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POPSGoldman Profits. Do We Lose? From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression - and they're about to do it again. In a brilliant article that appears in the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, "The Great American Bubble Machine" by Matt Taibbi, we can see in all its gory and horrendous detail what is so wrong with "the invisible hand of the marketplace." From the article: “any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.”
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POPSPhony recession..from a blog We have the technology now, to make it unnecessary for any one who doesn't want to, to have to work. We could feed the world forever with the cost of ONE stealth bomber.. We could send every college aged student in America through college.. room and board and tuition with the cost of ONE stealth bomber. So why don't we? Big business is too busy lining their profits making stealth bombers, Abrams tanks, helicoptors, etc. We have the technology for electric cars. Nikola Tesla invented electric power that could be sent out like radio waves. Free. But big business killed that. Why? They couldn't meter it and charge for it. Make executive pay in private industry sensible and reasonable. Stop excessive and ruinous profits.. e.g., gas prices, pharmaceutical prices, real estate prices, etc. Roll back prices to 1949 levels and freeze them there. Make all wages sufficient for everyone to be able to have a nice car, a nice home, a good vacation every year. Not ju
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POPSEPA Admits Cap and Trade Won't Work Sen. Inhofe said. “With China and India recently issuing statements of defiant opposition to mandatory emissions controls, acting alone through the job-killing Waxman-Markey bill would impose severe economic burdens on American consumers, businesses, and families, all without any impact on climate.” Getting China and India on board with a carbon reduction plan is highly unlikely. Even then, a multilateral approach does not guarantee a successful system or the ultimate goal of global temperature reduction. Take a look at Europe: The experience of the European Union is Exhibit A. Emissions targets were set too high. Too many pollution allowances were given away to industry. The value of a carbon credit plummeted. Companies made windfall profits by charging customers more for energy while selling allowances they didn’t need. And the Europeans have not had much success reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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POPSThe Israeli Invasion and Gaza's Offshore Gas Fields In 2001 Ariel Sharon stated unequivocally that "Israel would never buy gas from Palestine" intimating that Gaza's offshore gas reserves belong to Israel. In May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority." The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians. Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.
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POPSAl Gore Enrichment Act
other businesses that stand to profit from greenhouse gas regulation? If you have not contributed significant amounts of your own capital to these businesses, what, then, is your role in them? Are you a lobbyist? Are you the face of their public relations efforts? Is your job to run around scaring politicians and the public into enacting greenhouse gas regulation? 4. Is Kleiner-Perkins’ business plan to have you press for legislation and regulation favorable to its clients in order to make them more attractive and available for sale to the public, at which time Kleiner-Perkins would cash out, leaving the public invested in not-ready-for-prime-time companies that have dubious financial prospects and that are dependent on taxpayer subsidies? 5. Your co-founder with Generation Investment Management is former Goldman Sachs partner David Blood. Goldman Sachs is lobbying for global warming legislation and is a part owner of the Chicago Climate Exchange, where carbon credits from cap
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POPSBurma 'Dirty List' Grows Longer Profits still count for more than Human Rights. The Burmese regime spends half its budget on the military and just 1.4% of GDP on health and education, less than half that spent by the next poorest country in Asia. Burma is the only country in Asia whose defense budget is greater than that of health and education combined. As a consequence Burma has the 4th highest child mortality rate in the world.
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POPSMulti-nationals Big Oil and Timor Sea oil dispute Australia after mobilising the air force to the top end and coming to the brink of war with Indonesia it is of some concern to fair minded people that our actions were not purely alturistic.Aust aid has been extremely generous to our Indonesian neighbours with Billions of $ currently building 2000 schools there but East Timor to my mind seems cheated as with West Papua.Is it robbing peter to pay paul or appeasment to 240,000 000 sacrificing our smaller friendly neighbours.Fair go Aussie,s appeasment doesnt work and Prime minister Rudd is a fool to squander our principles, and ignoring human rights close to home while toadieing off all the way with USA to remote regions ignoring our own back yard.The Pacific Forum hates this US style bullying too.Wake up Australia!
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POPSBig Oil's Charm Offensive The money grabbers are putting on masks of altruism, hoping we won’t notice their pockets bulging with our dollars – and hoping we won't demand that Congress take away the billions of dollars they get each year in tax subsidies. Oil company image ads aren't fooling anyone. Their attempts to appear touchie-feelie are as hopeless as hanging an air freshener on the tail of a hog. Couldn't have said it better myself. By the way, notice how the gas prices fell after people stopped consumming so much gas. Let's keep this in mind when prices start going up again. It truly is all about supply and demand.
