Ex-Shell president sees $5 gas in 2012

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, says Americans could be paying $5 for a gallon of gasoline by 2012.

In an interview with Platt's Energy Week television, Hofmeister predicted gasoline prices will spike as the global demand for oil increases.

"I'm predicting actually the worst outcome over the next two years which takes us to 2012 with higher gasoline prices," he said.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with Oil Price Information Service says Americans will see gasoline prices hit the $5 a gallon mark in the next decade, but not by 2012.

"That wolf is out there and it's going to be at the door...I agree with him that we'll see those numbers at some point this decade but not yet." Kloza said.

"The demand is still sluggish enough in some of the mature economies."

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/27/markets/oil_commodities/

Millions Of Fish Wash Ashore In Gulfport

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Something besides oil washed ashore along a section of beach in Gulfport this week.

Millions of small dead fish have washed ashore just east of Jones Park. The fish are believed to be menhaden.

Low oxygen levels in the water are typically to blame when large numbers of the tiny fish wash up dead, experts said. Harrison County leaders said it's too soon to tell if the fish-kill is related to the oil spill.

“If it’s oil-related, the BP contractors will have to pick it up,” Harrison County Sand Beach Director Bobby Weaver said. “If not, we’ll dispatch a county crew to come down here and get it."

By early Monday afternoon, sand beach crews started scooping up the dead fish and raking the sand. They were loaded on a dump truck and taken to the landfill.

Lake Peigneur Sinkhole Disaster

The All New GM Puma

A solution to the world's urban transportation problems could lie in two wheels not four, according to executives for General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc.

The companies announced Tuesday that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world.

The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening.

"We're excited about doing more with less," said Jim Norrod, chief executive of Segway, the Bedford, N.H.-based maker of electric scooters. "Less emissions, less dependability on foreign oil and less space."

The 300-pound prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway's characteristic two-wheel balancing technology, along with dual electric motors. It's designed to reach speeds of up to 35 miles-per-hour and can run 35 miles on a single charge.

The companies did not release a projected cost for the vehicle, but said ideally its total operating cost _ including purchase price, insurance, maintenance and fuel _ would total between one-fourth and one-third of that of the average traditional vehicle.

Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development, and strategic planning, said the project is part of Detroit-based GM's effort to remake itself as a purveyor of fuel-efficient vehicles. If Hummer took GM to the large-vehicle extreme, Burns said, the PUMA takes GM to the other.

Ideally, the vehicles would also be part of a communications network that through the use of transponder and GPS technology would allow them to drive themselves. The vehicles would automatically avoid obstacles such as pedestrians and other cars and therefore never crash, Burns said.

As a result, the PUMA vehicles would not need air bags or other traditional safety devices and include safety belts for "comfort purposes" only, he said.

Though the technology and its goals may seem like something out of science fiction, Burns said nothing new needs to be invented for it to become a reality.

"At this point, it's merely a business decision," he said.

Burns said that while putting that kind of communications infrastructure in place may still be a ways off for many American cities, the automaker is looking for a place, such as a college campus, where the vehicles could be put to use and grab a foothold in the market.

There's currently no timeline for production, Burns said.

The ambitious announcement also comes at a time when GM's future is hanging by a thread after receiving billions of dollars in federal aid and is in the midst of a vast restructuring that could still lead to a filing for bankruptcy protection.

Meanwhile, the ongoing recession has resulted in some of the lowest industrywide vehicle sales in more than a quarter century.

But Burns argued that some of the most revolutionary ideas have been born out of tough economic times.

"The next two months, and really 2009, is all about the reinvention of General Motors," he said.

Marijuana Inc

Mini Nuclear Plants to Power 20,000 Homes Each

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.'

Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said.

The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.'

The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specialising in water plants and power plants. 'They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase,' said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania. 'We now have a six-year waiting list. We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.'

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.

'You could never have a Chernobyl-type event - there are no moving parts,' said Deal. 'You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it's too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.'

Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.

Bush Leaves U.S. Battered & Bruised

In his two terms in the White House, US President George W. Bush has presided over a precipitous fall in America's reputation around the world. History is likely to judge him a failure. Now, his successor will have to dig the US out of a deep hole.

The Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang was filled with pride as he reported to Chinese mission control from his space capsule. It was Saturday, Sept. 27 and Zhigang was about embark on his first space walk, marking a breakthrough for the space program of this rising power in the Far East. President Hu Jintao looked jubilant in the live television broadcast. With its successful excursion outside the space capsule, the People's Republic, as a nation in space, drew level with the United States and Russia in one important respect. Indeed, Beijing is already discussing a manned expedition to the moon. Once exclusively American, the Earth's biggest satellite may soon become Chinese as well.

