On the weekends (mostly Saturdays) I’m going to be working on a series of articles for make yourself and your family as safer then the normal. What do I mean? I mean most people are living paycheck to paycheck, have their credit cards maxed out and living like they don’t have a care in the world, the wealth we think we have is all on paper. The game being played is keeping most Americans just ahead of the repo man.

In my opinion we have been living on the edge of a huge big bowl for a long time. Any number of things can tip us in, either personally or Nationally. Over the next six weekends I hopefully will cover 6 topics that will help you understand how you can make yourself and your family safer. I will start out with a basic look and after we have gone through them, we might take a look at each of them more in depth.

Week One I plan to cover Handling Money by getting out of debt. (this week)
Week Two I plan to cover Shelter and Heating
Week Three I plan to cover Food and Water
Week Four I plan to cover Lighting and Cooking
Week Five I plan to cover Transportation and Communications
Week Six I plan to cover Tools that will help you do all of the above.

I like Dave Ramsey’s Website (http://www.daveramsey.com/) and Crown Financial Concepts (http://www.crown.org/library/default.aspx?catId=31 ) a lot of info there. But the first thing you need to realize is that you are a slave to DEBT.
Pro 22:7 The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
What I mean, is you cannot go where you want to go, or do what you want to do. You are tied to what ever you are in debt to. It dictates what you can do and can’t. You need to get that in your head, it controls you decisions about everything, your job you have, the place you live, what you can do and when.

If you are out of debt then the money you make (after taxes) is really yours to do with as you please. Would not you like that.

It is said that "Money is what makes the world go round". I don't agree with that premise but i understand that money is a very needful and useful tool, if used correctly. But the saying "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go" is closer to the truth for most people. Debt regardless of what anyone tells you, makes you a slave to who you are debtor too.

The Lord Jesus Christ said in Luke 16:9-13 " And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

Albert Einstein wrote "Not everything that counts is not countable and everything that is countable does not count". An example of what this means to me is that friendship, can be counted on, but a true friend is a treasure that can not be measured. Another unmeasurable commodity in this world is, trust, if you have it in you by others you are a rich man. In the world we live in money is a necessary evil, you need to learn how to use it as a tool and not let it control you.

Two articles one is the biblical bases for getting out of debt, the second is an article about the worldly wisdom of getting out of debt.

Owe No Man
By Pastor David F. Reagan
Romans 13:8 "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law."
I hate debt. I have been in personal debt two times in my life (the first time was for medical bills and the second time for taxes). In both cases, the problems went far beyond their original causes and it took several years to get out. The last time we cut back many things (sold our house and rented an old one, went to one older car, got a new job, etc.) in order to get out of debt. To this day I fight like crazy to stay out of new debt. Even the church where I pastor has no debt–not on equipment, land or buildings. My only personal debt is the house mortgage we have and current bills.
However, I also hate the blatant misapplication of scripture. Some men are using Romans 13:8 as proof that any debt under any circumstances is a sin. When the Bible says, "Owe no man any thing," it must mean anything! Right? Well, not necessarily. I am even prepared to prove that these men do not mean anything in a universal sense. They are correct in opposing the evils of excessive debt and easy credit. They are correct in fighting the lack of faith that is usually the hallmark of debt-ridden believers. However, this does not justify the harm done by the serious misinterpretation of this text. Let me explain.
First, look at the text and the context. Paul says, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another." What has Paul been dealing with in this passage? He has been dealing with the error of some believers who feel no need to pay their taxes because they are not of this world. Paul’s answer is, "Render therefore to all their dues." Whether tribute, custom, fear or honor; if you owe it to them, then give it as they require.
In other words, if anyone has a proper expectation of us; if we owe them–then we should pay it. This matches the teaching of Proverbs 3:27-28: "Withhold not good from them to who it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbor, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee." Do not put someone off when it is their right and they claim it. Give them what you owe them to the best of your ability.
But, does this passage also teach that it is a sin to borrow for any reason? Well, just consider. If it is wrong to borrow money, then it is also wrong to borrow a ladder or a saw because as long as it is in my hand, I owe it to the man who really owns it. The verse does not say, "Owe no man any money"; it says, "Owe no man any thing." If it means, "Do not under any circumstances borrow," as some have interpreted it, then it would include things as well as money.
Another thing that bothers me about this interpretation is that it makes Romans 13:8 the only verse in the Bible that makes borrowing a sin. Yes, I know, "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender" (Pr.22:7). Yet, notice the parallelism. If it is not a sin to be poor, then it must not be a sin to be a borrower. The negative nature of borrowing is akin to the negative nature of being sick. It is not desirable but neither is it a sin. I suppose the person who readily goes into debt when it is not necessary would be like a person who readily exposes himself to various diseases and becomes sick. Both of these men are foolish though not necessarily wicked.
So, as I said, there are no other verses in the Bible that teach the sinfulness of debt. Certainly, any debt entered into out of God’s will is a sin. But this is not the same as calling all debt sin. On several occasions, Jesus used debt in His parables (Mt.18:23-35; Lk.7:41-43;16:1-9). In none of these parables is the debtor evil because of his debt–unless you consider the debtor who was condemned because he would not show mercy on those who owed him. Also, why did Elisha not condemn the widow woman of 2 Kings 4 for not having enough faith? Why did he not tell her to repent and seek forgiveness? Rather, he fixed the problem as an answer to her request for help.
Consider the fact that under the law protection was given to those in debt. "If thou at all take thy neighbor’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down" (Ex.22:26). The pledge was the poor man’s collateral. Yet, the loaner was not even allowed to keep the man’s pledge over night–even if the debt had not been paid. Now tell me, if going into debt is a sin, why did God protect the sinner in his sin? Did God give this kind of protection to those who lie or murder or worship false gods? Of course not! Would God be a righteous God if He protected sinners in their sin? No! Yet there is more. God commanded those who have money to freely lend to those who are in need. Consider these verses:
Deuteronomy 15:7 - "If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth."
Now if borrowing is a sin, God is commanding His people to help those wanting to commit this sin in their sin. This is like saying that if a man wants to commit murder, give him a gun and show him how to use it; if a man wants to commit adultery, drive him to the red light district and give him the money he needs for the deed. This is terribly inconsistent. My God is not inconsistent.
In conclusion, let me say this. The Bible clearly teaches that financial debt is a negative to be avoided if at all possible. We are to walk by faith and the majority of borrowing done by Christians today is a neon sign revealing their lack of faith and their inability to control their desires. Wisdom leads away from debt and toward debt-free living. In today’s society, many are led into debt by foolishness. Yet, there are also debts incurred for proper causes.
Let me close with one personal example. Early in our marriage, my wife and I stayed pretty much debt-free. (I remember that we bought one small item on credit just to establish some credit.) After two years of marriage, we had our first child on the way. We pulled together the $500 fee for the doctor (it was cheaper back then). We also had insurance. As the time for delivery came close, my wife started having some complications. As it turned out, she had a toxemia pregnancy and labor had to be induced early.
Our insurance only covered a maximum of $500 for the hospital visit. Believer it or not, this would have covered a major portion of a normal delivery. Yet, this was not a normal delivery. In fact, the hospital and doctor bills came to around $5,000. So, did I struggle over this debt I was incurring? Was it a lapse of faith that made me allow the doctors to do whatever they thought necessary to save mother and child? Should I have pulled her out of the hospital and told her that we were going to have faith?
Do not tell me that this is different. I went into debt that week. In fact, I incurred debt to about ten different medical services. It took us several years to get out of this debt. If going into debt is a sin, then I sinned that week. But I do not believe that it was. You can judge me if you want, but I would do it again in a heartbeat and never look back. Please, let us not get into extremes that take us where God would not have us go.


