Barack Obama, Drill, Baby, Drill and the Broken Shell

Actually, the tag at the left should say "NON-GOP." This blog post is certified to not contain the words "Trump" or "Cruz" anywhere in its content. It is about oil and gasoline pricing, not make believe, breathless politics questions which will never matter anyway. Enjoy the fresh air!

Thank you, MeanMesa

Crude Oil Pricing:
A Bitter Sweet, Economic Paradox

It's like the tide -- only with strings

 pulled by billionaire puppet masters.

Crude oil runs through the veins of the American economy like the blood of a death cage martial arts fighter. The "good things" can't really happen without it, and the "bad things" all seem to have at least something to do with bleeding it out from where it should have been for the "good things" to happen.

On blogs such as this one it is awkwardly easy to find page after page of ranting and raving about the oil tycoons and their oligarchic wet dreams of establishing perpetual, dynastic, family fortunes of "petro-dollars." Most of these complaints are, frankly, well deserved, overly genteel, "under statements" of the actual malicious reality.

[image MeanMesa]

Still, we see the "two or three edged sword" of an economic Damocles slowly swinging over the entire sector. When oil prices are sky high, Wall Street is humming in orgiastic joy, but American drivers are watching gas pump tallies painfully and slowly devouring their grocery budgets. Still, the declining numbers of Americans still boasting 401K, pensions or mutual fund accounts in the lingering aftermath of the Great Republican Recession of 2008 are quietly smiling as they receive their monthly statements.

However, when prices drop, Wall Street starts screaming, but drivers all across the country are very happily finding more and more discretionary income left in their pockets as they pull away from the SHELL station after topping off the tank. Those left over dollars find their way into the active parts of the US economy almost at once, boosting economic prosperity indicators such as the GDP and tax revenues.

[For any visitors who might consider such harsh words for Wall Street "over the top," please remember that the single largest holder of crude oil futures in the US economy is Goldman Sachs. The banksters have LOTS of crude futures without having to bother with messy drill rigs, environment wrecking leases or out of date, exploding oil trains. Read more: Goldman-Sachs-Sees-Oil-Bull-Market 2016-01-15_BLOOMBERG]

Poor Mr. Ox
You shouldn't have bet everything on oil.
[image source]

All of these factors become worthy of a blog post when they are mixed into a surreal soup of love-hate for the President's economic policies. and MeanMesa can remember gasoline prices in San Diego as they hit the $4 per gallon mark, and the current "affordability" of those same gallons is a direct result of the energy policies put in place by the Administration.

While there's plenty of talk about the new, post gasoline, energy economy -- for lots of really good reasons, it's going to take years to ween ourselves out the dependency mess we're in at the moment. At every moment between now and then someone's ox will be in the process of being gored.

Of course, MeanMesa would prefer to see that ox suffering slowly on Wall Street. Americans have already been bruised more than enough by the oligarchs' Ponzi scheme. Let's take a closer look at the "joys of wildly careening gasoline prices" brought to us by the current crop of out of control casino capitalists. 

All this is very dependably imaged to be the crude market's exclusive, organic reaction to changing geopolitical conditions. Rest assured. Every time the price of gasoline changes by a single penny on the tickers in the oligarch's country club parlor, the crude oil billionaires are tugging at the puppet strings and roaring with laughter. THAT's why we call them "petrogarchs."

Reagan's 1980's Recession,

 Economic Damages

and the Battered Crude Oil Market

Attention Republicans: "The economy has 

to stay alive to sell this junk at a profit."

Firing up the "way back" machine will offer us a reminiscent glance at just how things were in the 1980's with respect to the price of gasoline. 

At first it was a dazzlingly Utopian paradise for selling gasoline for an outrageous profit -- until the S&L crisis, increasing numbers of bank failures, jumping unemployment, deregulation of banking involvement in real estate risks and all the other delights of the Reagan Recession "altered" the playing field. By 1996 the economy was still struggling to recover, demand for crude was plummeting and prices were left at a dismal $25-30 per barrel. [1980's Recession/WIKI]

Around this time the corporate oil conglomerates were, naturally, complaining to Congress about regulatory limits on off shore drilling, national forest drilling, Alaskan ANWAR drilling and so on. The "petrograchs" perched in the executive conference rooms of these "horribly over regulated and abused" oil conglomerates were scheming to reestablish traditional crude prices so they could boost gasoline prices for a tasty "wind fall profit."

