Wipeout on Wall StreetPosted By Rod Kaufman |
"The market is behaving as if we are going into a recession." So says Ram Kolluri, chief investment officer at Global Value Investors.
Let's see, the trade deficit is going ballistic and the Bush administration, as usual, does nothing about it.
Oil prices have moderated a bit over the past week or so. Did the Bush administration do anything to help in the decline? Absolutely not, their actions have actually driven-up the cost of oil. How, by ignoring the pleas of democratic senators, Bush has refused to stop competing with the rest of the country by buying tons of oil everyday and dumping it into the strategic oil reserve lest those nasty terrorists under all of our beds get to it before we do. The democrats, noting Bush Jr won't release oil from the reserve as his father did in order to reduce gas prices and save failing airlines from bankruptcy, asked that Bush at least stop the government practice of buying oil at whatever high cost it may be on a daily basis, and wait until prices drop, thereby saving the taxpayers millions of dollars.(Not to mention the Americans currently paying through the nozzle to buy it now.)Speaking of oil, almost all of the recent run-ups have been on the basis of FEARS. Fears of wars in the middle east. Fears of refinery shortages. Fears of unusually cold winters. Fears of increasing demands on oil production. NONE of these fears have been realized. Saudi Arabia flatly stated it alone can supply all of the worlds demands for oil, including anticipated increases from China and India. The Saudis increased production by 2% and when that didn't work, they raised it another 500,000.00 barrels per day. The US consumes 11% of the oil compared to the rest of the world and isn't the glutton everybody believes it to be. The drilling in the wildlife reserves, if successful, won't be productive until 10 years from now. So what has the Bush administration done to help? Well, it brokered back-room deals with vice presidents of energy companies with Dick Chenney and established energy policies without the input of public opinion resulting in rigs being carved out of places like Pinedale Wyoming and in areas around Mt Rushmore where the resulting pollution has been reported to be so bad that you can't even see the monument on some days.
To top it off, we now have interest rates rising with every meeting of the Fed. I recall when similar economic circumstances happened under the Clinton administration, Clinton called Greenspan to the white house and demanded an explanation. Although a president can't order a revision in the rates, it doesn't hurt to convey his concerns to Greenspan. Sadly, Bush as usual, does nothing....
Let's see, the trade deficit is going ballistic and the Bush administration, as usual, does nothing about it.
Oil prices have moderated a bit over the past week or so. Did the Bush administration do anything to help in the decline? Absolutely not, their actions have actually driven-up the cost of oil. How, by ignoring the pleas of democratic senators, Bush has refused to stop competing with the rest of the country by buying tons of oil everyday and dumping it into the strategic oil reserve lest those nasty terrorists under all of our beds get to it before we do. The democrats, noting Bush Jr won't release oil from the reserve as his father did in order to reduce gas prices and save failing airlines from bankruptcy, asked that Bush at least stop the government practice of buying oil at whatever high cost it may be on a daily basis, and wait until prices drop, thereby saving the taxpayers millions of dollars.(Not to mention the Americans currently paying through the nozzle to buy it now.)Speaking of oil, almost all of the recent run-ups have been on the basis of FEARS. Fears of wars in the middle east. Fears of refinery shortages. Fears of unusually cold winters. Fears of increasing demands on oil production. NONE of these fears have been realized. Saudi Arabia flatly stated it alone can supply all of the worlds demands for oil, including anticipated increases from China and India. The Saudis increased production by 2% and when that didn't work, they raised it another 500,000.00 barrels per day. The US consumes 11% of the oil compared to the rest of the world and isn't the glutton everybody believes it to be. The drilling in the wildlife reserves, if successful, won't be productive until 10 years from now. So what has the Bush administration done to help? Well, it brokered back-room deals with vice presidents of energy companies with Dick Chenney and established energy policies without the input of public opinion resulting in rigs being carved out of places like Pinedale Wyoming and in areas around Mt Rushmore where the resulting pollution has been reported to be so bad that you can't even see the monument on some days.
To top it off, we now have interest rates rising with every meeting of the Fed. I recall when similar economic circumstances happened under the Clinton administration, Clinton called Greenspan to the white house and demanded an explanation. Although a president can't order a revision in the rates, it doesn't hurt to convey his concerns to Greenspan. Sadly, Bush as usual, does nothing....