Your best investment? Paying off that debt

By John Waggoner, USA TODAY
Sure, stocks are much cheaper now than they were at the first of the year. So are houses.
But if you're carrying a lot of credit card or other debt, your best investment is to pay down that debt.
Think of it this way: If you invest $10,000 in a 10-year Treasury note, you'll earn 3.36% a year, or $336. After 10 years, you'll have pocketed $3,360.
Now, for the sake of comparison, let's say you have a $10,000 credit card bill, and the card charges a 19% interest rate. Suppose your card issuer requires you to pay 4% of your balance every month, so your minimum payment is $400.
If you pay your minimum each month (and assuming you must pay at least $10 a month), it will take a bit more than 15 years to repay your debt. If you pay that debt off now, over 10 years, you'll save $15,672 in payments and $6,204 in interest. Put another way: You'd earn $336 in interest from your T-bill in your first year. But you'd save an average $350 a month the first year by paying off your credit card — clearly a better bet.
Unfortunately, most people don't have $10,000 sitting idle; that's just one reason they're facing a mountain of credit card debt. Still, even if you pay down your debts gradually, you'll free up money for investing later. Just be careful not to dig yourself a bigger hole than you started with. Here are five ways to help get out of debt — and five traps that would probably bury you even deeper.
5 ways to climb out of debt
1. Stop using your cards. It won't do you much good to pay down your debt if you keep adding to it. If you've arranged to have some recurring charges automatically billed to your credit card, see if you can have those bills deducted from your checking account instead. (Be sure to keep track, to avoid overdraft fees on your checking account.) Or see if you can eliminate those bills altogether.
2. Try to get a better rate. Some cards charge 30% or more, and anything you can do to reduce your rate is to your benefit. Start by calling your credit card company, says Gerri Detweiler, an adviser at Credit.com, a consumer website.
"Be pleasant, but be persistent," she says. As you can imagine, the odds aren't great that you'll be rewarded with a lower rate, but it can't hurt to ask.
Should you transfer balances to a cheaper card? Possibly, Detweiler says. But bear in mind that opening new accounts can weaken your credit record. If you can, transfer your balances to a lower-rate card that you already own.
You might also consider a home-equity loan, which would give you a lower rate — and your interest will be tax-deductible. If your home's value has slid precipitously, though, you might not be able to get one. And if you start using your credit cards again, you'll find yourself with even more debt.
3. Pay off cards with the highest interest rate first, and pay more than the minimum.
Suppose you have a $10,000 credit card bill that charges 30%. Your minimum payment is 4% of your total, or $400, and $250 of that payment goes to interest. Even after sending $400 to your credit card company, your balance falls by just $150. (The same payment to a card that charged 12% would reduce your balance by $300.)
The faster you get rid of your high-cost debt, the better, so try to pay more than the minimum. One good source of money: your tax return. The average taxpayer received a $2,225 refund from Uncle Sam last year. That kind of money could go a long way toward paying down your debt.
In addition, the government wants you to spend your economic stimulus payment — anywhere from $600 to $1,200 — at the mall. But your own private economy might receive more stimulation if you used your tax refund to pay off your credit card bill, particularly if you have a card that charges 20% to 30% or more.
Don't limit yourself to windfalls. Even if you can afford to direct only $20 extra a month toward your debt, you'll eventually save thousands in interest and pay off your debt faster.
4. Save. Many people sink into credit card troubles because of unexpected expenses: Your car dies, your furnace malfunctions, your health insurance refuses to pay a big bill. Your first priority, of course, is to pay your credit card. But putting even $10 a week into a savings account might spare you from having to reach for plastic in an emergency.
5. Get help. If you find it hard to craft a budget and stick to it, or you just need a second opinion about how to get out of debt, consider using a non-profit credit-counseling service. Bankruptcy law, in fact, requires you to do so before seeking protection from creditors.
But choose your counselor carefully — some do more harm than good. You can find a list of state-approved credit-counseling organizations at www.usdoj.gov/ust. Many credit unions and military bases offer free credit help. Or you can call the industry trade group the National Foundation for Credit Counseling at 800-388-2227.
5 steps to avoid digging yourself deeper
1. Paying off one card with another. Don't even think about it.
If you have no way to pay off your credit card, it's time to call your credit card company and try to work out a payment schedule.
2. Tapping your retirement account. Talk about expensive money. You'll owe taxes on the entire amount you withdraw from a 401(k) or deductible IRA, plus a 10% early-withdrawal penalty, if you're under 591/2.
Keep in mind that in the worst-case scenario — bankruptcy — your retirement plans would generally be shielded from creditors.
3. Paying off low-interest debt. It's noble, of course, to be debt-free. But if you have a loan that charges 6% interest or less, you shouldn't worry too much about it — unless, of course, the payments are onerous for you. Concentrate on the loans with the highest interest rates first.
4. Using scammy credit-repair firms. Some credit-counseling agencies prey on the desperate. They promise to fix your credit report and enable you to obtain car loans and mortgages. Typically, they demand upfront fees for services that people could do themselves — or services that they don't perform.
Many banks and creditors refuse to even deal with these credit-repair firms, which means you end up losing your upfront money right from the start. You wind up with less money and the same debt.
The Federal Trade Commission offers sound advice on credit-repair companies at www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/repair.shtm.
It also provides detailed information on how to repair your credit.
5. Giving up. In extreme cases, you might have to seek bankruptcy protection and start over.
But if you're willing to make a plan, take some time and work at reducing your debt, you can.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2008-03-27-get-out-of-debt_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Fema directs us in case of an emergency to have at least 3 day supply of food and water on hand in our house. I think it is more then reasonable why? For a lot of reasons, some of them would be a flu pandemic, trucker’s strike, with diesel that keeps going up that is not unreasonable either. Do you understand there is only about 3 day supply of food on the shelves of the average grocery store? With an emergency even less, have you ever seen what happens when it is going to snow, no milk, toilet paper, or bread can be found on the shelves. What happens if you loss your job? What happens if you lose electric for a week? Friend of mine lost it once for 8 days because of an ice storm and another family I know lost it for 14 days after a hurricane. Anyway here is a good article

Reality check on shopping for pandemic

A well-stocked pantry could save your life if a flu pandemic strikes. Lauren Wilson and Adam Cresswell report December 15, 2007

CRANBERRY or apple sauce? Cream or brandy butter? This is as close as many of us get to a food dilemma, especially as Christmas approaches. But if infectious disease experts are right, we could all be facing a rather more difficult food quandary sooner than we'd like.
The world is overdue for an influenza pandemic, and if one were to strike many people would be expected to bunker down at home rather than risk infection by going in to work or other places where people congregate.
It might be several weeks before the danger passed. But whose larders are already so well stocked that they could last that long?
And who would be able to hit the supermarket with a realistic idea of what they needed to buy to last a couple of months, and not end up with supplies so unbalanced that the crackers run out weeks before whatever has been bought to spread on them? Who has a good enough grasp of nutrition to ensure one's household does not begin to resemble some throwback to scurvy ravaged sailors?
Jennie Brand-Miller, professor of human nutrition at the University of Sydney, is concerned many Australians do not give enough thought to supplies needed to survive a crisis such as a global pandemic.
"I think it's complacency," Brand-Miller says. "I don't think people appreciate that something like bird flu would be terribly contagious, and I don't think enough people understand it would mean isolation."
Along with a team of nutritionists, including Norwegian food expert Anna Haug, Brand-Miller has assembled a "food lifeboat", which would provide an individual with the energy and nutrition requirements needed to survive three months in lock-down.
"We became quite excited about the possibility that we could come up with a food lifeboat, because the best way to avoid something like avian flu is to go into isolation -- so to continuously go out to buy foods would expose one to risks," Brand-Miller said.
The food lifeboat was measured against four principal criteria: it must be sufficiently affordable, not too unpalatable, cover all one's nutritional needs and be easily stored -- none of the products needs refrigeration, and all have a general shelf-life of around 12 months.
"It was important for us to be able to store the items at room temperature, in case the people who operate gas or electricity services have to stay at home rather than risk exposing themselves to the virus," Brand-Miller says.
Cooking could also be a challenge if gas and electricity supplies temporarily shut down, so many of the products on the suggested list require little preparation. And while a global flu pandemic is one emergency that could see us all home-bound, other scenarios, including natural disasters, could require sufficient stockpiles of long-life food.
The research, published last weekend in the Medical Journal of Australia (2007;187:674-6), also raises concerns about the concentration of Australia's food supplies, with supermarket outlets being dominated by two main chains.
This situation potentially renders Australia more sensitive to logistical hitches if a crisis were to arise, according to the report.
"Australia's food supplies are narrowly focused in terms of provision and at any one point in time, the major supermarket chains hold only a few weeks' supplies," the authors wrote. If the central supply chain broke down in an emergency, supermarket stocks would become depleted within two or three weeks. This could happen much faster if people were to panic-buy and begin to hoard food.
As a solution to this potential disaster, the panel of nutritionists are hoping their food lifeboat will become something that can be purchased at a supermarket, already shrink-wrapped for convenient storage.
But it may be a while before we start to see the package on supermarket shelves.
Brand-Miller says food suppliers have been hesitant to embrace the project. "I said to Woolworths 'Would you like to offer this as a package?', but they are not going to bring it in at this point in time."
Having a ready-made food lifeboat available for sale at one's local supermarket would take the guess-work out of trying to put together a three-month survival pack that covers a person's nutritional requirements.
Brand-Miller says most people are in the dark about the foods they would need to survive. Ingredients such as seaweed, for example, would not immediately come to mind for most of us, but Brand-Miller says it was a very important item on her list.
"The seaweed is there to provide the iodine, and iodine deficiency is certainly a serious issue. Hypothetically, if a woman became pregnant throughout this period and did not get enough iodine, the baby could be at risk of learning difficulties in extreme cases."
Vegemite is included as an important source of folic acid; Milo is on the list for its range of nutrients, while Spam and canned tuna are listed as sources of protein.
And while the food lifeboat is full of nutritionally rich items, the researchers are aware that being locked indoors for weeks on end without the occasional indulgence is torture for most people.
"We've included chocolate on the list because palatability is very important, and in situations like the ones we are preparing for, food becomes a welcome distraction," Brand-Miller says. (Chocoholics note: she's only allocated you 30g per day.)
The entire food list, which is expected to last one person 10 weeks, is estimated to cost between $450-$500. It provides an average energy intake of 9MJ per person per day, so while men may need a little more energy, women and children would require less.
If the food lifeboat becomes adopted within the food industry, Brand-Miller says the panel of experts would also look at putting together a series of food lifeboats suited to different cultural tastes.
So far the nutritionists are simply offering two packages as options for those interested in stockpiling for emergencies -- one with, and one without vitamin supplements.
While the food lifeboat containing vitamin supplements is more costly, it is recommended as the better alternative by the researchers.
"If you are talking about normal life, I would always say it is preferable to get all of your vitamin needs from food, but in situations like this taking vitamins is a preferable alternative," says Brand-Miller.
Either way, Brand-Miller says it is important just to be prepared and begin to think about how well your cupboards would fare in a global flu pandemic.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22920579-23289,00.html

Other articles that have to do with this feature article
http://www.newstimes.com/opinion/ci_9823773

http://www.cullmantimes.com/homepage/local_story_158223117.html?keyword=leadpicturestory

http://www.vtfoodbank.org/press_room/coverage/page205/ Vermont


Videos that go along with the feature article

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6AP9HPseH4





Now back to the economy, alot of great articles come out daily, but i want this blog to be about more then just the economy. It is important to me that we cover things that will help you protect you and your family.


