http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/…

The United States has asked four oil-rich Gulf states for close to 300 billion dollars to help it curb the global financial meltdown, Kuwait’s daily Al-Seyassah reported Thursday.

Quoting “highly informed” sources, the daily said Washington has asked Saudi Arabia for 120 billion dollars, the United Arab Emirates for 70 billion dollars, Qatar for 60 billion dollars and was seeking 40 billion dollars from Kuwait.

Al-Seyassah said Washington sought the amount as “financial aid” to face the fallout of the financial crisis and help prevent its economy from sliding into a painful recession.

The daily said the United States plans to use the funds to help the ailing automobile industry, banks and other companies suffering from the global financial turmoil.

The four nations, all members of OPEC, produce together 14 million barrels of oil per day, around half of the cartel’s production and about 17 percent of world supplies.

The four states are estimated to have amassed close to 1.5 trillion dollars in surplus in the past six years due to high oil prices that rocketed above 147 dollars in July before sliding to just above 50 dollars.

The daily also said that the United States has asked Kuwait to forgive its Iraqi debt estimated at around 16 billion dollars.

$300b is really a drop in the bucket though compared to the $7.76t promised by the government.

http://www.forbes.com/…

China’s decision to raise fuel prices is unlikely to have much of an impact on demand, which is the fundamental cause of inflation, Morgan Stanley said in a note.

‘It seems to us that the government is trying to cope with the near-term financial difficulties of refiners and IPPs (independent power producers) rather than trying to depress demand,’ the note said.

The regulator, the National Development and Reform Commission, said last night that it would raise gasoline and diesel prices by 1,000 yuan per ton and jet fuel by 1,500 yuan per ton, effective from today.

The government has also raised electricity tariffs for industrial consumers and announced caps on cap coal prices.

Morgan Stanley (nyse: MS – news – people ) said the price hikes will also add more inflationary pressure to China’s economy, making it less likely that the government will permit more significant power tariff rises in the next few months.

It said that while there will be a temporary improvement in the performance of China’s refiners and independent power producers, the ‘underlying imbalance is not fixed’ and more inflationary pressures are expected.

‘Inflation can only be fixed by controlling demand, not prices,’ Morgan Stanley said.

‘When the regulators focus on pricing control, the imbalance only deepens and earnings visibility becomes worse. Our market de-rating call still holds.’

This is just what I was talking about beetlbumjl. They can’t continue to have artificially low prices without consequences. Of course this retard from Morgan Stanley needs to head back to economics class. Inflation can be controlled by the government… by not printing more money i.e. monetizing debt. What he is really referring to is the increase in prices as a result of higher demand. That’s not “inflation.”

If we look back just a few years we can see that there has been a remarkable shift in the definition. I don’t know of any word which has gone through such a translation without having prior or secondary meanings still listed. My conspiracist sense is tingling.

Regardless, the Chinese government has kicked a bucket of water and is now trying desperately to stop the waves by shaking it. If they allow the natural price of fuel to return that would slow consumption. The demand for energy is likely not going to be reduced but naturally higher prices will incentivize entrepreneurs to find new, cheaper energy sources when compared to oil.

Update:

Just on CNN they were talking about this. The mentioned that Saudi Arabia was wanting to talk about strengthening the dollar and the anchor said that “that would likely bring prices down.” Well of course it would. Oil is traded in US dollars. The US dollar is the reserve currency for much of the world. So if the dollar is worth less, in turn leading to other currencies being worth less, then oil will cost more. If the dollar is worth more then less dollars are needed to purchase the same unit of oil. Therefore prices must drop otherwise the value of oil would have to be rising at the same time. The same anchor said that increasing the prices would limit demand. That’s sort of true in that the higher costs may divert people to other means however in the larger view it’s a ridiculous statement. The demand, as in the desire for a energy source, is still the same or increasing. It’s just less consumable because of higher costs.

http://news.yahoo.com/…

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.

The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.

“This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities,” said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.

The lawmaker said Americans “are at the mercy” of OPEC for how much they pay for gasoline, which this week hit a record average of $3.79 a gallon.

