sell! sell! sell!

[tiznow]

China burns more fossil fuel and pollutes the air as much as the rest of the world combined. Clearly innovation and investment in nuclear is needed to solve our long-term energy problems. They have a growing economy with 20% of the worlds population, what else would you suggest they do over the next 15 years?

Nukes only long-term solution for cheap/clean fuel as the population approaches 10B people. The alternative sources are getting cheaper and better but you still need baseload.

US just too risk averse at this point, nobody wants one in their backyard, tons of fear/misinformation. You can put those things anywhere as long as you setup safe logistics. There have been very few accidents with transport.

I agree with the above premise in the ideal world but it's China we are talking about here.. Safe logistics and China generally not used together 

We we just reaching critical mass that the earth can comfortably hold.. Just picture every human consumed resources like an American not pretty...

 

[tiznow]

Bill Gates has played a crucial role in cutting the global poverty rate in half over the last 20 years. He is now investing billions of dollars in helping the world with it's energy needs, probably not likely to going to see any ROI on this investment. He is 60 and they won't even have the first reactor ready for atleast 10 years.

Of all people to disparage as greedy sociopaths, I don't think he is on the list.

agree he's at least trying to do something worthwhile with the uber wealth he stumbled upon being in right place at right time..

Hes is a tech guy not a sociopathic financial investor need to stack fiat as a competition type guy that many uber wealthy are.. The rich tech/science guys tend to be way more philanthropic just by nature..

 

[PatsFan1283]

I agree with the above premise in the ideal world but it's China we are talking about here.. Safe logistics and China generally not used together 

We we just reaching critical mass that the earth can comfortably hold.. Just picture every human consumed resources like an American not pretty...

It could turn out to be a blessing in disguise because innovation is now paramount to survival rather than just a perk of humanity.

The necessity for cheap and sustainable energy, housing and then affordable/viable education/health care could lead to a lot of breakthroughs over the next few decades.

Obviously there is no way the population can go up 50%, other countries gain more economic power and the status quo of how people live in the developed world goes on.

If the Us and China had to fight over valuable resources I don't think any of us would want to live long enough to see what that looks like.

 

[PatsFan1283]

agree he's at least trying to do something worthwhile with the uber wealth he stumbled upon being in right place at right time..

Hes is a tech guy not a sociopathic financial investor need to stack fiat as a competition type guy that many uber wealthy are.. The rich tech/science guys tend to be way more philanthropic just by nature..

I think that comes from the background of using creativity and ingenuity to solve problems. That type of mindset just lends itself more to trying to transform humanity for the better rather than trying to figure out if something is undervalued by 30% or not and using connections to get info the public doesn't have, etc.

I said this to you before and you dismissed it but I think the fact the innovators and the problem solvers are now on top is a very positive development. If you had to pick where the economic might/clout of this country was concentrated, you would certainly hope that it was somewhere like Silicon Valley compared to finance-based Manhattan or say commodity-based Texas and post 2008 I do believe this to be the case. Atleast on some level....

Another thing about billionaires is if you made your $ in a commodity based business, then how much could you possibly want breakthroughs to happen? Your families legacy continuing is strongly correlated with technological stagnation.

 

[tiznow]

[h=1]Iceland, Where Bankers Actually Go To Jail For Committing White-Collar Crimes[/h]

CREDIT: AP Photo/Brynjar Gunnarsson
Mass protests erupted in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2008 following the country's economic collapse.

