Fictional action trumps real impotence

On the front page of CNN.com, I read two headlines this afternoon, in this order: "Paulson braces public for months of tough times" and "Batman dethrones Spidey as superhero king." Without having seen "The Dark Knight" but being reasonably familiar with the characters involved, I believe the two stories are related.

First, I click on the Paulson story and find that the appointed leaders of our corner of the Free World have abdicated their authority to fix our broken system. Paulson is the U.S. Secretary of Treasury but speaks in this report as if he's merely the town cryer, impotent and clueless, able to report what we all see, hear and feel, but incapable of fixing a damn thing. He speaks, and he engenders no confidence whatsoever:

"I think it's going to be months that we're working our way through this period - clearly months," he said.

Paulson said the number of troubled banks will increase as they struggle to cope with big losses on bad mortgages. The government this month took over IndyMac (IDMC) after a run led it to become the largest regulated thrift to fail.

"Of course the list is going to grow longer given the stresses we have in the marketplace, given the housing correction. But again, it's a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation," he said in broadcast interviews.

He enumerates the nation's economic ills like a trained medic, but the best medicine he offers is a stroke to the forearm:

"We're going through a challenging time with our economy. This is a tough time. The three big issues we're facing right now are, first, the housing correction which is at the heart of the slowdown; secondly, turmoil of the capital markets; and thirdly, the high oil prices, which are going to prolong the slowdown," he said.

"But remember, our economy has got very strong long-term fundamentals, solid fundamentals. And you know, your policy-makers here, regulators, we're being very vigilant."

His activism to correct economic course begins and ends with the advice an old uncle might give to a couple weighing a mortgage:

"Our first priority today is the stability of the capital markets, the stability of the system. And these institutions have investors all around the world ... and those investors need to know that we in the United States of America understand the importance of these institutions to our capital markets and to our economy and to our housing market," he added.

There is no sense of urgency, no commitment to act, not even an indication that he and his orbiters have any idea of what steps are needed to find the Titanic's leaks, marshal the resources necessary to plug them, hoist ballast and pump for dear life. Rather, there's admission of failure, married weakly to admission of incompetence:

Paulson acknowledged the U.S. is continuing to lose jobs, though he said the $168 billion economic relief plan approved this year has created jobs that would not otherwise exist. The plan included tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses.

This is not service, not leadership, not action; this is the ghost of a dead ideology, teetering in Purgatory and unsure of which direction to fall.

In case the reader needs further information, CNN kindly includes a link on that story's page to a series of analysis called "Scary economy, real solutions." Following that link leads to a series of briefs with titles like "A looming recession," "Weak dollar," "Falling stock market," "Unemployment anxiety," "Inflation," "Gas prices rising," "Home prices sinking," "Tightening mortgage market." The briefs dispense advice that wasn't fresh when Ben Franklin offered it under the name of Poor Richard: "Beef up emergency savings," one text offers, with nary a glimpse of irony.

It is no wonder, then, that America's moviegoing public has fled the real world where walking apparitions promise volumes of nothing and given a record-breaking opening weekend to a film about one disciplined hero battling one agent of chaos, neither of whom suffers from impotence, incompetence, bureaucratic malaise or a lack of creative ideas to resolve problems. Neither the superhero nor the supervillain are trapped in merely diagnosing and rediagnosing a situation; both see the matter at hand and move, by God, to handle it.

Would that America's leaders had a fraction of the simple gumption necessary to do the same.

Dubya: Master of the obvious

Moments like these make me proud to be an American.

'It's been a difficult time for American families," Bush said at a press conference. "We must ensure we can continue providing credit during this time of stress."

Odd that the solution to our woes is to announce artificial actions that don't solve anyone's problems. Maybe next year we can begin rebuilding.

"Stay the course and make your mama proud"

Heard an interview with James McMurtry on the Bob Edwards Show on XM NPR this week, and one of McMurtry's tracks inspired me to go buy his latest album, "Just Us Kids." The track is called "Cheney's Toy" and in a perfect world, country music radio stations would serving up double doses of this song every hour. But as we know, it is not a perfect world; someone, somewhere, has not yet learned about life from Kenny Chesney, and about relationships from Carrie Underwood, and about patriotism from Toby Keith. Those are truly lucky people, but so am I, having found the lyrics to McMurtry's songs online. Drink up.

Another unknown soldier
Another lesson learned
Kick the gas can over
Strike a match get back and watch that sucker burn

Keep smiling for the camera
Keep waving to the crowd
Don't let up for an instant
Stay the course and make your mama proud

You're the man
Show'em what you're made of
You're no longer daddy's boy
You're the man
That they're all afraid of
But you're only Cheney's toy

These are only part of the lyrics; the whole song is this good, and the rest of the cd bears hearing too. Buy a copy for your loved ones, and call your congressman.

Why I should vote Republican in 2008.

This is beautiful.

China's pulling a "Reagan" on America

Monday morning, I read about some squabble between Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair, who published an extensive and fairly brutal critique of former President Bill Clinton, and the former president himself, through his spokesman. A couple of lines from the response that Clinton's office issued came back to me on Monday afternoon when I read another article at CNN.com, titled "Is there a short-term fix for high gas prices?". I'll share both and explain the connection between the two.

First, Clinton's spokesman Jay Carson sent this note to Purdum, responding to Purdum's Vanity Fair article: "The ills of the Democratic Party can be seen perfectly in the willingness of fellow Democrats to say bad things about President Clinton. If you ask any Republican about Reagan they will say he still makes the sun rise in the morning, but if you ask Democrats about their only two-term president in 80 years, a man who took the party from the wilderness of loserdom to the White House and created the strongest economy in American history, they’d rather be quoted saying what a reporter wants to hear than protect a strong brand for the party. Republicans look at this behavior and laugh at us.”

The more I read that, the truer is is. But this is the part that stuck in my mind all day: "If you ask any Republican about Reagan they will say he still makes the sun rise in the morning..."

That's an article of true faith among the GOP, for sure. Republicans began the canonization of Reagan before George Herbert Walker Bush put his hand on the Bible. They started naming everything clean and pure and fruitful after him: major thoroughfares through the prettiest parts of town (unlike the many MLK Boulevards), major buildings, major open spaces. Hell, they even pushed George Washington himself -- first president of nation, for God's sake -- aside to make room for Ronald Reagan's name on Washington National Airport, serving Washington, D.C. itself! And on top of all that, there's still an effort under way to erect some sort of Reagan monument on the Washington mall.

And remember the weeklong funeral production staged for him two or three years ago -- what Kabuki theater that was: it felt like there was a funeral every day for a week, for the same man, with the same commentators saying the same things over and over and over. By the end of it, Reagan must have already sprouted wings and taken a seat at the right hand of God.