[Historical note: The oil corporations were not the only ones with an appetite for skewing the market into massive, artificial profit centers. At the time MeanMesa was living in San Diego. The corporate ENRON conglomerate had very strategically closed a good collection of generation plants "for maintenance," so larger cities in California were experiencing "brown outs." The unhappy result of this was that the California grid managers were forced to purchase premium priced electricity from neighboring states creating a rapid, marked increase in California electrical bills.

Sarah Palin [image]

Literally millions of California electric bills started their atmospheric ascent in no time. Without delving too deeply into wild conspiracy theories MeanMesa also presumes that the ENRON "electrogarchs" and the "horribly abused, oil conglomerate petrogarchs" were actively scheming with each other to depose the Governor and install a mindless weightlifter/movie star from Austria to "straighten out" their respective, terrifically painful, "over regulation" problems.]

By the 2008 election high gasoline prices had become the "vibrant life blood" component of the Republican Presidential campaign. The histrionic whining reached its apex when the job of continually screaming the "Drill, Baby, Drill!' mantra was handed over to the shrill, rasping voice of the tediously confused, Alaskan Vice Presidential candidate and oil production "expert," Sarah Palin. [Drill Baby Drill!/WIKI]

Perhaps a part of this discontent arises from MeanMesa's memories of paying 16 cents per gallon in the 1960's -- a per gallon price which changed very little year after year.

The Ugly Picture of the Big Crude Boys Shaking in Terror

Oh how the mighty have fallen...

The Guardian

Shell vows to sell $10bn extra assets as profits plunge 87%

Terry Macalister Energy editor

Thursday 4 February 2016

[Visit the original article Shell Profits Drop-The Guardian]

Collapse in oil price hammers profits as BG* takeover looms but CEO pledges not to conduct a fire sale or cut more jobs.

Shell profits have suffered thanks to the plunging oil price.

[*BG = British Gas - now an exploration company] 

Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images

Shell has promised to dispose of a further $10bn of assets this year but insisted it does “not intend to hold a fire sale”.

The sell-off commitment came as the Anglo-Dutch group reported an 87% collapse in annual profits to $1.9bn just as it completes its £35bn takeover of rivalBG.

Ben van Beurden, the Shell chief executive, had previously said the group wanted $30bn of asset sales following the BG deal and he now expects a third to come in the next 12 months without losing out on price.

“We do not intend to hold a fire sale. We don’t have to,” Van Beurden insisted while saying a general slump in costs across the industry had meant that the business was now making money again in the central North Sea.

Shell reported that quarterly earnings fell by 58% to $939m although the underlying profit of $1.8bn was in line with expectations.

Shell has been hammered by a collapse in oil prices which has left the key North Sea Brent crude as low as $32 per barrel in recent days. On Tuesday, BP unveiled the worst annual loss in its history at $6.5bn while Conoco in the US has just cut its dividend.

The company’s share price closed up more than 6% at £15.26, as commodity companies rallied on the back of rising oil prices. It is still down more than 10% since the start of the year.

BP makes record loss and axes 7,000 jobs

Van Beurden said he was committed to make “substantial changes” to cope with the lower cost of crude but has not increased the total number of job losses planned, with 7,500 gone and 2,800 still to come.

“The completion of the BG transaction, which we are expecting in a matter of weeks, marks the start of a new chapter in Shell, rejuvenating the company, and improving shareholder returns,” he said.

“We are making substantial changes in the company, reorganising our upstream, and reducing costs and capital investment, as we refocus Shell and respond to lower oil prices.”

The latest figures from Shell show quarterly oil and gas production down 5% and put quarterly cash flow from operating activities at $5.4bn with annual spending at $28.9bn, down 23% on the year before.

Over the last year Shell has ditched its controversial exploratory drilling operation in the Arctic and postponed or scrapped projects such as the LNG Bab gas field in Abu Dhabi and Canada LNG.

The company took a final investment decision on only four new projects last year and few are expected to be approved in 2016.

This strategy has started to drag down Shell’s reserve replacement ratio, a metric used to reflect new reserves added relative to the amount produced, down to 48%, even lower than BP.

Despite the dismal financial results, Van Beurden announced the 2015 annual dividend would be held at $1.88 and “is expected to be at least $1.88 per share in 2016”.

