Venezuela and North Dakota Oil Updates
Estimates of Original Oil-in-Place
A comprehensive study by Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) established the magnitude of the original oil-in-place (OOIP) at 1,180 billion barrels of oil (BBO), a commonly cited estimate for the Orinoco Oil Belt (Fiorillo, 1987); PDVSA recently revised this value to more than 1,300 BBO (Gonzalez and others, 2006). In this study the median OOIP was estimated at 1,300 BBO and the maximum at 1,400 BBO. The minimum OOIP was estimated at 900 BBO, given the uncertainty of regional sandstone distribution and oil saturation (Fiorillo, 1987).
Estimates of Recovery Factor
Recovery factor, or that percentage of the OOIP that is determined to be technically recoverable, was estimated from what is currently known of the technology for recovery of heavy oil in the Orinoco Oil Belt AU and in other areas, particularly California, west Texas, and western Canada. The minimum recovery factor was estimated to be 15 percent, the recovery expected for cold production using horizontal wells. The median recovery factor was estimated to be 45 percent, on the assumption that horizontal drilling and thermal recovery methods might be widely used. The maximum recovery factor was estimated to be 70 percent, on the assumption that other recovery processes, in addition to horizontal drilling and steam-assisted gravity drainage, might eventually be applied on a large scale in the Orinoco Oil Belt AU.
The assessment of technically recoverable heavy oil and associated gas resources is shown in table 2. The mean of the distribution of heavy oil resources is about 513 BBO, with a range from 380 to about 652 BBO. The mean estimate of associated dissolved-gas resource is 135 trillion cubic feet of gas (TCFG), with a range from 53 to 262 TCFG. No attempt was made in this study to estimate either economically recoverable
2. North Dakota raised its forecast for oil output on growth in and around the Bakken Shale formation There is another 100,000 barrels a day in north Dakota from oil that is not in the Bakken.
Output may reach 300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day by mid- 2011 and stay at that level for 10 to 15 years, said Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Mineral Resources Department. The state’s previous estimate was 220,000 to 280,000.
The forecast was raised on discoveries by companies such as Continental Resources Inc., Helms said in an interview. Drilling advances are enabling producers to tap the Bakken, where rocks lack the porosity and permeability of conventional oil fields. The Bakken contributed to last year’s 7.5 percent gain in U.S. crude output, the biggest since 1955 and the first in 18 years. The Energy Department forecast a 1.8 percent increase in 2010.
The top end of North Dakota’s production projection would represent more than 7 percent of nationwide oil output.
One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars – not people, new figures show
New analysis of 2009 US Department of Agriculture figures suggests biofuel revolution is impacting on world food supplies
John Vidal | environment editor
guardian.co.uk | 22 January 2010
One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies.
The 2009 figures from the US Department of Agriculture shows ethanol production rising to record levels driven by farm subsidies and laws which require vehicles to use increasing amounts of biofuels.
“The grain grown to produce fuel in the US [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels,” said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that conducted the analysis.
Last year 107m tonnes of grain, mostly corn, was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol. This was nearly twice as much as in 2007, when Bush challenged farmers to increase production by 500% by 2017 to cut oil imports and reduce carbon emissions.
More than 80 new ethanol plants have been built since then, with more expected by 2015, by which time the US will need to produce a further 5bn gallons of ethanol if it is to meet its renewable fuel standard.
According to Brown, the growing demand for US ethanol derived from grains helped to push world grain prices to record highs between late 2006 and 2008. In 2008, the Guardian revealed a secret World Bank report that concluded that the drive for biofuels by American and European governments had pushed up food prices by 75%, in stark contrast to US claims that prices had risen only 2-3% as a result.
Since then, the number of hungry people in the world has increased to over 1 billion people, according to the UN’s World Food programme.
“Continuing to divert more food to fuel, as is now mandated by the US federal government in its renewable fuel standard, will likely only reinforce the disturbing rise in world hunger. By subsidising the production of ethanol to the tune of some $6bn each year, US taxpayers are in effect subsidising rising food bills at home and around the world,” said Brown.
“The worst economic crisis since the great depression has recently brought food prices down from their peak, but they still remain well above their long-term average levels.”
The US is by far the world’s leading grain exporter, exporting more than Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Russia combined. In 2008, the UN called for a comprehensive review of biofuel production from food crops.
“There is a direct link between biofuels and food prices. The needs of the hungry must come before the needs of cars,” said Meredith Alexander, biofuels campaigner at ActionAid in London. As well as the effect on food, campaigners also argue that many scientists question whether biofuels made from food crops actually save any greenhouse gas emissions.