Almost at the same time, at a point halfway around the earth, a finance minister was doing something highly unusual: falling to his knees in a gesture of desperation. The Republican Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson was kneeling before the Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, begging her to do everything in her power to make sure that the $700-billion bailout package for the US economy was passed. Paulson's unmistakable message was that the United States was on the brink of an abyss.

Meanwhile, the White House, the center of power in this superpower, seemed oddly abandoned, as if no one were at home. As if 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., were temporarily closed for renovations. It wasn't, of course, but amazingly enough, had it been, hardly anyone would have noticed. The master of the house, certainly, would be missed by only a few. Bush did address his fellow Americans to talk about the financial crisis, but he seemed oddly disinterested. And even in these dramatic times, hardly anyone was listening. He may still be the president, but is he no longer shaping policy.

"The fundamentals of our economy are strong," the president said in August. But what could be more disconcerting than to be told by George W. Bush that everyone is going to be alright?

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Final-Shill Solution for Freedom

Oil Falls to $89 a Barrel

Oil dropped $6 to below $88 a barrel on Monday on expectations the growing financial crisis will further slow already faltering global fuel demand.

U.S. crude traded down $6.00, to $87.80 a barrel, at 2:30 p.m. EDT after hitting a fresh eight-month low of $87.56. London Brent crude fell $6.45 to $83.80 a barrel.

Crude prices have plummeted from a peak over $147 a barrel set on July 11 as high fuel prices and the growing financial crisis slow oil demand in top consumer the United States and other industrialized nations.

"The prevailing macro sentiment is now crystallizing around the notion that we are heading into a synchronized global slowdown, a mirror image of the across-the-board expansion we saw from 2004 to early 2007," said Edward Meir of broker MF Global.

Analysts are now eyeing demand from China -- which helped fuel a 6-year rally in commodities -- for signs the crisis is hitting consumption.

The world's second biggest consumer will not import gasoline for the second straight month and instead export the fuel due to heavy domestic stockpiles and a dip in demand.

"I think the market's starting to build this into prices," said Mark Pervan, senior commodities analyst at ANZ. "You would expect the market is now joining the dots and thinking ... this will probably flow through to China."

The U.S. and European governments are trying to underpin the financial sector but this has so far failed to reassure investors.

U.S. stocks fell on Monday, with the Dow diving 689 points and falling below 10,000 for the first time in four years, as part of a global sell-off on investor fears the widening fallout from the credit crisis would drag the economy into recession.

European shares suffered their worst one-day percentage fall on record, sinking to four-year closing lows while trading in Brazil halted after a 15 percent drop in its benchmark index.

The drop in prices has caused some concern among OPEC members.

"Definitely there is worry. When the prices are so volatile, like rising to $140 and then dropping to below $90, it worries everybody," said Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.

Ecuadorean Oil Minister Galo Chiriboga said on Monday that OPEC will analyze the impact of the global financial crisis on oil demand and set production levels in accordance.

Iran said $100 a barrel was too low and urged members to respect their output targets to prevent oversupply from worsening.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil said OPEC would seek to balance the market when it meets in December.

Printing Fake Money Saves America...NOT!

Big Issue: Energy Crisis Hits Home

FKN News: Global SLavery Crisis

Arctic Time Bomb?

French PM Says World "On Edge of Abyss"

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Friday the world stood on the "edge of the abyss", gripped by a global financial crisis now threatening industry, trade and jobs worldwide.

Fillon's words echoed a growing sense of alarm sweeping EU capitals ahead of an expected U.S. Congressional vote on Friday on a $700 billion bailout plan for the financial industry. Approval is far from certain.

The House of Representatives shocked world markets on Monday by rejecting a previous draft, wary of popular anger over the housing market collapse that triggered the crisis and high risk financial ventures that collapsed under the burden.

Prime Minister Fillon, whose country is hosting an emergency summit of Italian, British and German leaders on Saturday, said only collective action could solve the financial crisis. He said he would not rule out any solution to stop any bank failing.

"The world is on the edge of the abyss because of an irresponsible system," Fillon said, alluding to widespread anger over past lax regulation of financial markets and excessive lending.

Fillon said President Nicolas Sarkozy would propose at the emergency meeting measures to unfreeze credit and coordinate economic and monetary strategies.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet sounded an alarm on Friday's expected vote in the U.S. Congress.

"(U.S. Treasury) Secretary (Henry) Paulson's plan obviously must be passed," he told Europe 1 Radio.

