that shit was mad bi-partisan...republicans were lapping it up while the dems were sitting still in their seats. watch the tapes! when bush said we were winning the war in iraq and discourse was counter productive only republicans stood up to cheer.
i can see how my quote seems naive...i guess i was just stating the obvious.
I missed that shit last night. I just now caught a little excerpt from CNN.Bush says "the economy is roaring" and something like "just this year we overcame the energy shoratge/crisis"-something to that effect.
Whose economy is he referring to?
I guess "overcoming" the energy crisis is enabling oil/energy companies to permanantly raise prices resulting in staggering profits for his cronies.
I don't know about you folks,but this winter I'm paying %50 more to heat my home than last year.Gas prices are double than what they were 2 years ago,and we will never see gas prices below $2 a gallon.Ever.
Can someone tell me what the fuck he is talking about?
"the united states hope that we can be great friends with iran someday"
translation
"we are going to attack you next"
Iran's head honcho is acting like an ass because he knows we have limited options due to our involvement/money-and-military-sucking-adventure in Iraq. Shit is gonna get a whole lot weirder before it gets any better.
Keeping America competitive requires us to be good stewards of tax dollars. Every year of my presidency, we???ve reduced the growth of nonsecurity discretionary spending, and last year you passed bills that cut this spending. This year, my budget will cut it again and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. By passing these reforms, we will save the American taxpayer another $14 billion next year and stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
Of course, what he failed to mention is that "nonsecurity discretionary spending" is about 20 percent of total government spending. The full truth is that overall spending has risen 30 percent in Bush's five years.
Also, his semantic sleight-of-hand about "cutting the defecit in half by 2009" is a real doozy. One of the assumptions made in calculating the theoretical halving of the defecit is that the Bush tax cuts for the rich will expire--this as Bush campaigns to make those tax cuts permanent and chides those who oppose it as being anti-growth. He also neglects to mention that the highest defecit in history is his doing.
Basically, he says, "If you ignore the ridiculous amount of money I throw around and previously unseen levels of debt I run up, I'm actually quite the spendthrift."
"the united states hope that we can be great friends with iran someday"
translation
"we are going to attack you next"
Iran's head honcho is acting like an ass because he knows we have limited options due to our involvement/money-and-military-sucking-adventure in Iraq. Shit is gonna get a whole lot weirder before it gets any better.
Read the following on Salon.com recently. Not sure what I think of it but it's definitely interesting...
Iran's real secret weapon[/b]
The Internet is suddenly alive with chatter about an "Iranian Oil Bourse," supposedly scheduled to open for business in March 2006. Right now, the two leading oil exchanges in the world are the New York Mercantile Exchange and London's International Petroleum Exchange. In both exchanges, trades for oil are denominated in U.S. dollars. But in the proposed Iranian exchange, oil trading will be denominated in euros.
The switch from dollars to euros, suggest some observers, could be the straw that breaks the back of the U.S. dollar's global hegemony. According to this line of reasoning, the requirement that oil be purchased with greenbacks is the primary reason that the vast majority of the world's nations stockpile their foreign exchange reserves in dollars. But if it was just as easy to buy oil with euros, then the world might begin to abandon the dollar, leading to its abrupt devaluation. The results would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy.
From this perspective, the current pressure on Iran over its nuclear program is naught but a smokescreen. The Bush administration cannot allow this Bourse to become a reality, and will invade Iran in order to stop it. As proof of this theory, say its proponents, all one has to do is look at the invasion of Iraq. In 2000, Saddam Hussein started requiring that purchases of Iraqi oil be made in euros. But within weeks of the conquest, it was back to dollars. QED -- the invasion was motivated not by a desire to take over Iraq's oil fields, but because the U.S. wanted to keep the dollar in its rightful position.
There are a couple of problems with the theory that the emergence of an Iranian oil exchange will bring about the downfall of the American empire. One is that, although oil trades are currently denominated in dollars, that doesn't really present a huge obstacle to countries with euros burning a hole in their pocket. As a couple of critics have noted, it's not so hard to convert euros into dollars, and vice versa. The idea that an Iranian oil exchange would, on its own, kick off a global run on the dollar is a bit of a stretch.
But, as is always the case with any good conspiracy theory, there is a nugget of truth at the heart of the matter. The euro is a legitimate contender for the prize of being the world's leading currency, the first such real challenge to the dollar in many decades. Many economists are increasingly alarmed at the fact that the United States is sustaining its vast current account deficits solely on the strength of the desirability of its currency. Historically, there are plenty of good reasons for the popularity of the greenback -- the U.S. is, after all, the world's biggest economy, and has long been considered unlikely to default on its obligations.
