[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]
Below are the 1 most recent journal entries recorded in
bigoil401's InsaneJournal:
| Monday, December 22nd, 2008 | |
| 4:21 pm | Oil Prices Surge. Bush- not my fault. - 20 Oct 2006 ` Oil Prices climb. Bush says - it is not my fault. Who believes him? USA will not feel the effects for 6 weeks of the Gas Price Increase due to OPEC oil production cuts. thus, Gas price Increases in the USA will not be felt until after election day. Republicans claim they are not responsible for manipulating the Gas Price Increase to become effective until after election day. Bush says - it is not my fault. Nobody believes him or the Republican Party. World oil prices crept ahead as traders gave a cautious welcome to news that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, added 22 cents on Friday to 58.72 dollars per barrel in electronic deals before the official opening of the US market. The contract expires at the close. In London, Brent North Sea crude for December delivery added nine cents to 60.96 dollars per barrel in electronic trading. OPEC oil ministers decided earlier Friday to slash its production by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from November 1, blaming the move on an over-supplied market. "The market is skeptical about the ability of the cartel to really implement a cut of 1.2 million," said Investec analyst Bruce Evers. "It's going to take six weeks before we really know the amount that's really been taken off the market." He added: "Whether countries like Indonesia, Libya or Venezuela will actually reduce their production further, remains to be seen." A further cut may be required at the 11-nation cartel's next meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja on December 14, Evers noted. Ahead of its extraordinary meeting in Doha, and amid market uncertainty over the exact details of a reduction, OPEC had given the impression that the cut would be only one million bpd. The cut will reduce actual production to 26.3 million bpd from 27.5 million bpd currently, which is below OPEC's official quota of 28 million bpd, in place since July 2005. According to Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish, the output decision would prevent crude prices falling much further. "While it would be surprising if the recent high level of market skepticism and misunderstanding about OPEC were to disappear completely and rapidly, we believe that ministers have now put a fairly strong floor under prices," Norrish said. There had been uncertainty over whether the powerful cartel would reduce output from the quota or current output levels -- which had helped to drive oil prices lower in recent weeks. ------------ OTHER BUSH BETRAYALS Politics of Oil and Money Another sub-title for this article could well be "a study in state monopoly capitalism." A book of the author, Dan Briody, focused on the Carlyle Group, the spectacularly well-heeled firm that includes former President George H.W. Bush, his crony James Baker and a veritable rogues’ gallery of washed-up politicians and businessmen of questionable integrity who blatantly trade upon their inside knowledge of government for private gain in yet another textbook example of state monopoly capitalism. Yet, their money-grubbing pales in comparison – and chutzpah – to Halliburton, a firm formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, a firm that is frequently in the headlines in light of the lucrative contracts they have been awarded by Cheney’s government in the theater of war that is Iraq. The story begins in Texas where a predecessor firm of Halliburton, Brown & Root, was catapulted into prominence – and obscene profitability - because of a tight relationship with former Senator, then Vice President and President, Lyndon B. Johnson. Large scale construction and oil services were the two pillars on which this giant company was built. Routinely the government handed out handsome "cost plus" contracts, e.g. building the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, to this corporation. "Cost plus" means that the contractor could recoup all expenses plus a guaranteed profit based on a pre-negotiated percentage. This eliminates risk for the contractor and erodes the necessity to eliminate wasteful billing which, says the author, is "great for the contractor, not so great for the taxpayer." "Basically, it’s a blank check from the government….when your profit is a percentage of the cost, the more you spend, the more you make." Brown & Root reaped a bonanza of wasteful contracts during the war in Vietnam, which – coincidentally – Johnson prosecuted as vigorously as Cheney has done in Iraq. By 1967 this firm was the largest employer in South Vietnam. Yet even then there was an obvious downside to relying so heavily upon the private sector to perform the clear government function of waging war: motivated by the lust for profit their employees were "manipulating currency and selling goods on the black market," among other transgressions. Johnson was so helpful to this company that