Posts Made By: Tom Rodstrom

They'll be there. Rather than attacking them, Obama reached out to them diplomatically with direct talks. As a result they will announce a weapons deal where they will supply a powerful re-educationan weapon which will instantly make radical Muslims and militant Republicans seek peaceful solutions.

Yesterday I watched congressional hearings on gas prices. What came out is that the Enron loophole scrapped commodities regulation that had been successful for 78 years. It forced commodities regulators to justify the need for regulation on a contract by contract basis rather than on a market by market basis. Before this legislation it was up to the traders to prove that they did not need regulation. It effectively stopped regulation for many commodities and led to the Enron/California electricity fiasco.

During testimony it became clear that speculation in the oil market is responsible for one third of the spike in oil prices or more. One of the underlying reasons for this problem in the oil market is the Enron loophole.

As it turns out the Enron loop hole was inserted into another bill in the middle of the night by Senator Phil Gramm who's wife was serving on the Enron board of directors.

McCain has said that he doesn't much about the economy, but he has selected an expert to guide him, Phil Gramm. Forbs calls him "McCain’s econ brain".

McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'
http://www.countercurrents.org/leopold20058.htm

Christopher Ward "was described as the "gold standard" for Republican campaign treasurers in a recent Washington Post profile"...

Justice Dept: Ward took at least $500K in GOP campaign funds
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/16281;_ylt=AjYm3LJP_AiYEsp76OcurM1hr7sF

IMO the Iraq war was inevitable. The major players all had a bone to pick.

Geroge Bush - Had to prove that he was better than his father and get revenge for Hussein's assassination attempt.

Dick Cheney - Came up with the idea of military contractors and had to test the theory to see if it was as big a money maker as he thought.

Donald Rumsfeld - Championed the idea of a leaner, meaner military and had to prove that it would work.

Neoconservatives - Elliott Abrams, John R. Bolton, Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, David Frum, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dov S. Zakheim - Advocate the preemptive use of military power to achieve American world dominance.

Greed, plain and simple, cost us thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

I have always wondered why Jay Garner was replaced as Iraq's administrator so quickly. He had experience and a track record. His replacement had neither.

Jay Garner, the US general abruptly dismissed as Iraq's first occupation administrator after a month in the job, says he fell out with the Bush circle because he wanted free elections and rejected an imposed programme of privatisation.

"My preference was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can, and do it with some form of elections ... I just thought it was necessary to rapidly get the Iraqis in charge of their destiny."

"What I was trying to do was get to a functioning government ... We as Americans like to put our template on things. And our template's good, but it's not necessarily good for everyone else."

But he had wanted the Iraqis to decide economic policy for themselves. "They'll make mistakes, and that's OK ... I don't think they need to go by the US plan."

We did not start to make progress in Iraq until Rumsfeld was sacked and we started to let Iraqi's make decisions.

General sacked by Bush says he wanted early elections
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/mar/18/iraq.usa

It looks like the war in Iraq was about more than oil. It was about taking over the whole Iraq economy by US based global companies. They made billions on their bottom line and the American taxpayer got kicked on the bottom. :S

My sadness at the privatization of Iraq
The US transnational companies are taking over — and they'll benefit for years to come
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article554318.ece

Before the US proconsul Paul Bremer left Baghdad, he enacted 100 orders as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Perhaps the most infamous was Order 39 which decreed that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatized, that foreign companies could have complete control of Iraqi banks, factories and mines, and that these companies could transfer all of their profits out of Iraq. The “reconstruction” of the country amounts in effect to wholesale privatisation of the economy and is little short of economic colonisation.

If all 100 orders are taken together, they set the overall legal framework for overriding foreign exploitation of Iraq’s domestic market. They cover almost all facets of the economy, including Iraq’s trading regime, the mandate of the Central Bank, and regulations governing trade union activities. Collectively, they lay down the foundations for the real US objective in Iraq, apart from keeping control of the oil supply, namely the imposition of a neoliberal capitalist economy controlled and run by US transnational corporations.

McCain's top financial adviser is the Senator who made the Enron California debacle possible. Now he has added a fired failure of a CEO who cannot find another CEO job, Carly Fiorina. She is described as "a top economic adviser".

Carly Fiorina woos Clinton supporters for McCain
http://in.news.yahoo.com/reuters_ids_new/20080615/r_t_rtrs_wl/twl-carly-fiorina-woos-clinton-supporter-2186892_1.html

Sounds like more of the same to me.

Prof. Michael Greenberger:

"Should we have an economy that’s based on whether people make good or bad bets? Or should we have an economy where people build companies, create manufacturing, do inventions, advance the American society and make it more productive? We are rewarding people for sitting at their computers and punching in bets. That’s not the way our economy is going to be built, and India and China, with their focus on science and industry and building real businesses, are going to eat our lunch, unless the American public wakes up and puts an end to an economy that praises and makes heroes out of speculators."

http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/659081.htm

Obama wants to reward work, not wealth. I think he is on the right track. What do you think?

There may be a solution to the CO2/oil problem, microalgae. I believe that algae was the original way nature cleaned up the atmosphere.

As planet swelters, are algae unlikely saviour?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/norwayenvironmentrenewableenergyclimate;_ylt=An4AXQf2LC2XPxJwp5lVSalhr7sF

Buy up that desert land near the Sea of Cortez now. Our fuel may come from vast algae ponds in the desert with water (and electricity) provided by nuclear evaporator/generators.

I wonder if we will make it to a Type 1 civilization? Bush certainly hasn't helped us along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7FVjATcqvc