The Shell boss was reluctant to predict the direction of future oil prices but he expected them to start moving up from Thursday’s level of mid-$34 towards $50 over the next 12 to 18 months.

The BG merger still needs a low $60 oil price to make sense but the Shell boss said this was a long-term assessment and he remained confident the deal was advantageous to shareholders.

Asked at a briefing whether the company would urge British voters to reject Brexit in a referendum vote, Van Beurden said it was up to the public to decide but added: “It would be bad for the European Union. It would not be a good thing for Shell.”

Meanwhile, Greenpeace said the collapse of profits at oil companies was a result of making the wrong decisions on fossil fuels.

“Oil giants like Shell and BP are already paying a huge price for failing to bring their businesses into the 21st century,” said Greenpeace’s senior climate adviser Charlie Kronick.

“The more electric cars, solar panels, and better-insulated homes we have, the less fossil fuels we’re going to need and the less they’re going to be worth. Shell and BP have bet heavily on the wrong energy sources, and now they’re losing big.”

A Couple of Foreign Oligarchies Playing With Fire

For Big Stakes -- Including War and Recession

The Saudis and the Russians are still tossing in chips for their ante...

The international geopolitics of this mess are churning along at the "edge of an explosion." The Saudis could have probably frozen crude oil prices at the last OPEC meeting. Of course, there would have been a price because it would have meant cutting production and eliminating the glut of cheap oil which was drowning prices in the global market. Still, the Princes and King who would have had to take such a decision are literally trillionaires.

Continuing Saudi production levels which would ensure the glut for the foreseeable future was a strategic decision for them. The other OPEC countries were screaming for relief from the low prices, but the Royals knew that the glut would, in time, strike at the heart of economies of some potent nations they would never be able to hit by any other means -- Iran and the Russian Federation. 

Even with some of the sanctions lifted, Iran is still staring down the barrel of a crude market in the $30-$50 per barrel range. At this moment the Islamic Republic needs everything that oil money could possibly buy for them. The domestic economy is in shambles. Youth unemployment is sky high.

The Russian Federation has put all their "nested eggs" in the same basket. The Russian oligarchs probably thought that Putin's fantasy of resurrecting the old Soviet Union looked like fun in the beginning, but the international price for scooping up Crimea has now become a brutal hangover from a vodka soaked escapade of sheer masochism. Current crude oil prices amount to an ice pick delivered right in the middle of the agony.

Even the going price for illegal oil from ISIS has crashed. The Turkish markets for the stuff were funneling six digit monthly stipends to the crazies while the per barrel prices were better, but now, between the coalition air strikes on the Syrian and Northern Iraqi production facilities and the nearly worthless, low priced "black gold" being loaded into the caliphate's old tankers for the trip north, ISIS headquarters is replacing all the un-affordable luxuries from the early days with lots of appetite suppressing meth. [Thanks, Obama...]

The Social Media - Dancing on Big Oil's Grave

It may be cruel to speak ill of the dead,

but it's a slightly different moment when it's your abusive masters who are dying.

It's never been much of a "heavy lift" to incite an exercised condemnation of Big Oil in a late night, bar room complaint session, but even after setting such histrionics aside, the oil business tycoons have not enjoyed any social affection -- even in quieter moments -- from us "little people" for centuries. Nonetheless, this unavoidable "victim-hood" has never really included any workable alternatives. The grip of the crude oil billionaires has always been unassailable, ensconced deeply in the gears of a social fabric almost entirely reliant on gas guzzling automobiles.

Nonetheless, social media has, once again, drawn out a "new frankness" when it comes to comments about the on-going scheme. The facts driving such bravery are no secret -- 1. the United States is now one of the leading oil exporting countries, and 2. US factories are now un-apologetically producing automobiles which do not run on gasoline...and, SOME OF THEM ARE "RED HOT CHICK MAGNETS," too!

TESLA Chick Magnet - no gasoline, no smoke, no petrogarchs.
[image]

Further, MeanMesa is no stranger among those making this constant torrent of complaints about the damage the petrogarchs' Ponzi scheme has been perpetually inflicting on American crude consumers for years. Have a look at a couple of old MeanMesa sample posts [below].

American Driver? Pay the Nice Man $600 - MEANMESA

Obama and SHELL - Crude Oil Chess In the Chukchi Sea - MEANMESA

And finally, no post about social media's response to this matter would be complete without a sample of what's currently appearing on Face Book.