The White House opposes the bill, saying that targeting OPEC investment in the United States as a source for damage awards “would likely spur retaliatory action against American interests in those countries and lead to a reduction in oil available to U.S. refiners.”

The administration said less oil going to refineries would limit available gasoline supplies and raise fuel prices.

Foreign investment in U.S. oil infrastructure has declined in the last decade. But the state-owned oil companies of several OPEC nations are owners of U.S. refineries, and those investments could be affected if the legislation becomes law, said Arlington, Virginia-based FBR Capital Markets Corp.

The bill also requires the Government Accountability Office to carryout a study on the effects of prior oil company mergers on energy prices.

The Senate would still have to approve the House measure.

The Senate previously approved similar legislation as part of a broad energy bill. However, the OPEC-suing provision was removed after White House opposition in order to get the underlying energy legislation signed into law.

Speculation is an essential knowledge source for the market. Just like any other source it’s important for the market to function optimally. The speculation is wild because some group of jackasses in Congress and the executive branch of the USA government are waging wars on people who did us no harm. Because they are screwing up the value of the currency and attempting to carve the path for future energy sources. No bill can guarantee prices. They will likely cause shortages like the late 1970’s. As Mises said when the government interferes and screws things up… they know nothing else but to continue to interfere and to screw up.

I’m not sure how the hell they can enforce anything like this, I’ve not read the bill yet, but this sounds to me to be a declaration or war or at least an aggressive act.

If the government wants prices to drop stop the intervention. Leave the market alone. Leave the people and governments of the oil producing nations alone. Leave domestic energy production alone. Let them build refineries, let them drill for new oil sources, let them build nuke plants. Then will the costs normalize.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/…

Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the state-controlled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world’s great democracies-France and Germany.

What a country teaches its young people reflects its bedrock national beliefs. Schools hand down a society’s historical narrative to the next generation. There has been a great deal of debate over the ways in which this historical ideology is passed on-over Japanese textbooks that downplay the Nanjing Massacre, Palestinian textbooks that feature maps without Israel, and new Russian guidelines that require teachers to portray Stalinism more favorably. Yet there has been almost no analysis of how countries teach economics, even though the subject is equally crucial in shaping the collective identity that drives foreign and domestic policies.

Just as schools teach a historical narrative, they also pass on “truths” about capitalism, the welfare state, and other economic principles that a society considers self-evident. In both France and Germany, for instance, schools have helped ingrain a serious aversion to capitalism. In one 2005 poll, just 36 percent of French citizens said they supported the free-enterprise system, the only one of 22 countries polled that showed minority support for this cornerstone of global commerce. In Germany, meanwhile, support for socialist ideals is running at all-time highs-47 percent in 2007 versus 36 percent in 1991.

I wish there were some real sources listed though I really wouldn’t expect any of that information to be available online. For years I’ve wanted to get my hands on some English history and social studies books to compare to what is taught in the United States. I’ve little doubt that there is a heavy anti-capitalism leaning given their general attitude toward American policies and how slanted our history books are. I probably can find some on Amazon.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/…

The US today signed a deal with Israel offering $30bn (£15.1bn) in military aid to its closest Middle East ally.

The package coincides with US plans to offer Saudi Arabia advanced weapons and air systems that would greatly improve its air force.

Israel has said it has no opposition to US aid to Saudi Arabia, which comes as America seeks to bolster its Arab allies in the face of an increasingly assertive Iran.

Why do we give Israel aid at all? As far as I can tell they do pretty well for themselves. As do the Saudis. Another entry in the clusterfuck which is the United States interventionist foreign policy.

I’ve been reading Ron Paul’s latest book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom. It’s just a collection of speeches given to Congress but it’s full of great tidbits. If you don’t spend your days watching CSPAN this book will show you just how screwed up our foreign policy is. Sending aid to our enemies and our enemy’s enemies who later become our enemies. Funding two sides of a war with cash and weapons. Complaining that a current enemy attacked someone… with the weapons we sold them to fight them. It’s amazing. I highly recommend it.