CHAM

• Propped Articles (1853) »
• Submitted Articles (41) »

Talkin’ to CHAM View All (4) »

•  
  

  davidnet2 months ago

  An interesting piece and as a financial trader in commodities and forex am often blamed for the woes of the world - when crude oil was $160 per barrel is was the traders who were blamed, when bank shares plunged it was speculators who were blamed - all rubbish in my opinion and often as a result of media hype and hysteria. The markets are manipulated by the insiders, not the traders - I update my blog daily along with all my other sites and try to educate and inform http://www.prices-oil.org

•  
  

  FrankHummel2 months, 2 weeks ago

  Cham- You are certainly amont the more honest, decent, and well-informed people I see posting on these boards, and thanks for your efforts. But I would like to try to broaden your perspective in a very fundamental regard: by conveying a MORE REALISTIC UNDERSTANDING (or at least an INKLING therreof!) of what has ACTUALLY been the REAL underlying basis / impetus for what the seeming idealogical idiots have done. And I DON'T think it is anything nearly so simplistically crude and crass as what many folks, coming around now only very BELATEDLY to anywhere near an informed recognition of much of what has gone on, seem inclined to suppose.
  
  Now please understand that I am NOT "defending" any of the things they did (and/or --- even much worse --- FAILED to do). But I DO think it important to UNDERSTAND what has REALLY MISguided the LOT of "our" MIS"leadership" (both that of the "political" variety, AND MUCH MORE GENERALLY, ALSO THE BROAD, DIFFUSE, PERVASIVE MIS"LEADERSHIP" OF THE LARGER SOCIETY AS A WHOLE: all of those "corporate/economic/"industrial" sages, and even the "religious / sociological" pooh-bahs, who have "bought into the bullbleep and ENCOURAGED "US" to go off on a toot trying to expropriate (or at least forcibly "control") the resources of other people elsewhere to suit "our" interests.
  
  The FACT of the matter --- recognition of which has "driven" much "government policy" for a very LONG time --- is this:
  
  We in this country now KNOW FOR SURE --- originally by means of Hubbert-inspired statistical analysis of patterns of past discoveries of the stuff, now CONFIRMED by many years of rather exact explicit mapping out of reserves (applying sonographic and other techniques), that we have at this point in fact USED UP (and indeed rather profligately!) about 70% of “our OWN” Providential Endowment of raw oil --- and specifically the “easy” stuff! The remainder, which the “drill, baby, drill” crowd is now hot to go after, is at this point to be found in low-capacity (only a few barrels a day) “stripper” wells, or under water, or somewhere north of the Arctic Circle, or WAY DEEP. (The largest known LIQUID oil reserve in the “lower 48”, several billion barrels up in the Dakotas, SOUNDS big, but is (1) ONLY ABOUT A HALF-YEARS’ U.S. SUPPLY, and (2) LIES FOUR MILES DOWN!) Such oil is very expensive to “produce” --- which means that it would NOT be possible to shave much (if anything) off the “price at the pump” merely by aggressively exploiting such declining resources!
  
  Now THAT, I submit, is what has ACTUALLY given rise in the first place to the whole current (ostensibly “lucrative”) “model” of AGGRESSIVE EXPROPRIATION (or very expensive ATTEMPTS thereat!) of the endowments of OTHERS elsewhere around the world --- and the subsequent (risky) transportation of the “booty” thousands of miles to be refined, distributed, and marketed over here (with, of course, endless opportunities for “profit” and “taxation” at every step along the way). All the while “we”, of course, PRETEND to each other and “our”selves --- BY ARTIFICIALLY EXCLUDING FROM EXPLICIT CONSIDERATION(!) all the “ancillary” (for example the “military”) costs, that actually DO ADD IN(!) to the overall TRUE cost --- that the end result is somehow “cheaper” than the alternatives would be. People may not WANT to “connect the dots”, but $10 BILLION A MONTH for the care and feeding of all those Sunni Militias in Iraq in order to “keep the lid on and the OIL flowing” REALLY IS A “HIDDEN” PART OF THE COST OF THAT OIL! And merely recognizing THAT, of course, does not even BEGIN to address all the IMPONDERABLE costs of about a million or so people BUTCHERED and millions more MADE REFUGEES by way of all the “collateral damage” wrought / unleashed by “us” in the course of THAT whole obscene (MISad)“venture”!
  
  Now of course the Oil Industry is NOT going to simply go away. Its products are vitally needed as the CHEMICAL FEEDSTOCKS for MANY things that “we” manufacture and use every day --- especially various different PLASTICS and other types of basic materials --- among them ASPHALT for our roadways, and polyvinyl-chloride used in water and gas pipes and electrical conduit and all that SIDING used in building. But “we” DESPERATELY need, and have LONG needed, to QUIT BRAINLESSLY BURNING THE STUFF UP AS A MERE FUEL! So we are now STILL going to have to pursue the alternatives ANYWAY --- even AFTER having now FOOLISHLY BLOWN the economic advantages that “we” not so very long ago had enjoyed, which could have substantially EASED what will surely now be a very DIFFICULT transition --- BRILLIANT, people!!
  