Ambrose Evans Pritchard is probably the premere economist that is willing to write about the economy. So i will bring his articles to the forfront when i come across them. Here is another one of his good articles.


The global economy is at the point of maximum danger

By Ambrose Evans- Pritchard

It feels like the summer of 1931. The world's two biggest financial institutions have had a heart attack. The global currency system is breaking down. The policy doctrines that got us into this mess are bankrupt. No world leader seems able to discern the problem, let alone forge a solution.
The International Monetary Fund has abdicated into schizophrenia. It has upgraded its 2008 world forecast from 3.7pc to 4.1pc growth, whilst warning of a "chance of a global recession". Plainly, the IMF cannot or will not offer any useful insights.
Its "mean-reversion" model misses the entire point of this crisis, which is that central banks have pushed debt to fatal levels by holding interest too low for a generation, and now the chickens have come home to roost. True "mean-reversion" would imply debt deflation on such a scale that would, if abrupt, threaten democracy.

The risk is that these same central banks will commit a fresh error, this time overreacting to the oil spike. The European Central Bank has raised rates, warning of a 1970s wage-price spiral. Fixated on the rear-view mirror, it is not looking through the windscreen.


The eurozone is falling into recession before the US itself. Its level of credit stress is worse, if measured by Euribor or the iTraxx bond indexes. Core inflation has fallen over the last year from 1.9pc to 1.8pc.
The US may soon tip into a second leg of this crisis as the fiscal package runs out and Americans lose jobs in earnest. US bank credit has contracted for three months. Real US wages fell at almost 10pc (annualised) over May and June. This is a ferocious squeeze for an economy already in the grip of the property and debt crunch.
No doubt the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - $5.3 trillion pillars of America's mortgage market - stinks of moral hazard. The Treasury is to buy shares: the Fed has opened its window yet wider. Risks have been socialised. Any rewards will go to capitalists.
Alas, no Scandinavian discipline for Wall Street. When Norway's banks fell below critical capital levels in the early 1990s, the Storting authorised seizure. Shareholders were stiffed.
But Nordic purism in the vast universe of US credit would court fate. The Californian lender IndyMac was indeed seized after depositors panicked on the streets of Encino. The police had to restore order. This was America's Northern Rock moment.
IndyMac will deplete a tenth of the $53bn reserve of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC has some 90 "troubled" lenders on watch. IndyMac was not one of them.
The awful reality is that Washington has its back to the wall. Fed chief Ben Bernanke thought the US could always get out of trouble by monetary stimulus "à l'outrance", and letting the dollar slide. He has learned that the world is a more complicated place.
Oil has queered the pitch. So has America's fatal reliance on foreign debt. The Fannie/Freddie rescue, incidentally, has just lifted the US national debt from German 'AAA' levels to Italian 'AA-' levels.
China, Russia, petro-powers and other foreign states own $985bn of US agency debt, besides holdings of US Treasuries. Purchases of Fannie/Freddie debt covered a third of the US current account deficit of $700bn over the last year. Alex Patelis from Merrill Lynch says America faces the risk of a "financing crisis" within months. Foreigners have a veto over US policy.
Japan did not have this problem during its Lost Decade. As the world's supplier of credit, it could let the yen slide. It also had a savings rate of 15pc. Albert Edwards from Société Générale says this has fallen to 3pc today. It has cushioned the slump. Americans are under water before they start.
My view is that a dollar crash will be averted as it becomes clearer that contagion has spread worldwide. But we are now at the point of maximum danger. Britain, Japan, and the Antipodes are stalling. Denmark is in recession. Germany contracted in the second quarter. May industrial output fell 6pc in Holland and 5.5pc in Sweden.
The coalitions in Belgium and Austria have just collapsed. Germany's left-right team is fraying. One German banker told me that the doctrines of "left Nazism" (Otto Strasser's group, purged by Hitler) had captured the rising Die Linke party. The Social Democrats are picking up its themes to protect their flank.
This is the healthy part of Europe. Further south, we are not far away from civic protest. BNP Paribas has just issued a hurricane alert for Spain.
Finance minister Pedro Solbes said Spain is facing the "most complex" economic crisis in its history. Actually, it is very simple. The country was lulled into a trap by giveaway interest rates of 2pc under EMU, leading to a current account deficit of 10pc of GDP.
A manic property bubble was funded by foreigners buying covered bonds and securities. This market has dried up. Monetary policy is now being tightened into the crunch by the ECB, hence the bankruptcy last week of Martinsa-Fadesa (€5.1bn). With Franco-era labour markets (70pc of wages are inflation-linked), the adjustment will occur through closure of the job marts.
China, India, East Europe and emerging Asia have all stolen growth from the future by condoning credit excess. To varying degrees, they are now being forced to pay back their own "inter-temporal overdrafts".
If we are lucky, America will start to stabilise before Asia goes down. Should our leaders mismanage affairs, almost every part of the global system will go down together. Then we are in trouble.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/07/21/ccview121.xml

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson, from the debate on the recharter of the Bank Bill, (1809)

A friend emailed me the following article, it is worrysome.

Emerging Killer Virus Starts Like a Cold, But Kills Many

(NaturalNews) A newly discovered and highly lethal virus strain begins with symptoms similar to that of a cold but can quickly lead to severe respiratory crisis."This virus has the capability of causing severe respiratory illness in people of all ages, regardless of their medical condition," said John Su, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The virus was discovered by infectious-disease expert David N. Gilbert, who noticed that otherwise healthy patients were being stricken by pneumonia so severe that they would die without oxygen treatment. The dangerous symptoms developed within only one or two days of initial cough and fever symptoms.
"Mike Adams is the best health and natural products writer on the scene today."
- Ronnie Cummins, founder, Organic Consumers Association (www.OrganicConsumers.org)
"I wish that more people had the level of intensity that Mr. Mike Adams has to get the knowledge in our hands and help us get healthy and stay healthy. I have recommended ALL my friends to sign up for this important newsletter."
- Dr. Jack Singh, founder, the Organic Food Bar Company
"I'm so impressed with the work that you're doing and the information you're disseminating, it's just vital for people to get this sort of information."
- Michael T. Murray, author of The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods and The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine
"Mike Adams has one of the best websites on the Internet. His articles, podcasts and books will improve your life, and possibly save it. As a journalist he is relentless in his questioning, always asking insightful questions to expose the truth. Masterful!"
- Suzy Cohen, R.Ph., Author of The 24-Hour Pharmacist (www.DearPharmacist.com)
Since Gilbert's discovery of the virus in Portland, Oregon, outbreaks have been identified at military bases in Washington, Texas and South Carolina.The disease is a variety of adenovirus, the family that includes 51 infectious agents responsible for diseases such as colds, pink eye, bronchitis and the stomach flu. A mutation has apparently occurred in a virus called adenovirus 14, making it much more lethal. In the first outbreak examined by Gilbert, seven of 30 hospitalized patients died."That's an incredibly high mortality rate," Gilbert said.One of the patients who survived was 18-year-old Joseph Spencer. After experiencing severe, flu-like symptoms including chills, fever and vomiting, Spencer went to the hospital, where he was placed in intensive care and treated for 18 days."We told the family we didn't think he was going to survive," Gilbert said.Spencer was eventually discharged, but says he still feels weak and short of breath, and has had problems with his memory.Tests have determined that more 50 percent of adenovirus infections in Oregon are now caused by the new strain of adenovirus 14."That's shocking," said Paul Lewis, an Oregon health investigator. "It went from being imperceptible to being the majority."Health officials caution that while the vast majority of cold-like infections are harmless, patients whose symptoms continue getting worse should see a doctor.

http://www.naturalnews.com/023659.html

And adding this to the absolutely wonderful practice of free speech catalog. You can read the story at World Net Daily

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70344


following up on an already posted topic

Growers tally loss to salmonella scare
Tomato damage $100 million
The tomatoes grown on 6,000 acres in Virginia's sea-swept Eastern Shore were never implicated in the national salmonella outbreak — they were still on the vine weeks after people starting getting sick.
Still, that hasn't made much difference to tomato broker Batista Madonia III, who has seen sales and prices plummet in the wake of a salmonella outbreak that sickened people in 42 states and left the nation's tomato industry feeling woozy as well.
Since the government announced it was investigating whether contaminated tomatoes caused the outbreak that began in April, the nation's tomato industry estimates it has lost more than $100 million. Health investigators have not been able to find the tomatoes that contained the salmonella strain that sickened 1,220 people, and the government on Thursday lifted its salmonella warning involving tomatoes.
The move hasn't brightened the outlook for the $1.3 billion industry, and the stigma and uncertainty of the salmonella's origin are likely to add to its losses. (rest of the story go to link) http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/20/growers-tally-loss-to-salmonella-scare/


Here are a few economic articles, you need to start paying attention to some of this stuff, if your smart and what to protect your family, and the little bit of money that the Government lets you keep.