Why the Hollywood production for Reagan? Because, as the legend goes, Reagan single-handedly defeated the Soviet Union and won the Cold War. Brought the Russkies to their knees and made 'em beg for mercy. Then he gave them mercy, letting them live and demanding only that they bow and scrape to America and our political philosophy, and that they apologize for Khrushchev. And keep us supplied with Beluga.

How did Reagan do all that? He outspent them, enabled by a pliant Congress. He poured more money into the Pentagon than Russia could spend on its own military -- at the expense, of course, of America's domestic programs, ones that benefitted America's poor, its working class, its children, its elderly. Year after year through the 1980s, the biggest challenge at the Pentagon was figuring out how to spend all the cash flowing its way, borrowed from Japan through Treasury notes, under the public banner of "peace through strength."

It left us -- for those who don't remember -- with the largest budget deficits and highest debt in American history. When Reagan left office, the nation owed more than it had ever owed before -- in fact, more than all the budget deficits of all the previous administrations combined, Washington through Carter -- an achievement surpassed only by his successor, George I, whose campaign theme was "Stay the course."

Which brought us to Clinton's election in 1992 and his first budget proposal to Congress in 1993. Remember, he had a Democratic majority in Congress that year, and still his budget proposal -- titled the "Deficit Reduction Act of 1993" -- passed by a single vote and is largely credited with costing Democrats their control of Congress in 1994. Yet it was precisely this budget that set America back on the road to fiscal responsibility, which led then to the longest period of sustained economic growth in the history of the world.

By his last year in the White House, we had erased our budget deficit and were paying down the national debt -- including debt to foreign interests. In essence, Clinton spent his eight years making historic strides toward cleaning up the fiscal mess left behind by Ronald Reagan, whose name stains public property from Bangor to Boca to Malibu.

Then came Dubya. Poster Mike McL wrote yesterday here at Kos,

We have an obligation to pay our national debt (and yes, it is ours, yours and mine alike, and it presently stands at $9,391,228,825,656.43 as of May 29, 2008, which, with our present population being 304,231,448 as of June 2, 2008, means we each owe 10,868.70). There isn't a chance in hell that every man, woman, and child could come up with that kind of money to fork over right away to pay off the debt.

So, we pay interest on it. How much?

For Fiscal Year 2007, we paid $429,977,998,108.20 in interest, or given a population estimate for 2007 of 301,621,157 works out to $1,425.56 per person. 2007 tax revenues (PDF) were approximately $2,396,290,997,000.00. So for every dollar paid in taxes, $0.179 (almost 18 cents) went just to pay interest on the debt. If we could begin to responsibly pay down the debt, we could ultimately end up cutting taxes 10% across the board and still have extra revenue to invest in our military, our infrastructure, and our other important programs.

Our national debt stood at $5,728,195,796,181.57 on January 22, 2001, the day after George W. Bush took office. In other words, during his term in office, our national debt has so far increased by $3,663,033,029,474.86. Had we continued with the policy of pay-go and not enacted the President's inane tax cuts, we might instead have seen a decrease in the national debt. We certainly would not have seen the level of increase we have been burdened with.

Get that? We owe $9.4 trillion dollars to various debtors; Dubya and his own pliant Congresses are directly responsible for $3.6 trillion of it, or 38 percent of the total. And since we can't afford to pay it off under present economic policies, we pay only the interest on it.

And to whom do we now owe $1.53 trillion of that total? China. (Or, as Lou Dobbs calls it, Communist China.)

As one blogger puts it,

Apparently, when referring to America as the 'ownership society,' we forget to note that it's the f-ing Chinese government doing the owning. China's state-run central bank owns $1.53 trillion in U.S. holdings (including debt), an amount that increases by over $1 billion per day (it saw an increase of $470 billion in 2007).

Forget f-ing Osama bin Laden: This is a real national security problem. Or doesn't anyone else think that having a foreign totalitarian government able to completely eviscerate the dollar in one fell swoop (not that we can't do that job very well on our own, thank you very much) is a bad thing?

Yes, China had a great year in 2007, collecting $462 billion -- more than $31 billion in December alone.

China's foreign exchange reserve had reached 1.53 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of 2007, up 43.32 percent from 2006, the People's Bank of China announced on Friday. A total of 461.9 billion U.S. dollars were added to the country's forex reserve in 2007, said the central bank. In December alone, the forex reserve rose by 31.3 billion U.S. dollars.

China's forex reserve kept a sharp growth in 2007, reaching 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of March, 1.33 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of June, and 1.43 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of September.

China's soaring trade surplus is the major contributing factor to the forex reserve boom. Data newly released by the General Administration of Customs show that China's trade surplus surged to a record 262.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2007, representing a 47.7 percent growth over a year earlier.

The huge forex reserve is considered the main reason for excess liquidity in China, as the central bank has to spend quantities of basic money to purchase foreign exchange, thus aggravating the problem of surplus fluidity. By the end of 2007, the M2 -- a broad measure of money supply, which indicates the monetary demand of the whole of country and possible inflation -- grew by 16.72 percent from a year ago to 40.34 trillion yuan.

The growth rate is 0.22 percentage points lower than the end of 2006, but still higher than the target growth of 16 percent set by the central bank at the beginning of 2007. A total amount of 330.3 billion yuan was poured into the market in 2007, 26.2 billion yuan more than 2006.

On the other hand, continuous growth of the forex reserve has in fact increased the pressure on appreciation of the Chinese currency, which in turn has exerted greater pressure on value preservation of China's forex reserve.

In a move to make better use of the country's huge forex reserve, China established the China Investment Corporate Ltd. (CIC), the country's state forex investment company in 2007. The state-owned investment company will invest in overseas financial markets. The registered capital of 200 billion U.S. dollars of the CIC all comes from the forex reserve of the country, which have poured into the company so far.

Catch that? China has taken ownership of so much American currency that it had to form a brand-new investment corporation just to handle the SURPLUS American money it's collecting, a corporation that will invest these billions of dollars in foreign markets.

China -- once the technological and manufacturing backwater of the world economy -- now holds America's financial fortunes on a leash. Which brings me back to the CNN.com article I read yesterday:

(CNN) -- Rising oil and gas prices have lawmakers and consumers scrambling for solutions, but it is unclear whether anything can be done to lower energy costs in the short term, experts say. A confluence of factors, from supply and demand to speculation and a weakened dollar, are driving gas prices higher. The price of oil has doubled over the past year. A barrel of crude oil cost about $65 in June 2007; it is currently hovering around $130 a barrel.