But ethanol producers deny that their record production means less food. “Continued innovation in ethanol production and agricultural technology means that we don’t have to make a false choice between food and fuel. We can more than meet the demand for food and livestock feed while reducing our dependence on foreign oil through the production of homegrown renewable ethanol,” said Tom Buis, the chief executive of industry group Growth Energy.
About that bank tax Obama touts
By Dean Baker | The Guardian | January 18, 2010
President Obama proposed a tax on the country’s largest banks to help recover the money lost under the Troubled Assets Relief Programme (Tarp). This tax is a positive step. However, it will not come close to recovering the losses incurred in the bailouts and it will do almost nothing to change the way that the banks do business. For this we will need a larger financial speculation tax.
First, it is necessary to be clear on the extent of the losses incurred in the bailouts of the financial system. The losses in the Tarp are currently pegged at close to $120bn, mostly due to the bailout of AIG, the giant US insurance company. This money was virtually a direct handout to several large banks, as the government’s money allowed AIG to make payments to Goldman Sachs and other large banks that would not have been possible if it had fallen into bankruptcy.
But these losses are far from the complete picture with the Tarp. On the night before Christmas, the Treasury department lifted the $200bn cap on the amount that both the mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can draw on the Treasury. They both now have unlimited lines of credit.
No one knows how much their bailouts will eventually cost taxpayers, but it is almost certain that their losses are not entirely attributable to the portfolio that the mortgage giants held on 7 September 2008 when they were put into government conservatorship. Many of the losses incurred by Fannie and Freddie are almost certainly due to losses on mortgages they purchased from banks after they went into conservatorship. In other words, Fannie and Freddie were paying too much for the mortgages they purchased from the banks. This is exactly what the Tarp was originally supposed to do.
In effect, the treasury department has run a version of Tarp through Fannie and Freddie. If we want to calculate the money taxpayers lost through from the Tarp programme we should certainly include the money lost bailing out these mortgage giants, which can now exceed $400bn if events turn out badly. This means that if the point is to recover the money lost in the Tarp, the bank tax is likely to fall short by a large margin.
The other key consideration in making the banks pay should be to structure a tax that changes the way the banks do business. This money lost in the Tarp programme is just a small fraction of what the banks’ greed cost the country. We will likely lose more than $4tn in output in this downturn, more than 40 times the projected revenue from the tax over the next decade.
The $9bn that is projected to be collected each year is equal to about 5% of their annual profits and bonuses. It is unlikely to have any noticeable impact on the way they do business. In other words, we can still expect them to be pursuing short-term profits and giving little consideration to long-term investments.
A tax on financial speculation more generally, which will also apply to hedge funds and other financial institutions, would be a far more effective mechanism in changing behaviour. It could also raise very substantial revenue. In the UK, a tax of 0.25% on the purchase and sale of shares of stock raises the equivalent of $30bn annually in the US relative to the size of its economy. A broadly based transactions tax – that would apply not only to stock, but also to options, futures, credit default swaps and other financial instruments – could raise more than $150bn a year in the US.
Such a tax would also make the financial sector more efficient by reducing the volume of short-term trading that serves no productive purpose. The share of the private sector that is devoted to investment banking and commodities trading has nearly quadrupled in the last three decades.
By reducing the volume of trading this tax would make the financial sector more efficient, freeing up resources for productive uses. This would be comparable to improving the trucking sector by reducing the number of trucks and drivers it takes to deliver goods to wholesalers and retailers. Industries are supposed to become more efficient as the economy develops. It is only finance that is becoming less efficient due to its ever-growing complexity.
In short, a tax on financial speculation is a win for just about everyone but the speculators. President Obama’s bank tax is a good start but we have to go much further.
Laughing all the way to the bank
Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs
Lee Sustar looks at the farcical hearings of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on the factors that led to the economic meltdown.
January 19, 2010
THE TIMING couldn’t have been better for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which held its first public hearings on January 13-14.
With their top employees set to enjoy huge bonuses thanks to taxpayer bailouts, the CEOs of the country’s big banks should have been in the hot seat for their role in the financial panic of 2008. The Obama administration’s proposed levy on banks seemingly would have upped the pressure, too.
Instead, the bankers got away with a few sharp words and some finger-wagging by commission members. Commission Chair Phil Angelides, a Democrat and former state treasurer of California, sparred a bit with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and hectored other bank executives. But Angelides was only posturing. His commission has failed to make use of the few tools that it has to investigate the banks reckless practices that helped cause the meltdown.
Even the New York Times editorial board was taken aback by the commission’s failures:
[T]he commission–which is supposed to file a final report by December 15–has not issued a single subpoena for documents. Instead, investigators have apparently been relying on voluntary cooperation, public records and information-sharing agreements that have been negotiated with federal agencies. A thorough investigation requires source documents that reveal what people were thinking and doing at the time of the events, and that illuminate, buttress or contradict testimony.
