Keith Olbermann delivered a special report Wednesday on the "Enron loophole" -- a regulatory gap that is the single greatest cause of out-of-control gasoline prices -- and how McCain's leading advisors created that loophole and continue to defend it.
People who deal in oil routinely use "futures" -- agreements in advance on prices and delivery dates -- to deal with fluctuations in the market. However, deregulation has allowed commodity speculators to take over this system of futures and use it for their own profit, running up the price of oil in a speculative bubble.
According to Olbermann, the story of $4 a gallon gas begins during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, when former Enron CEO Ken Lay started speculating on energy futures. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) gave Enron free rein, and when Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, CFTC Chairwoman Wendy Gramm moved to lock in the commission's informal position on Enron as official policy. Gramm then joined Enron's board of directors, earning more than $900,000 over the next decade.
In December 2000, during the chaos following the presidential election, Enron got a law passed containing an amendment known as the "Enron loophole," deregulating not just single trades but entire markets. This made it possible for Enron to artificially create the California energy crisis -- and left Enron employees chortling over how they had fucked over "Grandma Millie."
The Enron loophole applied not just to electricity, but to all energy sources, which is why speculators have now been able to take over the oil market. Two weeks ago, the Senate Commerce Committee heard testimony from a former CFTC director that "the speculators are not just placing bets in these futures markets, they're saying, 'Gosh, I can control the price of heating oil.' ... Morgan Stanley is the biggest heating oil owner in New England."
If the Enron loophole is removed, said this director, "you get at least a 25% drop in the cost of oil ... some people estimate 50%."
John McCain voted to close the Enron loophole in 2002 and 2003, saying at the time that "we're all tainted" by Enron's money. But, notes Olbermann, "for most of this campaign, McCain has offered explanations other than the influence of speculators, and remedies other than regulation." If the Enron loophole is not closed, even alternative energy sources will do little to reduce prices, because speculators will be able to immediately take those over as well.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Long-tailed macaque monkeys have a reputation for knowing how to find food - whether it be grabbing fruit from jungle trees or snatching a banana from a startled tourist.
Now, researchers say they have discovered groups of the silver-haired monkeys in Indonesia that fish.
Groups of long-tailed macaques were observed four times over the past eight years scooping up small fish with their hands and eating them along rivers in East Kalimantan and North Sumatra provinces, according to researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust.
The species had been known to eat fruit and forage for crabs and insects, but never before fish from rivers.
Over the last 10 years, the average share of Americans listening to radio at any given time has shrunk about 14 percent, or 2.3 percentage points. Teenagers account for a well-recognized chunk of that decline. But Larry Rosin, a radio consultant with Edison Media Research in Somerville, N.J., points out that college graduates are also far less likely to listen to radio than nongraduates, a gap that has widened with time.
Over the last decade, college graduates ages 25-54, who make up an increasingly large portion of the population, have abandoned radio eight times faster than nongraduates. Today, they listen to 15 hours and 45 minutes of radio a week, while their peers without degrees listen to 21 hours and 15 minutes weekly.
“In part, it’s the nature of the work that people do,” Mr. Rosin said. “Nongraduates are more likely to have jobs that allow them to listen to the radio. If you think of teachers, for example, that’s a huge category of college-educated people in an environment where it’s entirely impossible to listen to the radio.” ALEX MINDLIN
The Huffington Post has learned that Sen. Hillary Clinton's reported openness to the vice presidential slot on an Obama-led ticket, as firstnoted by the AP, came during a call with supporters in New York's congressional delegation that was intended to provide her with maximum candor as she plots her next moves.
The question of whether Clinton will concede tonight or not dominated cable chat shows on Tuesday, though it has most often been posed as an either-or matter. All of which obscures the fact that the truth may lie somewhere in between, at least for now.
So Ok... it's been a while. Guess what.. I'm back with a desire to write again. It seems like this may once again be a place I can ...