Nearly all the financiers who headed powerful American firms in the run-up to the 2008 economic crisis remain wealthy, powerful, and free. Not so in Iceland, where jail sentences handed out last week bring the number of bankers imprisoned over the meltdown to 26.
Combined, the bankers will spend 74 years behind bars. While critics of such stringent treatment of the business community often warn that cracking down on finance hurts the economy, Iceland’s experience has shown it’s possible to pursue corporate accountability and broad growth at the same time.
The American form of justice for banking titans has been rather less robust. Prosecutions for all white-collar crime are at a 20-year low. Criminal prosecutions of corporations dropped 29 percent from 2004 to 2014.
Instead of trying to make cases in court, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has sought settlements in a long list of cases tied back to the crisis and its fallout. Most did not require the company that bought its way out of prosecution to admit wrongdoing or even acknowledge the validity of the facts alleged by government investigators.
Headline figures about the dollar value of these settlements routinely exaggeratedboth their punitive effect on corporate bottom lines and their restorative impact for wronged consumers. And in the handful of cases where corporate felons were forced to plead guilty, the federal government has repeatedly acted to minimize the impact of the plea on the firm’s ability to make money.
The upshot is that “deterrence has been eliminated,” corporate criminologist and financial expert William Black told ThinkProgress. An industry that created a super-sized housing bubble then mishandled trillions of dollars’ worth of mortgage paperwork in order to facilitate a foreclosure epidemic that’s ruinous for the national economy has, in effect, gotten away with it. That makes another crisis more likely, according to Black.
“I’m a big believer in looking forward rather than backwards,” President Obama said months after his inauguration in response to a question about how he would address the still-unfurling financial crisis. With veteran white-collar defense attorneys runningthe DOJ for him at the time, Obama’s administration pursued a course that’s effectively opposite to Reykjavik’s response to the collapse.
When Iceland first opted to let its banks fail and seek an International Monetary Fund bailout, it seemed like a disaster. But Iceland returned to economic growth much faster than skeptics expected after breaking from the conciliatory approach toward financial industry actors that most countries took in the wake of the global collapse. The tiny economy’s growth rate outpaced the average for European countries in 2012. It’s halved its unemployment rate since the peak of the crisis.
Like other countries with a large financial industry presence, Iceland spent a lot of money on bailouts after the crisis. But it bailed out workaday citizens instead of bankers, forgiving mortgage debts that exceeded 110 percent of the actual value of the home linked to the loan. The banks, which had swarmed to the north Atlantic island after aggressive deregulation of Icelandic finance law around the turn of the century, were allowed to fail and go bankrupt.
Comparing Iceland and the U.S. isn’t entirely fair, since the latter is over one thousand times larger in both population and total economic output. It’s far easier for a country of 320,000 people to nationalize its banks, devalue its currency, and bounce back rapidly after a couple years of deep economic pain.
A new paper from economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi illustrates that the policy course chosen by Presidents Bush and Obama in the aftermath of the crash has at least delivered dramatically better outcomes than doing nothing at all. But there are a variety of adapted versions of the core idea behind Iceland’s actions that might well have delivered a far better outcome for the average American than what bank bailouts, out-of-court settlements, and lax pursuit of criminal cases against the industry’s worst actors.
With those failures already in the rear-view, both Obama’s administration and several of those vying to replace him in the 2016 election have tried to make course corrections on white-collar crime.
Months after Attorney General Loretta Lynch came on-board, the DOJ replaced decades-old guidance on seeking corporate cooperation in investigations with a new set of policies for such cases. They set a higher standard that corporations must meet in order to qualify as cooperating with an investigation, which dramatically reduces the penalties they face for wrongdoing.
The Yates Memo, as the new rules are known, is a moderate course correction rather than a drastic reversal. At best, it could mean that more corporate crime cases go to trial because fewer companies clear the higher cooperation standard. At worst, it could mean companies just tick the check-boxes on the new rules by throwing out junior executives as scapegoats – an outcome that would not meaningfully increase accountability and deterrence.

 

[mickj]

It will likely come down to how the economy/markets do over the next 12-18 months. If demand really sags then you could see mid 30's.

Everything else is really minor in comparison.

TY. I was asking more about DNR specifically.

 

[tiznow]

[h=1]Saudi Arabia to run out of cash in less than 5 years[/h]
October 25
NEW YORK
Not even the mighty Middle East can survive cheap oil forever.
If oil stays around $50 a barrel, most countries in the region will run out of cash in five years or less, warned a dire report from the International Monetary Fund this week. That includes OPEC leader Saudi Arabia as well as Oman and Bahrain.
Low oil prices will wipe out an estimated $360 billion from the region this year alone, the IMF said.
Huge budget surpluses are quickly swinging to massive deficits as oil prices have crashed to around $45 currently from over $100 last year. Many of these countries are being forced to tap into rainy day funds to weather the storm.
"Oil exporters will need to adjust their spending and revenue policies to ensure fiscal sustainability," the IMF wrote.
The depressed oil prices have come at a time when spending has gone up as many of these countries are grappling with regional violence and turbulence in financial markets.

Related: Middle East feels the pain of oil price collapse and conflict
Saudi Arabia is getting squeezed
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, needs to sell oil at around $106 to balance its budget, according to IMF estimates. The kingdom barely has enough fiscal buffers to survive five years of $50 oil, the IMF said.
That's why Saudi Arabia is moving fast to preserve cash. The kingdom not only raised $4 billion by selling bonds earlier this year, but its central bank has yanked up to $70 billion from asset management firms like BlackRock (BLK) over the past six months.
After years of huge surpluses, Saudi Arabia's current account deficit is projected to soar to 20% of gross domestic product this year, Capital Economics estimates. Saudi Arabia's war chest of cash is still humungous at nearly $700 billion, but it's shrinking fast.