Instead of a serious inquiry, Angelides settled for giving the bankers a tongue-lashing, even as his party quietly tends to Wall Street’s interests.
That’s in keeping with the Democrats’ approach to the financial crisis since it broke in the fall of 2008. It was the Democratic Congress that worked with the Bush administration to pass the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bill that funded the bank bailout.
And it was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, then head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who insisted that the nationalized insurance company AIG pay its debts at 100 cents on dollar–which meant that tens of billions in U.S. taxpayer money flowed through AIG into the coffers of big U.S. and European banks. AIG paid $12.9 billion of taxpayer money to Goldman Sachs–and now, Goldman is set to pay out around $22 billion in bonuses.
But the AIG-Goldman scam is only the most obvious of the Obama administration’s giveaways to Wall Street. So far, the U.S. government has loaned or guaranteed up to $13 trillion to financial institutions and other businesses–a figure nearly the size of the entire annual economic output of the U.S.
The rationale for this aid, we were told, is that it would prevent a total economic collapse and get credit flowing to businesses and consumers once again. The bailouts did pull the financial system back from the brink. Thanks to near-zero interest rates set by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the banks can borrow cheaply and use the money to finance investments where a higher return seems certain.
For example, some banks are borrowing from the government at virtually no interest and buying U.S. Treasury bills that pay much higher interest. That is, the banks are borrowing from one part of the U.S. government and profiting by lending it back to another part of the government at a much higher rate. Many financial institutions are also using funds borrowed from the Fed to invest in foreign currencies to gain higher returns–the so-called carry trade.
But when it comes to helping hard-pressed working people, the bankers aren’t interested. Despite a ballyhooed government program to spur banks to help homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages, the federal Home Affordable Modification Program has permanently helped only 66,000 homeowners out of 4 million that may be eligible–even as foreclosures rise from 2.8 million in 2009 to an expected 3 million in 2010.
Instead, the banks are using government money to pad their balance sheets and help them absorb losses resulting from risky investments in complex financial instruments tied to mortgages. [Losses which their officers may have been profiting from as indirect counter-parties over the past decade]
GIVEN THE banks’ egregious role in the crash and their hoarding of government cash amid the recovery, one might have expected that financial reform legislation would be inevitable. Instead, Wall Street lobbyists have spread enough money around both sides of the aisle in Congress to kill any meaningful reform. Even the weak proposed consumer financial protection agency has been pronounced dead.
As journalist Chris Hedges put it:
These corporations don’t make anything. They don’t produce anything. They gamble and bet and speculate. And when they lose vast sums, they raid the U.S. Treasury so they can go back and do it again.
Never mind that $50 trillion in global wealth was erased between September 2007 and March 2009, including $7 trillion in the U.S. stock market and $6 trillion in the housing market. Never mind that the total amount of retirement and household wealth trashed was $7.5 trillion, or that we saw $2 trillion in 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts evaporate. Never mind the $1.9 trillion in traditional defined-benefit plans and the $2.6 trillion in non-pension assets that went up in smoke. Never mind the job losses, the foreclosures and the 35 percent jump in personal and small-business bankruptcies.
There are bundles of new money, taken again from us, to make deals and hand out outrageous bonuses. And when these trillions run out they will come back for more until our currency becomes junk.
So what about President Barack Obama’s plan to squeeze the banks with a special tax to recover $117 billion from the bailout?
At first glance, it seems like a delayed, but welcome, bid to claw back taxpayer funds. But the proposed tax would be just a 0.15 percent levy on assets beyond the banks’ core capital–and it would be paid over a decade. All that does is turn a taxpayer giveaway into a loan at rock-bottom interest rates. As the Washington Post noted, “At a projected $9 billion per year, the fee would be a mere sliver of the banks’ estimated quarter-trillion-dollar pre-tax profits.”
Congressional Democrats, who are already panicking over their prospects in the November elections, will pick up the banner of Obama’s proposed bank tax to try to get in front of voters’ anger. But the Wall Street-White House axis has already provided the Republicans with an incredible political gift.
Suddenly, right-wing politicians who usually serve as a mouthpiece for big business are railing against the injustice of bailing out bankers while working people have nowhere to turn. Of course, these Republican hacks are only playing to the right-wing populist “tea party” crowd. They’d never seriously challenge the business agenda.
But thanks to the Democrats’ devotion to the bankers, the Republicans can loudly denounce government bailouts to big business even as they further Corporate America’s agenda.
Whichever party is in office, the bankers win.
