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The most significant threat

Old 06-16-2011, 06:30 AM
  #1  
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Default The most significant threat

All Major airline pilots need to read and understand this article:

The Great American Bubble Machine | Rolling Stone Politics

While this will effect everyone, as the marketers and underwriters of nearly all commercial flying, the major carriers are the most exposed.

For those who lack the time, or the inclination, to read the article the conclusion is this:

(1) Oil prices are being manipulated by speculators. The largest of these is Goldman and they can make the call on when oil goes up (which attracts investors) and when it goes splat (wiping investors out with losses).

Goldman is effectively putting a ribbon on a watermelon and tossing it out the window. The investors pile on inflating the price. The insiders get out just before it goes splat.

Our employers are not the "insiders." As an outsider the best we can do is hedge. Of course Goldman makes money administering the hedges too.

Oils prices are killing our employers. The revenues we need to invest in modern technology jets always vanishes among the inflated prices and hedging losses. We're just riding a roller coaster that always ends at a point lower than where it started from.

(2) Carbon Trading Schemes - Bankrolled on both sides by Goldman, politicians are pushing a cap and trade pollution trading scheme. Goldman wants to be in the middle of this trade. In effect not only playing the "Enron" role, but having the power of the government to levy a tax on the schleps like us that create carbon emissions.

The profit potential for manipulating both the input and outputs of our industry are not only astonishing for Goldman (and their peers) but will kill demand for our product as we are forced to price accordingly, then kill our employers.

Answers: I don't know that there are any. Politicians from both sides are in. The ability to educate the electorate is questionable. In fact, it would not surprise me if many pilots don't make it through this article despite its importance to our future.
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Old 06-16-2011, 06:43 AM
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Crony Capitalism
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Old 06-16-2011, 07:44 AM
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Thanks for sharing this article; I had not seen it before. It is slightly dated but still very relevant. There is a growing rift between the "haves" and "have-nots" and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to break into the "haves". Here is the last part of the article:




It's not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there's a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can't really register the fact that you're no longer a citizen of a thriving first-world democracy, that you're no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.


"But this is it. This is the world we live in now. And in this world, some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework till the end of time, plus 10 billion free dollars in a paper bag to buy lunch. It's a gangster state, running on gangster economics, and even prices can't be trusted anymore; there are hidden taxes in every buck you pay. And maybe we can't stop it, but we should at least know where it's all going."
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Old 06-16-2011, 08:01 AM
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Originally Posted by Bucking Bar View Post
All Major airline pilots need to read and understand this article:

The Great American Bubble Machine | Rolling Stone Politics

While this will effect everyone, as the marketers and underwriters of nearly all commercial flying, the major carriers are the most exposed.

For those who lack the time, or the inclination, to read the article the conclusion is this:

(1) Oil prices are being manipulated by speculators. The largest of these is Goldman and they can make the call on when oil goes up (which attracts investors) and when it goes splat (wiping investors out with losses).

Goldman is effectively putting a ribbon on a watermelon and tossing it out the window. The investors pile on inflating the price. The insiders get out just before it goes splat.

Our employers are not the "insiders." As an outsider the best we can do is hedge. Of course Goldman makes money administering the hedges too.

Oils prices are killing our employers. The revenues we need to invest in modern technology jets always vanishes among the inflated prices and hedging losses. We're just riding a roller coaster that always ends at a point lower than where it started from.

(2) Carbon Trading Schemes - Bankrolled on both sides by Goldman, politicians are pushing a cap and trade pollution trading scheme. Goldman wants to be in the middle of this trade. In effect not only playing the "Enron" role, but having the power of the government to levy a tax on the schleps like us that create carbon emissions.

The profit potential for manipulating both the input and outputs of our industry are not only astonishing for Goldman (and their peers) but will kill demand for our product as we are forced to price accordingly, then kill our employers.