The guy on the right has actually held a gasoline nozzle. 
[screenshot fB]

Kiev: Meeting the Next Referendum "Head On"

When the Russian Bear Dreams of Canned Tuna

Even though Vladimir Putin has very ostentatiously donned his "I can handle anything" face at the Kremlin window, MeanMesa suspects that there really is a limit to how long the brave Soviet "wanna-be" can endure the screams coming from clutches of bleeding Russian Federation oligarchs.  Both the RF President AND the oligarchs still have a "cultural memory" of what it feels like to be awkward, isolated, bombastic Soviet no-bodies.

For a Russian oligarch the vision of those grey, bitter days of the Cold War might have grown a "little distant" from that bowl of caviar sitting in the parlor of his $300 million dollar yacht, but the unpleasant fantasy just doesn't enjoy enough historical separation to have become comfortably "unthinkable" just yet.

In fact MeanMesa suspects that the eerie shade of what the Russian economy looked like during the days of Lyndon Johnson and Leonid Brezhnev remains a stubbornly durable, ghostly presence in those St. Petersburg mansions -- and in those London dachas, too.  There is, indeed, the inevitable exhilaration of heartily flexed, sweaty Russian muscle. but there is also the future "toothache" phase which should make even the obscenely rich nervous.

Sanctions - Russian style [CNN]

Owning a mansion could become much more challenging in what still remains an essentially rural economy -- made worse by a huge, unsold oil and gas surplus, no customers and a rapacious mad man at the helm ready to sacrifice everything for a return to the nightmarish dream of past "Soviet glory."

If the thing actually still has any "brakes," the guy at the wheel hasn't touched them -- yet. However, that doesn't mean that the unwilling passengers haven't already been screaming at him from the back seat.

Grabbing A Quick Lunch At the Mousetrap

Making peace is inevitably both the most difficult and the most spectacularly promising at the portentous moment when the odds are horrible and the necessity overwhelming. Kiev's adversary now is the obsessive remnant of its own old ideas even more than the Russian troops across the Eastern border.  

The old ideas of a century ago are dangerous enough, but the bitterness and brutality of events of this year are the issues which must be dispatched to clear the way.  Futures are seldom founded on revenge, illusions of refuge or smoldering resentments, and that is the case for Ukraine, the nation, now in this perilous moment.

Kiev needs an immediate dose of "quiet time."  The path ahead requires clear heads -- and high ambitions.  At least for the time being, all this will be more similar to a chess game than to the triumph of Moses leading his tattered flock to the promised land.

If the East is clamoring for a "referendum," there must be an alternative proposal to counter the blind slide into the Russian Federation.  This is hardly "breaking news."  There must be another side on that ballot.

Further, that "other side" in this contest must have depth and weight -- sufficient to spur hope in those teetering at the brink with such a decision.  It must be credible and persuasive, but most importantly, it must be possible.

Everything done now must be consistent with a single question:  "How does Ukraine win?"

There really are promises to be made but not manipulative promises already crippled by austere conditions or flamboyant excess.  Those in the East are suspicious.

Step one will be to steel in Kiev's reality that there exists the model for a future Ukraine which will resolve this -- with the Russians, with the East and with the incendiary packs infiltrating Kiev.  The moment this existential possibility falters, the wolves will advance.

The "Hope" Crisis

The very best Kiev can propose to the East is an offer appealing to common sense, nationalism and self interest, but that gambit is hardly one of desperation.  Challenging?  Yes.  Servile?  No.

The spark which can once again solidify the present chaos is hope.  When the picture paints a window through which success can be glimpsed, all Ukrainians will be "interested." This motivates them far more than undefined false promises or ideology.

However, for those in Kiev that picture must light its way through all the mud installed by Putin's propaganda. That picture must honestly [and credibly...] explain what's to be done with the fascists in the West, what the economy will look like, how rule of law and peace will be accomplished and the rest.

Most of this is still Ukraine [image]

Desperate hopelessness is a Russian thing.  Don't be Russians -- be Ukrainians.  Be statesmen. Be strong and sensible. Be trusting -- trust Ukrainians.  Be trustworthy -- the burden may be heavy, but so is gold.

Make a plan -- a good one.  Invite all Ukrainians to join; invite all Ukrainians to improve the plan. Then, do it -- together.

The Russians have already used up all the cheap tricks.  Nothing remains to be placed on the table but things which can flourish in a clear sky.  New things. Concrete things.  Hopeful things. Common sense things.