Obama’s Latest Ruse: the Bank Tax
The Big Lies Just Keep Coming
By Alan Nasser | January 15, 2010
When president Obama was awarded Advertising Age’s 2009 Marketer of the Year award, we were alerted to expect carefully crafted public relations posturing in defense of the reputation of Brand Obama. We have not been disappointed. The president has regularly taken verbal pot shots at the financial oligarchy in a cynical effort to convey the impression that he shares the public’s outrage at the behavior of the plutocrats. But he has thrown no sticks and stones at the banksters, who know as well as you and I that mere words can never hurt them.
None of Obama’s faux outrage has been as disingenuous as his Wednesday announcement that he will finally respond sympathetically to the public’s deep resentment of the administration’s tolerance -and therefore encouragement- of the bad guys’ looting of the public treasury.
Obama assured his constituents that he would “recoup every last penny for American taxpayers” by taking back, in the form of taxes on the banks, the wealth that households have been forced to transfer to the coffers of the instigators of the financial crisis.
The announcement was timed to offset what will surely be another surge of public anger at the expected announcement this week of the banks’ year-end bonus payments.
The proposed taxes would apply to financial institutions with more than $50 billion in assets and would extract about $90 billion from them over ten years. Obama’s central claim is that this would cover all losses incurred by the government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). We are supposed to be relieved that households will in the end be repaid all that has been transferred from them by TARP. “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it,” said Obama.
Obama is perpetrating a massive ruse. The tax-the-banks proposal rests on conspicuously false empirical assumptions and appalling math.
A key premise of the tax proposal is that TARP is the government’s sole gift to the financial elite. This is of course false: TARP is in fact a relatively small fraction of the State’s total rescue effort. Financial institutions have also been treated to no-cost and virtually unlimited access to credit, broad guarantees against losses and lax regulation, to mention only the most conspicuous gifts. Even if TARP did represent the administration’s total commitment to financial institutions, Obama’s claim would still be nonsense. TARP handed $700 billion to the banks. How does $90 billion “recoup every last penny” of $700 billion? The president thinks, with good reason so far, that he can get away with anything. Anything. Hence the screamingly counterfactual premise and the slapstick math.
That’s not the worst of it. Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General charged with overseeing the bailout plan, reports that the bailout could end up costing $23.7 trillion. Critics of Barofsky accuse him of exaggeration. Let’s suppose they are right. Say Barofsky doubled the true cost of the government’s commitment. So what? Bloomberg reports, with no challengers, that the cumulative commitment to financial rescue initiatives amount so far to more than $8.5 trillion. $90 billion is a small drop in a big bucket.
How do these figures compare to what working people have lost? Households have so far lost $12 trillion in wealth in the wake of the crisis. By the end of the third quarter of 2008, shortly after the announcement of an impending collapse of the entire financial system, households had already lost $647 billion in real estate, $922 billion in stocks, $523 billion in mutual funds and $653 billion in life insurance and pension funds reserves. Total destruction of household wealth in Q3 2008 came to $2.8 trillion, the worst decline on record. That comes to four times TARP’s $700 billion. If “[w]e want our money back,” we’re dead out of luck. Obama knows this, but the man is an instrument of his financial masters, and the ad campaign functioning to obscure this reality requires big lies. The president has these coming out of his ears.
Alan Nasser is professor emeritus of Political Economy at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He can be reached at nassera@evergreen.edu
Hariri: Lebanon will soon sign free-trade deal with Turkey
Premier invites Turkish private sector to step up investment
Daily Star
January 13, 2010
BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri said during a meeting with Turkish and Lebanese businessmen in Istanbul on Tuesday a free trade agreement between Lebanon and Turkey will soon be signed. According to Hariri, the two countries have growing markets with high potential in the private sectors, which, he said is the driving force behind the economic vision of both countries. “Turkey and Lebanon have a joint goal to achieve economic prosperity in the region,” said the premier.
Hariri was speaking during a luncheon hosted by the Turkish-Lebanese Business Council of the Foreign Economic Relations Board in Istanbul.
Hariri called on the Turkish private sector to invest in Lebanon, and invited Lebanese and Turkish businessmen and women to exchange visits.
“A lot of work remains to be done despite Lebanon’s economic progress,” Hariri said. However, he added that as stated in the Ministerial Statement, the Cabinet faces challenges related to communications, infrastructure, energy and environmental issues.
Turkish Environment and Forests Minister Veysel Eroglu, in turn, called for strengthening bilateral relations, particularly at the economic level.
He also voiced hope for stronger cooperation between Lebanon and Turkey.
Lebanon and Turkey have signed major agreements on military, agriculture and transport cooperation, including a deal to lift entry visas and a Turkish pledge to supply Lebanon with natural gas and electricity.