Answers: I don't know that there are any. Politicians from both sides are in. The ability to educate the electorate is questionable. In fact, it would not surprise me if many pilots don't make it through this article despite its importance to our future.
Bucking,
Oil shortages are real. For some years now the world supply of oil produced is less than that consumed. The difference is made up by alternatives such as tar sands , liquidfied NG (condensates as they are called) and bio fuels. Unfortunately, price manipulation is also real and under our current system speculation bubbles are a certainty. Any attempts to control the speculators is met by viscious resistance and a hugh and cry of Socialism. The sway that such powers as Goldman have over our legislators and media (which leads to the thought control that allows them to have public approval of their lack of regulatory constraints) leads me to doubt that any limits that are effective will be placed on speculators.
You are correct about cap and trade. It is merely a way to redistribute wealth to the few...such as Goldman et al. The most unfortunate result will be almost no impact on reducing carbon emissions (which all serious science points to as a mortal threat). What I have read points to something more akin to fee and dividend as a way to let the market drive towards alternatives to carbon emissions. (read that as something to replace coal...oil in transportation use is FAR behind as a damaging agent). As one who trys to be a rational realist in his philosophy, I have strong doubts as to anything akin to fee-and-dividend as it doesn't siphon any of the money to a few vested interests. Cap and Trade does, hence I suspect it will be what the world will end up with, and it will accomplish little.
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Old 06-16-2011, 08:08 AM
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It seems to me that these guys (and the other clowns at Bear-Stearns, Citigroup, et al), came far closer to destroying America than Osama bin-Laden could have dreamed. If memory serves, we just shot him in the face and dumped his carcass in the ocean for his troubles. Maybe we should consider a similar program for domestic terrorists.
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Old 06-16-2011, 09:10 AM
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For anyone that doesn't get Aviation Week, the latest issue had a pretty good article about the EU Carbon Trading Scam (don't even get me started on this BS) but the bottom line is China has warned the EU that if they go through with it, ETS that is, China is waging an all out economic war on Europe. Many in the EU are terrified now, and rightly so.

Luftansa alone is looking at an increase of between 200-500 million in operating cost because of this crap by 2015, and the EU hasn't even said what they'll do with the revenue.

The "green" money machine continues to churn out tons of cash at the cost of real progress.
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Old 06-16-2011, 09:16 AM
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This is the sort of abuse that would have had the US populate from any other time taking to the streets with pitchforks.

Today, there are too many distractions. More Americans will watch Ryan Seacrest talk about whatever useless thing the Kardashians did last night than will read articles like these.
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Old 06-16-2011, 09:48 AM
  #8  
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Bucking Bar, you're spot on. I was overseas the past 8 years serving our country, and in contrast to the insidious change most other Americans saw, I came back to a culture shock: It seems most Americans have an Ipod, Iphone, and Ipad and are constantly glued to it: facebooking, tweeting or texting all the time. They don't care and don't want to pay attention to what's going on around them. People are so much more selfish and unconcerned with civic affairs or what's really going on in the world than they were even 10 years ago.

Many great empires including the Roman Empire weren't crushed by invaders, but rather rotted from the inside out. Rome's corrupt politicians and crippling bureacracy caused it to implode. America needs to wake up and citizens need to take responsibility for the general state of the country. People need to demand that their elected representatives act in our interests. Oh, wait, I forgot, they're too busy tweeting young girls and sending pictures of their junk over the internet.
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Old 06-16-2011, 09:55 AM
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Originally Posted by TeamK View Post
America needs to wake up and citizens need to take responsibility for the general state of the country. People need to demand that their elected representatives act in our interests. Oh, wait, I forgot, they're too busy tweeting young girls and sending pictures of their junk over the internet.
I would much rather they do more of that if it meant ending the nation building, entitlement society, top level micromanaging everything, double down the debt for peace in our time nonsense. Right now they clearly have time to do both, so maybe a little more sexting would keep them too busy to waste our money trying to be everything to everyone all the time.
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Old 06-16-2011, 10:01 AM
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Originally Posted by CPTNJOE View Post
It seems to me that these guys (and the other clowns at Bear-Stearns, Citigroup, et al), came far closer to destroying America than Osama bin-Laden could have dreamed. If memory serves, we just shot him in the face and dumped his carcass in the ocean for his troubles. Maybe we should consider a similar program for domestic terrorists.
Joe,

I agree 100% with this except for the wink at the end....It's fast becoming time to take it back.
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