Gas prices have skyrocketed as a result, with some American consumers paying more than $4 a gallon. The national average is $3.95 per gallon, according to a AAA survey published May 29. A year ago, the national average was about $3.20.

Observers say several factors, domestic and global, are responsible for the price increases. Although demand is falling in places like the United States and Europe because of high prices, it is surging in emerging markets like China and India.

Every time I call for tech support from the manufacturer of my computer, I'm reminded why India has the financial wherewithal now to place such demand on petroleum products; we've exported so many of our high-tech service jobs there that we're probably the engine of India's growing middle class.

And it's no wonder that demand is surging in China, thanks to the billions in T-bills we've sold them to finance this idiotic war on Iraq.

Isn't this formula mindlessly simple? Dubya wanted to have a war AND wanted to give massive tax breaks to his base, so there was no tax revenue to pay for his war. He wouldn't forego the tax breaks, and wouldn't propose to raise taxes to pay for it, because Americans don't want the war and won't stand for paying for it through higher taxes. So his Commerce Department approved the issue of billions of Treasury bonds, which we sold to China to raise fast cash. We used the cash to pay for the war, so it's gone, Daddy, gone now. China's left in the catbird seat -- holding our promissory notes in a vice-grip.

America squawks about a trade deficit; they twist that vice-grip and the squawking goes away.

America wags its finger over some human rights abuses; they twist tighter and we tell our human rights activists to shut up and sit down.

Americans stage protests to disrupt the Olympic torch route over China's crackdown on Tibetan monks; they twist tighter still.

At the end of all this twisting, we're on our knees, clutching the weakest dollar we've had in ages, whimpering in nauseated anguish and inviting China over for dinner, our treat.

Just in case no one's yet paying close attention: Inflated gas prices, inflated food prices, inflated prices for everything are just the front edge of the great payback to China.

And that doesn't yet take into consideration the role of the Saudi royal family, who have their own little racket going. Foreseeing a Democratic administration that's committed to green energy, it's apparent that the Sauds are equally committed to wringing as much profit out of America as possible until the Great Wean begins.

Meanwhile, concerns are rising that supply -- battered by political instability in some oil-rich countries and a decision by others to not increase production substantially -- is not keeping up with demand.

Additionally, the declining value of the dollar, the currency used by the international oil market, has made it easier for Asian and European countries to purchase oil.

Some experts say speculation may also be playing a role in the rising price of oil. Many investors look to commodities like oil to act as a buffer against inflation, which typically occurs when -- as is the case now -- interest rates are low and the dollar is weakened. Other experts say the effect of speculation is minimal to negligible.

Whatever the cause, federal and state lawmakers are anxiously searching for short-term relief. Their options, however, seem limited.

Limited is right. Both McCain and Hillary have proposed a federal gas tax holiday, which Obama calls a gimmick. Analyses suggest such a holiday would give little relief.

"There is very little the government can do in the very short-term, other than providing misinformation about the potential for government to act," said Gilbert Metcalf, an economist at Tufts University.

He said that raising the price of energy may prove more beneficial. It seems counterintuitive, but the high prices could reduce demand and fundamentally alter consumer behavior, he said. "We are not going to do it by reducing the price," he said. "It's saying to people: 'Don't go buy a fuel-efficient car; we'll just lower the price when it's too painful.'"

"Our best bet is to wean us off oil."

So here's the conclusion I reached last night: China studied well Ronald Reagan's bankruptcy of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and it's applying those tactics to America now. Does it warm the hearts of Republicans that their sainted godfather -- dare I say "Beloved Leader"? -- taught the Chinese how to rip out the economic underpinnings of our country? Mourning in America, indeed.

And here's the question that come on that conclusion's heels: How well did we learn from Bill Clinton's economic plan of 1993, the one that dragged us back from the road to oblivion? Yes, Clinton benefited mightily from the naturally-occurring tech boom of the mid-1990s, but I assert that another boom is waiting in the wings. John Edwards talked about it in greatest detail, having studied well Al Gore's proposals of recent years: Green Energy.

Just as the combination of Clintonian economics and the tech boom gave America's economy back to Americans, a return to those policies and adoption of policies that spur green energy innovation can lead us back from the brink again -- AND solve our energy crisis, AND create more American jobs.

And maybe, one day many years from now, someone may offer legislation to put Bill Clinton's name on something, giving credit where it's due.

Another "Mission Accomplished" set to occur

As of this writing, George WMD Bush has fewer than eight full months to occupy the White House. It is highly likely that sometime during those eight months -- in fact, sometime within the next few weeks, if recent history is a guide -- someone far from Pennsylvania Avenue might unfurl a large banner reading "Mission Accomplished." It won't be an American citizen, or even an Iraqi citizen. Rather, it'll be who Robin Williams called "a six-foot-tall Arab on dialysis," none other than Osama bin Ladin.

It seems that bin Ladin made some pronouncements a decade ago about what he considered to be America's robbery of oil resources from Saudi Arabia. On Thursday, Anne Korin, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, testified to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs about bin Ladin's pronouncements. She titled her remarks, "Rising oil prices, declining national security."

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, about ten years ago, Osama bin Laden stated that his target price for oil is $144 a barrel and that the American people, who allegedly robbed the Muslim people of their oil, owe each Muslim man, woman, and child $30,000 in back payments. At the time, $144 a barrel seemed farfetched to most. Today, bin Laden is a mere $20 a barrel short of his target and there is little doubt it will be attained. I would like to impress upon this Committee that $144 a barrel oil will be perceived as a victory for the Jihadist movement and a reaffirmation that the economic warfare component of its campaign against the West is a resounding success. There is no need to elaborate on the implications of such a victory in terms of loss of U.S. prestige and our ability to prevail in the Long War of the 21st century. It is therefore imperative that the U.S. Congress do its utmost to forestall such a setback.

Deeply embroiled in a struggle against radical Islam, nuclear proliferation, and totalitarianism, the U.S. faces a crude reality: While its relations with the Muslim world are at an all-time low, more than 70 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and over a third of production are concentrated in Muslim countries. The very same Shi‘a and Sunni theocratic and dictatorial regimes that most strongly resist America’s efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East are the ones that, because of the market’s tightness, currently drive the world oil economy. While the U.S. economy bleeds, oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran—sympathetic to, and directly supportive, of radical Islam—are on the receiving end of staggering windfalls. In 2006, the United States spent about $260 billion on foreign crude oil and refined petroleum products. This year, with oil hovering over $125 a barrel, the figure could surpass $500 billion, the equivalent of our defense budget.

At today's prices, foreign oil producers are extracting a tax of more than $1,600 a year from every American man, woman and child.