Related: Saudi Arabia is facing a cash crunch
Spending cuts ahead
Saudi Arabia is unlikely to jack up taxes, but it is poised to cut at least some forms of spending.
It's not likely to cut social and military spending programs as leaders fear a repeat of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
"In an environment with regional insecurity and domestic instability, to chip away at that social contract is a bit of a political gamble," said Henry Smith, a Dubai-based associate director with consultancy Control Risks.
Yet Smith said big government spending projects are already seeing far greater scrutiny.
"Some of the projects that are less economically essential are quietly being sidelined," Smith said.
Related: Saudi Arabia's oil policy 'does not help anyone'
Iran, Iraq under pressure
Iran's break-even oil price is estimated at $72 and it could survive cheap oil for less than 10 years, the IMF estimates. It's a rosier outlook compared to its neighbors. But Iran's outlook is clouded by potential sanctions relief (which hasn't come yet) and a surge in oil production from its nuclear deal with the West.
Iraq has virtually no fiscal buffer remaining, according to the IMF. The country is grappling with internal strife and has lost large swaths of land to ISIS.
"Violence increasingly affects civilians, and has a particularly adverse effect on confidence and expectations, and consequently on economic activity," the IMF warned.
Bahrain is also under great financial pressure, with the likelihood of also running out of options in less than five years. The country already has lots of debt and has been running deficits for several years in a row.
"They are in a relatively tight spot. They are going to have to undertake a more significant tightening," said Jason Tuvey, a Middle East economist at Capital Economics.
Related: How cheap oil will hurt Iran's comeback
UAE, Kuwait and Qatar can survive decades of $50 oil
However, a handful of countries are well positioned to face the storm. Topping that list are Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. That's partially because these countries don't need sky-high oil prices to balance their budgets.
Kuwait's break-even oil price is estimated by the IMF at just $49, or just a tad higher than current levels. The magic number is believed to be $56 in Qatar, the host of the 2022 World Cup, while the UAE needs $73 oil.
But these three countries have built up mountains of oil money that protect them during the leaner times. The IMF said the UAE has enough fiscal buffers to withstand $50 oil for nearly 30 years. Qatar and Kuwait can sustain cheap oil for almost 25 years.

 

[eek.]

End of October: If things are gonna happen it'll be about now

 

[snoop]

Do you agree?

I don't know. Another wave of panic selling would probably take it back to Sep low but first crude has to break that $40 handle again.

 

[tiznow]

Zirp to infinity starting to really rear its ugly head creating pseudo monopolies all over the place stifling competition and axing jobs in the process

recent bud/Miller now Walgreen/rite aid..

Just comical ....

mexico north here we come..

 

[PatsFan1283]

Zirp to infinity starting to really rear its ugly head creating pseudo monopolies all over the place stifling competition and axing jobs in the process

recent bud/Miller now Walgreen/rite aid..

Just comical ....

mexico north here we come..

Only way left to grow. Funny money cash that needs to be parked.

You pumped for the debate tomorrow night? It's these guys or socialism, good times....

 

[tiznow]

It don't matter the little guy will get hosed regardless of who governs in a zirp to infinity system..

 

[tiznow]

Speaking of politics don't get the Ben Carson thing other than he's anti Obama at face value ... but in reality he's more of the same from the big government right neocon establishment.. Spouting all the usual righty side stuff on social issues but when u dig deep he will do nothing to change the terrible course we are on..

its all a complete joke at this point and hopeless.. Divide and conquer.. America and the strong middle class is done for good..

 

[snoop]

Half of them if not more need to drop out. I switched channel after 10 minutes watching of the last debate. It's hard to keep track who said what with so many of them on the stage, it's like watching a soccer match with 10 balls in there.

 

[eek.]

It's these guys or socialism, good times....

I've lived in socialism, and it's not that different to capitalism in a democracy

The problem is the guys who run your socialist or capitalist system

Any system run by people with decent common sense is fine, but once you get a bunch of dogmatic wankers running things then it all goes south bigstyle

I've seen this with both socialist and capitalist systems

Both systems have their merits, strengths and weaknesses, but no system can survive if you have wankers in change

 

[tiznow]

Socialism is terrible on a large scale diverse system.. Bigger u get more corrupt it gets with different groups fighting for the handouts.. Large scale hundreds of millions of people socialism will never work out as intended just the nature of man and concentrating power in too few hands over a large group on people..

true capitalism where risk takers that bet wrong lose and aren't continuously bailed out the best system.. Unfortunately true capitalism in this country has been dead for quite some time.. Now vested interest/status quo runs the show..

Socialism can work just fine on small scales as seen in the Nordic nations.. On US scale with diverse population/ethnicity/demographics etc it will and is failing miserably..

 

[eek.]

Historians still don't know how Rome went up.
An amazing civilisation with no real competition from anyone or anywhere, which could do incredible things back in antiquity

What happened??? How on earth did Rome go up???

The answer is easy. The wankers got control.

 

[eek.]

Bigger u get more corrupt it gets with different groups fighting for the handouts..

Sounds just like our capitalist corporations at the government trough to me...

It's not the systems at fault Tiz, it's people

 

[tiznow]

Inequity and greed brought down rome

two things that are currently bringing down america

mankinds natural course maybe and nothing we can do about it but observe the slow motion car crash...

 

[tiznow]

The people create the system eek ..

Founding fathers did their best ... now we've morphed into this pseudo socialistic crony capitalistic system that protects the status quo and favors the elite..

science/technology/medicine advances keeping the have nots comfortable enough while a few own most everything and keep grabbing more in the rigged system.. Eventually something will give...