On Monday Hariri and his Turkish counterpart Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan witnessed the signing of six deals that also covered the areas of health and education.
Hariri arrived in Turkey on Sunday and will wrapped up his visit on Tuesday.
The agreement on visa-free travel between Turkey and Lebanon comes after similar deals between Turkey and Syria, and Turkey and Jordan. Visa requirements have already been cancelled between Syria and Lebanon and between Syria and Jordan.
Beirut newspapers on Tuesday said that the measure is similar to the Schengen visa application which has made traveling between 5 European member countries much easier and less bureaucratic.
Erdogan said Turkey will supply natural gas and electricity to help meet Lebanon’s energy needs and that the two countries planned a ferry service between their Mediterranean coasts.
Media reports Tuesday said Turkey also proposed the idea of “strategic cooperation” between the two countries similar to that of the Turkey-Syria High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council. The reports said Hariri promised to consider the offer.
On Monday, Hariri and Erdogan lashed out at Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace and air strikes in Gaza, warning they were undermining prospects for peace in the region. “Attacks on Lebanon is terrorism itself … We have to stand shoulder by shoulder against the enemy’s plans … We have to stop Israel,” Hariri told a press conference.
Erdogan, whose country’s once-flourishing ties with Israel took a sharp downturn last year, said that Turkey “will never stay silent” on Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace.
He slammed the Israeli over flights as “unacceptable action that threatens global peace.”
“They the Israelis have disproportional capabilities and power and they use them … They do not abide by UN resolutions,” he added. – The Daily Star
Health care “reform” – The liberals fall in line
By Lance Selfa | January 11, 2010
AS HEALTH care reform legislation in Congress limps to what National Nurses United President Rose Ann DeMoro called an “inglorious end,” it’s remarkable how few liberals feel enthusiastic about a bill that is supposed to represent a crowning achievement for them.
Aside from a few policy wonks, many (if not most) liberals feel that the health care legislation that will emerge from Senate and House negotiations is insufficient–and, in parts, harmful to ordinary people’s health care. The most ardent supporters of reform know that the likely “compromise” modeled on the more conservative Senate version of the bill will be a huge gift to the insurance industry. At the same time, they feel that Democrats have gotten far less than they could or should have, in large part because they didn’t even try.
What happened to all the brave announcements of “lines in the sand” and “standing up for real reform?” Over the summer, the House Progressive Caucus threatened to vote as a bloc against any legislation that didn’t include a “public option”–a publicly financed insurance system to compete with private insurers. Today, it’s almost certain that the final version of the bill will not include a public option.
So will the House progressives follow through on their threat to defeat the bill? Don’t count on it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might give a few progressive caucus members a “free vote” to oppose the bill if there’s enough of a cushion to pass it, but if progressives stand between passage of the bill and its defeat, don’t expect them to vote to defeat it.
What about Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chair who made news in December when he took a very public stand against the bill that was about to pass the Senate. In a December 17 Washington Post op-ed article, Dean wrote:
Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform…Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.
Dean was right on target with that criticism. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs even attacked him for it during a press briefing.
Yet of late, Dean has become a lot less vocal and a lot more accepting of the legislation as it stands. As he told Meet the Press on December 20: “I would let this bill go to conference committee and see if we can fix this bill more…Let’s see what they add to this bill and make it work. If they can make it work without a public option, I’m all ears.”
According to Newsweek reporter Suzy Khimm, Dean’s somersault resulted from back-channel contact with the White House and the realization that the Senate bill was going to pass. As Khimm explained:
While he attempted last week to use the failure of the public option as a new point of leverage, Dean only succeeded in alienating himself from the key players in the debate (and the flip-flops that riddled his other criticisms of the bill didn’t help his credibility). In the end, Dean wants to be at the negotiating table–not cast outside it–and he probably decided to adjust accordingly.
Then there are the elected representatives who have been on record for years as favoring a single-payer health care system eliminating the role of private health insurers. For them, even the prospect of a “public option” represented a retreat from their longstanding public positions. Surely they would hold up the banner of genuine health care reform, right?
Not really. In fact, they proved more adept at talking about real reform than actually voting for it.
Take Rep. Anthony Weiner, the telegenic New York congress member who made the rounds of television talk shows throughout the fall, bashing the insurance industry and calling for genuine health reform. During the House debate on its bill, Weiner extracted a promise from Pelosi that his amendment supporting a single-payer system would receive an “up-or-down” vote.