God speed.

Syria and Russia

Internationalizing a Smelly Little Dictatorship

There are dictatorships, and then, there are dictatorships.

Huge, geopolitically important dictatorships such as the old USSR or the modern theocracy in Iran certainly host all the trappings of power and influence, sharing these generously with the respective autocrat.  However, smaller minded autocracies such as Iraq or Libya hosted their "premier citizens" somewhat more modestly.  MeanMesa noted after the Iraq invasion that Sadam's "palaces" looked more like seedy, 1960's Holiday Inns, for example.

Syria, under Bashar al-Assad and his equally murderous father, Hafez, lacks that terrifying "verve" that the old Soviets used to be able to bluster and muster.  The country is not particularly endowed with much more than a strategic "sweet spot" with respect to its location, and the al-Assad family have run the place more like a worn out family store with a secret Mafia hide out in the back for decades.

As the initial waves of the Arab Spring began to sweep the country, the current al-Assad immediately reverted to the tried and true approach for which his father was famous.  The elder al-Assad slaughtered 20,000 or so Syrians in Hama in the early 1980's.   No matter how brutal the current reaction may seem, it remains ever so slightly more civilized -- at least based on the death count.

Also, plenty has been said about "out of country" players.  The Russian Federation inherited Syria as a client state from the old Soviets.  Although the Earth of the Middle East had moved under their feet, the Russians have adhered closely to the Soviet model of the client state.

With this post, MeanMesa will attempt to fill in a few of the mysterious parts of the incomprehensible events now taking place in the country.  First, a look at the players.

The Assad Regime's International Map (Image Source/MeanMesa)

 Although the Syrian military -- usually accompanied by mixed gangs of Iranian "street clothes" helpers and Alawite shock troop militias -- seems to have been "spreading the glee" all over the country, a closer look shows that the heaviest violence has been in a concentric ring around the port city of Tartus.  This is not a simple coincidence.

Tribal/political map of Syrian Arab Republic (map source)

We can see the names of the cities and villages where the slaughters have occurred on the map above.  There have certainly been exceptions, but many of the places noted in the news are in the states surrounding the port of Tartus -- Hamah [Hamas], Idlib, Latakia [al-Assad family origin], Hims [Homs] and ancient Aleppo.  Some of this concentrated regional attack may be caused by natural concentrations of religious groups, Sunni and others, who oppose the al-Assad autocracy, but MeanMesa suspects that the proximity to Tartus may offer even more of an explanation.

Adding Russia to the Recipe

Although there is, undoubtedly, plenty of both Arab Spring and government repression to go around in Syria, we see the Syrian government responding most forcefully in these regions.  We may also assume that Bashar al-Assad simply doesn't have enough army to repress the less populated Western states which seem to have been getting more of a "hit and a lick."

We can see from this map recapping the casualties from March 2011 to April 2012 that while certainly not all, but still a large majority of Syrians suffering from the government's attacks have been living in this "ring around Tartus" area.

Locating Syrian casualties. (map source)

The Importance of Tartus begins to emerge from the fog of this back woods dictator.

The alliance between Syria and Russia has amounted mainly to arms sales which are supported by access to the port.  Here we need to review a few things about Russian arms in the region.

In the wars with Israel, Russian armor flowed from Syria in a wave which was intended to crush the IDF and recapture the Golan.  Instead, Israeli armor, principally US M48's successfully routed the Syrians.  A similar tank victory occurred in the Sinai.  The trend continued in Iraq where US M1Abrams faced Russian armor in the desert.  Gadhafi was using primarily Russian arms as he attempted to retain control of Libya.

The Russian Federation has roughly the same eagerness for arms sales as the US.  However, Russian prices are notably lower while Russian claims for effectivity are often calibrated by how well one might expect to do against similar NATO or US equipment.  Long before the problems in Syria, Russian arms merchants had already become wary of direct conflicts where their equipment actually faced the armor they had boasted on being able to defeat.

In Syria the Russian Federation's presence is not limited to armor.  Syria was "fortified" by the old Soviet Union after the "show down" over Damascus.  With the combat arena essentially cleared of Syrian armor, the Israeli IDF began unmistakable field tactics for an assault on the Syrian capitol.  This prompted the 1967 Kruschev call to LBJ:  "You stop them or I will."