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POPSClimate Change - What You Can Do Great site--act now to help--It's a new era and we need to hit it running to recover and repair the damage of the Boooshies disastrous effect on the environment--they set us back 35 years in just 8 yrs and held us back from any progress, the fuckin' incompetent profiteering asses! (OK, I prolly didn't need that last phrase but they're still doing the damage as you read this--all to benefit industry profits)
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POPSFight for Human Rights Continues in Burma This monk has dedicated his life to attaining something we in America take for granted: Democracy and basic human rights. The U.S. claims to be a stalwart of human rights and yet allows human rights atrocities to continue in Burma, Zimbabwe, Tibet, etc. and even writes its laws to allow a U.S.-based corporation to profit from it. Chevron, based in California, has been making huge profits in Burma as part owner of a natural gas project. U.S. sanctions prevent most U.S. companies from working in Burma, but Chevron's investment there existed before the sanctions were imposed and continues under a grandfather clause. This man, and many others, is willing to die to gain freedom for his fellow countrymen. Chevron and the U.S. is willing to let him die at the hands of a tortuous dictatorial regime in order to make a profit. How is this any different than the terrorism the U.S. is creating in Iraq and Afghanistan?
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POPS Oil Outlook Clouds Russia’s Economic Future That could trigger a vicious circle of falling income and investment, as production gets more expensive in Russia's aging fields. The era of record profits from oil and gas is over - that's according to Russia's Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin. 2008 is likely to be the year of peak oil and gas production in the country. The big oil companies are cutting investment in new projects. Russia has received up to $1 Billion a day in oil revenues in recent years, and the country's budget and economy remain highly dependent on hydrocarbon earnings. The world financial crisis and recession has triggered big falls in the world's oil price. That will significantly affect the Russian budget, according to Mikhail Kroutikhin, partner at Rusenergy.
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POPSPalin to play ball with Big Oil Exactly! She may be able to do it in Alaska, but McCain will not let her give big oil any trouble in the white house. Big Oil needs to go and so do all the tax breaks these companies get. McCain won't go after them and tax them --- Obama will!
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POPSPalin the Socialist Government ownership of the pipeline is socialism, not that there is anything wrong with that. Along with nationalizing AIG and the financial sector the Republicans are sounding more like socialists all the time.
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POPSU.S. Corporations are Ugly Americans American corporations pay foreign countries for rights to extract oil, gas, and minerals from within their borders. Those governments have done nothing to regulate oil company practices that pollute the environment and otherwise endanger the lives of local residents. The Bush administration, in their typically arrogant, misguided, neocon, "corporations-can-do-no-wrong" attitude, have turned a blind eye to how U.S. corporations (as representatives of our country) have done little to provide for the locals needs and security. The security for these U.S. corporations are local military who use villagers as forced laborers and freely rape local women and children. U.S. corporations, stalwarts of democracy and human rights that they are, also turn a blind eye as long as they can keep their bottom line healthy.
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POPSI'm Voting Democrat because... I'm voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitist liberals need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters. I'm voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don't have to hide from us over there, when they come over here I don't want to have any guns in my house that might hurt or offend them. I'm voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want, be it human, animal, vegetible, or inanimate object. I'm voting Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't. Makes you wonder why anyone would EVER vote Republican, now doesn't it? NOT!
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POPSObama's Fair Tax Mr. Warren, a man of the cloth, has done us a great service by asking the candidates to answer a pretty secular question: What kind of income makes an American "rich"? Maybe in the more secular setting of an upcoming debate, one of our nonpastor moderators could ask the candidates the moral question: What specific rate of individual taxation would it take for the rich to be paying their fair share?
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POPSPelosi: Oil Companies Should Pay Royalties The government grants private companies “leases” for the resources in exchange for a portion called a royalty. Democrats have been clamoring for legislation that allowed oil companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in 1998 and 1999 to pay a reduced royalty even though the price of oil had risen substantially. The royalty break was an incentive to drill amid low oil prices. Democrats have suggested that companies be required to repay the back royalties if they want federal leases in the future. Republicans have called that a breach of contract with the drillers. In addition, The Denver Post reported Sunday that federal investigators are preparing to release a report detailing improper relationships between Interior Department officials who oversee offshore drilling and oil executives, including golf outings, ski trips and romantic liaisons. Also, Pelosi has been pushing to end tax breaks granted to oil companies.
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POPSCrude Oil Prices The green shows crude oil prices. The blue shows US gas prices. The red is Canadian gas prices. We could not show congressional comments about speculation or Oil company profits, because they are off the chart.
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POPSUS Oil Companies Shamelessly Increase Exports Their exports to other countries are surging while they complain about drilling access. How about some honesty now from republicans (instead of circling the wagons as if Big Oil are pure saints), let's hear them criticize this policy of the oil companies while they complain of insufficient supply (e.g. "its OPECs fault")! Would be glad to hear any attempts at defending this export policy, which can only contribute to an increase in the price of gas here. Forgive us for complaining now about excessive profits when they are the ones limiting our domestic gas supply! (I have no objection to increase drilling either, but weary of the mantra that is blind to the truth).