Catch that? An oil tax. And I thought Dubya was anti-tax. Apparently, if tax revenues go to pay for rebuilding America's infrastructure, or to essential services like health care and public education, then taxes are bad. But if they go to prop up the Saudi royal family and to satisfy the stated mission of Public Enemy Number One, then they're okay.

OPEC, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, is deliberately keeping oil supply tight to prop up prices. Not only is Saudi production lower today than it was two years ago, despite the increase in demand, but the cartel has effectively deleted 2.4mbd from the global oil market in what amounts to an accounting scam. In 2007, OPEC expanded its member roster to include Ecuador and Angola – together the two had accounted for nearly 2.4mbd of non-OPEC oil. Yet, total OPEC production remained constant, allowing existing members to reduce production. This translates into a net reduction in non-OPEC supply with no equivalent increase in OPEC supply. This is equivalent to the production of Norway disappearing off the market . Further, while non-OPEC production has doubled over the last thirty years, as the graph below shows, OPEC production today is virtually identical to its production thirty years ago, even as the global economy has grown and with it demand for oil.

The flow of petrodollars from consuming economies to the coffers of producers not only casts a large shadow over America’s prospects of winning the war on terrorism but it also limits U.S. diplomatic maneuverability on central issues like human rights and nuclear proliferation. Perhaps the most powerful statement of the impact on America’s ability to accomplish its foreign policy goals came from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who in April 2006 told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “We do have to do something about the energy problem. I can tell you that nothing has really taken me aback more, as Secretary of State, than the way that the politics of energy is . . . “warping” diplomacy around the world. It has given extraordinary power to some states that are using that power in not very good ways for the international system, states that would otherwise have very little power.”
...
Oil’s strategic value derives from its virtual monopoly on transportation fuel. This monopoly, which gives intolerable power to OPEC and the nations that dominate oil ownership and production, must be broken. Not long ago, technology broke the power of another strategic commodity. Until around the end of the nineteenth century salt had such a position because it was the only means of preserving meat. Odd as it seems today, salt mines conferred national power and wars were even fought over control of them. Today, no nation sways history because it has salt mines. Salt is still a useful commodity for a range of purposes. We import some salt, so if one defines independence as autarky we are not “salt independent”. But to most of us there is no “salt dependence” problem at all — because canning, electricity and refrigeration decisively ended salt’s monopoly of meat preservation, and thus its strategic importance. We can and must do the same thing to oil.

I read this testimony and shuddered at the thought that bin Ladin has been clever enough to orchestrate, from wherever he's hiding, an operation to achieve his decade-old, secret mission to raise the price of crude oil.

Then I poked around at Google to learn all I could about this secret mission and discovered it hasn't been a secret at all. Lots of people have been writing about this. For years.

A correspondent for Al-Jazeera -- the Fox News of the Middle East -- named Jamal Abdul-Latif Ismail apparently interviewed bin Ladin in June 1999 and took great notes on his thinking. Five years later, writer Youssef H. Aboul-Enein wrote about the Ismail interview in the September-October 2004 edition of Military Review.

Ismail describes Bin-Laden's belief that America robs Saudi Arabia of its oil wealth. Bin-Laden explains that during the reign of King Faisal, the United States paid only 70 cents per barrel [of oil]. In the 1973 oil crisis, the Muslims asserted their economic power using oil as a weapon, and prices began to rise to $40 per barrel. When the [oil] prices leveled off to $36, the United States pressured Gulf countries to increase their production to lower prices.

Bin-Laden labels this "the great swindle." Doing basic math, Bin-Laden explains that from $36 the price was lowered to $9 per barrel, he relates the retail price at $144 per barrel, or a loss of $135. He multiplied $135 by the 30 million barrels produced in the Islamic world daily, totaling a loss of $4.5 billion per day for Muslim nations. He breaks down the loss over 25 years to $30,000 for every Muslim man, woman, and child. Although this is an oversimplification of petroleum production and evolution of agreements between oil companies and oil-producing nations, it is highlighted to demonstrate the skill with which Bin-Laden panders to the disenfranchised, giving them an alternate history.

Six weeks after September 11, one oil-industry newsletter explained how bin Ladin might pursue his goal of $144-a-barrel crude. The Octover 27 edition of Czeschin's Oil & Energy Investment Report offered this analysis:

"The US stole $36 trillion from Muslims, buying oil at unfairly low prices," says Osama bin Laden. "This is the biggest theft in the history of the world. I'm going to make America pay."

He doesn't need great technical sophistication or a lot of money to send the price of oil skyrocketing to his target price of $144 per barrel (about 6 times current levels). All he needs is what he already has in abundance -- a cadre of kamikaze terrorists.

To bring America to its knees, he wants to attack America at its point of maximum vulnerability -- its insatiable thirst for oil, which can only be satisfied with huge imports from the Muslim Mid-East. He knows his armies are no match for America. But that doesn't bother him a bit. His plan is simple: turn off the oil spigot and stop the flow of oil to America and its allies. To the American economy, that would be like cutting off its air supply.
....
Shutting the Strait of Hormuz, by itself, will shut off the oil spigot on 15.5 million barrels of oil a day. To put that in perspective, the US consumes 19 million barrels of oil a day.

Osama bin Laden thinks US$144 per barrel is the right price for oil -- and if he succeeds in closing the Strait of Hormuz or the other choke points, America's going to see oil at that stratospheric price. "If oil prices rocket to anywhere near US$144 per barrel, it will tear the heart out of the American economy."

If Osama bin Laden has his way and pushes the price of oil to US$144 a barrel, the shock to the American economy will be enormous. In 1973, when OPEC cut off supplies of oil, the price of oil quadrupled to US$10 a barrel, America fell into the worst recession since the depression of the 1930s. In 1979, oil went from US$10 a barrel to US$40 -- pushing America's inflation and interest rates to almost 20%. In 1991, a doubling of oil prices from US$20 to US$40, wiped hundreds of billions off the balance sheets of investors and threw America into another recession.

Today, America is already in a recession. To hit it not with US$40 oil (as in 1979 and 1991) but oil 3 to 4 times higher at US$144, is an economic doomsday scenario. America runs on oil. There's not a single part of America's economy that doesn't depend on oil. Just about anything sold in America is made or moved with oil.

Imagine gasoline at US$9 per gallon. You spend US$100 to fill up your two-door Honda, or US$270 to fill up your SUV.

The last time I filled my Toyota, I paid $3.69 a gallon and it cost me $55.50 to fill my 15-gallon tank. As it is, I doubt I'll be going very far to celebrate Memorial Day. If Bushgas gets all the way to $9 a gallon as this newsletter predicts, I doubt I'll be going much of anywhere unless it's within biking distance.

