[hironegro]

What's the big deal? You guys act like they owe you something.

[RG73]

Children... we accepted a direct government check not but a few months ago, just because the people finally realized they can vote themselves money.

If you cashed it or deposited it;

Stop pointing fingers.

No one voted themselves money. The government gave back the money it took because it realized that if people couldn't buy the new iPhone or whatever, they were going to get grumpy and realize the mess that was going on. Giving back the money they took from us just bought the government time to distract us--I'm not aware of the public actually voting themselves money.

Moreover, this was our money that they were handing back to us. I don't know about you, but I'm taxed way too much as it is. Which I'm cool with paying taxes if I notice that I'm getting any services out of it. I can't really figure out what services are being provided to me by the federal government. They mostly seem to take my tax dollars and waste it on crap--wars that don't involve actually securing more resources for us, for example, or bailouts for elaborate betting schemes, or, I suppose they procure a lot of military hardware that they don't understand how to use in the field, and I suppose they're dumping a lot of money into social security and medicare, so this weird sort of socialized health care. But that isn't even going to be solvent by the time I might use, despite these annual notices I get telling me that I'll get x dollars per month if I retire at 70.

So, I don't know....something like a 3rd of my income goes into the federal government coffers, and, I don't have much to show for it. So yeah, if they say, hey, would you like $600 of that money we're stealing from you back, you're damn right I want it back.

If people could vote themselves money, they'd vote for tax cuts. Or they'd vote for nanny governments that give them everything. We have the taxes but don't get anything from them (other than, I guess, maybe a missile shield? or mutually assured destruction if someone attacks us....unless it is an asymmetrical attack, in which case, well, they'll spend your dollars in a big way with no gain). So you can't say our current system has anything to do with people voting themselves various liberties or monies.

If I wasn't being taxed at all and then I asked for money back, well, sure, that's a problem. Taking back what is ours to begin with so as to keep it being spent on, oh, buying ammunition in Iraq or going towards a corporate bailout, yeah, I feel good about taking that money and maybe buying my iPhone, hitting the pub for a few hours and then maybe getting myself a nice call girl for the evening...spread the love around. Trickle down economics. A little trickle to Cupertino, a little trickle to the local brewery, a little trickle to the local call girl, and well that's money supporting small scale enterprise (except Apple maybe, but whatever, I need an Iphone).

Or hell, I can take that money that the government took from me and piss it away on the stock market. Whatever. It is my money. I didn't vote it into existence....I wanted back what the crooks jacked from me for their criminal enterprises. A penny out of their pockets, $600 in mine, and, if they're lucky, I can score some drugs, and then I'll be out of my mind and I won't care what the hell they do.

But just don't blame this nonsense on us. I didn't even ask for a federal government. I'm cool dealing with a state. That's a unit I understand. They're already taxing me and I see those dollars actually go to use. I don't ask for them back. When the feds can explain what the hell they're actually doing with my money, well, sure, maybe I'll see that I should offer them even more money. Vote more taxes for myself. But until I see that breakdown of services that I paid for, screw it, I want the check. It's my money.

[Snowrunner]

This is the end result of unfettered capitalism

I really wish people would quit saying that. This is nothing even remotely resembling capitalism, and it not resembled capitalism for several decades.

This is as close to Capitalism as the Soviet Union (or Mao's China) was to Communism.

Like it or not, any pure ideology will be usurped by greed and power hunger.

[alokin]

But.. I read a lot of cheerfull headlined today, DOW is up DAX is up, it's like there never have been a crisis.
What I cannot understand that these guys at Wall Street are experts, that they jump on this sort of announcements. There is no real plan until now, they leave it for the week end. They buy on a vague announcement that the gov. will step in.

[Madpaddy]

Irish stock exchange was up 25% this morning. That is not a typo. Some banks were up 100% in early trading. The two main banks were up 60% ad 42% respectively.

Much of these early gains have evaporated after only 2 hours of trading but most banks are still up over 20% from yesterday.