  I submit that ACTUALLY the REAL underlying culprit for the whole disaster we now witness is WIDESPREAD TECHNOLOGICAL IGNORANCE --- on the part of A HUGE PROPORTION of "We the People" in general. Specifically, consider the following:
  
  "Our" erstwhile "thinkers and planners" were, I believe, PANICKED by a dimly-emerging, early-on realization of the above-outlined fundamental realities --- which evidently MOST people STILL do not seem to "get" (or perhaps they are so ALARMED when they DO begin to "wrap their heads around" the reality of it all and begin to think through the implications that they recoil from it and try to deal with things by "playing brain dead", 'possum fashion). Anyway, the EARLY-ON Whiz-Bangs opted for a "solution" to the whole problem that proved to be a complete disaster.
  
  So what SHOULD they have done?? Well --- the technological alternatives that COULD (and SHOULD!) have steered us AWAY from the whole obscene mess ALREADY DO INDEED EXIST and have LONG EXISTED --- CONTRARY to the notion that has been propagandistically cultivated among the hugely techologically IGNORANT preponderance of most of the "body politic", which has evidently been beguiled into believing that any meaningful change is predicated on hypothetical "exotic, futuristic" NEW developments "in the laboratory" over, say, the next fifty years or so.
  
  But the TRUTH of the matter is that by the mere application of very OLD technological concepts --- applying to the AUTOMOBILE things worked out MANY YEARS AGO NOW ALREADY in much HEAVIER-DUTY systems --- "we" could LONG AGO now already have easily FLAT-OUT ELIMINATED about THREE-FOURTHS of all that importation of oil to refine into gasoline to fuel "our" automotive vehicular fleet --- had “we” but had the wit and the wisdom to do so!!
  
  Now however OUTRAGEOUS and OUTLANDISH that assertion may sound to many, make no mistake about it: PRECISELY THAT genuinely, simply IS the implication of the “new” ELECTRIC / I.C.E. "chimera" automotive architectural concept --- exemplified by the imminently forthcoming (really much BELATED) Chevy VOLT --- or if not THAT, then by its now EQUALLY-far-along EUROPEAN counterpart (jovially dubbed the AMPERE) --- involving BATTERY POWER carrying the car a number of miles (in the case of the VOLT, FORTY), with an internal combustion engine then kicking in if (and only if) the battery runs down. But FULLY THREE-FOURTHS of all personal auto usage "fits" within a forty-mile power budget! You go to the store, bank, doctor, etc., and you come back home AND PLUG THE CAR BACK INTO THE WALL. MOST OF THE TIME THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE NEVER OPERATES!
  
  Moreover, BOTH components of the "chimera" are VERY OLD technology. ELECTRIC cars have been around since the EARLIEST days of the automobile. And the I.C.E "fallback" component, involving a petroleum-powered engine that is coupled NOT to an elaborate, troublesome, expensive TRANSMISSION AND DRIVE TRAIN but, rather, merely to a GENERATOR that supplies the ELECTRIC drive motors (which were powered by the BATTERY until it ran down) --- is a paradigm implemented on a much larger scale on the RAILROADS and also in the BIGGEST SHIPS on the high seas! Anybody ever hear of the DIESEL-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE?? The truth is, really BIG-MUSCLE machines have LONG relied on relatively simple, UNbreakable MAGNETIC-FORCE drive elements rather than on complex, fallible mechanical ones --- because “we” simply couldn’t BEGIN to engineer a viable CLUTCH for really HEAVY loads!
  
  I submit that all the folks who now dither and blather about the "meltdown" in the "financial sector" are in reality BEING DIVERTED AWAY from what really SHOULD be the MAIN object of their exasperation --- which is actually the FAILURE of "our" past MISguided (or maybe more like MISBEGOTTEN!) MIS"leadership" to fulfill its ACTUAL responsibilities to the membership of this society --- which WOULD have been to OPTIMIZE BOTH THE CHARACTER AND THE QUALITY OF "OUR" PRODUCTS, RATHER THAN MERELY TO “MAXIMIZE” "THEIR" MONEY!
  
  Now I wonder just how THAT sort of realization must now weigh on all the folks who have THEMSELVES been lured off into fighting a dirty little "OIL war" over in Iraq, in some cases even coming back dead or permanently damaged, or who may have LOST LOVED ONES or friends therein?? It is really a very HATEFUL reality to have to face. But would it somehow be any "better" for people to just meekly try to erect a "psychological defensive barrier of DENIAL", letting their RIGHTFUL wrath and ire be "harmlessly" diverted over to and dissipated on mere practitioners of artificial hocus-pocus involving "our" "FINANCIAL SYSTEM"??! Would not THAT actually merely COMPOUND the REAL fraud that has been foisted off on the REALLY aggrieved victims??!

•  
  

  fatjim23 months ago

  Hi Cham, thanks for adding, is really great to have you as friend.

•  
  

  Albmore6 months, 3 weeks ago

  Hello Cham- havent heard anything from you for a few days. Do you have anything new....