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Fire Hank Paulson Now
After watching and listening to Paulson a number of times and lately his getting defensive about changing the course of where he sprays our dollars, I think that third alternative would be no matter what Paulson does or his replacement (s) many many people will lose faith that anything is being done and that the financial system is a failure beyond remedy. Then times really will be tough, very tough. Because all of the financial system rests on confidence, transparency and competition. When these pillars are dissolved by a congress and treasury and presidency that does not know how to resolve these entangled financial tentacles crusted in e coli the whole system begins to come apart.
Firing Paulson is too simple a move and it is not a useful improvement.
At least not until we know which congress, which presidency and which set of regulators including the Secretary of Treasury knows how to fix the disintegrating American financial empire?
Who Killed Frannie?
One other thought. Is it a valid perspective to say that since the U.S. subsidizes everything from the farmers to oil industry to medical care to the poor to small business - there are thousands of subsidies in various forms in the 'budget' - what difference does it really make if the U.S. adds yet another taxpayer subsidy program by taking fannie and freddie 'public' - er that means with yours and my taxpayer dollars? No difference except each such brick sinks the country ever more deeply into financial oblivion?
Canadian Superior Energy: On the Brink of Hitting the Jackpot?
Crude Oil, Gold Prices Plummet: Time to Get Cautious About Dollar Bears
Given my simple minded view of economics, just suppose the current level of oil demand is X and that level is associated with a certain commensurate aggregate level of world economic prosperity. If that level of world prosperity drops, just suppose again that pacemakerj is correct on that point, then isn't it logical that the oil demand commensurate with that drop is going to be W not X. Some bright soul could graph the levels of gross world product and gross world utilization of oil and see what the two might tell us when compared over time. That comparison may not predict short term problems with the price of oil recovering as implied by gigem77 but instead it could identify a longer term bearish trend bearing (sorry) some parallel but finite correlation with gross world product could it not?
Even given all the short term factors mentioned by gigem77, isn't the likelihood of a return to a mean price (even granting that lower prices could increase utilization which is not a given anymore) over coming years (not months where everything from the Russian invasion to the (possible) strike on Iran could act as another powerful short term price spiker) driven by a fall in the sum total of the demand generated by sinking gross world economies the better of the two possibilities?
Maybe the perspectives that made certain far sighted people rich in the past - back when oil was much cheaper- in other words the paradigm that the production of oil will simply not be up to the demand side of the equation and amplified by the oil speculators suddenly find itself reversed for a period of time longer than anybody would predict and again be amplified by the oil speculators?
The Answer to Energy Independence
I was wondering if this republican politically driven mantra about drill drill were to come about, where would the new oil production be sold? Would it be available to the world markets and if marketed there perhaps have less effect on the U.S. market prices of oil? In any case the long term availability of new hydrocarbon sources that might make a price difference will take a lot of time and in the meantime let's convert now to wind, solar, wave and as many other economic forms of energy generation as possible. With the coming historical world wide economic slowdown and the likely bankruptcy of big car makers, the reduced demand will work to demand side benefits and maybe allow some time to convert - if we will do it. But converting from one religion to another, even under duress, might be really hard - particularly in the absence of leadership..
What is more liable to reduce green house gases and air pollution, a big hop in the numbers of nuclear plants or the continued use of more and more coal and more and more oil?
And if the U.S. can reduce the price of gasoline through more production and more of it is thereby consumed, what is the point? Don't we want to get off the oil jag and achieve what the DOE has, for 20 years, laughingly called energy independence?
Appreciated reading poster objectivity's comments. A perspective I had not known about.
The Answer to Energy Independence
I was wondering if this republican politically driven mantra about drill drill were to come about, where would the new oil production be sold? Would it be available to the world markets and if marketed there perhaps have less effect on the U.S. market prices of oil? In any case the long term availability of new hydrocarbon sources that might make a price difference will take a lot of time and in the meantime let's convert now to wind, solar, wave and as many other economic forms of energy generation as possible. With the coming historical world wide economic slowdown and the likely bankruptcy of big car makers, the reduced demand will work to demand side benefits and maybe allow some time to convert - if we will do it. But converting from one religion to another, even under duress, might be really hard - particularly in the absence of leadership..
What is more liable to reduce green house gases and air pollution, a big hop in the numbers of nuclear plants or the continued use of more and more coal and more and more oil?
And if the U.S. can reduce the price of gasoline through more production and more of it is thereby consumed, what is the point? Don't we want to get off the oil jag and achieve what the DOE has, for 20 years, laughingly called energy independence?
Appreciated reading poster objectivity's comments. A perspective I had not known about.
Time For Wall Street to Get Back on the POT
The current minuscule dividend in light of all all this prosperity does not provide a dividend protection backstop if the stock were to go south in a serious way or a reason to buy POT based on growing substantial dividends. And it places the entire investment rationale on POT's capital appreciation based on EPS^ and similar POT financial measures. Come on Doyle, broaden the stocks appeal and loosen up on the purse strings. Failure to do so just opens the stock up to more speculation, manipulation and sector rotation because there is no dividend protected bottom no matter how, er, juicy the earnings may prove out. (Yes, yes I have heard about the financials and their fancy and funny money dividends not protecting their stocks from the actions of their fantastically talented and poorly regulated managers. Hopefully there are no CDO equilavents on the horizon for fertilizer. One big pile of it courtesy the banks, hedge funds and private capital folks is quite enough, thank you.)
Hey, Mr. POT CEO: Begin a 30 year record of increased dividends to your owners beginning 4Q08 starting from some substantial perspective - say 3% or better.
UBS Raises PotashCorp and Agrium's Price Targets - Again
US Economy Still Has a Ways to Go