the author argues that actually he was "working for Brown & Root, not the people of his district or the state." Something similar used to be said about another leading Democratic Party politician, the late Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington, who was referred to as the "Senator from Boeing." Obviously today we are in dire need of deeper examinations of the ramified ties between various sectors of state monopoly capitalism and leading political figures and parties, along the lines of the work at hand. Brown & Root was also viciously anti-union. At one time, for example, progressive formations e.g. the National Maritime Union, played a pivotal role in Texas politics but after Brown & Root and their confederates pushed through anti-union legislation in the 1940s, the political complexion of what is now the second largest state began to change to the point where it has now become a reliable Republican redoubt and, not coincidentally, the home of both the current President and Vice-President. But as profitable as it had been, when Dick Cheney left the Pentagon in the 1990s to become head of Halliburton, this company was catapulted to a new level of profitability. A staunch conservative, while a member of Congress Cheney avidly opposed imposing sanctions against apartheid South Africa while pushing aggressively for sanctions against socialist Cuba. Before leaving the Pentagon, which he headed during the administration of George H.W. Bush, he accelerated the privatization of core military functions in a way that – coincidentally – aided the company he was about to lead. "They made $109.7 million in Somalia…$6.3 million from Operation Support Hope in Rwanda…..Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti netted the company $150." Halliburton was "becoming another unit in the US Army" and reaping millions from war and misery, providing a perverse incentive for an increase in such pestilences. "From 1995 to 2000, Brown & Root" – now part of Halliburton—"billed the government for more than $2 billion in services. The company did everything from build the [military] camps to deliver the mail, with 24-hour food service and laundering. It provided firefighting services, fuel delivery, sewage construction, hazardous material disposal, and the maintenance and delivery of equipment." War in the Balkans was the "driving force" for Halliburton’s increased profitability and heightened profile. "Halliburton’s government business doubled while Cheney was CEO." Yet Cheney also left this firm with a basket of problems after he was elected Vice-President and this may have given him incentive to steer contracts in Halliburton’s direction in order to lessen the pain inflicted on his firm. He pushed through a merger with Dresser Industries, a profoundly disastrous maneuver, given the backbreaking liability for asbestos related lawsuits that this company carried. Coincidentally – that word again – Dresser was "the company that gave George H.W. Bush his first job." After Cheney left Halliburton a "grand jury investigation into over-billing and a Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] investigation into Halliburton’s accounting practices while Cheney was CEO" ensued. That is not all. The company was accused of bribing a "Nigerian tax authority in exchange for contracts to build a liquefied natural gas plant." A French magistrate "was looking into the possibility of bringing charges against Dick Cheney for complicity in the bribery case and allegations that $243 million in secret commissions were paid from the late 1990s to 2002….the United States Justice Department and the SEC are looking into accusations that Halliburton made $180 million in illegal payments to win other contracts in Nigeria." This points up another festering problem with Halliburton. The French investigation of Cheney’s alleged malfeasance has complicated Washington’s already deteriorating relations with Paris, while Halliburton’s chicanery has contributed mightily to a culture of corruption in West Africa. After Cheney left, Halliburton stock plummeted precipitously and given the millions of stock options that he still holds, this jeopardized his own personal fortune, not to mention the fortunes of his fellow executives with whom he had become quite close. Though the author does not stress this, his study reveals a critical fault line within state monopoly capitalism. For when Halliburton began to feed ravenously at the government trough, other firms in the same business became angrily resentful, which helped to fuel congressional investigations and adverse publicity. For example, during the Reagan years, Bechtel was the government contractor of choice, as suggested by the prominent role in his administration played by two of their former executives – former Secretary of State George Schulz and former Pentagon chief, Caspar Weinberger. "The rapid rise" of Brown & Root, for example, "brought on a fit of jealousy" from their "biggest rival, Bechtel of San Francisco." Reference book: The Halliburton Agenda: The Politics of Oil and