Then, Randeep Ramesh wrote about it in the October 17, 2002, edition of the British newspaper The Guardian, -- well before the invasion of Iraq, when crude was still $25 a barrel. In fact, Ramesh had some interesting insights on the potential effects of bombing Iraq:

The question of whether oil is worth spilling blood over has been quietly raised by the foreign office minister, Peter Hain. In a speech today to the Royal United Services Institute in London, Mr Hain notes that the cost of protecting the Middle East's oil reserves, paid for mostly by the US and without which the west would grind to a halt, is as high as $25 (£16) a barrel - about the same as it costs to buy. Mr Hain, seen as an outrider for Blairite thinking, goes on to warn that no amount of money will guarantee petrol supplies to the west and consumers should be weaning themselves off the black stuff.

The potency of the oil weapon is not lost on Osama bin Laden, either, who has stated that crude oil should sell at $144 a barrel - about five times the price at which it currently trades. The attack on the Limburg oil tanker off Yemen's coast may prove to be al-Qaida's first targeting of the global economy.

The Bush administration prefers not to discuss the economic effects of the war on terrorism as this could sap support domestically and abroad, especially in the Arab world where critics suspect, with good reason, the US of wanting to seize its vast petroleum riches. Instead the White House prefers to talk about imposing democracy and ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction. These are noble aims, but they are undermined by leaks suggesting a bolder grab for oil riches.

Mr Bush's senior adviser on the Middle East, Zalmay Khalilzad, has pushed the idea of a post-Saddam Iraq as a colonial outpost of the American empire. Its large oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia, could be tapped more efficiently than at present and pay for the 75,000 troops required to administer the new Iraq. This both overestimates the ease of producing oil from a battle-scarred Iraq, which only manages to pump 1m barrels a day, and underestimates the risk of a global financial shock, a serious concern given that the last three big global recessions have been preceded first by a crisis in the Middle East followed by a spike in the oil price.

While bombing Iraq would not in itself cause the oil price to rise sharply, an attack by Saddam on Saudi or Kuwaiti oil fields or an uprising in Riyadh would. The loss of, say, 5m barrels a day of oil production cannot be made up quickly or easily. A big crude producer paralysed by revolution can see production fall precipitously because its workforce is out on the streets rather than manning the taps in the terminal. This is what happened in Iran during the 1979 revolution. Iranian oil production fell from 6m barrels a day to 3m and never recovered. If the same happened in Saudi Arabia, the world would see oil prices spurt upwards.

So if we knew that bin Ladin had this goal in mind, all this time, and we knew what his tactics might include, then why have we not focused our attention on finding him, capturing him, isolating him? Didn't he put bin Ladin and the Taliban "on notice," a la Bill O' Reilly, one week after the attacks?

PRESIDENT Bush said yesterday that he wanted Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile, "dead or alive" in some of the most bellicose language used by a White House occupant in recent years. "I want justice," he said after a meeting at the Pentagon, where 188 people were killed last Tuesday when an airliner crashed into the building. "And there's an old poster out West that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' "

The blunt, Texas-style rhetoric, delivered off the cuff, came a day after Vice-President Dick Cheney said he would willingly accept bin Laden's "head on a platter". Some advisers said that although the comments might be popular in America, they would not be welcomed by European or Arab allies.

Mr Bush indicated that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan would be punished if it continued to support bin Laden. "All I can tell you is that Osama bin Laden is a prime suspect, and the people who house him, encourage him, provide food, comfort or money are on notice. And the Taliban must take my statement seriously."

As he shook hands at a Pentagon cafeteria, a woman in a civilian dress began singing God Bless America quietly. Before long, Mr Bush and everyone else there had joined in. Mr Bush also met the pregnant wife of one of the Pentagon victims, hugging and talking to her before giving her a kiss.

What is there to say?

But didn't Dubya also say something about not resting until he'd been caught and brought to justice for September 11?

He sure did. In fact, two days after September 11, Dubya said, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."

But five months later, perhaps fatigued from five months without rest, Dubya said on March 13, 2002, "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." In case anyone was confused, he reiterated for them, "I am truly not that concerned about him."

By his third presidential debate on October 13, 2004, Dubya was sufficiently rested to tell Kerry, "I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations."

Exaggerations. The one thing that Dubya knows a lot about.

And since 2004? You know it's bad when Faux News mentions (on February 23, 2005) the absence of bin Ladin from Dubya's 2005 State of the Union Address, and quotes Ted Kennedy approvingly:

Just how many U.S. resources are being put into the search may be more difficult to ascertain these days. While President Bush mentioned the terror mastermind by name more than 10 times in his 2004 State of the Union address, bin Laden wasn't named once by the president during this year's address.

"It isn't the local Iraqis that are a threat to me in Boston," Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy recently told the Boston Herald. "It's Al Qaeda that is the threat to us here. It is unfortunate and tragic we haven't been able to apprehend him [bin Laden] after all this period of time."

Kennedy, a Democrat, noted the lack of mention of bin Laden in Bush's 2005 State of the Union address. "Why'd [Bush] mention [bin Ladin] one year ago 15 times? Now he doesn't mention him at all."

When asked in December how the search for bin Laden is going, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "The war on terrorism is much broader than any one person" but reiterated the theme that the Al Qaeda network has been smashed.

A month earlier, when asked if the United States was still actively looking for the ringleader, McClellan responded: "Yes, we are continuing to pursue him and he will be brought to justice. We are also continuing to move forward on dismantling and destroying the Al Qaeda network, and we have made great progress over the course of the last few years. But there is more to do. And we continue to stay on the offensive."

That Scott McLellan, a team player to the end. More than six and a half years after bin Ladin sent his emissaries to New York and Washington, and he's still at large, but Scottie had faith. Heckuva job, Scottie.

Speaking of that six-and-a-half-year era, has Dubya really gone without rest during that time, as he promised. Nah. But he HAS given up golf, because he thought it looked bad to the families of our 4,080 servicemembers killed over there, and the 30,329 servicemembers injured over there, for the grinning President of the United States to be chipping balls on the greens. Or so he has said. Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post says something different about all that:

The nation is in despair over the war in Iraq and the toll it is taking on our troops and their families. But President Bush shows no outward sign of inner pain. He is chipper in his public pronouncements. His weekly bike rides and daily workouts have put a perpetual spring in his step. He's always ready with a wisecrack. He just hosted his daughter's wedding at his multi-million dollar estate in Texas. He takes more vacations than any president in history. He has made clear that he doesn't lie awake at nights.

And yet now it turns out that Bush has indeed made a personal sacrifice on account of the war. According to the president yesterday, his decision to stop playing golf five years ago wasn't just an exercise in image control or a function of his bum knee -- it was an act of solidarity with the families of the dead and wounded.