As the October deadline for the vote drew near, Pelosi–reportedly with White House encouragement–began wiggling out of the deal. Single-payer advocates mobilized to hold Pelosi to her promise, but Weiner withdrew his amendment. Single-payer advocates Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) issued a letter supporting the climbdown. It read, in part:
Many progressives in Congress, ourselves included, feel that calling for a vote tomorrow for single-payer would be tantamount to driving the movement over a cliff…We are now asking you to join us in suggesting to congressional leaders that this is not the right time to call the roll on a stand-alone single-payer bill. That time will come.
Pelosi’s cover story was that allowing Weiner’s amendment would open the floodgates to other amendments, like those banning abortion. So what happened? Weiner withdrew his amendment, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) introduced his, banning coverage for abortion. The bill, with the Stupak amendment included, passed the House.
Of all the House progressives, only Kucinich and Rep. Eric Massa of New York voted against it. Though Kucinich did the right thing in voting against the House bill, his and Conyers’ letter had already given other progressives justification in voting for it.
Another articulate critic of pro-corporate health insurance reform–and a regular on liberal shows like MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show–Vermont’s independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, got further than Weiner. He actually introduced his single-payer amendment to the Senate and, under Republican pressure, spent six hours on the Senate floor, reading it line-by-line.
Senate leaders, worried that Sanders’ amendment was delaying the vote they needed to move the bill forward, pressured him to stand down. He did, after receiving a pledge that $10 billion would be invested in community health centers. Sanders’ office later issued a press release saying the provision will “revolutionize” health care. Sanders’ was one of the 60 votes that moved the Senate bill along.
So as Congress, in closed-door negotiations, moves toward a final vote on health care reform, liberals are preparing themselves to accept a pro-corporate health care bill that is unlikely to fix more than a few of the problems associated with the current dysfunctional system.
The chorus of liberal opinion selling this rotten compromise to the most committed supporters of health care reform will grow louder. We will hear all of the claptrap that always gets hauled out in these situations: “We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” “We can improve the bill in the future,” “If the Republicans hate this bill, there must be something good about it,” and “If this bill goes down to defeat, it will embolden the right, and chances for any other reforms will be finished.”
As always, the liberals will play the loyal soldiers for an administration that has shown it is much more interested in winning the support of industry “stakeholders” and conservatives like Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) than in fighting for any genuine health reform.
Even the prospect of the oft-cited positive effects of the bill–30 million uninsured Americans covered, a ban on the insurance industry policy of “rescission” (dropping coverage for sick people on technicalities) and denial of insurance to those with “pre-existing conditions”–may turn out to be mirages.
The liberals who are now convincing themselves that these are reasons to vote for the bill may find out that most Americans won’t consider forcing people to buy private insurance as “universal coverage.” And they may also find out that loopholes in the bill allowing insurers to jack up prices to unaffordable levels will neuter the other tough-sounding insurance reforms. If the Senate plan to tax “Cadillac” health care plans remains in the bill–as Obama prefers that it does–substantial numbers of Americans are going to see a cut in their current health care benefits.
Unfortunately, that may be where we end up because of liberalism’s hard-wired propensity always to accept “half a loaf” without even trying to fight for the whole loaf. In an insightful commentary focused predominantly on liberalism’s putative leader, President Obama, Huffington Post contributor Drew Westen put his finger on this point:
I don’t honestly know what this president believes. But I believe if he doesn’t figure it out soon, start enunciating it, and start fighting for it, he’s not only going to give American families hungry for security a series of half-loaves where they could have had full ones, but he’s going to set back the Democratic Party and the progressive movement by decades, because the average American is coming to believe that what they’re seeing right now is “liberalism,” and they don’t like what they see.
Thanks to Helen Redmond for information on the role of Reps. Kucinich, Conyers and Weiner.
In 2009, 80% of U.S. debt was “substantially purchased by the Federal Reserve”
By Bill Gross | PIMCO | Excerpt
Here’s the problem that the U.S. Fed’s “exit” poses in simple English: Our fiscal 2009 deficit totaled nearly 12% of GDP and required over $1.5 trillion of new debt to finance it. The Chinese bought a little ($100 billion) of that, other sovereign wealth funds bought some more, but as shown in Chart 2, foreign investors as a group bought only 20% of the total – perhaps $300 billion or so. The balance over the past 12 months was substantially purchased by the Federal Reserve. Of course they purchased more 30-year Agency mortgages than Treasuries, but PIMCO and others sold them those mortgages and bought – you guessed it – Treasuries with the proceeds. The conclusion of this fairytale is that the government got to run up a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit, didn’t have to sell much of it to private investors, and lived happily ever – ever – well, not ever after, but certainly in 2009. Now, however, the Fed tells us that they’re “fed up,” or that they think the economy is strong enough for them to gracefully “exit,” or that they’re confident that private investors are capable of absorbing the balance. Not likely.