The Formula For Hyperstagflation


Inflation predicted over the next year, expect rate hikes over the next 12 - 18 months, failures pile up, failed measures to save the economy to have a cumulative effect, orgy of Wall Street fraud causes credit crunch, a worldwide disaster in the making, commodities rigging has a golden lining.
The acceleration of inflation is baked into the economic cake for, at minimum, the next 12 to 18 months worldwide. Fed jawboning won't change that. Phony PPT dollar rallies won't change that. Fed rate hikes won't change that. The reduction of money and credit won't change that. Falling oil prices won't change that. Lies about economic statistics, and especially about inflation data, won't change that. So, why can't the rate of inflation be changed for the next 12 to 18 months, you might ask? The reason is because inflation is not determined by smoke and mirrors, or by gimmicks and false data. It is determined by the rate at which the total supply of money and credit is being expanded or contracted (what economists call M3), which is measured by determining how much money and credit is being fed into, or subtracted from, each nation's financial system by its central bank over the course of a given month, as compared with the amount determined for the previous month. That figure is then annualized. Basically, the annualized rate of M3 that is determined for any nation becomes that nation's rate of inflation (expansion) or deflation (contraction), with a delay that usually runs about 6 to 18 months.
Contrary to what the fane-stream media, pusillanimous pundits and Wall Street shills might tell you, inflation is caused by too much money and credit chasing after too few goods, and today's oil and food crisis is now providing everyone with a textbook example of how profligate expansion of money and credit can ruin an economy in a frighteningly short period of time. The baked-in inflation rate for the US will run from its current 12.625% to as high as 18% over the next 12 to 18 months, even if the Fed totally cuts off all money and credit tomorrow and then throws rate hikes in for good measure! Our current actual (as opposed to official) rate of inflation of 12.625% is running at a lag of about one year from the time M3 had reached the 12.625% level, and that is why we see 12 to 18 more months of 12.625% to 18% inflation. We have extended our projection out to 18 months because we do not see M3 going below 12% any time soon.
If the Fed and the traitors in the White House and Congress want to see stagflation gone wild, just go ahead and let the Fed raise rates and/or contract the supply of money and credit. The baked-in inflation will then continue even as the economy goes into a thermonuclear meltdown! The Dow will lose 500 to 1000 points on each .25% rate hike as de-leveraging accelerates, margins are tightened and liquidity is drained from the system. Bond markets will be destroyed as principal plummets. The situation is now so bad that even a substantially weaker yen cannot bring enough carry trade liquidity into the system to hold up the general stock markets. It now takes 3.5 more yen to buy a dollar or a euro than it did with the Dow was just over 13,000, yet the Dow is now at just over 12,300. Part of the current stock market weakness is due to the lack of support from the PPT, which is trying to minimize the liquidity and profits available to large specs that could be used to rally metals. Hence, the need for protective derivatives.
Further, any dollar strength achieved by any such Fed rate hikes will have little impact on gold and silver because the resulting destruction of the economy will send everyone to gold and silver as the safe-haven of choice. Treasuries and money markets will still be yielding negative rates of return while the banks are getting hammered by the next round of the ongoing real estate debacle. As attention moves from the hundreds of billions of toxic waste held by banks in off-balance sheet SIV's to the hundreds of billions in toxic waste held by banks in off-balance sheet VIE's (Variable Interest Entities), any dollar-denominated treasuries and money markets aren't going to cut it any more as the real estate market drops into an even deeper, darker pit, sending the various real estate derivatives, and bank balance sheets, further down into the depths of the abyss. You will then watch precious metals go up with the dollar instead of running contrary to one another, and food and energy commodities might keep going up as stocks, bonds and other paper assets continue to be shunned by traders despite the stronger dollar. Throw in bank failures, heavy toxic waste write-downs, earnings disappointments, a consumer spending crisis, a credit default swap crisis, a new false-flag attack and/or a new theatre of conflict, and only precious metals will be going up with oil as the dollar gets taken out by the ensuing recession.
Rate hikes, coupled with weaker real estate values, and thus huge declines in both bond principal value and bond collateral value, could set off a bear market in bonds that could take the whole system down even more quickly than the credit-crunch and subprime debacles combined.
Note that when the Fed was on its rate hike campaign that terminated at 5.25%, inflation continued to grow because M3 was wildly expanded during the entire rate hike campaign. That is what separates the current inflationary debacle from all other periods of inflation. During all other periods of high inflation, the cure for an overheated economy was applied by either an increase in interest rates or by a contraction in M3, or by both. The current inflationary cycle is the first period of high inflation where interest rate hikes were totally offset, and overwhelmed by, the expansion of money and credit which totally negated any slowing of the economy that might have been achieved by the rate hikes. The Fed, Wall Street and our bought-off and compromised government officials conspired to keep up the speculation that was used to power the ongoing derivatives fraud by pumping out prodigious amounts of money and credit while lying to us about inflation, which was skyrocketing as a result. That is the precise reason why the Fed's rate hikes failed to cool the economy and to slow inflation. Instead, the derivatives fraud led to the credit-crunch, which then cooled our economy. Then, in order to attempt to save our economy, rates had to be cut back by the Fed while money and credit were expanded even further, the perfect formula for hyperinflation which you are now witnessing as we write this issue of the IF. In addition, the economy was not saved, and now inflation is getting worse as the direct outcome of the failed measures to save our economy, thus causing further and additional damage to our economy as food and energy costs skyrocket and US consumers are tapped out. That, in turn, is the perfect formula for hyperstagflation.
Note that our economy was destroyed already before the credit-crunch by free trade, globalization, off-shoring, outsourcing and both legal and illegal immigration, and now we have rampant inflation to boot. Precious metals and their related shares, professionally managed Forex accounts and Swiss franc-denominated government bonds are your only options at this point to avoid being beggared and impoverished by the Illuminati.
As mentioned above, an orgy of Wall Street fraud has brought us an economy-killing credit-crunch. That credit-crunch has forced the Fed to initiate a maniacal expansion of money and credit to keep Illuminist insider financial institutions from imploding. Much of the money and credit from that maniacal expansion is not being re-loaned because all confidence in the system has been lost due to rampant, rampaging fraud, much of which was committed by Illuminist insiders against other Illuminist insiders, proving once again that there is no honor among thieves. So where is this huge portion of all that money and credit going if it is not being re-loaned? A very large portion is being used to make substantial, speculative profits from a whole bevy of commodities, especially from crude oil and agricultural products, by virtue of a loophole provided by the depraved group of village idiots who run our country (Congress), a loophole that allows big banks to operate in the commodities markets without position limits, allowing them to run amok in those markets with privileges that are not extended to other, non-elitist players. Our government regulators always provide us with such a level playing field, don't they? What an absolute disgrace.
Inflation is destroying the world economy as central banks around the globe pump out money and credit until it inundates everything, and the leading creator of inflation and destroyer of the world economy is the Federal Reserve, a private banking concern, a majority of which is owned by two shareholders, namely, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, the main fraudsters of Wall Street. Wherever you see financial chicanery, these two malfeasants are usually somewhere in the mix. Ask Enron and Bear Stearns shareholders. And now the Fed's machinations, in cahoots with elitist banks around the world, have caused a worldwide stock market crash and have sent the world financial system into an inflationary quagmire, perhaps to pave the way for world government. You have already seen us drop from a high last year of about 14,200 on the Dow to today's roughly 12,300, a 13%+ loss. That would have been triple or quadruple were it not for the PPT. Then there is China, whose stock market has shed 50% from its peak, India, whose markets have shed 27% from their peak, Japan, whose stock markets have been in a state of implosion for two decades and Brazil, which is about to watch its currency implode for the second time in a decade. China uses 5 times more oil per unit of GDP produced than does the US. What do you think oil prices are doing to them? So much for free trade and globalism, and so much for the hypothesis that emerging markets can carry the world financial markets while the US and other western economies in Canada and Europe go under. What you have is a worldwide disaster in the making, with food shortages, starvation, social upheaval and revolution on their way. The would-be lords of the universe have really done it this time. We expect that very few of them will survive when people find out what they have done.
Robert the Bruce stopped the British Black Nobility from imposing their draconian feudal system on Scotland in 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn. Our Founding Fathers fought and won two wars against the perfidious British Black Nobility to keep them from imposing their mercantilism and European-style, debt-based, private fractional reserve banking system on America with victories in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Now we can add Ireland, whose citizens have stopped the European Union and its free trade, globalist agenda, both supported by the British Black Nobility and the other Black Nobility of Europe, dead in their tracks with a vote against the Lisbon Treaty, which was the EU's attempt to short circuit the common folk of Europe to establish their regional dictatorship and regional currency in preparation for a diabolical one-world government and one-world currency. Let's hope that the citizens of the US do the same with the clandestine North American Union and the Amero. This adds to the EU's woes as a one-interest-rate-fits-all policy continues to alienate the weaker EU members from the EU's economic powerhouse, Germany, the vast majority of whose citizens want their old Deutsche Marks back. While that group of weaker members may include Ireland, and while Ireland has shown considerable weakness from an economic point of view lately, that weakness does not appear to extend to their political wisdom. Let's hear it for the Irish! ERIN GO BRAGH!!!
Retail sales rose 1.0% for the month of May. Big whoop! That figure is not adjusted for the actual rate of inflation, which also just happens to be approximately 1.0% per month here in the US. That means retail sales were actually flat, with all growth attributed to price increases and not a smidgeon to an increase in the amount of goods which consumers purchased. Thus, our 160 billion-stimulus package netted a big fat goose egg. Perfect.
It is clear that oil and food are being driven up while gold and silver are being suppressed, so that when it comes time for the next precious metals rally, everything else will be hit and the dollar will be talked up. Apparently the cartel has not yet figured out that all the money from the sell-off of oil and other commodities will have to find a home somewhere, and precious metals are a very likely resting place. No one believes anything emanating from Bernanke, the Fed or our Treasury anymore. They have been dead wrong about every prediction they have made, and have lied pathologically. We will likely see rate cuts before we ever see rate hikes. The next debacle is on its way, and as soon as Ben the Bear Killer gets wind of it, he'll drop rates faster than JP Morgan Chase took over Bear Stearns with a big, juicy taxpayer gift courtesy of the Fed. Meanwhile, we must endure the poppycock drivel that the Fed and our Treasury support a strong dollar, with M3 still over 16% and ongoing, unbridled speculation by banks in the commodities markets with easy cash and credit from the Fed, received in exchange for toxic waste collateral. Again, perfect.
Not only does the nominal price of gold and silver tell you how desperate we are financially, but the degree of manipulation should also be considered. If gold and silver are used as hedges, especially gold, then why do they go down when everything else is going up? Oil was only at 112 when gold was over 1000. Now we have 870 gold with oil at 135 and many food commodities doubling, tripling and quadrupling. Does that make any sense to anyone? If it does, then they are either a cartel insider, or they are just plain dumb. Three cheers for ETF's and mint certificates, backed by the gold and silver of the proletariat which is now being used by the elitists to suppress precious metals by selling and leasing the very gold and silver which the duped proletariat think they own, while resource shares are ignored or naked-shorted. This transpires as bullion banks are paid to take out short-term silver leases and as specs continue to gamble in rigged casinos owned by the elitists while refusing to purchase and take possession of their gold and silver for cash. Welcome to corporatist, fascist America, where the sheople continue to confirm P. T. Barnum's famous quote. Detach yourself from the Matrix, or get reamed.
If you think employment is bad now, wait until thousands of municipalities go bankrupt. They are the only ones making any significant contributions of good-paying jobs at this point. Their tax receipts are dropping into the tank as their bond insurers go belly up, as their ratings drop off a cliff, as their lending rates double, triple or more, and as the auction rate municipal bond market goes the way of the dodo bird, while the 330 billion owned by auction rate municipal bondholders goes up in flames since there exists no market where they can be sold, and bank's do not intend to revive the old one. The state and local governments are about to join consumers in the big "Sorry-We're-All-Tapped-Out" final binge party as they make appointments to have consultations with their bankruptcy attorneys. This transpires as they are forced to take over houses that have been abandoned by people who should never have owned them in the first place and as they make accommodations for the tent cities that are growing in size and number by the hour. (for complete article go to link)
http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/The_Formula_For_Hyperstagflation