Here's the relevant exchange in an interview Bush gave to Mike Allen of Politico:

Allen: "Mr. President, you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?"

Bush: "Yes, it really is. I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Allen: "Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?"

Bush: "No, I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. And I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it anymore to do."

This is the latest in a series of statements by Bush, the first lady and Vice President Cheney illustrating how far removed they are from the consequences of the decision to go to war -- and stay at war.

Adding factual insult to Dubya's injuries to the truth, Froomkin finds reason to question the Resident's resolve. Apparently Dubya made this momentous decision on August 19, 2003, but the AP reported two months later that he spent October 13, a "cool, breezy Columbus Day" playing "a round of golf with three long-time buddies.

"Bush played at Andrews Air Force Base with Clay Johnson, Office of Management and Budget deputy director, Richard Hauser, Department of Housing and Urban Development general counsel and another friend, Mike Wood."

On that outing, he was typically full of what passes for good humor at the White House. The AP reported: "'Fine looking crew you got there. Fine looking crew,' Bush joked to reporters. 'That's what we'd hope for presidential coverage. Only the best.'

"He hit a couple of practice balls before flaring his tee-off shot into the right rough."

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "Democrats have criticized Bush for allegedly not requiring Americans to sacrifice enough while waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for urging people to keep shopping as a way to fight terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush was also widely criticized in August 2002 when he decried terrorist bombings in Israel while golfing and then told reporters: 'Now watch this drive.'

"Although Bush says he has given up golf, he is a mountain-biking enthusiast who has been photographed taking part in rides. He took up biking after an injury sidelined him from running.

"Presidential historian Robert Dallek. . . said Bush's remarks about Iraq 'speak to his shallowness.' Dallek added: 'That's his idea of sacrifice, to give up golf?'"

Yeah.

So after all those butch pronouncements back in 2001 and 2002 about finding and bringing bin Ladin to justice, Dubya turned the entire might of the American military and economy toward Iraq, neglecting the Taliban until they're effectively back in power in Afghanistan, and leaving bin Ladin to move closer and closer toward his dastardly goal. Why is Dubya so beholden to the Saudis, and so namby-pamby when it comes to bin Ladin? I don't know the answer. Does anyone?

"Ours is a season of obscenity and absurdity," writes Lance Hames, a write-in candidate who offered his own "State of the Union" address online. "Currently, we have in the White House an alcoholic who failed at every business venture handed him, by his family, and by their lofty connections, friends in the oil industry, the Bin Laden family, and the royal family of Saudi Arabia, someone who was unable to find oil in Texas with infinite pools of funding."

And as we fumble on in Iraq, in the fight, and in the futility, we say nothing of our fair-weather friends the Saudis, a feudal monarchy we finance with the worship of our gas-guzzlers, two-faced fanatics who take the tithe we offer and finance schools of the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect, whose scholars teach their students to hate all things American except our cash.

And no one in the second Bush White House wants us to remember that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 murderers were Saudis.
...
And while the dying continues, and the light at the end of that tunnel dwindles, and our own President spends a billion of our dollars in Iraq every week to drive up the price of oil for his friend in the Petroleum Industry, we the people, in our conversations, in our coffee klatches, at our café counters, in our closed circles and our open opinions, complain of mothers on welfare, and the rising cost of the health care system we insist on keeping. We complain government is too big, not the corporate interests who control it.

While ExxonMobil, who controlled environmental policy for the second Bush Administration, posts a profit of $39.6 billion for 2006, $40.6 billion for 2007, a record for any corporation, we bitch about the price of gas, knowing we will do nothing, not even in the Spring, when the price will jump to greet the tourist season, when the oil monopolies will take it to $4 a gallon.

And Osama Bin Laden, our true enemy, an actual evil, remains at large, at leisure and on the loose, even after all the torture and wire-tapping, even after the execution of his hapless surrogate boogeyman, Saddam Hussein.
...
We've seen the price of oil skyrocket, environmental warnings have been ignored to facilitate that rise, our national debt and our annual deficit have soared, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been shipped overseas, and health care costs have climbed as fewer Americans can afford them, and the examples of other countries with universal health care are ignored.

In essence, thanks to Dubya's earnest incompetence, or his malevolent neglect, or his active collusion in bin Ladin's nation-crippling scheme, the mastermind of September 11 is on the brink of achieving his longtime goal. Is this another case of the Lucky Enemy Syndrome -- like Tip O'Neill enabling his fellow Irishman Ronald Reagan's thirst for Pentagon spending, or Newt Gingrich flailing against the intellectually and politically superior Bill Clinton? Except in this case, it's bin Ladin who gained the upper hand when the Rehnquist Court installed their boy, the ultimate clueless cowboy, in the White House?

Of course, I'm not absolving the dark half of that package deal, Chancellor Cheney.

There's a little something obscene about the prospect of bin Ladin accomplishing his mission sometime between America's Memorial Day and America's Independence Day, two of the high-holiest days in the patriot's year. (Might it happen smack-between the two, on June 14, our Flag Day?) But asking Dubya himself whether the hunt for bin Ladin is still the "priority" it once was is a fool's errand. In less than eight months, it won't matter to him anyway. The charms of his Prairie Chapel Ranch await him, and he has a library to build at Southern Methodist University.

He intends to raise $500 million for his library -- making it the most expensive presidential library to date, surely a new definition for "supreme irony" -- which has real librarians howling: Says one, "The half-a-billion dollars is twice the total amount Bush spent on his entire 2004 Presidential campaign! Just think if public libraries had that kind of kind of support while he was in office."

Don't bring that up to Dubya, though. He's got things on his mind, or he did on May 3:

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. — President Bush on Friday touted his planned presidential library at SMU as a forum to promote freedom, brushing aside critics who say it will operate as a partisan venue. “This isn’t a political precinct, this will be a place where we get the thinkers from around the world to come and write about and articulate the transformative power of freedom, abroad and at home,’’ Mr. Bush said.

The SMU project, now being designed, will be composed of a library, museum and public policy research center.

The president, taking questions from employees at a technology plant in suburban St. Louis, said the center will help foster democracy around the world – what he called the “freedom agenda.”

“It’s going to be very important to be kept in the forefront of American philosophical thought,’’ he said.

Never a fan of discussing his legacy, Mr. Bush said after all the good days and the bad days in the White House he remains optimistic. “Interestingly enough, it is a lot harder to have been the son of the president than to be the president,” he said. “And so it’s been a joyous experience.”

Mr. Bush headed to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, for the weekend after his speech. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, by the way,” he cautioned the crowd. “I’m getting ready to march down the aisle.”

The president’s daughter Jenna is getting married next weekend.

