Chancels re: Enron & Matt Simmons and the Peak Oil Hoax:
...first, thanks for a quite rare - sane & sensical rebuttal.
We agree on a few things and not surprisingly - we will have to agree to disagree on a few others.
I am far, far from being a political liberal,or a fan of most things California... former Gov. Gray Davis included.
But... Enron absolutely manipulated the energy market in California and Davis's Presidential aspirations were sandbagged in grande fashion.
Enron routinely took power offline (or, got Power Plants to take themselves offline) -- specifically for the purpose of manipulating prices. The supeonas of the Enron Traders audio tapes by the Snohomish Public Utility District became the smoking gun - ie:
sfgate.com
Enron was a ship filled with pirates and rats long before this scandal emerged.
Mike Muckelroy saved Enron from imploding years earlier in the "Valhalla" scandal -- after it's in-house traders had nearly gambled away their Natural Gas reserves - ie:
washingtonpost.com
The singular message that the average US Citizen, Voter, or Investor should take away from the Enron story is not that Enron so easily manipulated the California Electric Market and bilked it's taxpayers out of $40 Billion, not that it collapsed Accounting giant Arthur Anderson, not that it cost tens of thousands of innocent employees - like those of Portland Electric their pensions, 401k's...their futures, their hopes and their dreams... not even that Enron itself melted down into Bankruptcy costing investors billions more.
...the real lesson that people need to take away from the Enron scandal - is the complete and total willing complicity, avarice, greed and - evil... yes, "evil" --- that politicians and most importantly - the Investment Bankers possessed in willingly profiting from one dirty deal after another with Enron.
From Merrills complicity with the Nigerian Barge scam to those Investment Bankers who sat salivating with willing complicity in Enron's boardroom as Andy Fastow pitched them on "Get Shorty", "Wheel Out", "Death Star" and other scams.
Merrill got a slap on the wrist in the Nigerian Barge scam...the bankers know the game:
Steal hundreds of Millions - and if you get caught; maybe you pay a few hundred thousand, or a couple of "mill" in fines.
- a very, very attractive risk:reward proposition.
Enron in the "Silver Peak, Nevada" scam - took power destined for California offline and sent it to a ghost town in Nevada (Silver Peak) -- when they got caught, they paid a $25,000 fine and retained $7 Million in profits.
...now that's - what I call a slap on the wrist.
And with Bush/Cheney in power and Matt "POS" Simmons pitching the Peak Oil Hoax (the same hoax they pitched in 1979 by the way)... ohhh - do they know the game... and are they ever profiteering from it now.
It's "burn baby burn" and "Aunt Millie" happy-times are here again - deja vu all over again...
What Goldman is doing today - makes Enron a pimple on an elephants ass...
Let's not forget just whose "boy" Ken Lay was and how close ole' "Kenny-boy Lay" was to the Bush family. He was a whisker away from becoming the US Energy Secretary.
And the meeting held with Schwarzenegger by the Bushie's...who decided to just - "do nothing"... thus letting California's meltdown destroy then Presidential Candidate Gray Davis...was a marriage of Oil, Politics and Globalist Bankers at it's finest.
America and it's future has irreversibly been sold out.
This country - as yet again recently exemplified by the Abramoff lobbying scandal, has reached an irreversible level where the concentration of money, power and politics has made the democratic process in America - a complete and utter joke.
Everything is for sale...and in Washington D.C. - "souls" while in rare supply -- are particularly cheap.
From the solvency of the State of California, to the stability of the US Social Security and Pension System, to the security of our borders, to our life-blood commodities like Crude Oil & Natural Gas...to our currency, our banking system, financial markets and even our economy -- it's all for sale.
...and Rome is already begining to burn -- all one needs to do, is to take a whiff.
Regarding - Matt Simmons:
Peak Oil part deux - "as it is being sold to the American populace and investing public" - is a complete and total fraud - period.
