<strike>Oil</strike> Fuel pipeline explosion outside Lagos
Posted by Super G on May 12, 2006 - 11:14am
A pipeline explosion killed up to 200 people on the outskirts of Nigeria's biggest city Lagos on Friday, police said.The Red Cross said the pipeline blew up while vandals were tapping into it to steal petrol, igniting about 500 nearby jerrycans full of fuel. Theft of fuel or crude oil from pipelines is common in Nigeria.
Hat tip: Leanan.
Update [2006-5-12 11:49:31 by Super G]: MEND denies involvement.
[editor's note, by Prof. Goose] Also, we should bring back Dave's (really great) post on Nigeria, which you can find here; I would also direct you to John Robb's piece here. Both are pretty prescient.
Militants threatened on Friday to destroy a $13 billion natural gas export plant in Nigeria.The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an email to Reuters they were conscious of the potential for an attack on the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas plant to hurt nearby communities, and would launch a warning raid on an oil facility beforehand.
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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.
Only if people have jobs. I could envision a future where the employed are the privileged, and a tax break for workers would be seen as "tax breaks for the wealthy."
This article is about inflation in Zimbabwe;
If I am wrong, you will have more money in the bank, less debt and a lower stress way of life. If Daniel Yergin, et al, are wrong, good luck.
Speaking of riots, I (seriously) wonder if we are going to see student loan riots, when legions of college students graduate with monstrous debts--which by and large can't be discharged through bankruptcy--with no realistic prospect of ever paying off the debt.
As a very general matter, I don't fully understand the constant advice to "get out of debt" when seen in this light. If hyper-inflation ruining the dollar has a fair chance of happening, then why not run up immense debts now, only to pay them off in the future when hyper-inflated dollars make paying them off a cinch?
I feel comfortable with a low fixed rate mortgage that's less than half the current value of my house, along with a healthy savings account. If I was mortgaged to the hilt and had no savings I'd find it hard to sleep at night. Debt in an inflationary environment can work to your advantage, but only if you're still able to make the payments.
I think absolute deflation will occur in most housing and stock market assets (choose wisely), so holding that probably won't help too much.
The best advice I have heard is that you should stay flexible and be able to adapt to changing situations. Debt seriously reduces your financial flexibility.
Maybe first the housing prices take a dive,
then the banks get very conservative,
then the rates go up to both protect the banks and to sell all of the other securities,
then inflation takes off,
then we all riot for higher salaries to pay for stuff,
then time passes,
then we start getting daily indexed salary increases,
then, if we were able to avoid defaulting on our old low interest/fixed rate loans, we can pay them off easily.
It seems like a lot depends upon our savings, ability to keep a job, but very importantly, how quickly we can get our salaries indexed on a short-term basis. I'm going to start writing my representatives now!
Some think that economic slow downs will cause deflation and we will all be investing in zero-coupon bond funds...
Maybe...
If you don't have the money now to pay a debt you won't have it in the future either.
I think the 'poverty draft' will kick-in bigtime first-- the only way to pay off your college debts will be to become cannon fodder for the elite's '3 Days of the Condor' plan. Same for homeowner's upside down on their mortgage-- your child's future military service will be the only way to payoff this debt unless you are still young & fit enough to go yourself. But then a revolution might preclude this...
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I still do not see conspription as a big issue, you put a gun to my head and tell me i have to fight for my country then you teach me how to kill, I am likely to kill you. That makes for a very bad way to get troops to do the work.
I talk to a lot of young people who if you took away their fun time, they are just as likely to cause as much chaos as they can rather than bow down to the status quo of no fun time. Look at the photos of the streets of India, fairly well dressed people carrying sticks. Mad!
A large scale draft is going to get us in trouble, In this day and age, we have bred to many trouble makers, People willing to hurt others for the small gains, Our prisons are over crowded, step it up a notch with draft dodgers and you get more chaos than you would want.
As all systems go toward chaos, so will our nation.
Although over 40, one bad eye, no degree either, we'd have to be really in the shit for them to come and ask me.
but life continues as usual. For instance, car sales in Europe in the first four months of 2006 are up in Germany, and for the whole of Europe only down by 1%.
Unemployment is likely to soar.
The real value of the dollar will drop.
Energy will be expensive.