Iran, Turkey plan to set up joint industrial zone
Press TV – January 9, 2010 10:21:48 GMT
Iran and Turkey plan to set up a joint industrial zone on their shared border, a Turkish official has announced.
Turkish Industry and Trade Minister Nihat Ergun made the remarks after a meeting with Iran’s Industry Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian in Ankara on Friday.
Ergun noted that the two sides have agreed to form a committee to discuss the establishment of the joint industrial area in a way to boost economic cooperation.
”A technical committee consisting of 10 persons from each side has been established. The committee will work on the establishment of an industrial zone on the joint border, ” ILNA news agency quoted Erdun as saying.
The Iranian and Turkish officials also discussed ways of increasing industrial cooperation.
Separately, Turkish State Minister Zafer Caglayan said that Turkey’s exports to Iran reached $1.7 billion in the first 11 months of 2009.
After a meeting with Mehrabian in Ankara on Thursday, Caglayan said Tehran is an important partner for Turkey and that the volume of trade between the two countries has risen to $10 billion in the past eight years.
China, the world’s new leading exporter
Press TV – January 8, 2010
As the prospects of China over-shadowing the struggling US economy grow stronger, Beijing robs Berlin of its title as the world’s leading exporter.
Chinese exports from January to October were valued at 1.07 trillion dollars, enjoying a wafer-thin lead over Germany whose exports during the same period amounted to 1.05 trillion dollars, AFP reported.
The Chinese economy has grown 15 times since the late 70s, when the country opened its doors to foreign investment. In 2007, China overtook Germany as the world’s third largest economy. It now threatens to topple Japan — second in the global economy after the United States.
Analysts have given credit to Beijing over its economic management during the global recession when the German economy shrank by five percent. The country found itself in its worst economic predicament since the World War II.
Submitting her four-year plan to the Bundestag in November, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned German legislators about worsening economic conditions before the country can rebound from the effects of the global recession. The chancellor’s recovery measures, among them a policy to deny the blue and white collar workers parts of their benefits, attracted notable opposition from the rival factions.
Boycotting the Occupation
By Joharah Baker | January 6, 2010
Just say the word Starbucks and I literally cringe. And it’s not because they make such awful coffee. It’s their political stance towards Palestine that makes the idea of putting even one cent into their coffers almost sacrilegious. Starbucks has long been high on the list of products to be boycotted by Palestinians and their supporters. Starbuck’s chairman, Howard Shultz is a very articulate, self-proclaimed “active Zionist” who makes no secret of his position on supporting all that is Israel. While Starbucks refutes the claim that it directly funds the Israeli army and settlements, there is enough evidence that it gives its fair share of moral and financial support to the state, reportedly giving $1.5 billion annually to Israel. In 1998, Shultz was honored by the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah with “The Israel 50th Anniversary Friend of Zion Tribute Award” for his services to Israel in “playing a key role in promoting close alliance between the United States and Israel”. In short, it is no secret where Starbucks’ loyalties lie when it comes to supporting Israel.
For us Palestinians, Starbucks is only a problem outside of our country. Even Israel doesn’t have a Starbucks, which means boycotting it here is a moot point. We, however, face a much more difficult dilemma represented in the deluge of Israeli products that flood our markets, including – shamefully so – those made in Israeli settlements.
At this point, let me just say one thing. I have my fair share of criticisms of how the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank is conducting itself. However, one recent move by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is nothing short of commendable. He has launched a campaign to once and for all rid Palestinian markets of settlement products, even going as far as throwing a heap of settlement products in Salfit into a huge bonfire and watching them go up in flames. His position is twofold – settlements, their inhabitants and their products are all illegal under international law and their halt is one of the Palestinians’ unwavering demands. Secondly, it is inconceivable and really unacceptable for Palestinians to demand that the world boycott settlement products if they themselves do not live up to their own standards.
He’s right, of course. It is completely unacceptable and frankly, downright disgraceful, that Palestinians would market settlement products. Israeli products coming from factories inside the Green Line are bad enough, but that is a tougher hurdle to jump given the Palestinian economy’s heavy dependency on Israel’s market. This is especially true in Jerusalem where there is a ban on Palestinian-made products. Anyone who “illegally” brings in Palestinian products including pharmaceuticals can be fined thousands of shekels.
