Saturday, June 25, 2011
Greek islands feel pinch of debt crisis
The Greek debt crisis has far reaching consequences and it's not just the cities and the commercial centres, but far off islands are also feeling the pinch.
101 East: On the borderline
An ancient temple on the border between Thailand and Cambodia is at the heart of a deadly territorial dispute, creating some of the fiercest fighting in southeast Asia for years.
James Turk goes Austrian
James Turk speaks to Steffen Krug about gold and silver for wealth preservation, the dangers of fiat currency, inflation and how difficult economic calculation is when the unit of account is unstable and the price of money, interest rates, are distorted and centrally planned.
Phil Streible discusses the metals futures markets
Lind-Waldock Strategist Phil Streible discusses the metals futures markets, the collapse of the euro and the effects on the dollar and gold. (6/23/11)
Pouring Oil on troubled waters
Maybe Barry missed the first lesson in Economics 101. The cure for high commodities prices is high prices (encourages new supply, curbs demand), the cure for low prices is low prices (encourages use, discourages discovery). Ying and Yang. Same goes for capital, pay low returns it will flee to where it is welcome, see the USD:AUD exchange pair chart for the last 10 years. From The Korea Herald:
NEW YORK (AP) ― The United States and other nations that depend on oil imports will release and sell 60 million barrels of crude from emergency stocks in an effort to ease the strain of high oil prices on the global economy.
The release by the International Energy Agency, a group of more than two dozen countries, covers only what the world uses roughly every 16 hours. But it was enough to send oil prices lower, at least for the moment.
In addition to helping the struggling economies of the U.S. and Europe, analysts said the move was meant as a rebuke to OPEC, which has refused to increase oil production to bring down prices.
It will be the largest sale of crude ever from world strategic reserves and only the third since the IEA was formed in 1974 after the Arab oil embargo. The IEA released oil in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and in 1990 and 1991 after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Half the oil will come from reserves in the U.S. Refiners who turn crude into gasoline will be able to bid on the extra oil and have it shipped to them from the salt caverns along the Gulf Coast where it is stored.
The IEA said high oil demand and shortfalls of oil production caused by unrest in the Middle East and North Africa threatened to “undermine the fragile global economic recovery.”
The uprising in Libya has taken 1.5 million barrels of oil per day off of the market ― half a million barrels less than will be released each day by the IEA for 30 days.
The price of oil rose to nearly $114 per barrel in at the end of April, the highest since the summer of 2008, has fallen 20 percent since then to about $91 a barrel on Thursday. Analysts questioned how much relief the move would provide the economy, and for how long.
One analyst, Andrew Lipow, said the timing of the announcement, a day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered a negative outlook on the economy, suggests that industrialized countries are grasping for solutions. He said Americans should expect the price of gasoline to fall, but not dramatically, in coming weeks.
“Fifteen or 20 cents a gallon of relief is not enough to make people feel good about their job prospects or losses on the stock market or our general economic slowdown,” he said.
The IEA and the White House said they were acting to increase the supply of oil available during the peak summer driving season.
“We are taking this action in response to the ongoing loss of crude oil due to supply disruptions in Libya and other countries and their impact on the global economic recovery,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.
Gas prices have already fallen for 20 days in a row. They were down another penny Wednesday, to a nationwide average of $3.61 per gallon, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. That’s about 21 cents lower than a month ago. Gas prices peaked this year at a national average of $3.98 per gallon in early May.
The timing of the release brought criticism from business groups and Republican lawmakers, who accused President Barack Obama of playing politics with the country’s oil reserves, which are intended to address emergencies.
The amount of oil to be released, 2 million barrels per day, represents 2.2 percent of daily global oil demand. The 60 million barrels to be released over the span of a month is less than one day’s demand, about 89 million barrels.
The IEA left open the possibility that it could continue the program after a month.
The IEA’s move comes two weeks after OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, decided during a tense meeting not to increase oil production to meet rising demand. OPEC is made up primarily of Middle Eastern and North African nations.
OPEC countries are divided over whether to increase supply. Iran and Venezuela want to keep production stable in hopes of keeping prices ― and revenue ― high. Saudi Arabia wants to increase production, fearing that high oil prices will hurt the global economy and reduce oil demand over the long term.
The head of the IEA, Nobuo Tanaka, expressed disappointment about OPEC’s decision after that meeting. At a news conference Thursday in Paris, he said the IEA’s action would “contribute to ensuring that adequate supplies are available to the global market.”
Kevin Book, an analyst at Clearview Energy Partners, said the move was the first time the IEA has used its reserves as an offensive weapon “to send an unforgettable message to OPEC.”
The reserves, he said, have always acted as a shield. “Now we are using it to bludgeon prices globally. This is the first time we’ve used our shield as a club.”.......read on
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