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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energyplay who wrote (58873)	12/14/2009 1:27:46 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217589

1) Export prices for finished goods have dropped as worldwide consumer demand has crashed, while commodity input prices have held up. For rich countries markets: 1) is accurate Emerging markets: Demand was there. Trade finance not. Trade finance dried up during the crisis as banks were threatened to go under. Therefore finished goods could not be moved. The Truth About Goldman and AIG Becomes Clearer [View article] Complaining about Goldman wont change anything. The counterparties that AIG had the greatest exposure to-Goldman, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, JPMorgan and a few smaller players, were the direct beneficiaries of the AIG bailout funds. Public money went into AIG and was in effect directly passed through to meet AIG's debts to these banks. There was nothing illegal or shady in the payments. The reason it was done was to stop these big banks from going under. One may say they should been allowed to go under. Fine, However, the result of these banks going under would have been to complete collapse of all international trade. Cargo shipments of foods (grains and other bulk commodities) were sitting on the docks for months with no letters of credit -check the shipping registers of all the major shipping and cargo freight companies. World trade had collapsed. Cargill was moving NOTHING. It was that bad. Food supplies in the chain stores are usually only stocked a a several day level. If the banks had been allowed to go under, and they would have, you would have had food riots in every major city in the United States and the world. This is the system we have built for ourselves. Capitalism has worked not because it is the "Best" system but because it is the only sytem that allowed for checks and balances through competition. By self serving governments allowing that competion to dissapear we created an effective oligarchy in which the only competition is one oligarch being supplanted by another. So who is to blame really? Is it not us ourselves? We are more than happy to complacently play the game as long as we get the toys we want. The banks were playing the same game only bigger. Crying foul now that they played the game too well, or that the government didnt act soon enough (last time I checked WE WERE THE Government) is childish and immature. Where was our own involvement years ago when this consolidation of power was starting. Oh thats right we were happily on a cruise, or buying a new car, a bigger house, merrily spending our own happily gotten gains. LOL. And now we whine. You want to stop this kind of BS? Then get off you butts and get politically involved yourselves. Stop saying "they should do this...and the government should do that...". Try reading more than the the financial pages for once or worrying about the next great stock pick. If you want to see the next great blowup in the making just look at what Monsanto, Bayer, Novartis , Bunge etc...etc are doing in purchasing the property rights to over 85% of all the genes used in producing the foods we eat (through "ownership" of the seeds). They have patented Life itself. Before you shrug this off as a left leaning diatribe (I am a conservative that has been working with these Banks,Grain Companies, and Hedge Funds in the OTC markets for my whole life) read about the consolidation of power in the foods. You will be shocked. The amount of money involved here is many times that that was involved in the banking crisis. Or just go and argue whether natural gas prices will rise this winter or not, gee isnt that really important. LOL. Just read a little outside your own interests with an open mind about what aconsolidation of wealth and power the "GM"(genetically modified) crops are creating. You may be glad you did. The argument that there is a world wide food crisis is bogus and always has been.There are only distribution problems, but there have always been food surpluses. Hmmm, now why would that be. Well lets just say that until a few companies gain absolute (yes absolute) ownership of the food supply "the spice will not flow" (sorry, I love Dune, haha).Seriously just read online, then judge for yourself, the money involved here along with a total lack of accountability and a total lack of liability (see the court rulings) makes this last financial crisis pale in comparison to what is coming down the pike when these companies own all the patents. On an aside, its also much easier for these companies to trade these commodities, when there are only a very few homogenous varieties of each, on the commodities futures and OTC markets. Oh my gosh, do we see any similarities here > Hey what about that OTC crop insurance derivative? seekingalpha.com

To: energyplay who wrote (58873)	12/14/2009 3:37:39 AM
From: Seeker of Truth	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 217589

Hello EnergyPlay, I get the feeling that gold is now a much better investment than oil. Let's assume that oil supply drops 2% a year. This 2% can be replaced by wind energy which is converted to electric power in the grid which fills batteries everywhere. The drivers return home and plug in their car batteries over night. Voila, no energy shortage, no need for the oil price to rise, aside from the general inflation which raises the price of eggs, paper clips, cement, wine, salaries ... more or less equally. What do you and others think? Seeker of Truth