Oh, and have you heard who Dubya's soliciting for contributions to the building of his library at SMU? I'll give you a hint: They're not Southern, and they're not Methodist.

In late-November, the New York Daily News reported that "Bush sources with direct knowledge of library plans" said that "Bush fund-raisers hope to get half of the half billion from what they call 'megadonations' of $10 million to $20 million a pop." According to the Daily News, "Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab nations and captains of industry as potential 'mega' donors and are pressing for a formal site announcement - now expected early in the new year...The rest of the cash will come from donors willing to pony up $25,000 to $5 million."

While the donors to Bush 43's library will remain anonymous, in February 2006, the Associated Press reported that among the donors to Bush 41's presidential library located at Texas A&M University in College Station, were a sheik from the United Arab Emirates, who contributed at least $1 million, the state of Kuwait, the Bandar bin Sultan family, the Sultanate of Oman, King Hassan II of Morocco, the amir of Qatar, and the former Korean prime minister. China also gave tens of thousands of dollars to the library. In addition, funds were received from the late Kenneth Lay, the former head of Enron, and Dick Cheney, the current Vice President.

"Presidential libraries," the Daily News pointed out, "are run by the National Archives and Records Administration, but building costs must come from private donations. Bells and whistles, like an institute or an academic program like Bush's father's public service school at Texas A&M, are also extras."

The really big extra embedded into this project appears to be what Bush insiders are calling the Institute for Democracy. Modeled after the Hoover Institution, a long-time conservative think tank located on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, Bush's institute would hire conservative scholars and "give them money to write papers and books favorable to the President's policies," one Bush insider told the Daily News. This would effectively be the post-administration version of a policy they established during his reign - paying columnists to advocate for administration policy.

So the same Middle Eastern interests who nurtured bin Ladin, who have controlled the petroleum economy for forty years, who have played games with the Bush family and its various corporate connections, who funded the elder Bush's presidential library in Houston and who now hold America's economic cojones in a vice-grip are going to pony up to the tune of millions to give the Boy King a gilt temple in which supplicants can worship his monkeyish legacy and eminence for generations to come.

And on the campus of an institution of higher learning. Where, likely, Dubya himself couldn't honestly earn a degree of his own, even if he majored in his own legacy.

Is there no one at SMU who could or would stand against this injury to logic and reason?

Maybe there is.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS (AP) -- Some ministers will use a PR campaign to try to stop George W. Bush's presidential library from being built at Southern Methodist University. Opponents have hired a Maine public relations firm to design ads for Methodist publications.

The Reverend Andrew Weaver of Brooklyn, New York, says the goal is informing people about the center's partisan think tank. Weaver says some Methodists believe Bush policies -- like the war with Iraq and torturing foreign prisoners -- conflict with church teachings.

Critics are launching the campaign before July's meeting of the United Methodist Church's South Central Jurisdiction, which owns the land for the Bush complex. Last year a smaller church council authorized SMU to lease land to the Bush Foundation for the spread.

SMU officials say that's all the approval needed.

More power to them, if they're able to stunt this mutation before it takes root.

But I think all the prayers in the Crystal Cathedral won't stop Osama bin Ladin from reaching his goal of $144-a-barrel oil soon. It's clear that our president won't.

Does Dubya buy his own food or gas?

To all those who voted for George W. Bush -- even once -- this summer belongs to you. His free market is alive and well, and we're all going broke.

In the first five minutes or so that I spent clicking through CNN.com, I found reason to spend this summer at home, indoors, in the dark, with a pantry full of Top Ramen noodles and glasses of tap water.

First, CNN tells us that it's going to cost us a lot more money if we go to the grocery store.

Food inflation is the highest in almost two decades, driven by record prices for oil, gas and mounting global demand for staples such as wheat and corn, and for proteins such as chicken. And that's reaching into Americans' backyards.

The price of an average barbecue -- with burgers, hot dogs, beer, soda, condiments, salad, paper plates and lighter fluid -- could run families about 6 percent more than last year.

The consumer price index for food rose 4 percent last year, compared with an average 2.5 percent annual rise for the last 15 years. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture raised its forecast for next year by half a percentage point, to a range of 4.5 to 5.5 percent.

Basic economics account for most of the increase: Bad weather has hurt crops, economic prosperity has driven up demand in developing countries, and surging fuel prices have raised transportation costs.

Economists and food scientists have argued that biofuel production is also a major factor in rising food costs, particularly corn, and that it should be scaled back. Meat and poultry executives have come out against federal ethanol mandates, which they say is driving the cost of corn higher.

Next, today's news brings word that crude oil has just shattered another record. What was it before Dubya was elected the first time, about $20 a barrel or so? I remember reading back then that if oil crossed $30 a barrel, there would be terrible consequences.

Today, however, oil crossed $133 a barrel, and CNN hasn't reported any response from the White House. One bright guy writing in today's Las Vegas Sun says it's the Democrats' fault, because Democrats have blocked efforts to drill in Alaska (where global warming has turned the potential drilling ground to slush and muck, but who's bothered by that?). The letter writer, Lee S. Gliddon Jr. of North Las Vegas -- a town renowned worldwide for conservation of energy and natural resources -- writes that the Bush administration bears no blame for these turns of events.

The Democrats continue their efforts to blame the rising prices of gasoline and fuel oil on the Republicans and, in particular, the Bush administration. There is no bigger lie to be foisted upon the American public.

Since 1980, almost 29 years ago, the Democrats began their refusal to allow offshore drilling, Alaskan oil drilling, the construction of nuclear power plants and wind farms off the coast of New England. Their claims, however foolish, were designed to protect the interests of their political contributors, not the pocketbooks of the American citizenry.

Now the Democrats want to blame the Republican Party for failure to levy fines for “price gouging” by Big Oil. Never mind the fact that they, the Democrats, ran on the promise to keep gasoline prices low and punish Big Oil for price gouging.

The Democrat spokesmen all say that if we were to allow drilling offshore, in Alaska, and that if we were to allow nuclear power plants, it would be at least 10 years before we would realize anything in production. That may be true, but if we had begun to act in 1980, 29 years ago, the “10 year” claim would be a moot point! We would have had energy prices under control, and facts are facts!

Even Forrest Gump had a little more rattling around than this fella, but Lee S. Gliddon Jr. has his admirers. Among the online responses to his screed: "Speak it, brother."

There will be blood, right? I think Lee S. Gliddon Jr. is drinking my milkshake.

Anyway, the hits just keep on comin':

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil prices hit a fourth straight closing record Wednesday - shooting over $133 a barrel - after the government said crude and gasoline stockpiles decreased last week, surprising analysts who were expecting an increase. U.S. light crude for July delivery settled at $133.17 a barrel, up $4.19, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prior to the 10:30 a.m. ET report, oil was down 29 cents to $128.69.

