Recent comments

  • Phil Gramm and his spouse created the current absence of regs at CFTC. His spouse is our hard working Secretary of Labor - Chau - who has worked so diligently to help businesses secure H1/H2B Visas.

    Meantime, McCain and the Darth Vader Veep replacement in Go-Go Boots - Palin are on 'Watch' in the Alabama Command Center for FEMA. C. Matthews reminded Bush-Chaney & Company that all of this is happening on their watch for a second time.

    It appears that at least some of the levees will not hold. They have had 3 years of work, $14 Billion appropriated and only $2 Billion spent on the levee reconstruction effort.

    Yer Still Doin a Heckova Job, Brownie.

    Reply to: NYMEX Electronic Trading Opened on Sunday because of Hurricane?   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • don't get fooled again. Getting out information on voting records will be everything.

    Reply to: Middle Class is Fearful   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'll give the real Republicans (versus the corporate agenda ones) some due on this....this is the best map I could find in the US of refineries. It sure seems that if one wants to have a domestic oil production supply they should be redistributing the supply chain so it's less vulnerable to natural disasters and regional issues (assuming they aren't causing man made environmental disasters!)

    refineries

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Immediate $3 dollar spike upon the open. Yea, Rah! Free markets!

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • I think I saw the same documentary you did on the death of the suburbs. They were built completely on an oil/highway/car economy, no doubt...but that said, in today's telecommunications world enabling distributed work centers to not force people to live in cities is possible.
    Obviously, alternative energies and widespread deployment and adoption are critical but I don't see the answer to aggregating large populations in cities. This is due to quality of life issues to the distribution of energy and the local obtainment of energy. In other words, let's say every principality was tapping into their local alternative energy. In some areas that might be wind, others wave power, yet another might be biomass, regionally dependent. If alternative energies were tuned for what is practical in that locality, along with telecommunications enabling remote work.....the desired lifestyle of the burbs, which was to have some damn grass, some quiet and smaller communities, it is possible.

    On a gas economy it is really stupid but so is demanding people go into some artificial cube, require them to be there 8-5, for many work types.

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • I've been saying for years that the suburbs and exurbs are doomed (not to mention being the biggest waste of capital and resources in American history). And that isn't just because I personally hate the suburbs.
    It's because the suburbs and exurbs only work if energy is cheap.

    A warming planet seems to be a very bad thing for Gulf oil production (as well as low-lying cities). I'm guessing that we are going to see this scenario played out every few years from now on.

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • It looks like we are going to get another fall spike in oil prices, just like in 2005. The difference is that the economy is in much worse shape to handle it this time around.

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • But watch out on these for Dems could do the same thing. We need jobs linked to US Citizenship and probably Perm (green card). But there too they are talking about instant green cards which could easily be yet another way to displace US workers and on top of it, if they are using green cards for labor, what does that mean about US citizenship or being loyal to this country?

    I don't think one should deny employment to green card holders but on the other hand that implies one needs to stop the "instant" green card agenda being presented by lobbyists.

    What a catch-22 that will be.

    Reply to: Instadiscussion John McCain - One Proposal I noticed   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Corporate America can hire H1/H2B Visa workers and claim the credit proposed by Republican Platform. and they are shameless enough to do so. They would not have to send the work to Asia.

    Much of the new hiring in the last year by Big Tech was H1B.
    In fact with 44K Jobs lost, 65K H1Bs were added. In that context, the credit will accelerate job destruction.

    Reply to: Instadiscussion John McCain - One Proposal I noticed   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Leadership, if it existed, would at least threaten to pump the SPR. Last time it was a total fiasco because the brokers had no experience. But the SPR is a worthless system because the eye of the storm is going after refining capacity.

    Government, in its wisdom, put the Reserve, and refining right where all the worst hurricanes hit - Lousiana Salt Domes and Louisiana/Texas Refineries.

    Why not one refinery for the SPR? Or do we all know the answers to that one. Three years since Katrina, right?

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Unless you have an offshore broker, you cannot do commodity plays Monday. Tuesday, you can expect equities to go south,
    except energy stocks. Commodities are an easy one.

    Because oil prices will move up again, and stay higher for a while, XOM etc will move up. Options are the cheapest play.

    That garbage aside, all of us will hurt this winter because of energy prices, just as with Katrina, if these models are correct.

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • markets are going to be open when the storm hits, and London will be open shortly after that.

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
  • of increased gas prices is unlikely to do much as the second wave of mortgage resets hits this fall.

    I think that Rita did go through the fields to the left, but I'm honestly much more worried about the LOOP. If it gets hit, that's going to knock a huge amount of oil off the market.

    Remember that an effect like what we had with Katrina takes gas up to about $5 gallon.

    Even if it's the same scale of damage, the price increase is likely to be higher, because the past three years have driven a lot of the prices elasticity out of the oil market.

