The presidential race heats up

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I have heard the first thing she wants to do is work on lowering the price of oil. However, it will most likely be sun tan oil.

Perhaps the most disturbing thought is that the average man on the street is more familiar with "A Night in Paris" than Senator Evan Bayh.

Perhaps even more disturbing is that she would most likely get more votes than Senator Bayh.

Conspiracy Theory

There is an old saying, “As General Motors Goes, So Goes Wall Street”. General Motors has long been a market barometer for the general health of the US economy.

Yesterday, GM closed below $10 a share for the fist time since 1954.

Here is an eight-year chart, that shows the financial path of General Motors during the presidency of George W. Bush.



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Yesterday’s sharp one day drop was sparked by a Merrill Lynch analyst who said that "bankruptcy is not impossible" if the U.S. auto market further deteriorates and GM fails to raise substantial capital.

General Motors going bankrupt? WTF?




GM is not the only company suffering with rising oil prices. Almost all the domestic airlines have been taken out back and shot. Federal Express and the United Postal Service are left reeling under the high cost of fuel.





It is not just private companies that are suffering from high oil prices. For every single penny that oil prices go up, the United States Postal Service pays $8,000,000 a year extra to ship your mail. Oil prices have gone up $125.00 a barrel with George Bush in The White House. That means the USPS is paying 100 billion dollars more annually to get you your precious Victoria Secret catalog.




A lot of nudity in this post ... I know ... but a spoon full of sugar.

Now … who could possibly benefit from the rising price of oil?

The Bush family ties to the oil industry date all the way back to 1950 with the establishment of the Bush-Overbey Oil Development Co. Their strong ties to the oil industry still continue to this day.

Perhaps we should be blaming those damn arabs for the high price of oil.




One of the regular bullshit right wing e-mails that I get is a power point presentation reportedly showing the home of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the former president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu-Dhabi.

The e-mail asks us, "This is the type of thing being done with your petro dollars”

We are made to believe that the pictures show the Sheikh's palactal house, and his personal fleet of expensive cars.




One of the cars is a beautiful silver Audi A8. It is not merely painted silver. It is completely made out of solid silver.




It turns out that the pictures are a hoax, and in reality they show a fancy hotel in Abu Dhabi called the Emirates Palace.

However, there is unquestionably great wealth in the UAE due to their oil exports, and let’s for a moment take this story at face value. Who does this Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan think he is, taking all of our hard earned money?

Well … I was unable to find a picture of Hillary Clinton with the Sheikh.

I was also unable to find a picture of Barack Obama visiting the lavish residence.

However, strangely enough I was able to find this picture of George W. Bush and President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates sitting under a painting of the Sheikh's father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan in January of 2008.




Who else benefits from inflated oil prices?

Perhaps a small global investment banking, securities and investment management firm named Goldman Sachs.

Goldman better be careful. Making a call like that, and betting billions of dollars on a oil price super spike. That could be fairly risky after the recent 800% run up.

Add to that risk Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. He has spent the last few weeks jawboning that he will be raising interest rates later this year in an effort to strengthen the US dollar. This move alone could be a major step towards slowing or reversing the recent meteoric rise in oil prices.

If Goldman Sachs only had a guarantee that oil would continue its climb.

Enter Henry Paulson stage right.




Henry Paulson is the United States Treasury Secretary and member of the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors.

While Ben Bernanke has been desperately talking up the possibility of future US Fed rate hikes, Henry Paulson has spent the same week in Europe downplaying the rate hike possibility and repeatedly talking up inflation and oil prices. Did someone not give Henry a script?

Why would Henry Paulson be doing this?

*Could it be that Henry joined Goldman Sachs in 1974?
*Could it be that he became a partner there in 1982?
*Could it be because he became a managing partner of Goldman in 1988?
*Could it be that he co-headed the investment-banking wing until 1994?
*Could it be that he served as Goldman’s COO from 1994-1998
*Could it be that he received compensation packages from Goldman Sachs to the tune of 37 million in 2005 and 16.4 million in 2006?