Over the last four days, oil has gained more than $9 per barrel.

"There is a tremendous amount of fear and greed driving this market," said Stephen Schork, publisher of industry newsletter The Schork Report. "This is a runaway train. I don't think the fundamentals justify the runup."

Earlier Wednesday, oil prices soared past $130 a barrel for the first time amid continuing supply concerns and a weakening dollar. The contract retreated just before the government data were released.

"If you don't get a break in crude oil prices, you won't get a break at the pump," said Schork. "This is going to be a long, painful summer."

The price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline hit a record high for the 14th straight day, according to AAA's Web site. The nationwide average for a gallon of regular unleaded rose to $3.807, up from $3.80 the previous day and up 19% from year-ago levels.

The weakening dollar has also contributed to the rising cost of crude oil. Crude oil is traded in U.S. greenbacks across the globe, which means that a less valuable dollar sends the price of crude up.

I wonder if Dubya knows the average price of gas within a mile or so of the White House. I'd bet not. Buying gas is for the proles, not the kakistocracy. What has Dubya actually done about it?

Well, there was this trip to the court of King Fahd last week, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where the supposed leader of the free world begged the tinhorn patriarch of a third-world dictatorship to turn up the oil spigots a little, just for old time's sake.

You know, if no oil flowed under the sands of Saudi Arabia, that entire nation might be just the world's largest landfill, with the nomadic Fahd family tending to the gates. But because there's oil, he gets all the Grecian formula he wants for his goatee, and he gets the occupant of America's White House begging him for favors. And, as we saw again, he gets to turn down that Boy King's pleas.

Or, from last week's New York Times,

Saudis Rebuff Bush, Politely, on Pumping More Oil
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JAD MOUAWAD

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Bush used a private visit to King Abdullah’s ranch here on Friday to make another appeal for an increase in oil production that might give American consumers some relief at the gasoline pump. The Saudis responded by announcing they had decided a week ago on a modest increase of 300,000 barrels a day.

The White House said the increase would not be enough to lower gasoline prices, which are nearing $4 a gallon, and industry analysts called it mostly symbolic.

But Mr. Bush’s request, his second in five months, coupled with rising anti-Saudi sentiment in the Democratic-led Congress, underscored the growing tensions between the countries over oil. The issue is also dominating the domestic agenda in Washington, where the Energy Department said Friday it was suspending shipments of oil to the strategic petroleum reserve.

Mr. Bush’s visit here was, in many respects, a reprise of a trip he made to the king’s ranch in January, when he asked for an increase in production and was rebuffed publicly by the oil minister and privately by the king. This time, the Saudis again resisted Mr. Bush, while offering at least the appearance of a concession.

The White House billed the visit on Friday as a way to celebrate 75 years of United States-Saudi relations...

In other words, the answer was, "No; hell, no; and stop coming over here begging us like a little girl for more oil. You want oil, you better ask someone who owes you something."

And the Bushes thought the Fahds were their friends. Guess this means no more canasta on Thursdays.

Do you ever wonder who's to blame, if not Dubya, for rising oil prices? Apparently Congress wonders it all the time. So, from time to time, it hauls up a menagerie of oil company executives to answer that very question in committee hearings. Funny thing is, Congress keeps getting the same answer: "It ain't us -- it's YOU. And by the way, don't stick your finger in the free market. (Greed is good. Long live Gordon Gekko!)"

The Senate Judiciary Committee called the hearing to explore the skyrocketing price of oil, which jumped over $4 a barrel to a new record of over $133. The committee grilled executives from Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips Co., Shell Oil Co., Chevron and BP as to how their companies can in good conscience make so much money, while American drivers pay so much at the pump.

"You have to sense what you're doing to us - we're on the precipice here, about to fall into recession," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "Does it trouble any one of you - the costs you're imposing on families, on small businesses, on truckers?"

The executives said it did, and that they are doing all they can to bring new oil supplies to market, but that the fundamental reasons for the surge in oil prices are largely out of their control.

"We cannot change the world market," said Robert Malone, chairman and president of BP America Inc. "Today's high prices are linked to the failure both here and abroad to increase supplies, renewables and conservation."

Malone's remarks were echoed by John Hofmeister, president of Shell. "The fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work," said Hofmeister.

The testimony was colored by a few outbursts of protest from members of the public. Before the hearing even began, a heckler in the crowd shouted: "Stop ripping off the American public - bring these oil prices down."

The panel took issue with the amount of money oil firms are investing in finding oil, and investing in renewables. "You know how much cash you have on hand compared to capital investment," said Durbin. "They are begging us for more refineries, for more exploration, when their refineries are only operating at 85 percent."

Chevron's Robertson said the issue wasn't really one of refining, and more just the price of crude. "We are investing all we can [in finding new oil] given the limitations of access and our own human capacity," he said. "We have adequate refined capacity, inventories are at an all time high. The issue is the price of crude."

The hearing marked the second time in as many months that top oil industry officials have been called before Congress. In April, roughly the same lineup defended their firms before a House committee. The hearing was ostensibly called to ask the executives why they needed some $18 billion in federal subsidies in light of their record profits, but quickly became a Q&A on bigger questions in the energy business.

So food prices are skyrocketing, energy prices are skyrocketing, the president of the United States travels all the way around the world to get emasculated by men dressed in flowing robes, and nothing is the fault of oil execs whose take-home pay, after bonuses, roughly the GDP of a small European nation.

Surely things this bad have to begin turning around soon, right?

Not that soon.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Reserve sees worse economic problems ahead, according to new forecasts from the central bank released Wednesday. The central bank said it now believes full-year economic growth will be between 0.3% and 1.2% this year, significantly below its previous forecast of 1.3% to 2% growth in January.

The Fed said in its minutes that members now expect the economy to shrink in the first half of the year -- the clearest signal yet that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and other bankers believe the economy is in a recession.

The Fed also raised its unemployment forecast for the year to between 5.5% and 5.7%, up from its earlier estimate of 5.2% to 5.5%. The unemployment rate was 5% in April.

In addition, the Fed boosted its projection for inflation. It said it now expects personal consumption expenditures to rise between 3.1% and 3.4% in 2008, a full percentage point more than its earlier expectation. Even when soaring food and energy prices are stripped out, the Fed expects steeper "core" inflation than its previous estimate.

But while it said it expects the economy to recover a bit next year -- forecasts call for growth of 2% to 2.8% in 2009 -- the Fed still sees some weakness lingering into next year.

Anyone want the rest of the Top Ramen? I don't want them to go to waste.