"It must be. It is necessary."

Bad news mounted in the European financial sector.

In Switzerland, UBS AG, hardest hit among European banks by its exposure to subprime-related holdings, said it would cut 2,000 investment banking jobs -- on top of the 4,100 positions cut in the past year.

Worries grew that even if Washington agrees on the package, it will not be enough to resolve deeper-rooted weakness. New data showed that a U.S. recession is nearing and Europe's economy is worsening.

"Investors expect the U.S. House to approve the bailout, but even if that happens, it would have a neutral impact on the market as its effectiveness is still questionable," said Takahito Murai, general manager of equities at Nozomi Securities in Tokyo.

A collapse in the U.S. housing market and resulting "bad mortgages" has undermined confidence in the financial sector, with inter-bank lending and credit to businesses and private individuals all but seizing up. Central Banks have injected billions of dollars to maintain some flow of funds.

Oil Falls Below $95 on Falling Global Demand

Oil prices tumbled below $95 a barrel Thursday, falling for a second day as investors bet that a revised $700 billion financial bailout plan won't be enough to avoid a recession and revive dwindling U.S. energy demand.
The declines came a day after the Senate overwhelmingly approved the bitterly contested rescue package. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives for an expected vote Friday; House lawmakers stunned investors Monday by rejecting the bailout plan, although Senators added $100 billion in tax breaks and other sweeteners in a bid to win over enough dissenting House votes.

Even if the plan wins approval, oil market traders are skeptical that it will steady the teetering U.S. economy and reverse flagging demand for energy in the world's largest consumer. The plan would remove billions of dollars in bad mortgages and other toxic debt from the books of banks and other financial firms, though critics argue it doesn't go far enough to help ordinary Americans struggling with soaring costs for food and fuel and falling home prices.

"I think the oil market believes that no size of a rescue plan is going to be enough to stave off a recession," said Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Conn.

He said government data released Thursday showing a slowdown in U.S. manufacturing and growing unemployment suggest that a drop in U.S. energy demand "is going to accelerate as we head into a steeper recession."

Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell $3.73 to $94.80 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices earlier jumped as high as $100.37 but eased back later as traders digested the details of the revised bailout package.

The November crude contract fell $2.11 to settle at $98.53 on Wednesday.

Oil prices have fallen about $15, or 13 percent, in the past month as investor concerns about waning global energy consumption outweigh threats to supplies caused by Gulf Coast hurricanes and militant attacks in Nigeria.

Significant gains over the past days by the dollar against the euro have also helped push down prices. Investors tend to buy commodities like oil to defend against dollar weakness and a hedge against inflation, but return to the U.S. currency as it strengthens.

The 15-nation euro bought $1.3833 in trading Thursday, down from $1.4061 in the previous session.

Meanwhile, statistics from the U.S. Labor Department released Thursday showed more signs of a weakening economy, adding to concerns about falling oil demand.

The Labor Department reported that initial claims for jobless benefits increased by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 497,000, significantly above analysts' estimate of 475,000. The total is the highest since just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks seven years ago.

Also Thursday, the Commerce Department said factory orders in August plunged by 4 percent compared to July, a much steeper decline than the 2.5 percent drop analysts expected and the biggest setback since a 4.8 percent plunge in October 2006.

Recent data shows that U.S. fuel demand is falling while supplies rise.

The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said Wednesday in its weekly report that crude stocks rose by 4.3 million barrels, or 1.5 percent, to 294.5 million barrels for the week ending Sept. 26. Analysts had expected stocks to rise or fall of 1.5 million barrels, according to a survey by energy research firm Platts.

At the same time, gasoline inventories rose by 900,000 barrels, or 0.5 percent, to 179.6 million barrels. Analysts expected stockpiles of the motor fuel to fall in the range of 1 million to 3 million barrels.

Fuel consumption for the four-week period ended Sept. 26 reached about 19 million barrels a day, down 7 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the EIA.

"The demand just isn't there," said Jonathan Kornafel, Asia director for market maker Hudson Capital Energy in Singapore. "The refineries aren't buying crude to turn it into gasoline because consumers aren't buying it on the road."

Kornafel predicted oil prices will trade between $80 and $90 during the next few months, with oil producers likely to cut production if prices fall further.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 10.04 cents to $2.7465 a gallon, while gasoline prices lost 8.96 cents to $2.2704 a gallon. Natural gas for November delivery fell 19.1 cents to $7.537 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, November Brent crude fell $3.60 to $91.73 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Orwell's 1984: Ignorance is Strength

Congress Votes to Lift Ban on Coastal Drilling

Our Colors Don't Run, But They Sure Can Fade

Place this Flag on you profiles or webpage to represent the fading of the American Dream. I still believe that this country can be what it should be in the world. You can visit my MySpace to see how I placed it on my page. Just click the image below to get a large 1024 pixel version.