    Simply put, in 2005 there where a lot of people who rethought unneccesary trips to the big box in bfe when prices rose.

    The demand that's left is things like people driving to work, things that they are going to do no matter what the price of gas is. Which means that the same shock has doesn't create demand destruction of the same order, so you ahve people bidding up the price of gas. $6/gallon gas seems at least plausible in this context.

    And if there's permanent damage and it takes years not months like it took after Katrina to get back to the way things were before the storm, then we are in for a ride. I'm lucky, I can walk everyplace that I need to. (Work, groceries, etc.) I only need my car to get home from school, and that's less than 100 miles.

    I deliberately choose live someplace I can walk because of the possibility of something like this happening.

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
  • Can one buy oil futures 24/7 or is the US market only open during regular trading hours?

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Wow, thanks middle. This is a very good analysis on the impact, which clearly the United States does not need right now. It will make landfall just in time for Tuesday to be a massive spike up (for they will be able to est. the damage by then) for Tues. market open. Expect a nightmare.

    Didn't Rita go through those fields to the left? But that was a 2 not a 3.

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Not to mention the price increases driven by panic before the storm. :(

    Reply to: Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Natural News also has a well cited article with a list of layoff notices where the jobs are clearly offshore outsourced.

    Reply to: TechiesTargeted - Twice as likely to lose Jobs by Outsourcing   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • I gotta agree, those insurance companies are inefficient, bureaucratic and to top if off, in the denial business. Add to that the massive profits on Wall Street from all of this and honestly I just don't see how they are going to bring costs down, which is an absolute must. To me, it doesn't matter what kind of system happens if they don't somehow get costs and efficiencies down and seemingly in Europe, they have actually done that with a not for profit system.

    I'm thinking maybe they could divide it out somehow and maybe put vanity drugs, cosmetic surgeries that are not needed for reconstruction and so on over in some private sector.

    I don't think just emergency should be not for profit because so much wouldn't end up in emergency if we had early screening and prevention. So, to me the focus needs to be in those areas before it gets so bad someone ends up in emergency.

    Reply to: Just a Little FDIC News - 117 Banks in Big Trouble, Profits Plunge 86%   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • In the hapless interview with Roger Mudd of CBS, Ted Kennedy did his infamous Ralph Cramden "Hummida, Hummida, Hummida" when asked why he wanted to be POTUS. Kennedy wanted to start with the 'Major Medical'. He meant to include all the the non-routine care. That is an appropriate place to start for a combined government/not-for-profit care.

    It is easier to understand Health Insurance when you divide the care into distinct components: emergency, routine, and medicinal. Government or non-profits can handle the emergency care. Private Insurance or Self-Insurance can do Medical and and third insurance is needed for treatments (medicine, drugs,equipment).

    I favor keeping all but emergency care private for the sake of economic incentive. Having worked for the nation's largest private insurer, I cannot be in favor of an entirely private system. I witnessed entire floors of business analysts create Routine Denial Systems: the answer is always no.

    One more angle on Insurance. In the 30's and 40's a fellow by the name of Walter Annenberg ran the Numbers racket for he mob. Some of his clients included Washington's most powereful like J.Edgar Hoover who used to make bets on the Numbers.

    Annenberg, like Joe Kennedy, was smart enough to get out of the rackets before he was dead or in jail. So what new racket did Annenberg choose? Insurance! Like the Numbers racket, the sucker puts down a bet and the house makes a predictable take, like all forms of gaming. Wall Street calls the percentage-take the Claim Payout Ratio. Heaven help any company whose Claim Payout Ratio exceeds 79 percent.

    By 1970, Walter Annenberg was appointed by Nixon to the Court of St. James, U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. As Eliza Doolittle sang 'Go to St. James so often, I will call it St. Jim."

    Reply to: Just a Little FDIC News - 117 Banks in Big Trouble, Profits Plunge 86%   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • That is the bill for universal single payer health care or the not for profit health care more along the lines of the English, French and Canadian systems.

    This is one of the great lies, social security, if they stop raiding the funds, social security is solvent. (On that Friday Night Video series, David Walker does really show this to be true in one of his graphs) and the nightmare is Medicaid/Medicare.

    We're just getting pummeled by profit land and because the US government is a huge buyer, they of course get soaked in terms of costs.

    This little tidbit make health care more affordable I think has to happen, regardless of proposal out there because the costs will break any nation, any system, any idea unless they are brought down.

    BTW: over in the bottom right hand column on this site are CBO and GAO feeds of their latest statistical reports. If only we could replace accurate information instead of these constant spinners on cable news and in the media. I'm not sure if they read these reports and if they do, go beyond the executive summary.

    Reply to: Just a Little FDIC News - 117 Banks in Big Trouble, Profits Plunge 86%   16 years 3 months ago
    EPer:

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