Money author: Dan Briody 2ND BOOK: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas Halliburton is of Brown & Root, a company that obtained government contracts via Lyndon B. Johnson during the New Deal. They also took most of the government contracts during the Second World War, Korean War and Vietnam War. It was all done by controlling the chairman of key Senate Committees and having their people holding key posts in the government such as Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Treasury. Not that this is common knowledge. This group of Texans (sometimes known as the Suite 8F Group) bought into Operation Mockingbird (a CIA project to control the US domestic media). However, the web has undermined this project. The key point made by Bryce and Briody is that this is really an economic issue. The politics of all this is about making money out of their ideology. It does not matter who the US is fighting, it is the spending this goes on it that is important. Global military spending is $956bn and rising. US spends 40% of this. Most is spent with companies based in Texas. In 1963 John F. Kennedy tried to deal with the Texas stranglehold over government policy. However, he underestimated the power of the Suite 8F Group. Reference book: Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas author: Dan Briody ~ Per the Sustainable Industries Journal, the Pentagon has blocked the construction of 16 Wind Energy sites in the USA. The military claims the Wind Farms are a threat to national security. Maybe the Wind Farms are a threat to Big Oil and Big Coal? HOW STUPID ARE AMERICANS? ~ WINE INDUSTRY ANNIHILATED by GLOBAL WARMING http://www.ukfreepages.co.uk/publish/pa Global Warming Destroys Maple Sugar Industry Does Big OIL or Big COAL have a Body BAG with your CHILD'S Name on it? http://air301.livejournal.com book: Pioneer Doctor, the Story of a Woman's Work; by Mari Grana book: Big Coal, The Dirty Secret; by Jeff Goodell book: Moving Mountains; by Penny Loeb book: Coal River; by Michael Shnayerson book: Bringing Down the Mountains; by Shirley Stewart Burns book: Lost Mountain; by Erik Reece http://adhd102.livejournal.com/4176.htm OIL - GAS REFINERIES = DIRTY AIR & DEATH http://www.refineryreform.org G.Bush@Bankruptcy~Enron.com http://ovl.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/2 http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/200 http://chiapas.indymedia.org/display.ph http://barcelona.indymedia.org/news DICK CHENEY Made Millions with SADDAM HUSSEIN book: Tyranny of Oil; by Antonia Juhasz book: Halliburton Agenda - The Politics of Oil and Moneyl; by Dan Briody book: Cronies - Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas; by Dan Briody book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; by John Perkins book: Economic Gangsters; Ray Fisman book: Sound Truth and Corporate Myth - The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill; by Riki Ott book: Poisoned Wells - The Dirty Politics Of African Oil; by Leandre Poisson book: Justice Under Siege; by Eva Joly book: Texas Oil and the New Deal; by Steve Isser book: Corruption In Iraq & World; by Vance Jochim book: Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country; by Laton Mccartney book: Untapped - The Scramble for Africa's Oil; by John Ghazvinian book: Eating Fossil Fuel - Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture; by Dale Allen Pfeiffe book: Blood and Oil; by Michael Klare book: Backstabbing for Beginners; by Michael Soussan book: A Culture of Corruption; by Daniel Jordan Smith book: THE RISE, CORRUPTION AND COMING FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SAUD; by Said K. Aburish book: Greed and corruption in the Caspian; by Derek Brower book: Corporate Corruption - The Abuse of Power; by Marshall B. Clinard report: All the Presidents’ Men - The Devastating Story of Oil and Banking in Angola’s Privatised War; by Global Witness book: Curse of the Black Gold - 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta; by Michael Watts book: Crude - The Story of Oil; by Sonia Shah book: Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil; by Ike Okonta book: The Prize - The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power; by Daniel Yergin book: A Game as Old as Empire - The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption; by Steven Hiatt book: Blood Bankers; by James S. Henry book: Grand Theft Pentagon - Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror; by Jeffrey St. Clair book: Oil and the Glory - The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea; by Steve LeVine book: Indonesian Production Sharing Contract, an investor's perspective; by T. N. Machmud book: Grand corruption in the regulation of oil; by Tina Soreide book: Oil on the Brain; by Lisa Margonelli book: Many Faces of Corruption; by J. Edgardo Campos http://www.thebushagenda.net How much political campaign contributions (bribes) is your congressman receiving www.campaignfinance.org/states www.publicintegrity.org How much money (bribes) are the Republicans and their friends receiving