High Gasoline Prices due to De-centering processes

McClatchy just had issued a well-researched story about the cause of high gas prices. Their judgment? Speculation, especially by banks and hedge funds who buy gas/oil futures with no plan to take delivery but only to sell on the price hikes they and their cohorts create (along with the help of cynical Western governments rattling sabers at Iran).

Here is a different theory: the price of gas has become unmoored from the supply of oil and is now free to fly into orbit. 


Suspiciously this event happens at a time when gas in the US should be at all time lows. There is a lot of oil around today. Demand is down due to joblessness. A mild winter in the US would also help to keep down the price per barrel.

But none of that has brought down prices, which for gas, are at record prices. Note it is the byproduct, gas, that has reached a peak price not oil.

Clear rupture between signified and signifier or between representation and what is represented  is classic postmodernism.

To blame speculation by banks or hedge funds is to say the same thing. Except it implies that such specultors can be brought to heed in order to bring gas prices 'in line' or 'into correspondence' with oil supply.

Postmodernism says no. 

Why? Because the referent has become unclear. Threats on Persia, less refining capacity, the true spare capacity of Saudi, etc.

The only thing that is clear is that the price can and will rise, without limit. That is the tendency now not correspondence, not supply and demand.

America = Greece? Don't insult the Greeks!

Like other European countries the Greeks have a great safety net; it's hard to fire workers, great unemployment benefits, generous vacation time, welfare for those in trouble, free health care, early retirement pension, etc.

In the US the working class has already been pacified and trained. They have nothing that the Greeks have and don't ask for it. They barely have the nerve to demand a raise in the minimum wage!

Thus what is happening today on the Greek streets is not chaos nor anarchy. It is the refusal to become Americanized, a refusal to be abandoned to the wolves in accord with the Darwinistic mythology that is so espoused in the USA.

Unemployed? Out on the streets? The American way for you is 'tough'! 'Suck it up.' They will tell you your 'skill set' is old. Worse too, you have pay to get training for jobs at for-profit colleges (no apprenticeships like Germany).

So who is really better off?

Politics as Drama

There was a time when you could say that politics was dramatic: the Cuban Missile crisis comes to mind.

Today there is much ado about requiring the provision of contraceptives by all hospitals that receive Federal dollars. Not too long ago we heard about the huge 'fight' over the payroll tax cut.

Talk about tempest in a teapot!

With their grim looks and wild gestures of the politicos in front of the cameras you would think that the struggles were titanic!

The coming Car Bubble

You heard it here first. Bubbles are all the rage amongst predictors and pundits these days. They say that there are housing, gold, and bond bubbles.

But they missed the next one: the Car Bubble.

No to a housing bubble again because banks will not offer credit to most buyers. Over 1/3 of buyers today are cash.

But credit is available for everyone for vehicles. And used cars have gotten really used at this point in time.

Expect an explosion soon in car 'buying' or 'purchasing' (on credit of course) followed later by the explosion in repossessions and the birth of a citizenry that lacks not only resources but the virtual resources of credit too. Agamben! You did not think hard enough. The outcome is not bare life but hollow life.

Why America will miss the Middle East

As the US withdraws from the Near East shaking its head in confusion, it may find a certain nostalgia setting in. As evidence, note how there were no parades (until today) for Iraq War vets. Now some read this celebratory neglect as disrespect but it is also reveals the sadness of leaving a new home. The US became a part of the party over there, engaged in its squabbles and becoming a real player, a local tribe even, with its own peculiar aims. It was not the US of A but the US of the ME. And as with the returning Crusaders of old, the vets may yearn for the recipes and passions of the Near East (but likely not the music).

In the future, the US will return to its traditional isolationism. It always wanted and liked that, although dragged the other way by its elites. Now even they are tired of it. The problem is that America may not be enough for Americans anymore. Before you could oust a native tribe and settle West on new land. Before you could enslave people and reap profits and status. Before you could rampage South and take Arizona. Now there is nowhere to go. Except cyberspace. Outer space is too empty and expensive; the oceans too deep and cold. Hopefully the virtual world will be enough.

Afghan Police not army are key to future

The vaunted Afghan army, pride of American and European trainers, saw one of its trainees attack its trainers today. The NYT says it is the result of deep animosity and disrespect. That may well be a cause but there is frustration too, about the future or the mission. I commented upon this before. All are tired of the grind.

The US wants a central government controlling an army which in turn controls the territory. It is a standard Westphalian model. More than once the US has laughed making a confederation of Afghanistan such as Switzerland. But that would actually work better. A US-supplied, non-Pashtun army is only a recipe for harsh civil war later.

Anyway...

My point today is to forget a national army there. Focus upon a national. professional police. Have the army protect them. Yes there is also jealousy and animosity between them. There are simple ways to solve that. 

But the police are the key to a transformed nation...a strong police and courts that will effectively enforce civil laws. But a revived police is a opportunity for a different outcome.  

 
The Taliban? Yes they represent a large constituency, clarified all the more by US support for the non-Pashtuns and Kabul.  

Giving out money, toys and other goodies does not change anything long term.

A solid Police. No other long term strategy has a chance.  

 

Stopping Keystone pipeline stops another war

Obama decided (for now) to stop the pipeline abomination that was to traverse the entire USA. Jim Jones (former Obama advisor) says that the decision is a blow to America's "energy security." He says with tighter supplies of oil globally the US will need the oil expensively blasted from the thick tar sands of Alberta.

But the decision is a bonus for the security of American citizens and the world from warmongers who want to start another profitable fight in the Middle East. With that pipeline they could start another such war and have Americans less affected once oil prices zoom from $100 up to $300/gallon. They could conduct a pain free war without fear of a citizen backlash. Of course everyone else globally would then suffer (although oil producing countries would profit). But when is that ever a first, political calculation.