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A barrel of oil today is selling for about $28 dollars. To put it into perspective, in 1981 Ronald Reagan made a 10 year deal with Pemex of Mexico to buy oil for $20 dollars a barrel. The speculation in the oil market quickly disappeared. Gold and Silver which had spiked into the stratosphere crashed gently from highs on silver of $45 dollars an ounce, down to $14 dollars a ounce. Gold which had hit highs of $848 dollars a ounce, fell to just about $425 a ounce. Commodity speculation lapped over to Platinum, Copper and Lead. Commodity speculation moved cash from Hog Futures, Cattle Futures and such into new markets like Soy, Drugs and Electronics.
Global economics showed its ugly side when Jimmy Carter let in the Cuban boat folks into Miami. These were drug dealers, criminals and folks that were escaping Fidel and Raul for their relatives and friends that supported Battista Regime. Paid off power brokers that were nothing more than pawns for US Major Corporations that controlled Sugar, Telecom and the Gaming Industry in the United States. These were mainly, the spawn of organized crime with the paid off willing cooperation of several Agencies of the Federal Government.
The black economy money soon moved into banks in southern Florida, Venezuela, Columbia and Panama. Banks throughout the Caribbean basin became self laundering units for Narco Cartels, Trust Tax Avoidance Schemes, Organized Crime, Sex Trades, Oil Producing States Profligate Profits from Oil Depletion Allowances, Oil Lease Schemes and Land Grab Profits from Native Lands. The southern part of Mexico, near Chiapas and Commandante Marcos…..type insurrections followed the departure of various companies like United Fruit Company and the many revolutions that followed like that in Salvador/Honduras or Nicaragua. The narco state of Belize and others kept a low key. Business throughout the Caribbean basin was heating up. Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uraguay and Brazil. The business for Oil, Coco and Marijuana were booming. The 70’s had opened the gates for Hispanic and Arab States to flex their muscles economically.
The Reagan years brought conflict in Nicaragua, and Salvador while the US precipitated a dandy little war between Iran and Iraq in the Middle East. Iran/Contra captured the essence of the complexities in keeping our economy on the move. What was the connection again between weapons for the Contras in Nicaragua and Drug Sales in Iran? And what was our invasion of Grenada about? Freeing American college kids from bad dorm food perhaps? Maybe the bombing Lebanon of our Marines in March of 1983 had something to do with our invasion of Grenade in October of 1983..who knows? One thing is certain, George Bush had no compunctions about invading Panama right after he took office in December of 1989. Guess, being called “a wimp” during the campaign for President got to him. Manuel Noreiga got a free hotel room for several years…that is for sure. Hey, Noreiga knew where all that drug money was and went and to who for what for.
Obviously, Clinton followed suit with his invasion of Yugoslavia. What was that all about? Cheap electronics, quality washers and dryers and a third rail Socialist Regime with the best standard of living anywhere. Yugoslavians traded with everyone and had trucks from Russia and toilets from the United States. They had great farming, wonderful food and a very diverse society that ranged from the Croatians in the north to the Macedonians in the South. The Yugoslavian experiment had become an embarrassment to the West and the East. The ghost of Marshal Tito was laughing up his sleeve. His society was a major tourist destination for all of Europe. The affordable destination for Germans and English. Better than Spain and even Greece. The Albanians on the Southern Border were a third world despot regime, renowned for the most oppressive country in the world, next to North Korea. The Albanians opened their borders and told the starving population to invade Yugoslavia. Roving gangs crossed the Yugoslavian border, took towns and killed all the residents. It was a simple retake on Hitler and what he did in the Warsaw Ghetto of Poland. The rest is history. Find any pretext and go with it.
Fast forward past the following three wars to something that the Masters of War cannot challenge: Global Warming! Fossil Fuels are indeed killing us. Slowly, without fan fare! The weather is changing, the tides are rising and the air is becoming unbreatheable. That pollution in Beijing and New Delhi travels across the globe and pollutes Canada and the United States. We are having to face the facts that we are all in this together. So, why is the price of oil falling? The demand is down! How can the demand for oil be down when every day millions of new people populate our planet? We are learning to create mobility without fossil fuels. Those many trips to the mall have fallen because ……we buy online. Those many trips across country have been diminished by better fuel standards, hybrid cars and trucks and a future with solar powered turbine cars and trucks for billions of new drivers in the next 20 years. Cars and trucks that will not require ANY fossil fuels. Autos created by Nano technology, self driven, with incredible safety standards. The days of the Oil Cartel are numbered. Folks will soon have to travel to backward foreign climes to view “the old technology”!
The Narco States, which operate solely on the traffic of illegal substances, back channel selling and buying, arms dealing and the sex and slave trade need to depend on the illegal profits derived from oil products and chemicals. As these profits dry up, so will the Narco States ability to launder their illegal trades and inventory! A new paradigm is coming and what happens in between will be shocking! John Lennon said it best: “Imagine no possessions…..I wonder if you can…..” What man cannot do…..then nature must! Global Warming will either shock us out of our death cycle or make sure we quickly get the message. What do they say: “Unsustainable!”
So as Hillary and Donald J. prepare for the battle of the network stars…….the world has gone to hell in basket. Is it possible that the United States will lead the world into a better place or simply spend the next twenty years killing more people? Whoever we vote for this year, without cooperation from the rest of the world……..we are in for some very trying times….no doubt. Can we save ourselves? Sure we can…..if we only have the vision…..to do the right thing, by ending the reign of the Oil and Narco Cartel States!
The American military essentially controls Afghanistan. It’s a puppet government for the D.C. crowd. DEA has a contingent there. Yet under the Obama administration poppy plant production in Afghanistan has thrived to record levels. Afghanistan continues to be a leader in supplying the rest of the globe with the primary by-product necessary to produce heroin. War on Drugs? 🙂 Don’t make me upchuck. The narcotic industry rivals the steel industry in revenue. And the big money beneficiaries are protected. But the street addict pays dearly with either his life or a stiff prison sentence. Several US banks have been caught red-handed laundering funds for the south of the border drug cartels. They were found criminally liable in civil court. Google it. Not one banker did a day in jail over it. No criminal prosecutions. The fines (paid to the government) amounted to about 30% of the profits generated from the laundering operations. (A drug dealer would call it “the cost of doing business”). Most everything you see is Kabuki Theater these days. Oil and energy prices are being manipulated. You’re witnessing an artificial suppression of oil prices as part of the global economic war. (See Russia). Not by the forces of free-hand economics. Why are you still paying $2.85 for a gallon of gas in OC when the price for a barrel of oil is only $28? Ever consider that? Real economic law does not apply today and won’t until the markets finally dislocate under the pressures of government manipulation and inevitably crash. Math always wins in the end. And it’s coming.
Maybe all those poppies are for flowers.com
*For those that didn’t see Charlie Rose last night he had a Goldman-Sachs economist on and re-acting to the fall in oil prices. She said that actually the demand globally for oil was up “the standard 1%”, as it has been for the last several years. What she didn’t bother to say was what oil products were in highest demand. The entry of the Iranian Oil into the market she said would mean that the US could reduce our exports by 500,000 barrels a day – with the Iranian oil replacing the demand in the market. We can’t wait for the Chemical Companies to have to account for their oil distillates – that pollutes our globe, in the name increasing global food production. Meanwhile, oil by the barrel continues to slide down in price.