But those obligations are growing to unprecedented heights. Meanwhile, the euro, after a very poor start, has steadily strengthened in comparative value. If nations start to diversify their foreign exchange holdings to weight them toward the euro, for whatever reason, that could initiate substantial selling pressure on the dollar. A successful launch of a euro-denominated Iranian oil exchange would be just one more point of pressure. But the chances that it could be the killer blow to overturn the current global economic status quo seem more the product of wishful thinking than cold reality.
UPDATE: A reader points to a Paul Krugman article written before the debut of the euro that casts more light on the euro vs. dollar debate.
Comments
oh shit!
Whose economy is he referring to?
I guess "overcoming" the energy crisis is enabling oil/energy companies to permanantly raise prices resulting in staggering profits for his cronies.
I don't know about you folks,but this winter I'm paying %50 more to heat my home than last year.Gas prices are double than what they were 2 years ago,and we will never see gas prices below $2 a gallon.Ever.
Can someone tell me what the fuck he is talking about?
"the united states hopes to be great friends with iran someday" or something along that line
translation:
"we are going to attack you next"
Iran's head honcho is acting like an ass because he knows we have limited options due to our involvement/money-and-military-sucking-adventure in Iraq. Shit is gonna get a whole lot weirder before it gets any better.
Of course, what he failed to mention is that "nonsecurity discretionary spending" is about 20 percent of total government spending. The full truth is that overall spending has risen 30 percent in Bush's five years.
Also, his semantic sleight-of-hand about "cutting the defecit in half by 2009" is a real doozy. One of the assumptions made in calculating the theoretical halving of the defecit is that the Bush tax cuts for the rich will expire--this as Bush campaigns to make those tax cuts permanent and chides those who oppose it as being anti-growth. He also neglects to mention that the highest defecit in history is his doing.
Basically, he says, "If you ignore the ridiculous amount of money I throw around and previously unseen levels of debt I run up, I'm actually quite the spendthrift."
Read the following on Salon.com recently.
Not sure what I think of it but it's definitely interesting...
Iran's real secret weapon[/b]
The Internet is suddenly alive with chatter about an "Iranian Oil Bourse," supposedly scheduled to open for business in March 2006. Right now, the two leading oil exchanges in the world are the New York Mercantile Exchange and London's International Petroleum Exchange. In both exchanges, trades for oil are denominated in U.S. dollars. But in the proposed Iranian exchange, oil trading will be denominated in euros.
The switch from dollars to euros, suggest some observers, could be the straw that breaks the back of the U.S. dollar's global hegemony. According to this line of reasoning, the requirement that oil be purchased with greenbacks is the primary reason that the vast majority of the world's nations stockpile their foreign exchange reserves in dollars. But if it was just as easy to buy oil with euros, then the world might begin to abandon the dollar, leading to its abrupt devaluation. The results would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy.
From this perspective, the current pressure on Iran over its nuclear program is naught but a smokescreen. The Bush administration cannot allow this Bourse to become a reality, and will invade Iran in order to stop it. As proof of this theory, say its proponents, all one has to do is look at the invasion of Iraq. In 2000, Saddam Hussein started requiring that purchases of Iraqi oil be made in euros. But within weeks of the conquest, it was back to dollars. QED -- the invasion was motivated not by a desire to take over Iraq's oil fields, but because the U.S. wanted to keep the dollar in its rightful position.
There are a couple of problems with the theory that the emergence of an Iranian oil exchange will bring about the downfall of the American empire. One is that, although oil trades are currently denominated in dollars, that doesn't really present a huge obstacle to countries with euros burning a hole in their pocket. As a couple of critics have noted, it's not so hard to convert euros into dollars, and vice versa. The idea that an Iranian oil exchange would, on its own, kick off a global run on the dollar is a bit of a stretch.
But, as is always the case with any good conspiracy theory, there is a nugget of truth at the heart of the matter. The euro is a legitimate contender for the prize of being the world's leading currency, the first such real challenge to the dollar in many decades. Many economists are increasingly alarmed at the fact that the United States is sustaining its vast current account deficits solely on the strength of the desirability of its currency. Historically, there are plenty of good reasons for the popularity of the greenback -- the U.S. is, after all, the world's biggest economy, and has long been considered unlikely to default on its obligations.
But those obligations are growing to unprecedented heights. Meanwhile, the euro, after a very poor start, has steadily strengthened in comparative value. If nations start to diversify their foreign exchange holdings to weight them toward the euro, for whatever reason, that could initiate substantial selling pressure on the dollar. A successful launch of a euro-denominated Iranian oil exchange would be just one more point of pressure. But the chances that it could be the killer blow to overturn the current global economic status quo seem more the product of wishful thinking than cold reality.
UPDATE: A reader points to a Paul Krugman article written before the debut of the euro that casts more light on the euro vs. dollar debate.
-- Andrew Leonard
I'm DYIN out loud at work right now...