Thursday December 30, 2004 
Thursday December 30, 2004
Black market switching to euros
"Even drug dealers are giving up on the dollar."
The dollar's decline against the euro shows no sign of ending. Clearly, currency traders have made a long-term judgment about the relative value of the currencies of the Old and New Worlds. That sounds bad enough. But now there are signs that we're losing some of the most devoted fans of the greenback: drug dealers, Russian oligarchs, and black-market traffickers of all kinds.
The United States benefits greatly from the fact that the dollar is the world's reserve currency. Many of the $100 bills circulating throughout the globe are essentially loans that we never have to pay back. Americans use them to buy goods, services, or other currencies. But many of those bills never return to our shores to be redeemed for anything we make or produce. Instead, they stay under mattresses in Bogotá, circulate in Iraq, and are stashed in bank accounts around the world.
... for most products, losing international drug cartels and corrupt Third World dictators as customers would seem to be a desirable outcome. But these guys represent part of our long-standing and faithful base. If you think pundits are fretting about the slumping dollar now, just imagine what might happen if we start to lose the arms dealers.
(2004-12-30 22:33:06 SGT)
[Biz]
Permalink
Running below the surface of the year-end self-congratulatory assertions of American supremacy ... are warnings, often ignored, of our decline. The steady loss of the dollar against the euro is one. The spiraling trade deficit is another. And in the past weeks, there were two serious economic signs signaling momentous change, if not outright decline.
The first concerns China's invasion of Canadian oil fields, heretofore a U.S. energy fiefdom. The second came in the form of an all-but-hidden report from the Department of Agriculture that America, the breadbasket of the world, is now a net importer of food.
OIL
If the half-dozen planned projects worth $2 billion go through, Canada, [America's] No. 1 energy supplier, could end up sending as much as one-third of its total oil exports to China. One project would give the Chinese a 49 percent interest in a 720-mile-long pipeline running from Alberta to British Columbia. The Chinese are also eyeing an expansion of a second Canadian pipeline system, and they're discussing gaining an interest in companies with oil leases ...
FOOD
Agriculture, long our largest and most important industry, has heavily influenced American foreign policy. As the push west ended by the turn of the 20th century, we began to struggle to find markets for an increasing food surplus ... but the surplus has suddenly disappeared. For the first time in decades, the U.S. will not turn an agricultural trade surplus, the Economic Research Service reported on November 22. The Agriculture Department couldn't say why. It could not explain how Bush managed to run down a $13.6 billion agricultural trade surplus in 2001 to zero in 2005 ...
(2004-12-30 22:20:55 SGT)
[Energy]
Permalink
Global warming : permafrost thawing
In parts of Fairbanks, Alaska, houses and buildings lean at odd angles. Some slump as if sliding downhill. Windows and doors inch closer and closer to the ground. It is an architectural landscape that is becoming more familiar as the world's ice-rich permafrost gives way to thaw. Water replaces ice and the ground subsides, taking the structures on top along with it.
Alaska is not the only region in a slump. The permafrost melt is accelerating throughout the world's cold regions ... in addition to northern Alaska, the permafrost zone includes most other Arctic land, such as northern Canada and much of Siberia, as well as the higher reaches of mountainous regions such as the Alps and Tibet. All report permafrost thaw.
Scientists attribute the thaw to climate warming. As the air temperature warms, so does the frozen ground beneath it. The observations reiterate the recent findings of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, which attributed the northern polar region's summer sea-ice loss and permafrost thaw to dramatic warming over the past half-century.
... not all outcomes of permafrost thaw have precedent, or an immediate solution. One considerable variable is the possible release into the air of organic carbon stored in the permafrost. In the drier areas, most of the emissions would be in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). But in the wetter areas, it would be methane, a more effective greenhouse gas.
(2004-12-30 22:16:53 SGT)
[Env]
Permalink
Thailand : tsunami warning was halted 'for tourist industry'
informationclearinghouse.info :
Just minutes after the earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Sunday morning, Thailand's foremost meteorological experts were sitting together in a crisis meeting. But they decided not to warn about the tsunami "out of courtesy to the tourist industry," writes the Thailand daily newspaper The Nation.
The experts got the news around 8:00 am on Sunday morning local time. An hour later, the first massive wave struck. But the experts started to discuss the economic impacts when they discussed if a tsunami warning should be issued ...
"We finally decided not to do anything because the tourist season was in full swing," the source said. "The hotels were 100 percent booked. What if we issued a warning, which would have led to an evacuation, and nothing had happened. What would be the outcome? The tourist industry would be immediately hurt. Our department would not be able to endure a lawsuit."
- meanwhile, the tsunami death toll has exceeded 100,000.
(2004-12-30 22:07:02 SGT)
[Biz]
Permalink
Here's what the real score is with Las Vegas :
The city is a pathological hypertrophic suburbanoid anomaly in the middle of a desert wasteland, analogous to a deadly tumor growing in a remote part of a person's body, say the colon ... if anything, the destiny of Las Vegas is to dry up and blow away, sooner rather than later. Here's why:
- The global oil production peak will put an end to cheap oil and economies that depend on it. That means the end of things like casual visitors motoring in from Southern California and Phoenix ... far less disposable wealth among the population in general, and for many baby boomers it probably means the end of hope that their retirement will be funded by pensions and stock options. It means the end to cheap air conditioning and bargain hotel rates. It means bankrupt airlines.
- The water situation in Las Vegas is dire. The city has absolutely no capacity left for expansion under any circumstances. What's more, Lake Mead, the impoundment behind Hoover Dam, is down to historically low levels, dropping a foot per week lately, and may soon fall so low that the turbine intakes on Hoover Dam no longer operate, meaning goodbye electric generating capacity ... the desert southwest has actually been enjoying two comparatively wet centuries and is now reverting to a drier cycle. Global warming could make it much worse.
The last thing that the American future will be about is mega-cities in the desert supported by lifelines of cheap oil, cheap electricity, cheap air conditioning, cheap diverted water, and cheap long-range transportation and the pissing away of financial resources for "excitement." Of course, when your national mythology is based on the idea that it is possible to get something for nothing, you'll believe anything ...
The businessmen in Las Vegas and the Times business reporters are like the clueless westerners gamboling on the beach in Phuket with a tidal wave silently bearing down on them. Only in this case the wave is a permanent global energy crisis. When the wave lands in Las Vegas, the excitement will be over.
Read the entire article here.
(2004-12-30 14:26:49 SGT)
[Energy]
Permalink
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