Paulson Warns Of More Tough Times
Treasury Chief Says Number Of Troubled Banks Will Increase As They Struggle To Cope With Losses WASHINGTON, July 20, 2008

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sought to reassure an anxious public Sunday that the banking system is sound, while also bracing people for more troubled times ahead. "I think it's going to be months that we're working our way through this period - clearly months," he said. Paulson said the number of troubled banks will increase as they struggle to cope with big losses on bad mortgages. The government this month took over IndyMac after a run led it to become the largest regulated thrift to fail. "Of course the list is going to grow longer given the stresses we have in the marketplace, given the housing correction. But again, it's a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation," he said on Face The Nation. Paulson used appearances on the Sunday talk shows to tell people that deposits up to $100,000 are fully insured. He said no one has lost a single penny on an insured deposit in the 75 years that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has operated. "We're going through a challenging time with our economy. This is a tough time. The three big issues we're facing right now are, first, the housing correction which is at the heart of the slowdown; secondly, turmoil of the capital markets; and thirdly, the high oil prices, which are going to prolong the slowdown," he said. "But remember, our economy has got very strong long-term fundamentals, solid fundamentals. And you know, your policy-makers here, regulators, we're being very vigilant." Paulson said he hoped Congress soon would approve his plan to help shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage companies "I'm very optimistic that we're going to get what we need from Congress here, because Congress understands how important these institutions are," Paulson said. The House plans to vote Wednesday on a housing bill that is expected to include a rescue for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The companies' shares have plummeted because of fears about their financial stability. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private, but they were created by Congress to encourage homeownership by buying mortgages from banks. The two hold or guarantee more than $5 trillion in home loans - almost half of the nation's total. "Our first priority today is the stability of the capital markets, the stability of the system. And these institutions have investors all around the world ... and those investors need to know that we in the United States of America understand the importance of these institutions to our capital markets and to our economy and to our housing market," he added.

(If you go to link you can download the whole interview and a video)

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/20/ftn/main4276028.shtml



On a totally different tack, here is some saftey issues.

A good site for some lightening safety info http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/

Today we are going to touch on a little economics, the DOW seems to be holding it's own now not as many violent swings. The oil is down 120 a barrel, after Dolly takes a turn away from the oil rigs. My local fuel is down a few cents already. Ford makes big news with article the Model T turns 100 todayhttp://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/22/fords-model-t-turns-100/ first good news i heard from one of the (most) US car manufactures.

One thing that bears watching is our friendly little dictator for life down South. The next Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez. Here is an article about him buying a lot of Russian hardware (guns and such) and that is what they are saying out loud.

Russia increases weapon sales to Chavez
Move seen as slap at Bush over missile defense
Betsy Pisik Tuesday, July 22, 2008
UNITED NATIONS Russia is showing its irritation with U.S. intervention in its back yard by selling more weapons to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Mr. Chavez is to arrive in Moscow on Tuesday with a reported billion-dollar shopping list of armaments, including submarines and helicopters.
It is the controversial Latin American leader's third visit to Moscow since 2006, when he purchased $3 billion in Russian weapons systems.
The choreographed display of commerce and camaraderie provides a rare opportunity for two of Washington's most passionate antagonists to tweak the Bush administration, with the added benefit for Russia and Venezuela of raising their profiles in their own regions.
CAUDILLO: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is again heading to Moscow with an arms shopping list. (Associated Press)
Russia is furious with the Bush administration's plans to base missile defenses in former Soviet satellites Poland and the Czech Republic, while Venezuela is chafing at U.S. support for rivals Colombia and Brazil.
"The Russians also see this as a way to push the notion that there is a multipolar world," said Michael Shifter, adjunct professor of Latin American studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. "And if Chavez is not all that strong, these [military purchases] boost him up a bit."
Mr. Chavez, who has portrayed himself as the leader of Latin America and a socialist alternative to U.S. hegemony, has been rattled lately by the Colombian military's daring rescue of hostages held by the FARC rebel group, as well as by Brazil and Argentina's economic surge, Mr. Shifter added.
Besides missile defense, the Russian leadership has tangled with the United States in the U.N. Security Council over political conflicts ranging from Georgia to Zimbabwe.
In a recent essay, Ariel Cohen and Ray Walser, both senior foreign-policy researchers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, warned that Venezuela could be the new Cuba in a 21st-century Cold War, one that is emboldened by rising oil revenues.
"Russia and Venezuela, together with Iran, are among the trend-setters in the democracy rollback taking place since the late 1990s, especially in petro-states," they wrote. "The rise of oil prices has accelerated this process and helped precipitate the rise of statism and the decline in democratic governance, while energy revenues provide the means to buy off political opponents and the media, build up internal security forces, and insulate regimes from any domestic and international criticism."
The Venezuelan leader told reporters in Caracas that his goal inMoscow is "to consolidate a strategic alliance with Russia in the political, economic, technological and military fronts," according to the Venezuelan publication El Universal.
Mr. Chavez, who has been spending Venezuela's oil windfall on a variety of conventional weapons, has bought more than $4.4 billion in Russian arms in the past five years and plans to add to this arsenal by purchasing $2 billion more.
The Russian Interfax news service Monday quoted an unnamed Russian Defense Ministry official as saying that Mr. Chavez might order three Varshavyanka submarines and up to 20 Tor-M1 air-defense systems. The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported May 12 that Mr. Chavez wants Project 636 Diesel submarines, Mi-28 combat helicopters and Ilyushin airplanes.
The Venezuelan purchases are feeding a regional arms race.Chile, Colombia and Brazil also have been modernizing their militaries.
"It could get out of control," Mr. Shifter warned. "I don't think the U.S. has anything to fear from Venezuela militarily, but you can see a scenario where, if things get tense, there is with Chavez an element of unpredictability. If he feels threatened, under attack, there is a potential for destabilization" in the region.
Venezuela's weapons purchases have been difficult to track. Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N. Konstantin K. Dolgov on Monday maintained that all sales are within international covenants and guidelines.
The United Nations maintains two sprawling voluntary databases on international arms purchases, one to track total military expenditures and the other to break down purchases and sellers.
Venezuela has not contributed to either since at least 2002, according to Ewen Buchanan of the U.N. Department of Disarmament.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/22/russia-increases-weapon-sales-to-chavez/