It is no wonder that Henry is worth over 700 million dollars.

What moron would have put a Christian Scientist in charge of one of the most important financial post in the US government?




This all has to be a coincidence ... right?

The next thing you are going to tell me is that the Vice President used to work for a United States-based multinational corporation that won a large number of no bid contracts to supply, clothe and feed all the US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fall of Troy

Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Apollo (the Greek god of the sun, truth and prophecy) fell in love with Cassandra. However, when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions.




Cassandra foresees the destruction of Troy (she warns the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and even her own demise). Despite this foresight, she is unable to do anything about these events.

In January of this year I predicted that there was a looming problem of rising oil prices. At that time, Nymex crude oil was at $100.00 a barrel.

This past week, it broke through the $140.00 mark.

I tried to point out that if the price of sweet crude oil continued higher, the cost of everyday consumer goods would rise alongside it. This would then, in turn, spark wide spread inflation in the United States.




In its infinite wisdom, Ben Shalom Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC has cut interest rates time and again over the past couple years to "stimulate" the stock market and “help” the nationwide real estate crisis.




These shortsighted actions have caused serious weakness in the US dollar. When the Canadian Loonie, for the first time in its history became more valuable than the US dollar, I made a point to mention it on this blog.

As you can see from this chart (pictured below), the Dow Jones Industrial Average is now well below the 11,722 mark it held in January of 2000.



(CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE)

One might kindly say that we have simply made no economic progress in the eight years that George Bush has been in the White House.

However, if you adjust those market levels for even modest year-to-year inflation you really get a sense of what a complete cluster fuck this administration has been.

Start Praying to God

If one takes the time to read something, other than the Sunday comics or the OTB racing form, it is difficult not to stumble along a detailed account of the Bush family history with the oil business. The network of family friends, business contacts and political supporters who have a vested interest in the price of oil stretch out like the tentacles of an octopus.

Now. Take a look at the price of oil over the last eight years under the Presidency of George W. Bush.




Does this not strike you as suspicious?

The only thing that this graph leaves out, is the last 10% move that oil has recently made to $100 a barrel.

If the price of peanuts had gone up 600% during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, do you think there would have been scathing accusations from the Republican Party?




Now, you might ask, "Why should I care about this"?

I know that for many of you the most important thing in life is who will be in the next batch of celebrities on Dancing with the Stars.

Rest assured, the price of oil will not have any effect on that.

What is does have an effect on is the price of EVERYTHING.

Almost everything you can think of is affected by the price of oil.

The gas you pump into your car ... your bloated heating bill … airline tickets ... clothes you buy ... groceries that you need to supply to your family ... the price of a Big Mac sandwich ... and the list goes on and on and on.

Everything in this country needs to be transported to its place of purchase. When the price of gas goes up like this, every single product must absorb that added cost into its retail price.

Have you not noticed the higher prices of almost everything?

My family runs a bakery in Michigan. In the past few years, the price for a bag of artisan baking flour has gone from under $10 a bag to close to $20. What do you think that does to profit margins? That cost must eventually be passed down to the consumer.

Who is the consumer?

You are.




So, let's follow the bouncing ball.

-Oil companies get the price of their oil to be inflated.
-They make money
-The prices of goods go up at a disproportionate level to your income.
-You lose money.

Now read between the lines.

The very rich don’t care if the price of everyday things goes up. They are making so much more money under Bush’s capital gain tax cuts, that they can easily afford it. Bush family members are not cutting Kroger coupons and tracking the price of a gallon of milk



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Now I will get to the title of this post.

I have a message to all the lower income Christian whites, Latinos and blacks that voted for George Bush in the last election. The very same voters who felt it was essential to have a President who would rid them of homosexuals and single parent families.



Start praying to your God and start cutting coupons.


I don't know if I am more amazed by the hypocrisy of the "moral" right wing stance, or the stupidity of the lower income Christians to buy into it time and again ... hook, line and sinker.



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Frankly, I really miss a president who was concerned about the price of a Big Mac.