In a Casino Mentality, The Economy Goes From Bubble to Bubble

[Joanne98]

by Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay
Global Research, May 14, 2008

“strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.”… “the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century” and for “the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.”

Neocons’ January 26, 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton

“If they turn on their radars we’re going to blow up their goddamn missiles. They know we own their country. We own their airspace… We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.”

U.S. Air Force Brig. General William Looney, head of the US-UK flying operation south of the 32nd parallel over Iraq (no-fly zones), interview reproduced in the Washington Post, August 30 1999,

“Focus your operations on the oil, especially in Iraq and in the Gulf, as this would mean death.”

Osama bin Laden, December 2004

“The high crude oil prices do not have any relation to production or consumption,”… “because of the decrease in the value of the dollar.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran President, April 2008

The American economy seems to be going from bubble to bubble: in 2000, it was the tech bubble; in 2005, it was the housing bubble; and now, it is the oil and commodities bubble. In fact, the entire world of investment is now a giant casino where speculators are in charge and where governments look the other way. For many basic marketable staples (rice, wheat, and corn) and commodities (oil, gas, metals), prices have no relation to the underlying values of what is being traded. Such prices are mostly driven by bad policies and by the pyramidal “greatest fool” technique by which large off-shore speculators navigate through unregulated derivatives to push prices up ever further, until the bubble burst. Meanwhile, a lot of disruptions may be created and people’s lives may have been endangered or lost. The current famine in many countries is the end result of such government approved manipulation of markets, by OPEC and a host of other cartels and so-called speculative hedge funds.

Is it possible for an economy to grow and prosper without always being on a roller coaster? Indeed, does the current explosion in oil and commodities prices reflect real supply and demand shifts, such as supply disruptions, or is it also or even mainly driven by geopolitical factors and financial speculation that fuel an ever larger insatiable artificial demand?

It is my feeling that the plummetting U.S. dollar is having serious unintended economic consequences worldwide. Indeed, such a panic devaluation of the most widely used key currency is fueling a major rush out of dollar holdings into hard assets, such as oil, gold and other commodities. Central banks, companies and individuals are losing faith in the dollar paper currency, which has been depreciating fast against other currencies, but whose intrinsic value is also expected to be eroded further by the coming inflation that will inevitably follow the Fed’s current liquidity creation. All these problems are interconnected.

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/in-a-casino-mentality-the-economy-goes-from-bubble-to-bubble/

[Earth Bound Misfit]

1. K & R

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