Does this qualify as volatility.

[TheDude]

But.. I read a lot of cheerfull headlined today, DOW is up DAX is up, it's like there never have been a crisis.
What I cannot understand that these guys at Wall Street are experts, that they jump on this sort of announcements. There is no real plan until now, they leave it for the week end. They buy on a vague announcement that the gov. will step in.

The market's behavior lately puts me in mind of Ford Prefect trying to learn to fly: just throw yourself at the ground - and miss. For all his attempts he never does anything but get scratched up. Or the dream sequence where the Dude's flying along over L.A. pursuing the woman who stole his rug (she's floating on it, it really tied the room together). Then it gets even better, he has his bowling ball! Of course it sends him crashing straight down the minute he realizes how heavy it is.

Gotta have faith. To dream...the impossible dream...

[ReverseEngineer]

Irish stock exchange was up 25% this morning. That is not a typo. Some banks were up 100% in early trading. The two main banks were up 60% ad 42% respectively.

Much of these early gains have evaporated after only 2 hours of trading but most banks are still up over 20% from yesterday.

Does this qualify as volatility.

Internal small capital looing for a place to fly to. Hammered down by big capital creating money from thin air.

I am astounded that even the best and brightest here don't understand what is happening. ALL equities are losing value, NO company can expect good returns in this environment, not even an alternative energy stock, because that is pie in the sky. So the ONLY way to accumulate wealth is to short stocks, but the mechanism for that is being eroded.

Paper Wealth is burning up and collapsing faster than the Trade Center did. If you are in the market as a worker on the 50th floor, you just are going to fall further than the worker on the 20th floor, but EVERYONE falls. Even those at the top in the Penthouse. They fall a lot further, thus the terrified looks on their faces and the wild moves they are trying to keep the penthouse floating while the structure beneath collapses.

If you cannot short the stocks, you cannot make money in a bear market. But of course, nobody is really making money anywhere now, in reality everything is LOSING value, and quickly. The paper game here is just a reflection of that fact of life. Live with it.

Reverse Engineer

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

Is there any way I can "opt out" of this mess? Is there any way I can opt out of the federal government?

Yes, move the hell out of the United States!

And do it quickly, while we still can! I'm serious. Husband and I are looking into it right now, but worried it's too late.

[hermit]

Is there any way I can "opt out" of this mess? Is there any way I can opt out of the federal government?

Yes, move the hell out of the United States!

And do it quickly, while we still can! I'm serious. Husband and I are looking into it right now, but worried it's too late.

I don't think it's right that the people who allowed this mess to happen (you and I), get to pack up and leave, instead of continuing to work to make things right.

We spent decades telling the world how great we were, and now we just want to pack up and move to the very countries we held in contempt for so long?

/won't be moving to Canada any time soon.

[JJ]

fellow just emailed me this:

Peak Oil Lie - US Has Utterly Giant Oil Reserves Various Sources 2-25-9
The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana...
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable...at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.
"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.
"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years." reports, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves.... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!
That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.
2. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from two YEARS ago!
U. S. Oil Discovery - Largest Reserve In The World!
Stansberry Report Online - 4-20-6
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?
They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:
* 8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
* 18 times as much oil as Iraq
* 21 times as much oil as Kuwait
* 22 times as much oil as Iran
* 500 times as much oil as Yemen
- and it's all right here in the Western United States.
HOW can this BE?
HOW can we NOT BE extracting this?
Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy....WHY?
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East - more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?
Got your attention/ire up yet? Hope so. Now, while you're thinking about it .... and hopefully angry, do this:
3. Pass this along. If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you want to complain about gas prices .. because by doing NOTHING, you've forfeited your right to complain.
Want the hard data? Go here...
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

[Maddog78]

Vision master just posted that email.
It seems to be making the rounds.

