The Oil Drum

I wonder if food and energy riots are going to be increasingly common events.  Somehow I doubt that the have-nots, unable to buy food and energy, are going to complacently stand by while the haves continue to buy food and energy.

I am also beginning to wonder if perhaps the Energy Tax/Abolish the Payroll Tax idea might be a really good idea, from the point of view of social stability.  In addition, it would be a concrete effort toward reducing our energy consumption.  

If you think that the US is disliked now, just wait until it becomes ever more apparent to legions of poor people around the world that we are outbidding them for food and energy supplies.  Of course, we may also be rapidly approaching the point at which we have convert dollars into something else in order to buy imported food and energy.  

NEW YORK (AP) - AOL (NYSE:TWX) is laying off about 1,300 employees - about seven per cent of its worldwide workforce - and is closing its call centre in Jacksonville, Fla.

Other cuts will come from call centres in Ogden, Utah, and Tucson, Ariz.

The layoffs represent the first major cuts since the Time Warner Inc. Internet unit cut about 700 positions last fall.

http://money.canoe.ca/News/Other/2006/05/09/1571292-ap.html

Whirlpool to Eliminate 4,500 Jobs, 3 Plants at Maytag

May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Whirlpool Corp., the world's largest appliance maker, will close three factories and cut 4,500 jobs as it reduces costs after the $1.68 billion purchase of Maytag Corp.

 Maytag, acquired by Whirlpool in March, was slow to move production to lower-cost countries and improve the efficiency of its U.S. factories amid competition from makers in China and South Korea. Its hometown Newton plant was running at 40 percent of capacity. Whirlpool seeks to trim production costs from factories each year and said it is shutting the Maytag plants because its own more efficient facilities have room to grow.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ayy2lGif.biA&refer=us

Bernzomatic Layoffs

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - Nearly 200 employees got some shockingly bad news late Friday when they were handed pink slips at the Bernzomatic plant in Medina in Orleans County.

 The plant produces hand held torches. Bernzomatic is a division of Newell Rubbermaid but says it will now move those operations to China. That leaves the future of the Western New York plant in limbo. The company is leaving open the possibility of keeping some distribution jobs in the area.

Bernzomatic handed out the layoff notices to 190 of its 286 workers, some who had been at the plant more than 2 decades.

http://www.wben.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=04915

Recession is when your neighbor loses his job, right? Our neighbors have been losing their jobs for several years now, but "our economy is strong."

http://today.reuters.com/investing/FinanceArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-05-12T1443 03Z_01_SP277526_RTRUKOC_0_US-MARKETS-OIL.xml

Jomo Gbomo, a spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger delta, denied involvement in the explosion. MEND's attacks on pipelines and an export terminal run by the Nigerian venture of Royal Dutch Shell Plc earlier this year halted output of as much as 631,000 barrels of oil a day, more than a quarter of Nigeria's production.

``All this works to our advantage in some ways,'' Gbomo said in an e-mail to Bloomberg. ``We wouldn't want to kill so many innocents in any attack,'' he said. ``I'm not a part of it.''

 The explosion comes a day after three foreign oil workers were kidnapped in the southeastern city of Port Harcourt. The workers, one of whom was an Italian, were released today, the Italian Foreign Ministry said. On May 10, an American employee of oil-services company Baker Hughes Inc. was killed in a drive- by shooting.

``It's a hell of a week,'' said Antony Goldman, an analyst at London-based Clearwater Research. ``It shows the full range of challenges that are presently facing the oil sector at time when the politics in Nigeria is already volatile.''