Glad to see they are finally narrowing down the cause of the salmonella outbreak. The lowly jalapeno pepper, if you were smart you would be growing some of your own food. Peppers are one of the easiest things to grow. http://wtop.com/?nid=106&sid=1417313



In another thread we touched on the letting immigrants and travelers into this country with diseases, here is the link for a similar article. http://wtop.com/?nid=106&sid=1444918



Seems like this is going to be a health related thread, a few Bird Flu articles that jump out today in the news are:


Bangladesh reports 1st human case of H5N1 bird flu May 22, 2008 - 9:18am
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - Bangladesh's Health Ministry says the nation's first human case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected.
The Directorate General of Health Services statement says a child was infected by the virus in January.
The statement Thursday did not give the child's name, age, or other details, but said the child was recovering after treatment.
The statement says the case was diagnosed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Bangladesh has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of birds in recent months after the H5N1 virus was detected in the impoverished South Asian nation last year

http://wtop.com/?nid=345&sid=1408492


Bird flu detected in Hong Kong market June 7, 2008 - 6:47am

HONG KONG (AP) - Hong Kong health workers slaughtered 2,700 poultry in a market Saturday after chickens were found to be carrying the dangerous H5N1 bird flu virus, officials said.
The slaughter may be extended to all live poultry in the territory if the virus is detected in any other locations, Secretary for Food and Health York Chow said.
"Since we have detected the virus in the market, we will cull all the chickens in this market," Chow told reporters. "If we find another positive detection in another market, then we will assume that the risk is much higher and we need to cull all the chickens in all the markets."
Hong Kong TV Cable showed health workers wearing protective gear placing live poultry from nine stalls into bags to prepare for the slaughter.
Routine bird flu checks detected the H5N1 virus in five samples of chicken waste. The samples were collected June 3 from three vendors in the market in the Sham Shui Po residential district, Chow said.
Health officials declared the market an infected area and suspended all sales of live poultry there, a government statement said.
Chow said authorities were tracing the origin of the infected chickens.
Chow also ordered a 21-day ban on the supply of live poultry from mainland China and from local farms.
Occasional H5N1 infections in wild birds are common in Hong Kong but the territory has not suffered a major outbreak of the disease since the virus killed six people in 1997.
That prompted the government to slaughter the territory's entire poultry population of about 1.5 million birds.
At least 241 people have died of bird flu worldwide since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
Most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds, but health experts worry the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, sparking a pandemic that might kill millions of people.

http://wtop.com/?nid=345&sid=1336337



'Inevitable' flu pandemic will kill 75,000 Britons and 50 million worldwide, warn Lords
By Tamara CohenLast updated at 8:26 AM on 21st July 2008
Threat: The committee slammed Britain's 'poorly coordinated' disease control systems
Britain is facing an 'inevitable' and 'devastating' flu pandemic which will kill up to 75,000 people, a government committee revealed today.
The outbreak – most likely a strain of bird flu which could claim the lives of up to 50 million worldwide – will be on a scale not seen for decades.
The pandemic will require an ‘urgent’ response to prevent the rapid spread of infection, the powerful House of Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee warned.
They slammed Britain’s ‘poorly coordinated’ disease control systems, which are run by too many similar groups.
And the Lords also attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as ‘dysfunctional’ and lacking the ‘organisation and resources’ to curb a major outbreak.
The next pandemic will kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and a fair fraction of that in the UK, it said.
Echoing the report, the Government said: ‘While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable.
‘Estimates are that the next pandemic will kill between two million and 50 million people and between 50,000 and 75,000 in the UK. Socio-economic disruption will be massive.’
Peers are calling for international alert systems for disease threats, which will spread rapidly due to our changing lifestyles.
The last pandemics to hit Britain, caused by mild influenza, were in 1918 and 1968.
But the report raised concerns that an outbreak caused by the H5N1 strain, found in birds and poultry, could be utterly devastating, as prevention methods were ‘less comprehensive’ than for human illnesses. It predicted human-to-human transmission ‘in the near future.’
Three-quarters of newly-emerging human infections come from animals, but experts have warned that they are currently only identified after humans have been infected.
Committee chairman Lord Soley said: ‘The last 100 years have seen great advances in public health and disease control through the world, but globalisation and changes in lifestyles are giving rise to new infections and providing opportunities for them to spread rapidly throughout the world.
‘We were particularly concerned about the link with animal health. Three quarters of new human infectious diseases start in animals.
‘We urgently need better surveillance systems to deal with this problem.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1036865/Inevitable-flu-pandemic-kill-75-000-Britons-50-million-worldwide-warn-Lords.html

One last thtought it goes anolong with one of the eariler blogs about unfair rasist remarks, here is a link to a video showing John Kerry calling John McCain a "Tar baby", in an interview with MSMBC. http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=136513

I want to start by saying i love my Country, it is the greatest Country on earth at this time, when you take into consideration all factors. But we do have our problems. I touched on one of them in the article about the Government trying to spy on us and use companies to spy on us.

Here is a series of articles that really made me sad when i contemplated them. It deals with the military. I did not serve, but i have family that did and do. You can't fix a problem unless you know what it is. The more i thought about how they are treating the service men and on the waste money on themselves it makes me sick. Anyway here they are, some are just links, because i did not want to waste more space.

What i would like to say about the first one is, if we are going to war, then let us win, let them do what they do best, what they were trained for. We could cut this number in half if we did not not have all the PC and junk going on there. If we are going to put the soldiers into harms way, let them win, let them destroy the enemy.

US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,124
July 20, 2008 - 7:16pm
By The Associated Press
(AP) - As of Sunday, July 20, 2008, at least 4,124 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,360 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is the same as the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.
The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.
___
The latest deaths reported by the military:
_ No deaths reported.
___
The latest identifications reported by the military:
_ No identifications reported.
___
On the Net:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/

http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=105&sid=578357



The next one is about the stupid short sited oversight we have there and back here. What is going on with these stupid people we have running the war? They think of their own personal comfort above the lives of the service men there.

Terrorism Funds May Let Brass Fly in Style
Luxury Pods for Air Force Debated


Friday, July 18, 2008; Page A01
The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.
Production of the first capsule -- consisting of two sealed rooms that can fit into the fuselage of a large military aircraft -- has already begun.
Air Force officials say the government needs the new capsules to ensure that leaders can talk, work and rest comfortably in the air. But the top brass's preoccupation with creating new luxury in wartime has alienated lower-ranking Air Force officers familiar with the effort, as well as congressional staff members and a nonprofit group that calls the program a waste of money.
Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.
The effort has been slowed, however, by congressional resistance to using counterterrorism funds for the project and by lengthy internal deliberations about a series of demands for modifications by Air Force generals. One request was that the color of the leather for the seats and seat belts in the mobile pallets be changed from brown to Air Force blue and that seat pockets be added; another was that the color of the table's wood be darkened.
Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240.
In all, for the past three years the service has asked to divert $16.2 million to the effort from what the military calls the GWOT, or global war on terrorism. Congress has twice told the service that it cannot, including an August 2007 letter from Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to the Pentagon ordering that the money be spent on a "higher priority" need.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071703161.html?hpid=topnews

Then we have 4 articles picked at random but with a message about the waste. I understand we have waste, i expect some. But it is a problem that needs to be addressed. We need to face and fix it.

U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/11/AR2007081101378.html

U.S. ousts Iraq hospital contractor Cost overruns and delays
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-126853232.html

CorpWatch : IRAQ: U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security ...
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14625

Audit Finds U.S. Hid Actual Cost of Iraq Projects - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/world/middleeast/30reconstruct.html?_r=1&oref=slogin



Last article is why i'm really ticked. We spend and waste so much money but won't go to the extra mile to make them safer in their own barracks. We will not let them use the body armour they want, we force them to use body armour that is to hot and restricts their movement. We won't up armour the humvee until the press makes them. But we can spend billions on comfort capsules for the generals.