The Oil Industry has always had a period of cyclical over-investment and under-investment -- leading to boom & bust cycles.
Over time... new technologies emerge - as we saw in the initial emergence of Nuclear Power. Incremental substitution -- as we will see with LNG, clean-Coal technologies, Ethanol-blended fuels, bio-diesel, Hydrogen technologies, wind, solar etc... will all in time - naturally meld into the evolution of energy markets.
The dependance on Oil will wane - and new fuels will emerge.
China's recent consumption blip -- occured directly at the end of a period of under-investment by the Oil Industry.
Both are cyclical in nature -- we are now entering a period where alternative fuels will be brought on line, where under-investment in energy will once again turn into over-investment and China's demand rate will slow and speculators will one day stop and pause when looking at the ballooning supply levels of Oil and Gas...and someone like a Goldman will break ranks and head en-masse for the exit door...creating a stampede for the exit door and Oil & Gas prices will collapse.
Of course the basic premis and concept of "Peak Oil" is real...but it's a natural evolution in technology and energy -- falling Oil production and supply will be replaced by alternative and new technologies. The abberation in prices we've seen has been induced by the marriage of Politicans, Investment Bankers and Geopolitics created by avarice and greed which has been hyper-fueled by having Bush/Cheney in office.
Bush Sr. helped secure Enron billions of dollars of subsidies.
What Bush Jr. is doing - makes his father seem like a country-hick piker.
From the United Nations "Iraqi Oil for Food" scandal to the Bush/Cheney "Peak Oil" fraud -- Politicians & Global Bankers are lining their pockets with Black Gold proceeds like never before....and you and I are paying for it.
Regarding the entire Peak Oil fraud...we just had a once in two hundred year event -- the dual direct hits of hurricaines Rita & Katrina...and even with that -- we've been able to simultaneously refill our SPR and both Oil and Gas supply levels remain at the high end of five-year average levels - which fundamentally defy present price level.
Speculation and Manipulation by any other name - remain speculation and manipulation -- whether it's Peak Oil part I in 1979, or part deux - courtesty of Investment Bankers like Goldman, soul-less shill pitchmen like Matt Simmons, crooked public companies like Enron, the corrupt Politicians of the United Nations with the "Iraqi Oil for Food - fraud", or the "Peak Oil" hoax being perpetrated by our home-grown crooked politicans & bankers like the Bush/Cheney/James Baker/Exxon/Saudi Fat Oil crowd....
This isn't the first time that the Peak Oil Hype has been sold to us:
Here's an extract of an article by Werner Meyer listing quotes from the 1979 Peak Oil Crisis -- courtesy of the Tocqueville Group:
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"Even with decontrol of oil prices, we can see a 30 percent to 40 percent decline in domestic oil production." Daniel Yergin – Sierra July/August 1979
"An already serious energy problem has now become an energy emergency, an emergency that will persist throughout the entire 1980s." - Robert Strobaugh and Daniel Yergin - Foreign Affairs vol.58, no.3, 1979
"World oil prices have only one way to go in the next decade--up, and probably sharply so." - John Mattill - Editor, Technology Review -December/January 1980
"During 1980 and 1981, for each barrel of oil newly produced as a result of decontrol, the cost to the U.S. economy could range from at least $56 per barrel under the most optimistic assumptions, to about $870 per barrel under assumptions which many experts believe are realistic...Thus even if decontrol does in fact stimulate a few extra barrels of oil, the total cost to the economy of those few barrels is so high as to make decontrol the most nonsensical, irresponsible, and expensive energy supply strategy imaginable." Energy Action - March 24, 1979
"Ronald Reagan brushed aside energy issues during the campaign, insisting the shortages could be overcome by unleashing private enterprise. But not even his most fervent supporters in the energy business share that optimism. Virtually all private forecasts predict declining domestic oil production and liquid fuel shortages in the next decade." New York Times - November 14, 1980