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POPSMcCain, America's Security Is No Joke Using less Middle East puts us in a stronger position to demand security in the region and fight terrorist organizations which often get much of their funding through oil profits. Using less Middle East oil could also keep us out of future wars, and save the lives of those Americans serving in uniform. According to TIME magazine, John McCain's sole idea to "drill here and drill now" won't produce oil until the year 2030, and then it will only be 200,000 barrels per day. In comparison, the government estimates that if everyone made sure their car tires were fully inflated, we could start to reduce our oil consumption by 800,000 barrels per day, right now.
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POPSTaxation: Our Rulers Carnival Of Theft And Plunder But there is a case to be made for a kind of windfall profits tax: A tax on windfall political profits is indeed desirable. Our rulers cannot legally take home personally more than a minor share (in salary and perks) of the income they steal from us through taxation. But they "profit" from taxes nevertheless by using billions and billions of dollars to buy votes from various political constituencies in order to perpetuate their political careers. Then, in many cases, after spending years in Congress giving away our hard-earned dollars to various undeserving individuals and groups, they retire to earn large salaries from those very groups or to become lobbyists for the groups and use their political connections to keep this carnival of theft and plunder going. That is how our rulers profit personally from tax revenue.
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POPSWhat is a Windfall Profit? Maybe they have in mind profit margins as a percentage of sales. Yet by that standard Exxon's profits don't seem so large. Exxon's profit margin stood at 10% for 2007, which is hardly out of line with the oil and gas industry average of 8.3%, or the 8.9% for U.S. manufacturing (excluding the sputtering auto makers). If that's what constitutes windfall profits, most of corporate America would qualify.Chemicals had an average margin of 12.7%. Computers: 13.7%. Electronics and appliances: 14.5%. Pharmaceuticals (18.4%) and beverages and tobacco (19.1%) round out the Census Bureau's industry rankings. But if 10% is the new standard, the tech industry is going to have to rethink its growth arc. LG, the electronics company, saw its profits grow by 505% in 2007. General Electric profits by investing in the alternative energy technology that Obama says Congress should subsidize GE's profit margin in 2007 was 10.3%, about the same asExxon's.
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POPSNow Obama's For "Limited" Offshore Oil Drilling "If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done." In Congress, both parties have fought bitterly over energy policy for weeks, with Republicans pressing for more domestic oil drilling and Democrats railing about oil company profits. Despite hundreds of hours of House and Senate floor debate, lawmakers will leave Washington for their five-week summer hiatus this week with an empty tank. "The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling," Mr. Obama said in the Post interview. "And so we don't want gridlock. We want to get something done."
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POPSPickens' words more than just wind I heard this man's advertisement and thought "This is what we're looking for." Big Oil is criticized for their massive profits. This man has made $$ and wants to use it to reinvest in "renewable energy". He makes sense. When the Sierra Club supports him you know he must be on the right track. Hopefully Democrats in Congress will recognize a win/win solution and even encourage others.
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POPSBig oil stifles oil alternatives! It is clear the oil industry has been killing alternatives as they reap record profits! "Big oil" has held the World to ransom! Ironically it "window dresses" something quite different!
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POPSThe DRILL Act (Drill here, drill now!) "Where better to drill than the NATIONAL Petroleum Reserve. That is what it is for. That is why it was set aside. The National Petroleum Reserve. "My colleagues, situated on the North Slope of Alaska, this Reserve is no pipe dream like ANWR - which is a bumper sticker approach of our energy woes. 10.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil! "Far more than ANWR, which is not open to leasing. And if opened, would be far behind bringing energy to Americans than the National Petroleum Reserve. "In Alaska, 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas has been stranded - think about that - 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas - because there is no pipeline to bring it to market. Elsewhere, there is 68 million acres of federal lands. Onshore and offshore in the Outer Continental Shelf. Under oil and gas leases. That are not producing. May be subject to speculation. Being warehoused. "I say drill it! Drill it.
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POPSPelosi: Drilling In Protected Areas ‘A Hoax’ 
Democrats would not say when these bills would be ready for floor consideration. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) took to the floor to again criticize Democrats for dodging votes on energy bills, charging that Democrats are avoiding votes on the opening up of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and the OCS. Hoyer soon followed to retort, saying he and Democratic leaders have for weeks been urging for drilling on approved acres, only to have those efforts blocked by Republicans. He blamed Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney – the “two oil men in the White House” – and Republicans for setting an energy policy that has driven up gas prices and steered record profits to the energy companies. “As every serious person who has studied this issue knows, the proposals that Democrats are producing are shams and hoaxes designed to provide political cover and not to produce more American energy and lower gas prices,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.
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