Monday, February 11, 2008

Dews Monday recovery


Another strange weekend in the books and another long week started. It never ceases to amaze me just how short weekends feel on sunday nights (after catching Aqua Teen of course) knowing that work is only a few hours away...

Oh well, on to the news of the day.
Leading off, Venezuela has us by the cajones yet again for something one of our multi-national corporate buddies Exxon is doing in retaliation for the nationalizing of a certain oil field.

"If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to
harm you," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello,
President." "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States.
Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger."

Quite honestly, it is refreshing for a rebel like Chavez to stick it to corporate America in the worst possible way. Not that I or anyone else is going to enjoy the repercussions of oil prices rising again, but if you draw a line in the sand, you have to back that up.

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In Primary news, it is looking more and more like Clinton's candidacy is having issues with not only money, but with the the supposed "Obama surge" that even I had been discounting over super tuesday (Sorry, the numbers just didn't support it I thought).

Clinton took another PR hit with this latest news of dismissing her Campaign Leader:

Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, replaced Patti Solis Doyle, who led her campaign
since it began last year and whom she regarded almost as an adopted daughter. In
her place, she named another longtime aide, Maggie Williams.

Regardless of the realities of whether this person was doing a good job, this kind of illustrates a desperate and pretty sad push by the Clinton campaign to get this ship righted. Given that she has referred to this now fired individual as an "adopted daughter", you'd think she would perhaps assign someone to her duties, but keep the news of her firing from the press... To me this just smacks of desperation, so I can imagine it may to others that only hear that much of the story as well.

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In other Primary news, Governor Huckabee continues on as he seemingly is still quite strong with the party base and the more conservative portions of his party.

With victories in Kansas and Louisiana, it appears Huckabee really doesn't have a good reason to go anywhere anytime soon, so it really does make sense for him to hang on and hope for a McCain collapse (or perhaps a news story containing details about a votes for sexual favors scandal?).
I really think Huckabee is still in this thing. Its a long shot obviously, but the conservatives in his party just cannot stomach McCain and as long as that is a festering issue with the party base, I can't write off the Huckster.
Should be an interesting finish though, still looking forward to seeing how this ends...
That is all.

15 comments:

SayHey Kid said...

I cant say I dont agree with Chavez, Id be upset if a corporation tried to control my government......Oh wait, it happens in the US everyday. Shocker!

But give Chavez the Oscar for Drama Queen, he has earned it.

Dews said...

agreed, its not like we won't take him seriously if he DID cut off our oil..

I think Venezuela is the 4th largest importer for us?

SayHey Kid said...

I dont think so, they did provide oil to low income families though. They distributed oil through Citgo, which no longer exists in the US, so i read.

Dews said...

yea, not sure who their distributor is, but the article quotes numbers like 12% of all oil in the states is from Venezuela...

That would definitely put a dent in operations here.

The Flip side of that is that we're also the largest importer FOR Venezuela, but I can't imagine China wouldn't pick up the slack for their newfound friends if that were to happen.

SayHey Kid said...

China may have a huge population, but I doubt they would ever purchase as much oil as the US does. Plus I believe China gets a majority of thier oil from Russia. That, and I believe China still relies heavily on coal for most of thier energy needs

I think Venezuala would lose a large amount of coin if they did stop selling us oil.

Dews said...

I could see China creating a national Oil Reserve program just to screw us on this.

Totally pump that huge trade surplus they have into creating a huge "rainy-day" fund that is essentially just enormous oil reserves...

It would be a strategically smart move on their end anyway.

SayHey Kid said...

Without the US, China would go bankrupt, or close to it. I doubt they would use Oil as leverage. It would be stupid.

The US is China's largest exporter of goods, plus, half our manufactoring jobs are in China. Its a very unusual partnership in which we need them just as much as they need us.

Dews said...

I don't think they're planning our outright destruction right now, but any way to knock us down a peg, while still exporting goods seems to be in their favor as well as a solid long-term investment on their end.

At some point China's desire to be the superpower is not going to jive with our need to be it, so its gonna have to come to a head at some point, why not kill us with a thousand little cuts over the years?

SayHey Kid said...

They need to figure out how to feed their people before they can become a superpower. As bad as the US is getting, we are still a superpower.

Remember, it took a World War to dethrone England as the worlds superpower. I think it would take something along that to dethrone this country.

Dews said...

I think once the Baby boomers all come calling for their Social Security the cost will be like another world war :)

SayHey Kid said...

Doubtful; even though it would be nice to have a plan setup that would protect us young folk from that kind of financial burden.

Besides, I dont even think China has a welfare program, social security, or and kind of health care in place.

Dews said...

Actually yes, as a communist/socialist state, China has all three of those programs in place.

Health care for everyone, and a vast social welfare program that includes old-age retirement type insurance that takes care of folks once reaching retirement age, as well as provisions for housing and other needs.

Most (read all) socialist nations are called socialist nations for a reason. They have socialized and centralized peoples needs to be divided up by the government.

The issue in this country with Social Security is we can't afford to actually pay out those benefits once the baby boomer generation actually needs all of them, so there is no way it will be available to further generations without massive overhaul in how we invest the money.

SayHey Kid said...

In theory that is nice, well said Dews. Tell me, in this worlds experiences in socialism, the one your explained, what are the consequences?? Mass murders, starvation, fear, Many ruled by the few, and no basic human rights. the USSR proved that you cannot be a superpower for very long with those principals applied. They may have some social programs, but im speaking more on the lines of efficiency than the existance

Thank you for your brief explanation of our Social Security problem. I wasnt aware of any of that..........-insert heavy sarcasm-

I agree, we need major reform and oversight if we want to remedy our money problems.

Dews said...

I just meant that as more of a serious drag that could quite possibly mimic a catastrophic event like a world war (especially given our situation now being so stretched financially).

Its not like anyone doesn't know its a problem, its just not seemingly viewed as one thats as harmful as it really can be. I really think it could trigger something far worse then the recession we're looking at right now.

SayHey Kid said...

We have survived 2 major recessions in the past 35 years; 1973 and 1988, and still retained our global supremacy.

Granted it will stretch just about every American thin if we do not strategize a solution sooner rather than later.