OIL: It’s time for rage—good, old American rage......

[Catwoman]

Do you really foresee a windfall tax being passed?  Aren't the lobbyists too powerful? 

[frawin]

Do you really foresee a windfall tax being passed?  Aren't the lobbyists too powerful? 

It happened once before when a much weaker individual was President, I think it can very well happen again. When we passed it before it actually reduced some drilling and exploration, and allowed lots of non-oil industry people to make Millions, Billions of Dollars trading tiers of crude. It was the dumbest administered  program I have ever witnessed, it would have worked the way it was intended but it was designed by Washington and they had no idea how crude oil trading and transportation worked. Typical Washington designed mess, administered by people with absolutely no knowledge of the industry it was designed to tax.
CATWOMAN, consider the make up of our present Congress, if OBAMA is elected and the present attitude of the people, they are hurting and want something done.

[Catwoman]

Actually, the make-up of the current Congress and the possible election of Obama are of great concern to me.  I don't foresee anything good coming of either one...the one is too entrenched to change and the other is too green to be able to make any difference.  They say that the only time that a President is able to make REAL change is within the first 100 days of their Presidency, due to the 'honeymoon' effect.  Wonder what either candidate, within the first 100 days, would do?

[frawin]

No matter who is elected they will have a tough time improving on the current problems. A priority Domestically has to be the Energy Crisis, the Economy and the Housing Crisis, all of which are tied together. I hope we will see some changes in the importing of manufaturing and the subsequent exporting of jobs, let's bring some of that work back to America and also move out the illegals and get Citizens in some of the 14-18 million jobs taken by illegals. More jobs here, less imports of goods and services would have an immediate effect on the Dollar, the Price of oil, the housing crisis and the attitude of the American people. If foreign manufacturers want to build automobiles make them build them here in the US. There is no question that Honda, Toyota and Nissan build a better automobile, that is great let them build them with American workers, that helps the trade imbalance and the dollar. The big three, Honda, Toyota and Nissan bulid the bulk of their vehicles her now.

[greatguns]

Frank, were you privileged enough to know Marvin also. 

[DanCookson]

I thought this was a good read and goes along with what many feel is a HUGE problem in our country.



Steve Forbes: The Fed Just Doesn't Get It

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 10:22 AM

   

The Fed must act immediately to strengthen the dollar, says Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine.

"You cannot have a strong economy with a weak dollar," Forbes observes. "That's what the Fed doesn't get."

"Instead, the Fed and Treasury are saying, 'We've got to fight malaria, and then we'll deal with the mosquitoes.'"

Forbes blames a weak dollar for 80 percent of gasoline price increases, which he says may very well drive some auto companies and airlines out of business.

"Thank you very much, Federal Reserve," Forbes says. "When the cost of gasoline doubles, there's no way they can survive. As long as the dollar is weak, the oil bubble will persist."

If a weak currency were the way to wealth, Zimbabwe would own the world today, Forbes notes. "That's why the Fed is so wrong to think there's a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. You can have low inflation and low unemployment, but Bernanke doesn't understand that."

The amazing thing, Forbes says, is that once again, the Fed makes a muck of it, and now it's going to get more regulatory powers.

"Like accountants after Sarbanes-Oxley, you goof up on Enron, and your reward is tripling your business," Forbes says.

Rather than focus on inflation, Forbes wants the Fed to raise interest rates — and announce it is doing so as part of a policy aimed at strengthening the dollar and removing excess liquidity from the economy.

"Equity markets would respond positively, businesses would resume reinvesting and foreign investors would build plants and equipment instead of shopping for bargains as they are doing now," Forbes says.

The G8, Forbes believes, would "cooperate in a nanosecond" to make open market operations, sell bonds, and remove some of the excess liquidity to strengthen the dollar.

"I would float the interest rate," Forbes says. "Banks don't lend to each other anymore anyway."

"But if people think the dollar is still going down the toilet, that this administration doesn't care about the value of the dollar, things freeze up," Forbes says.

"This is what happened in the 1970s. We saw (then) that if you just raise interest rates and continue to print too much money, you're going to have inflation. Why are we having to go back to that kind of future?"

Forbes says there's plenty of liquidity to go around — but not nearly enough investor confidence. The problem is that investors are clutching their cash because of uncertainty about what's going to happen to the dollar, which is why Treasury rates are so low.

"We should have learned from the early 1980s when you get a stable currency, the economy starts to recover and people start to invest again," Forbes says.

As far as international investing is concerned, Forbes urges investors to concentrate on picking equities and investment sectors instead of buying "a basket of investments in a specific country."

"Sometimes countries are doing well, but their stock markets stink," Forbes says. "Don't just buy a region and think, 'Voila, we're going to get rich.' The broker will get rich, not you.'"

[frawin]

Great article Dan, I am not a big Steve Forbes fan but he has lots of connections and also his staff does lots of research. I agree that the low dollar value is a big part of the high energy price but I think we have to improve the  absolutely huge/gigantic trade deficit/imbalance to improve the dollar very much and as a result lower the price of everything we buy including crude oil. The article makes interesting reading and food for thought. I would like to hear from the MAN, Alan Greenspan and his take on what we need to do.