I recommend preparing for having no income, and the value of the dollar dropping 80%. I'm not predicting when, but when the energy available for the economy starts dropping 2-10% a year SHTF is virtually guaranteed at some point.
How can this be accomplished?
I would recommend owning at least an acre or two of land to farm. Those who think they will be able to sit around watching TV while the government provides are likely to starve.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/10/gas_station_rip-off/
One would think that a pipeline supplying fuel exploding would raise more ruckus...
I believe it's non-existent. It's a fairy tale told to scare
children and adults alike. Watch out for the Mind of the
oil trader!
The so-called trader Mind is in fact just a bunch of damaged
synapses burned-out on too much caffeine, tobacco, cocaine
and 24 hour cable news.
By the way if Russia opens a stock exchange on Oil, are they going to open one on Vodka. I Might need to buy stocks.
BTW, these fires happen in Lagos all the time. Poor people breach the pipeline to get gasoline because they cannot afford it.
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm
http://sss.stanford.edu/
Long-term, we may end up downloading our "self" into the net. Long live the Web!
Hard to say how an exploding technology level will affect our energy balance...
http://money.canoe.ca/News/Other/2006/05/09/1571292-ap.html
Whirlpool to Eliminate 4,500 Jobs, 3 Plants at Maytag
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ayy2lGif.biA&refer=us
Bernzomatic Layoffs
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."
Consumer mood buckles under high gas prices
Then there's article:
Oil prices vulnerable as hurricane season nears
comparing a bad situation to a trumped up worse one makes it essayer for people to grin and bare it.
when it was $50 they said it would be $60
when it was $60 they said it would be $70
etc
http://today.reuters.com/investing/FinanceArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-05-12T1443 03Z_01_SP277526_RTRUKOC_0_US-MARKETS-OIL.xml
A possibly better idea is Leitaers idea of a basket currency made up of many different kind of essential goods. It's been a while since I read his proposal though, I'd need to re-read it to refresh my mind.
Advocates of gold-based monetary valuation astutely realize that money as it is currently valued benefits certain countries, classes, sectors of the economy, and sections of countries, over others. What they fail to realize is that by making the value of money dependent upon gold, they would substitute arbitrariness for favoritism.
Gold and Silver were just decoration value and easy to purify/assay - until the 19th C. Now they are useful raw ingredients eg in electronics. So the quantities will be used up instead of being hoarded.
Why not store Carbon as a currency reserve? Real Carbon - the black powder. Keep it wet though, or your currency might go up in flames!
Looking at these numbers, I would say that silver should triple in price compared to gold in order to reach its proper historical value. After silver triples, then both silver and gold should double in order for both to obtain the same value they had in 1900.
In other words, if the dollar collapses, I would expect silver to rise to $90/ounce, and gold should rise to $1400-1500/ounce.
Although I could see a transition into this currency and those who get in first will be far better off than those forced to fight over what's left. I mean think about it...there's a max upper limit than this could reach, and I'm sure it's far lower due to the allocation of gold/silver resources.
The same company also prints paper certificates for bullion, but I doubt you can buy gas with any of it.
In direct answer to your query, it is neither.
Is the post title accurate? Wasn't it a gas/petrol pipeline? Not to nitpick, but that seems a pretty significant distinction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121600021.html
Surely being aware of the vectors of it's population will prove to be a useful tool when the "have nots" develop a large enough base to cause any significant disruption.
At what point does the public realize that the Emperors new clothes do not exist? The American public is a big Sucker!!!! I am included in that group and am not happy about it. I guess I'm a little more pissed off than usual today about this crap!!!
Paycheck to paycheck, who do you know that does not live like that. How high up the income brackets does it go? How many of those people have enough savings and enough skills that in a recession or a depression they can weather the times?
True its something to get pissed about, but in all of it, are we not a bit responsible too? You ahve a credit card, and you use it, You buy things that you can't afford, You live a life you dreamed of in college, or highschool. I dreamed of having 3 kids and a nice farm, living off the land. Been married twice, no kids, no farm, none of the dreams I had as a kid, except one, I still write. Some people like my poems.
My brother makes 70,000 dollars a year and I am sure his credit is maxed out. He lives paycheck to paycheck. We all know others, both in the have's and the have-not classes.