[copious.abundance]

>>> LINK <<<

NOVEMBER 4, 2009, 5:05 P.M. ET
The Crude Truth About Oil Reserves
The coming century will overflow with petroleum.
By LEONARDO MAUGERI

It offends conventional wisdom. It will also seem nasty to the doom-sayers, who for decades have predicted an oil scarcity that never came. But the 21st century is very likely to overflow with oil. There are at least three main reasons for this.

First, oil reserves are finite. This is incontrovertible. But even so, no one knows how finite they are. And since we don't know the total amount of oil resources existing underground, it's impossible to calculate the curve of future supply.

The inadequate data we rely on today are from the U.S. Geological Survey, and put the stock of conventional oil resources at least seven to eight trillion barrels. More than two trillion of these are currently deemed to be recoverable, while "proven" reserves are around 1.2 trillion barrels. (The world consumes around 30 billion barrels of oil per year.)

[...]

For these reasons, I dare to make a prediction. By 2030, more than 50% of the known oil will be recoverable. At the same time, the amount of known oil will have significantly grown by then, and a larger portion of unconventional oils will be commonly produced, bringing the total amount of recoverable oil reserves to something between 4.5-5 trillion barrels. What's more, a significant part of "new" reserves will come from the ability to better exploit what we already have.

By 2030 we will have consumed another 650-700 billion of our reserves. Added to the oil burned so far, this implies a reduction of around 1.6 trillion barrels from the 4.5-5 trillion figure. Yet, if my estimates are correct, we will have plenty of oil for the 21st century.

[rider]

Quote from the article.

"Critics may argue that there may actually be plenty of oil left underground, but "easy" and cheap oil is gone forever. This view is partially true."

So the coming century will overflow with very expensive oil? Who writes this s**t?

[eastbay]

Pay a guy enough and he'll say just about anything. Even nonsense like that.

[frankthetank]

Pay me $10 and i'll kiss my sister

[copious.abundance]

Quote from the article.

"Critics may argue that there may actually be plenty of oil left underground, but "easy" and cheap oil is gone forever. This view is partially true."

So the coming century will overflow with very expensive oil? Who writes this s**t?

And the rest of that paragraph said . . .

But it is also true that today's difficult oil will turn into tomorrow's easy oil, thanks to cost reductions due to large-scale application of currently expensive technologies. In the 1970s, North Sea oil was considered among the most difficult and expensive oil on our planet. But a decade after initial production had begun, the cost of extracting it had been cut in half.

Which is why he said it was only "partially" true.

[AirlinePilot]

I'll trust this article before listening to anything penned by Maugeri. He's plain and simply a Shill. Typical for a corny to post something like this. You just don't see it.

http://www.theoildrum.com/pdf/theoildrum_5865.pdf

[chenopodium]

It always puzzles me that people are willing to get fire insurance, car insurance and even life insurance, even though the probability of a house burning down is very low, say less than 1%.

Would you listen to someone who claims, don't worry about fire, you are 99% safe, so why get insurance? No, because in the event the house DOES burn down, you are way better off with insurance, and if the house really never burns down (which IS likely), no big harm done in paying for the insurance.

But somehow , with peak oil, even though I hope even the optimists agree that the probability is higher than say 1% that we reach a peak within the next 10 years (I would say 99% sure!), optimists prefer NOT to prepare (= insure), and even lots of pessimists don't do anything. Why?

To me it is the same as fire insurance.
if no PO happens in 10 years, it didn't hurt much to prepare (like, we are building a solar passive house, stocking up on supplies, learning to garden - which is nice in any situation).
But if PO happens, I will be very, very glad to be prepared and you can be hurt a lot if you didn't!!!

Cheno

[EnergyUnlimited]

Pay me $10 and i'll kiss my sister

And what would you do to her, if I paid you $100?

[dorlomin]

In the 1970s, North Sea oil was considered among the most difficult and expensive oil on our planet. But a decade after initial production had begun, the cost of extracting it had been cut in half.

Would that be the decade that included the cost cutting measures that led to piper alpha? And would that be the same province that one decade later peaked and went into terminal decline?