But there is no excuse for settlement products: period. In the UK, there is a large boycott and divestment movement against Israeli settlement products, which are innocuously labeled as “produced in Israel” in British supermarkets. Pressure has been exerted on the supermarkets to change the label to “Made in the West Bank” so as to differentiate between those illegally produced in settlements and those produced in Israel and so that the consumer could make an informed choice whether to buy those made in settlements. Products such as Avaha Dead Sea Products, Eden Spring Water and Keter Plastics are all found in Palestinian markets as well as abroad. In Berlin, a swanky Ahava shop can be found just across from the Kempinski Hotel on the upscale Kurfürstendamm Avenue. The untrained rookie would think nothing of entering the beautifully lit store with appealing bottles of face cream and Dead Sea mud guaranteed to rejuvenate your skin and restore its youthful glow. Ahava’s US market is even larger, with its own website catering to US customers. What people may not know is that Avaha’s factory is in the settlement of Mitzpe Shalem in the northern Dead Sea area of the occupied West Bank, which is thus, off-limits to Palestinians.
L’Oreal is another example of why we should choose carefully when we go shopping. The French cosmetics manufacturer has come under increasing fire from pro-Palestinian groups for their huge involvement in Israel. L’Oreal Israel’s factory is built in what is now known as Migdal Haemek, a Jewish settlement town that was built on the ethnically cleansed Palestinian town of Al Mujaydil in 1952. The original inhabitants of Al Mujaydil were expelled from their homes and have not been allowed to return since. Palestinians even today are not allowed to buy land, rent or live in what was once a Palestinian village and is now the home to one of the biggest makeup companies in the world.
Palestinians in the occupied territories are under so many pressures, it is almost unfair to ask them to completely boycott Israeli products, especially since their foreign alternative is so much more expensive. The most that can be asked of them is to look for a suitable Palestinian alternative such as Juneidi dairy products, made in Hebron. For those living abroad there is really no excuse for buying any kind of Israeli products, originating from settlements or otherwise. There are enough alternatives for them to choose from. However, even Palestinians here are morally obligated to draw an indelible line where settlements are concerned. For one, we would be literally shooting ourselves in the foot if we help to finance the maintenance of settlements on Palestinian land. Secondly, that same foot will not give us anything to stand on in terms of demanding that others boycott settlements.
Besides, how can one slather on Ahava cream knowing that it is produced on land that is Palestinian, that it goes to support an occupation from which we suffer daily and that the company and people behind it support a system of apartheid where Palestinians are not allowed access to land and natural resources that are rightfully theirs?
In short, all it takes is to think of the horrors of Gaza, of the separation wall that separates Palestinians from each other and from their beloved Jerusalem or of the daily injustices meted out by the Israeli occupation, to turn away from that green Starbucks logo or to put down that tube of lipstick that is tainted with the color of oppression.
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Book Review
Shattered Dreams: The HPV Vaccine Exposed (2019)
By Christina England – 30 Q&As – Book Review & Summary
Lies are Unbekoming | September 4, 2026
… Gardasil received FDA fast-track approval in 2006, Cervarix followed in 2009, and Gardasil 9 was approved in December 2014 with more than double the aluminium adjuvant content of the original. The commercial context is specific. Merck was about to lose patent protection on Zocor and faced $18 billion in Vioxx injury claims from a cardiovascular drug the company had marketed while suppressing its own data showing a five-times increase in heart attacks. Analysts projected the global HPV vaccine market at $4 billion by 2011, contingent on government-funded national programs for teenage girls. The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act had already granted manufacturers complete liability immunity. By 2013, Japan had withdrawn its HPV vaccine recommendation after cataloguing severe adverse reactions in hundreds of girls. No Western government followed. The establishment position across the UK, US, Australia, and most of Europe held, and still holds, that the vaccines are safe and effective, that reported injuries are coincidental, and that cervical cancer prevention justifies the program. The book was published into this position, not against a vacuum.
Shattered Dreams sits alongside Mary Holland’s The HPV Vaccine On Trial and Viera Scheibner’s foundational vaccination work as part of the documented record on what has been done to a generation of teenage girls under the banner of cancer prevention. The full summary unpacks three specific findings: that Merck used the aluminium adjuvant itself as the “placebo” control in 92.5% of trial subjects, making it structurally impossible to detect excess reactions from the adjuvant; that Dr. Sin Hang Lee found HPV DNA fragments bound to aluminium in every one of sixteen Gardasil samples tested, and in the blood and spleen of a New Zealand girl six months after her third dose; and that in every country with high vaccination coverage, including Australia, the UK, Norway, and Sweden, cervical cancer rates have stopped declining and started rising specifically in the vaccinated cohort. Martínez-Lavín’s 2017 calculation puts the number needed to seriously harm with Gardasil 9 at 140, and the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one case at 1,757. Thirteen young women are seriously harmed for every one who benefits. The vaccine was approved on the basis of trials that could not detect what the trials were supposed to detect, and it is still being given to twelve-year-olds today. … Read full review
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