House wants details on electrocutions in Iraq

By Rick Maze - Staff writerPosted : Wednesday Mar 19, 2008 12:56:09 EDT
A House committee is investigating accidental electrocutions of U.S. troops in Iraq to determine if inadequate oversight of government contracts played a role in the deaths.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked the Pentagon on Wednesday to provide details on 12 deaths in Iraq since 2003 that are believed to have been caused by electrocution.
In particular, the committee is interested in maintenance contracts for troops’ living areas to see if contractors have been slow to make repairs when electrical problems have been reported.
Once the information is in hand, the committee will decide how to proceed, aides said. Waxman’s committee does not have direct oversight of the military, but it does have power over federal contracting, and is considering revising some rules after finding a variety of problems with other Iraq-related contracts.
The committee investigation was prompted by the Jan. 2 accidental death of 24-year-old Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, who suffered cardiac arrest after being electrocuted while taking a shower in Iraq.
Army investigators found that Maseth’s death was the result of improper grounding of electrical wiring to the pump supplying water for living quarters at the Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Baghdad, Waxman said.
“When Staff Sergeant Maseth stepped into the shower and turned on the water, an electrical short in the pump sent an electrical current through the water pipes to the metal shower hose, and then through Staff Sergeant Maseth’s arm to his heart,” Waxman said.
Maseth’s death was not an isolated incident, Waxman said.
“According to the Army and Marine Corps, at least 12 service members have died in Iraq as a result of electrocution since 2003,” he said in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking for information on contracts.
In October 2004, the Army issued a safety publication noting that five soldiers died from electrocution in 2004. The service warned that improper grounding of electrical wires is “a factor in nearly every electrocution” and “a serious threat” to soldiers in Iraq.
Waxman is seeking uncensored documents about the Maseth death, including investigative and medical reports. The committee also wants copies of any communications between the military and contractors in Iraq involving improper electrical wiring or the need to repair electrical systems at Camp Slayer or Camp Victory.
The committee also seeks the name, rank and last known address for all U.S. military or contractor personnel who have been injured or killed as a result of electrocution in Iraq at facilities maintained under contract to the U.S. government.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/military_iraq_electrocutions_031908w/

It just stinks we get them to go, them they die from slipshod work. My nephew has re upped to go back. Just let them go in and win, leave the cameras at home. I guess what is bothering me also is i saw the movie the Valley of Elem. A sad story, but more sadly it might have some truth in it. We ask them to go in our stead, the least we can do is to keep them as safe as we can. One last burr in my saddle is that it took the media (give even the devil credit when it is due) to get the death benifit raised to a reasonable level. You can not put a price on human life, but at least it is enough for the family to start over now.

http://dying.lovetoknow.com/Veterans_Death_Benefits

Today, what a day from the following articles you can see oil (which will be the majority of the post for today) is still undecided on what it will do. Down 15 bucks over the last few days and then back up almost two bucks. The first two articles out line what is happening in the commodity markets. The last three are about oil and the world wide effects it can and will have. The time of cheap oil is over, and soon (if it has not already happened) peak oil will take effect.
I have topic for tommorrow but after that some time this week i will a blog on Peak oil and how it might effect you.

Crude oil back above $130 a barrel

Oil prices rose back above $130 a barrel Monday on concerns that the threat of new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program may escalate tensions in the oil-rich Middle East.
A slightly weaker dollar and concerns about a storm in the Gulf of Mexico also contributed to higher prices.
By midday in Europe, light, sweet crude for August delivery was up $1.73 to $130.61 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Last week, Nymex crude fell more than $18 from a trading record of $147.27 hit on July 11. The contract settled at $128.88 on Friday, down 41 cents.
In London, September Brent crude rose $1.67 to $131.86 a barrel by midday on the ICE Futures exchange.
Talks on Saturday ended with Iran stonewalling Washington and five other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment. In response, the six gave Iran two weeks to respond to their demand, setting the stage for a new round of U.N. sanctions.
The U.S. sent Undersecretary of State William Burns to the talks in hopes the first-time American presence would encourage Tehran into making concessions. But the talks' lack of progress may lead to "further isolation" for Iran, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Saturday.
Iran state radio on Sunday quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying the talks were "a step ahead."
"The talks didn't resolve the problem of Iran's nuclear program, and that has been a factor in prices ticking higher today," said David Moore, a commodity strategist with Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. "Part of the reason prices had fallen recently was on the expectation a deal could be made there."
The U.S. dollar fell slightly against the euro and the Japanese yen on Monday, another cause for investors to buy oil futures.
The euro rose to $1.5884 from the $1.5843 it bought in New York late Friday, while the dollar fell to 106.59 Japanese yen from 106.89 yen on Friday.
Buying oil and other commodities gives investors a hedge against inflation and a weakening dollar. When the dollar gains ground, however, it usually helps push down oil prices.
Prices also rose Monday on concerns that Tropical Storm Dolly may disrupt oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Moore said.
The storm drenched Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and was expected to reach the Gulf of Mexico Monday afternoon packing sustained winds near 50 mph.
"Over the next 12 to 18 months we expect prices to fall on demand side adjustments to the high prices," Moore said. "But there are certainly chances for short-term spikes with issues such as Iran or storms."
In other Nymex trade, heating oil futures rose 4.17 cents to $3.7332 a gallon while gasoline prices rose 3.71 cents to $3.2080 a gallon. Natural gas futures rose 16.7 cents to $10.737 per 1,000 cubic feet.
http://wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=577994


Platinum falls to 5-month low on slowing economy
July 18, 2008 - 5:21pm
By STEVENSON JACOBS AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Platinum prices fell to a five-month low Friday as a sagging U.S. economy and a push to build smaller cars prompt automakers to buy less of the metal used in catalytic converters.
Other commodities traded mostly lower, with crude oil falling slightly and gold, silver, soybeans and corn futures also falling.
Platinum has dropped 11 percent in the last month, weighed down amid a U.S. economic slowdown and rocketing energy costs that have led to a sharp drop in new auto sales. In addition, an effort to build smaller, more energy efficient cars means less of the metal is being used per unit. Catalytic converters contain small amounts of platinum, palladium and rhodium.
"We're seeing demand destruction across the board in the auto sector and that has really impacted the platinum situation," said Jon Nadler, analyst with Kitco Bullion Dealers Montreal.
Platinum for October delivery fell $45.10 to settle at $1,855.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier dipping to $1,845.10, the lowest price for a most actively traded contract since Feb. 7.
Other precious metals also traded lower Friday. Gold for August delivery fell $12.70 to settle at $958 an ounce on the Nymex, while silver for September delivery lost 53.5 cents to settle at $18.20 an ounce. September copper, meanwhile, fell 4.6 cents to settle at $3.669 a pound.
Platinum has fallen despite a lingering energy shortage in South Africa, the world's No 1 platinum producer, that has slowed mining operations and raised concerns of a supply shortage.
Similar drops in gold, silver, copper and other materials in recent days have some people questioning whether the commodities bubble of the past year may about to burst. But analysts caution that this week's correction in crude prices and other commodities could quickly change course if investors decide to shift funds back into futures, which have outperformed equities this year.
Oil prices fell slightly Friday, capping a week of unusual volatility that saw crude give back more than $15 a barrel.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell 41 cents to settle at $128.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Other energy futures traded mixed. August gasoline futures rose 0.76 cent to settle at $3.1709 a gallon, while August heating oil dropped 5.23 cents to settle at $3.6915 a gallon.
In agriculture futures, corn kept falling Friday as more favorable weather in the Midwest boosted optimism that crops will rebound from severe flooding last month.
Corn for December delivery fell 21.5 cents to settle at $6.285 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.
November soybeans lost 50 cents to settle at $14.48 a bushel on the CBOT, while September wheat fell 5.5 cents to settle at $8.04 a bushel.

http://wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=589604

Africa's oil boom shifts balance of power

David Blair, Diplomatic Ediotr
Last Updated: 11:22PM BST 17/07/2008
In the coming decades, Africa's oilfields may begin to rival the strategic significance of the Middle East's reserves. As new discoveries elsewhere steadily diminish, the global balance of oil wealth shifts towards Africa with every passing year.
In the coming decades, Africa's oilfields may begin to rival the strategic significance of the Middle East's reserves. As new discoveries elsewhere steadily diminish, the global balance of oil wealth shifts towards Africa with every passing year.
Already, America buys more oil from Angola and Nigeria than it does from Saudi Arabia. Angola, the newest member of Opec, has overtaken Nigeria to become Africa's biggest producer, turning out almost two million barrels a day.
In the next three years, Angola will probably raise its daily output to match Kuwait's 2.6 million barrels.
By 2015, America will buy one quarter of all its oil from Africa, compared with about 15 per cent from Saudi Arabia, and the continent will become the superpower's largest single supplier, with the sole exception of Canada. Two reasons lie behind this crucial change in the global pattern of oil production.
First, Africa possesses a large proportion of the world's untapped reserves, mainly in offshore fields.
For decades, oil companies steered clear of Africa and conducted relatively little exploration. While new fields were discovered in the Middle East, the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and South America, Africa was neglected.
Hence Africa now accounts for a high proportion of discoveries. Of the eight billion barrels of new reserves found in 2001, seven billion were in Africa.
While this figure was unusually high, at least one third of all global oil discoveries since 2000 have taken place in Africa, mainly in the Gulf of Guinea along the coastlines of Angola, Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
Thanks to high oil prices, it makes economic sense to develop these new fields and conduct further exploration. Angola's proven reserves now exceed 11  billion barrels. But there could be two or three times as much oil still lying undiscovered along the country's vast Atlantic coastline. The central goal of America's energy policy is to diversify suppliers.
At present, Washington is happy to reduce its dependence on the Middle East by importing steadily more oil from Africa.
Yet by malign chance, the west African coastline is one of the world's most unstable regions. Nigeria, torn by internal strife and waging an undeclared guerrilla war in the oilfields of the Niger Delta, is already losing at least 25 per cent of its production to sabotage by local militants.
Angola emerged from more than three decades of civil war in 2002.
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos leads a notionally Marxist government busily engaged in stealing and squandering the oil revenues. Angola's cabinet, steeped in corruption, is filled with Marxist millionaires. Mr dos Santos himself is believed to rank among Africa's richest men.
Experience suggests that oil bonanzas inflict nothing but harm on African countries. A tiny elite seizes the chance to enrich itself – and virtually nothing trickles down to the poor.
Meanwhile, oil revenues distort the entire economy, discouraging genuine entrepreneurs and undermining every state institution. Civil war becomes more likely because the incentive to take over the country and steal its resources is all the greater.
In the end, few will benefit from Africa's oil boom. The lives of millions of ordinary Africans will either stay the same or grow worse.
Meanwhile, the world will become increasingly dependent on another deeply unstable, troubled region.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/angola/2306459/Africa's-oil-boom-shifts-balance-of-power.html

