<Richard Heinberg (via the ABC): "Nothing governments can do about rising oil prices"The Oil DrumWave/Geothermal - Energy Return on Investment (EROI) (Part 6 of 6)>
<DrumBeat: May 13, 2008DrumBeatDrumBeat: May 15, 2008>

237 comments on DrumBeat: May 14, 2008

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

eric blair on May 14, 2008 - 9:19am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Ahh the power of free markets and following the words of the big sky guy. Who needs anything else when you have the protection of God and look for free markets? (Oh, and honesty of the people in the fly-over states eh?)

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/NEW...

Shutting down production at the plant will have a significant impact on the kosher meat sales, said Menachem Lubinsky, chief executive of Luicom Marketing and editor of KosherToday.
“They are a major supplier to retail establishments all over the world,” Lubinsky said.

Ahh yes. Large corporations in the free market add the spice to life. Oh where shall the observant turn to for their meat?

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/NEW...

About 200 protesters on Monday evening filled the sidewalk in front of the gates of the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds, where those arrested were being taken by bus.
They chanted "We have rights" and waved signs that said, among other things, "Honk for Human Rights."

No wonder there were protests! God *AND* free markets assaulted!

Last November, the search warrant said, ICE agents interviewed a former Agriprocessors supervisor who said some employees were running a methamphetamine lab in the plant and were bringing weapons to work.

At least I now know that:
1) Meth is kosher
2) Meth makes for a spicy meatball!

(Come on you posters on 'the market', 'capitalism' and 'large corporations' - I look forward to your spirited defense of the market at work. And for the rest of you - a big hot mugging of snarkanol)

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Durandal on May 14, 2008 - 9:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The raid was also a good opportunity to test out procedures for mass arrests of people, and their subsequent "processing." Ironic that the processing was handled at the National CATTLE Congress Fairgrounds.

However, thif the allegations of the workers being paid below minimum wage is true, the people who authorized that should do jail time. Whether here legally or illegally, they should have been paid minimum wage as defined by the law. In fact, if some workers were not paid minimum wage, that shows they were complicit in hiring workers with fake identification.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
eric blair on May 14, 2008 - 10:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The raid was also a good opportunity to test out procedures for mass arrests of people

And with my outrage meter recalibrations so the needle can still move - that registered a 'meh'.

Ironic that the processing was handled at the National CATTLE Congress Fairgrounds.

And who says that government agents are not funny? Someone is still laughing over getting that choice approved.

Think of the reams of school papers that this one case can provide footnotes for.

(Your list of laws broken just shows how much the free market is prevented from operating BTW. As todays Free Market advocate on the topic, it is my job to point that out.)

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Dryki on May 14, 2008 - 11:00am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Obviously the owners didn't pay ICE enough protection money. Sounds to me like the market worked.

As Gore Vidal pointed out in today's interview on DemocracyNow! (May 14), the coup has already happened. Laws broken, oh please, isn't that why we have Deciders now?

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
eric blair on May 14, 2008 - 1:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

And now the not free market is gonna drug the people who get shipped out.
http://wonkette.com/390390/get-your-psychotropic-drugs-free-with-each-de...

No wonder the people who speak of free markets and capitalism don't like the government giving out drugs on the taxpayers dime!

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
NeverLNG on May 14, 2008 - 11:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This is very strange.
1. How can the same meat plant produce both "kosher" and "non-kosher" meat? That would seem on the face of it to violate kosher laws.

2. There are allegations that some of it has to do with immigration issues and some of it to other illegal activity -- drugs? Money laundering? The comments at the ends of the articles are interesting.

3 "Cheap" meat to eat (what Americans have come to take for granted) means without question that you can not really value a man or a beast's life at anything other than at a vegetable level. Who is going to work in those conditions except human beings who have been denied all reasonable options -- mainly the new immigrants, legal or illegal? And who would own or manage such a plant except someone who is either totally amoral or completely desperate him/herself?

4. And why, knowing that this is the way things work, would the government suddenly undertake a "surprise" raid -- except to advance someone's political career?

This is all old news -- Upton Sinclair exposed all this almost 100 years ago, and guess what? nothing much has changed.

There is a free market, of course. It exists between the anode of the sun and the cathode of the cold, dead granite of the Earth's crust. Captitalism is just one of many ways to exploit and distort that ineluctable energy flow -- it is merely a literary device, a sort of conceit, to call it a "free" market. But only fools and the young believe that, and so we must move on.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
pericles on May 14, 2008 - 1:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The most interesting thing is that putin anncounces that russian oil production will be up by 13 % in 2015 while everybody believes russia is in decline. I followed russian politics for the last seven years, and putin is a really calculating person who doesn't follow any illusions. he is extremly well informed, and he never says anything without a solid foundation. sechin announced that production will be up this year, too. LUKOIL executives say production wil be down, but perhaps they will change their mind because of the today announced tax breaks for new fields in yamal and eastern siberia. Well, Putin foresaw that the future would be about energy at times where oil was really cheap. Well i really don't know what to believe, but putin seems to know more about energy than any other western politician...

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
DaveMart on May 14, 2008 - 1:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Have you got links?
thanks!

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Leanan on May 14, 2008 - 1:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The Putin stories are coming out piecemeal and a bit disjointed. I'm wondering if he's saying the increase will come if the tax cut he wants happens.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Not ManCon on May 14, 2008 - 7:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Don't forget that Putin, unlike Yeltsin before him, is old-school Soviet, and would no doubt like a return to the USSR.

Hence, it is possible that he is making an oblique reference to increasing production by increasing the area called "Russia"

Or, to put it another way, annexation of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan would boost the (expanded) Russian production by the amount Putin quotes.

AKH

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.