Dollar Set to be a Major Casualty of Paulson's Bailout

Whether or not tomorrow’s accounts of today’s turmoil prove David Owen of Dresdner Kleinwort right; whether or not this is the beginning of the end of the dollar’s pre-eminence in the world’s central banks and foreign exchanges, the economic landscape has undoubtedly changed forever.

The US taxpayer bail-out of America’s banking sector is an event whose significance will reverberate for many years. What it means for free markets, for the way Western economies are run, for the prosperity of the world economy, must remain to be seen.

But as investors scrambled to make sense of last week’s events, already one conclusion was all but irrefutable – the US dollar will have to take another major fall.

The dollar rally that began in July and pushed the pound’s value against the greenback significantly lower has come to an abrupt end as markets face up to the fact that the currency will have to absorb the effects of a sudden shocking increase in America’s budget deficit.

When Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announced that the world’s biggest economy was about to embark on the world’s biggest bail-out for its financial sector, the first concern economists had was about the long-term prospects for the nation’s finances and its currency.

Might the dollar now be vulnerable to a run? In the longer term, might this signal the beginning of the end for the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency?

The US Treasury was already planning to borrow $438bn (£237bn) next year to shore up its budget deficit. That could now rise to $1 trillion or more after the cost of the $700bn mortgage rescue fund is taken into account. Budget deficits of that kind are usually enough to scare many foreign investors away, and indeed the dollar slumped 1.1 cents to $1.8441 against the pound yesterday, and in late trading was down almost two cents against the euro at $1.46880.

Ironically, despite the pound’s comparative strength against the dollar – having risen from just above $1.75 in the past few weeks – it remains extremely weak against other world currencies, due to investors’ fears about the UK’s own home-grown problems.

“The magic trillion-dollar deficit is within sight,” says Simon Derrick, of Bank of New York Mellon, “The combination of the fiscal position and loose monetary policy is likely to be significantly dollar-negative. With an expanding supply of US paper they might want to hold something else as their safe haven, which might mean other currencies and might just as easily mean commodities such as gold.”

When a government opens the spending taps and borrows more, investors invariably take flight, fearing that assets denominated in those currencies will lose their value as inflation rises and the currency weakens.

However, with the Treasury still reluctant to spell out precisely how the rescue package, modelled on the late 1980s’ Resolution Trust Corporation, will work, analysts are still unclear about how far the dollar has to fall.

It is likewise still unknown precisely what effect the quasi-nationalisation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will have for the nation’s finances, though the implications will again almost certainly be negative.

According to Mr Derrick, “the sums have changed so quickly on the fiscal side within the space of two weeks, and clearly the outlook for the US economy relative to where people were forecasting before Freddie and Fannie. Investors will also have a radically different outlook for the future.”

The biggest question, however, is whether the reserve managers in central banks in China and elsewhere will treat this as a justification for selling off some of their massive mountain of dollar-denominated investments. If this were to happen, it could cause a catastrophic drop in the US currency, potentially compromising its status as the world’s reserve currency.

However, with the euro area facing its own economic and financial crises, it looks unlikely to be able to step into the breach. This helps explain the leap yesterday in gold and oil prices as investors seek to buy tangible commodities in place of currencies that may easily be devalued in the coming years.

What was perhaps even more worrying for investors was an item in the small print of Hank Paulson’s rescue plan. It said that, separate to the $700bn markets rescue package, the US Treasury would plunder the Exchange Stabilisation Fund – the US currency reserves, established in the 1930s – in order to pay for an insurance scheme for the money markets.

“The Treasury has committed the nation’s FX reserves to supporting the money market industry,” said Chris Turner, head of foreign exchange strategy at ING. “That suggests to us that the dollar has fallen down the list of the administration’s priorities – a worrying development for foreign investors in the US.”

The fund’s cash is being funnelled into a new scheme designed to protect money market mutual funds, which mirrors the Federal Deposit Insurance scheme for consumers’ bank savings. “What worries us is that the US Treasury has committed the nation’s FX reserves at a time when the dollar is exceptionally vulnerable,” said Mr Turner.

Paulson Seeks Quick Passage of Bailout Plan

They just want it passed. No debate, no looking over the bill...just give this dude 700 Billion Dollars.....WAKE UP AMERICA!