Oil price shock means China is at risk of blowing up
By Ambrose Evans-PritchardLast Updated: 12:33am BST 07/07/2008The great oil shock of 2008 is bad enough for us. It poses a mortal threat to the whole economic strategy of emerging Asia.The manufacturing revolution of China and her satellites has been built on cheap transport over the past decade. At a stroke, the trade model looks obsolete.No surprise that Shanghai's bourse is down 56pc since October, one of the world's most spectacular bear markets in half a century.Asia's intra-trade model is a Ricardian network where goods are shipped in a criss-cross pattern to exploit comparative advantage. Profit margins are wafer-thin.Products are sent to China for final assembly, then shipped again to Western markets. The snag is obvious. The cost of a 40ft container from Shanghai to Rotterdam has risen threefold since the price of oil exploded."The monumental energy price increases will be a 'game-changer' for Asia," said Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley. The region's trade model is about to be "stress-tested".Energy subsidies have disguised the damage. China has held down electricity prices, though global coal costs have tripled since early 2007. Loss-making industries are being propped up. This merely delays trouble.More on energy"The true impact of the shock will only be revealed over time, as subsidies are gradually rolled back," he said. Last week, China raised internal rail freight rates by 17pc.BP 's Statistical Review says China's use of energy per unit of gross domestic product is three times that of the US, five times Japan's, and eight times Britain's.China's factories "were not built with current energy levels in mind", said Mr Jen. The outcome will be "non-linear". My translation: China is at risk of blowing up.Any low-tech product shipped in bulk - furniture, say, or shoes - is facing the ever-rising tariff of high freight costs. The Asian outsourcing game is over, says CIBC World Markets. "It's not just about labour costs any more: distance costs money," says chief economist Jeff Rubin.Xinhua says that 2,331 shoe factories in Guangdong have shut down this year, half the total.North Carolina's furniture industry is coming back from the dead as companies shut plant in China. "We're getting hit with increases up and down the system. It's changing the whole equation of where we produce," said Craftsmaster Furniture.China is being crunched by the triple effects of commodity costs, 20pc wage inflation, and sagging import demand in the US, Canada, Britain, Spain, Italy, and France.More on economicsCritics warn that Beijing has repeated the errors of Tokyo in the 1980s by over-investing in marginal plant. A Communist Party banking system has let rip with cheap credit - steeply negative real interest rates - to buy political time for the regime.Whether or not this is fair, it is clear that Beijing's mercantilist policy of holding down the yuan to boost exports share has now hit the buffers.Foreign reserves have reached $1.8 trillion, playing havoc with the money supply. Declared inflation is just 7.7pc, but that does not begin to capture the scale of repressed prices, from fuel to fertilisers. "There is a lot more bottled-up inflation in this economy than meets they eye," says Stephen Green, from Standard Chartered.Inflation merely steals growth from the future. It defers monetary tightening until matters get out of hand, which is where we are now. Vietnam has already blown up at 30pc. India is on the cusp at 11pc, so is Indonesia (11pc), the Philippines (11pc), Thailand (9pc) - leaving aside the double-digit Gulf.Of course, oil prices may fall again. They plunged to $50 a barrel in early 2007 after the Saudis raised production. The scissor effect of slowing global growth and extra crude later this year from Brazil, Azerbaijan, Africa, and the Gulf of Mexico may chill the super-boom.The US Commodities Futures Trading Commission is on an "emergency" footing, under orders from the Democrats on Capitol Hill to smash speculators. If it is really true that investment funds have run amok, we will soon find out.I suspect that the energy markets have fallen prey to their own version of the "shadow banking system" that so astonished regulators when the credit bubble burst.I also suspect that Hank Paulson and his EU colleagues have a surprise up their sleeve for the late-cycle über-bulls. Those who claim that derivatives (crude futures) cannot drive spot prices have overlooked a key point. The Saudis and others use the IPE Brent Weighted Average of futures contracts as their pricing mechanism. Futures now set the spot price.But even if oil comes down for a year or two, the mid-term outlook of the International Energy Agency warns that crude markets will be tighter than ever by 2012. Call it Peak Oil, or just Peak Non-Cooperation by the dictatorships that control most of the world's remaining 5 or 6 trillion barrels (Mankind has used one trillion so far).Come what may, globalisation has passed its high-water mark. The pendulum will now swing back from China to America. The mercantilists will have to reinvent themselves.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/07/07/ccview107.xml

Middle East war threat rattles oil markets
Last Updated: 1:10am BST 03/07/2008

It is unclear how energy problem will be resolved, and talk of an attack on Iran does not help, reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
A supply crunch and mounting fears of an Israeli air strike on Iran propelled oil to $143 a barrel at one stage yesterday, prompting warnings from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of a severe economic crisis in poorer regions.

Iran's Azadegan oil field
"Some countries are at a tipping point," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing-director."If food prices rise further and oil prices stay the same, some governments will no longer be able to feed their people."
The energy markets have been seriously rattled by comments from a top Pentagon official warning that Israel may launch raids on Iran's Natanz nuclear facilities to pre-empt its acquisition of Russian air-defence missiles.The source told ABC News that Israel would not wait until the Ahmadinejad regime had accumulated enough enriched plutonium to make a bomb. "The red line is not when they get to that point, but before they get to that point," he said.
Iran has threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz if attacked, cutting off a quarter of the world's oil supply. Such a move could drive oil to $200 or higher, bringing the global economy to its knees.
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The International Energy Agency yesterday slashed its forecast for oil demand growth by over 3m barrels per day (bpd) by 2012 as economic growth slows and consumers take drastic steps to cut fuel use, but said the oil market would remain "tight" because of supply shortfalls.
"Over 3.5m bpd of new production is needed each year just to hold steady," it said. China's imports will rise from 4m to 5.7m bpd within four years.
"With oil prices hitting $140 we are clearly in the third oil shock. Truck drivers are going on strike. Airlines are closing down," said Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA's director.
Lower demand may help ease strains in the crude markets - lifting spare capacity to 4m bpd - but will merely defer a deeper crisis caused by lack of investment.
The Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan is unlikely to produce much before 2013, while Russia has hobbled its oil sector with a costly tithe. Its output will fall below 10m bpd a year by next year. Matters would be worse without biofuels, which will reach 1.9 bpd in four years and make up almost half the growth in non-OPEC supply growth.
Even so, Sheik Ahmed Yamani, Saudi Arabia's former energy tsar, said the oil spike feels very different from the 1970s when there was a lack of supply.
"Now it is because of problems with the price-setting system in the futures market. Traders buy and sell depending on rumours, not supply and demand. So much money is flowing into the market, it's almost like gambling," he told Japan's Nikkei Net. This is the "OPEC View".
The big western oil companies, however, blame the demand in Asia, the Mid-East, and Latin America - and the refusal of the petro-states to open up to western know-how. The IEA said it was facile to blame speculators.
"All producers are working virtually flat out and there is no sign of any abnormal stockbuild giving a strong indication that current prices are justified," it said.
Hedge fund managers questioned this on Capitol Hill last month, saying the price would fall to $60 overnight if there was a clampdown on trading. It is a fine line between speculation and the activities of pension funds buying long-term futures, but there can be little doubt that financial flows have begun to distort the market.
Spain's industry minister, Miguel Sebastian, told the World Petroleum Congress that investors were using 850,000 bpd, enough to upset the wafer-thin balance.
The US Congress passed a bill last week authorising - or pushing - the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to take "emergency" action to halt the alleged abuses. This has not been done for nearly 30 years.
The most likely option is to tighten margins on futures trading, which was used in 1980. It is unclear whether this would work today.
Paul Horsnell, commodity chief at Barclays Capital, says speculators are now net "short". If so, higher margins would force them to cover positions, pushing prices even higher.
Oil prices fell back in late trading, with Brent up $2.54 to $142.37 in London, and sweet crude in New York $1.93 higher at $141.93.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=A1YourView&xml=/money/2008/07/02/ccoil102.xml