from big companies? www.campaignfinance.org/states www.publicintegrity.org DVD: Capitol Crimes by Bill Moyers The fall of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has exposed what may be one of the biggest political scandals in America's history. What does the dizzying scope of corruption say about how laws are made and who really owns the U.S. government? Bill Moyers and his team of investigative journalists untangle the web of relationships, secret deals, and political manipulation to open a disturbing window on the dark side of American politics. stop ELECTION FRAUD, support Honest elections. www.verifiedvoting.org www.votevets.org mediamatters.org www.blackboxvoting.org www.investigatethevote.org www.votersunite.org www.citizensact.org www.solarbus.org/election/cd/test/videos.h www.sourcewatch.org/index.php state info: http://victorygard379b.insanejournal.co CRIMES AGAINST NATURE DVD: Who Killed the Electric Car? http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Electr Pure, clean air is the invisible staff of life. Smog is the invisible staff of death. book: Super Power Breathing for Super Energy and Longevity; by Patricia Bragg book: Internal Combustion; by Edwin Black http://www.internalcombustionbook.c ARE YOU DRIVING A GM HITLER CAR? book: Nazi Connection - Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism; by Stefan Kuhl book: War Against the Weak - Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race; by Edwin Black Does Big OIL or Big COAL have a Body BAG with your CHILD'S Name on it? http://vegcar.livejournal.com/24663.htm http://air301.livejournal.com http://air309.livejournal.com OIL - GAS REFINERIES = DIRTY AIR & DEATH http://www.refineryreform.org VEGETABLE OIL Cars http://plantdrive.com http://vegcar.livejournal.com/24209.htm http://vegcar.livejournal.com/24451.htm http://vegcar.livejournal.com/25641.htm http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/he SolFocus Aims to Beat Coal with Solar Concentrators http://air302.livejournal.com SOLAR ENERGY INTELLIGENCE More Jobs, Economic Progress, Clean Environment Why be Stupid? http://solomonintel.livejournal.com/129 Convert GAS Cars to Plug-In ELECTRIC Autos http://www.electroauto.com http://www.kta-ev.com http://www.nedra.com http://www.evparts.com http://www.sourceguides.com/energy DVD: Convert It http://www.electroauto.com Links: http://vegcar.livejournal.com/5593.h Electric MOTORCYCLES http://motorcycle2.livejournal.com http://motorcycle4.livejournal.com http://evt2scooter.livejournal.com http://www.solarmobil.net http://motorcycle5.livejournal.com http://www.e-max-ltd.com http://www.topmotorx.com http://www.patente-erfindungen.de/erfin http://www.zeromotorcycles.com http://www.sourceguides.com/energy ` Electric BICYCLES http://nycewheels.com http://www.myebike.com http://e2bike.livejournal.com http://vegcar.livejournal.com/1647.h http://www.cyclone-tw.com http://www.powacycle.co.uk http://www.electricbikesales.co.uk http://egovehicles.com http://www.electricbicycle.com.au http://www.evehicle.com.au http://www.electric-bicycle.cn http://www.greenspeed.us http://www.sourceguides.com/energy SOLAR BOATS - SHIPS http://solar2boat.livejournal.com http://solar3boat.livejournal.com Recharge your Electric Auto with RENEWABLE ENERGY http://www.bergey.com http://www.bwea.com http://www.vestas.com http://www.awea.org http://solarenergy.org http://greendragonenergy.co.uk http://www.lowimpact.org http://www.scoraigwind.com http://www.greenempowerment.org http://www.grupofenix.org http://www.solarliving.org http://www.arthaonline.com http://www.the-mrea.org http://www.txses.org http://www.irenew.org http://www.nmsea.org http://www.azsolarcenter.com http://www.microhydropower.com http://www.newenergycorp.ca http://www.canyonhydro.com http://wattsun.com http://www.lorentz.de http://www.etsolar.de http://www.solargenix.com http://solar.sharpusa.com http://solren.com http://www.spirecorp.com http://pickensplan101.livejournal.c http://wind2air101.livejournal.com/8 http://www.windpower.org http://www.sourceguides.com/energy~ ~ book: Unlocking the Secrets to Living Your Dreams; by Jack Canfield book: Amazing Results of Positive Thinking; by Norman Vincent Peale book: Miracle of Fasting, for Physical, Mental and Spiritual Rejuvenation; by Patricia Bragg book: Fasting Can Save Your Life; by Doctor Herbert Shelton book: Super Power Breathing for Super Energy and Longevity; by Patricia Bragg book: Coconut Cures; by Bruce Fife book: Healing Power for the Heart; by Robert Abel http://adhd101.livejournal.com http://organic4school.livejournal.c your HEALTH (Wholeness) is your WEALTH ~  ` book: Miracle of Tithing; by Mark Victor Hansen http://tithing101.livejournal.com Proverb: A good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children. What kind of inheritance are you leaving? book: You Can If You Think You Can; by Norman Vincent Peale You never really lose until you quit trying. Mike Ditka NFL Football Coach Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves. Choose to BE A WINNER. Be a bringer of the LIGHT. `  ` Earth ~ |