"There is a dwindling supply of energy sources. The prices are going to rise in the future no matter who is President, no matter which party occupies the administration in Washington, no matter what we do." - President Jimmy Carter - March 31, 1979
"At present rates of exploitation, the United States will exhaust its own petroleum reserves in about 10 years..." - Alan Madian - Foreign Policy - Summer 1979
"Any surplus production capacity that individual OPEC countries may have developed in recent years will almost certainly vanish by the mid-1980s, perhaps sooner... In 1990 prices, adjusted for future inflation, oil could be selling for $42 to $55 a barrel." - U.S. Department of Energy - National Energy Plan II - May 1979
"The present oil shortage looks like the start of a long siege. While the demand for oil keeps growing as world population and economies expand, supply slows and it is difficult to see where large amounts of additional oil will come from in the next several years." Leonard Silk - New York Times - June 29.1979
"We're heading into a world of considerably higher prices. There will be a major impact on housing by 1983, and I'd be surprised if gasoline is less than $2 per gallon plus whatever inflation adds." Kenneth Arrow, Professor of Economics, Stanford University - Forbes - February 4, 1980
"It's obvious that gasoline could reach at least $2 a gallon after decontrol." Representative John Dingell (D-MI)Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy and Power – Forbes December 10, 1979
"Estimating $1.50 [per gallon of gas] is totally, totally optimistic." Dan Lundberg, Gasoline price specialist - New York Times - February 27, 1980
"Without rationing, gasoline will soon go to $3 a gallon." Senator Dale Bumpers (D-AR) - U.S. News and World Report - July 9, 1979
à Note: gasoline prices did not reach $2.00 until 2004
"One thing is for certain: prices will continue to rise. We're dealing with a scarce, finite commodity, one that will be running out in a couple of decades. Traditional criteria of supply and demand don't apply." Charles W. Duncan, Secretary of Energy - U.S. News and World Report - February 25, 1980
"We're going to be on the ragged edge for years." Clifton C. Garvin, Jr. - Chairman, Exxon Corp. - Business Week - December 24, 1979
"With oil, surprises or changes can only go one way: against us." Paul Frankel - Petroleum Economics, Ltd. - Dun's Review - April 1980
"The price of oil now seems firmly locked into a steep upward spiral for the foreseeable future." Business Week - December 31, 1979
"At present rates of consumption, America's oil and gas will be gone within a decade." Newsweek - July 16, 1979
"In moving towards 1990, the industrialized countries will be walking an `oil tightrope.' " International Energy Agency - Energy Conservation 1981
"Most industry observers, however, believe that this time OPEC will be successful in keeping oil prices from falling." Business Week - December 31, 1979
"Responses that might have been sufficient between 1974 and 1979 no longer suffice; today the United States and all the world's importers are caught in an acute and lasting energy emergency." Robert Stobaugh and Daniel Yergin - Foreign Affairs - vol. 58, no. 3 1979
"We must adopt a system of gasoline rationing without delay...in a way that demands a fair sacrifice from all Americans." Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) - New York Times - January 28, 1980
"I think it [OPEC] has now become such an institutionalized structure that it would be very doubtful that anyone could break it down." President Jimmy Carter - New York Times - February 11, 1979
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...and as we all now know -- the "Peak Oil Crisis of 1979" was soon followed by an Oil glut and the now infamous (or, famous) cover story from "The Economist" predicting an endless glut of crude and sub $5 price levels in the late 1990's.
"Fat Boy", "Wheel Out", "Death Star" & "Peak Oil" by any other name -- remain the same...... Speculative Frauds perpetrated by greedy, evil bastards lining their pockets - with our money.
PS: If you think Politicians and Global Bankers have made money off of the hoax of "Peak Oil-part II" ....just wait and see what they do when they get their greedy paws on the US Social Security system.
...it's never enough.
They'll continue to sell off our jobs, our currency, our borders, our government and our future -- look at where our deficits are - thanks to the Iraq for Halliburton & "Peak Oil Hoax" Profits War.... |
