Oil, using "round-trip" trades. Google the "$2.5 Trillion Oil Scam - slideshare." "Paper oil" and the crude oil futures markets have to be done away. Cash at the wellhead. Over 75% of crude oil futures trading takes place in the ICE.The NYMEX is a decoy market. ICE Futures Europe is a susidiary of ICE. ICE is a super Enron. The "Enroning" of California was a test-market for ICE. Oil is too critical a resource to be controlled and manipulated by greedy traders, greedy refiners, greedy speculators and greedy corporations. Cash on the barrelhead. To obtain a fair oil price, Senator Sanders and the Occupiers have to investigate ICE and seize immediately the trading records of ICE, before they are destroyed and end the specter of ICE and end this crime against humanity.

It's been pointed out here at EP that there is a problem with governments lacking responsibility about money creation. That's obviously a valid concern.

The idea of the Federal Reserve (as I understand it) was to maintain a balance on the Open Market Committee, etc., between public members and members representing the supposed probity of the banking community. Unfortunately, the whole thing has gone whacko -- thanks to political corruption, which has resulted in the balance of power going over to major international banks, exceeding any government in disregard for monetary probity.

Now enter the goldbugs with their absolute certainty that hyperinflation preceded by another stock market crash are just around the corner (before the end of 2012) ... and that the gold standard is THE answer to all of the problems. Also, the gold standard is inevitable or -- to borrow a word so beloved by the Marxists of old -- "ineluctable." Recent post at ZeroHedge by Antal Fekete in "Antal Fekete Responds to Ben Bernanke on the Gold Standard" exemplifies the nonsense that these people represent as gospel truth.

Fekete begins by quoting Ludwig v. Mises that “the gold standard did not fail: governments deliberately sabotaged it, and still go on sabotaging it." The thing is that it is equally true that no fiat money has ever failed except that governments (central banks) have deliberately sabotaged fiat currencies, and go on sabotaging them!

The gold standard is a gimmick, promising everything with just one simplistic reform. Marx, too, presented one simplistic reform, essentially a gimmick .... and the end result was the most disastrous concentration of power in the history of the world.



Fekete's argument confuses the two opposing roles of "money" -- namely, store of value and medium of exchange. These two must meet somewhere in the middle, and that's called "measure of worth." But the truth is that money in the sense of currency or medium of exchange need not be an eternal store of value -- and if we try to make money into such a thing, we destroy the economy. On the other hand, currency must be able to function as a measure of worth. If that function fails, that too destroys the economy.



The either/or approach to the question of the gold standard is ridiculous. Fekete's analysis leads to the conclusion that the gold standard is the solution to economic disaster ... only if we can accept the premise that there are only two choices: a rigid gold standard or absolute fiat. That premise is equivalent to that we must either accept Bernanke or von Mises, as though our ability to think terminated with those two voices.

The problem is that the gold standard requires the same probity that must underlie any monetary system. Just because someone says there is gold behind whatever the currency may be ... what does that prove?  Gold in the national treasury is a result or symptom of fiscal probity, not an efficient cause or sufficient guarantee of it. The same forces that conspire to destroy a fiat currency can (and surely would) conspire to destroy what would still be an essentially fiat currency, even if supposedly based on a gold standard.



Fekete's points on the Constitution are incomplete and misleading. The USA began with fiat money (as well as with Spanish coin in circulation). The limitation not to make "any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts" is part of Section 10, titled "Powers prohibited of States" -- and has never been applied to the Federal government as a Constitutional limitation on the powers of Congress. There is no limitation respecting money creation in Section 9, which is titled "Limits on Congress." There's also Section 8 --



"Congress shall have Power ....
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;  ..... [and]
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin."



Congress can coin money in any way it sees fit. Congress has the Constitutional authority to coin money in any metal it may choose (e.g., aluminum). And, just as with the Silver Certificates so common 60 and more years ago, Congress can authorize Treasury to issue certificates representing coinage. Furthermore, Congress has the Constitutional authority to regulate the value of coin (and, by reference, the value of all certificates and therefore of all electronic credits). Furthermore, Congress has the power to peg the dollar to any foreign currency, as it may deem expedient.





Having said that, I hasten to add that I do not support continuing the Federal Reserve system (at least not as presently constituted). I do think that the basket of commodities approach is solid ... and probably the wave of the future. Gold is a great store of value, but the "gold standard" is a hoax and a pernicious delusional system.

Many are up in arms about how regular, safe savings pays nothing, that was another aspect, investors being "primed" to get into high risk investments in order to obtain any return.

Just unbelievable, the Senate passed it with just one minor amendment and now the bill goes back to the House. More scams and flimflam man's here we come.

Sorry articles have been limited. Literally our region of the country has had such bad weather, connectivity has been down repeatedly, once for over 2 days, and doing research for posting via a smart phone is none too fun.

Hopefully more interesting factoids are coming soon. Thanks for understanding.

I will probably overview it here. I covered earlier work by Susan Houseman, Productivity, GDP and outsourcing.

The BLS productivity report I've had issues tracking on the numbers. One thing they use a special research CPI index on some calculations, and there is another statistical report by the BEA which to me also denies outsourcing is a problem.

My thing is to track data and while I intuitively know something is wrong with some statistical releases, I cannot seem to drill down enough in the numbers to pull it out and quantify it.

But this is important. Denying offshore outsourcing is hurting the economy is a huge deal! There are a lot of vested interests, who don't want that to be "true".

WaPo man, they don't even link to the papers or give their full titles. What kind of reporting is that? ;)

The way things are going ... it really does spook many sane minds.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

(from 'The Second Coming', by William Butler Yeats)