No matter the final outcome in Syria, the Russians have an equivalent client in Iran.  We can anticipate the same complications dealing with them there.

Looking at Tartus

Years ago, Israel successfully destroyed a nuclear facility in Sadam's Iraq.  More recently, after the successful Israeli pre-emptive strike on the mysterious nuclear facility in Syria the matter of air defense gained priority.  Again, the Russian arms dealers were prepared to ease Syria's concerns.  Over a period of years, fairly competent Russian anti-aircraft missile batteries were purchased and  installed.  Today, we find the country of Syria with a modest, although aging fleet of Russian interceptor aircraft and a non-proportional air defense.

In terms of naval power, the Syrian dictatorship has essentially followed the Libyan model, emphasizing coastal security over any particular strategic presence in the Mediterranean.  A truly oceanic Syrian navy would find itself immediately competing with a whole collection of superior forces already present.

Still, the Assad regime faced the possibility of an Israeli incursion by sea.  Further, the presentation of an old American fast battleship to shell Lebanon in 1984, directly targeting Syrian troops and gun emplacements near Beirut, frustrated earlier attempts to gain control of Syria's neighbor. [http://www.pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-329.htm]  After this, Syria transformed the plan toward a political/military presence in Lebanon via Hezbollah, gaining a new level of support from the Iranians.

However, these developments were also rapidly becoming a "perfect storm" for Russian intervention in the region.  The Russian ambition was not new, but the new, favorable conditions were.  As is typical for such things, fortress ports such as Tartus didn't grow from strength but from threats.

Assad was delighted to purchase six dozen Yakhont supersonic anti-ship missiles from the Russians, after which, one thing, well, led to another.

A shiny new Yakhont anti-ship missile. (image source)

Russian-made mobile anti-ship missile systems sold to Syria could be used to protect a Russian naval supply and maintenance site near Syria's Mediterranean port of Tartus, a Russian arms trade expert said on Monday. 

Russia earlier announced it would honor a 2007 contract on the delivery of several Bastion anti-ship missile systems armed with SS-N-26 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles to Syria, despite U.S. and Israel security concerns.

Syria needs to shield a 600-km stretch of its coastline from potential amphibious assaults.

With all this in place, the Russian Federation and the Assad government find themselves in roughly the same situation that the US and the Bahrain oligarchs found themselves during the Arab Spring there.  A well established and well located US naval presence in Bahrain was suddenly cast into a political situation inconsistent with US foreign policy values.

There was violent rioting and suppression in Bahrain's streets as the majority Shia population began to resist the established Sunni royalty.  While US foreign policy words stood with the protesters, US naval interests stood with the Sunni rulers.

Switching all the players' names, we can see that Syria now faces a similar inconsistency, and the Russians have been dragged into the fray.  Assad cannot tolerate even the possibility that the Syrian uprising might physically reach the Russians at Tartus.  The Russians haven't enjoyed even the smallest choice to decide whether they are willing to deal with a Syrian opposition government or if they simply prefer to stick with Assad no matter what it takes to keep him in control.

Meanwhile, Assad must do absolutely everything to keep the lid on the Syrian Arab Spring.  Syria isn't going anywhere, and the Russians are probably also not going anywhere.  The only "movable part" left in the equation is Bashar al-Assad.

MeanMesa thought long and hard before including this final photograph. 

Geopolitics crashes to the physical level of humanity (photograph - Huffington)

This child, now ready for burial, was running and playing on the streets of Houla before Assad's forces began shelling and murdering.

For more reading, two other MeanMesa posts on the Syrian conflict:

Russia, China, Syria: Disgracing Great and Noble Revolutions

Syria in September - "The Perfect Mousetrap"

The Collapsing American “Sphere of Influence.”

Pretending Everything Ugly Is Actually Only Temporary 67

A few words of a CNN, sub-editorial news report called for more attention. Among the now well worn list of the new President’s priorities was the inclusion of Chinese and Russian Federation diplomatic and economic entries into the Caribbean and South American countries of Cuba and Venezuela. You know, countries which we are supposed to “own” under the Monroe Doctrine.

The CNN report characterized these incursions as challenges to American leadership. If they weren’t challenges would that mean that we were either so strong or so threatening that we might have avoided them?

Are these incursions challenging our hegemony? Was our idea of a good time to never have any of these subservient Southern nations even so much as flirt with our ideological, international competitors?

Please.

We are quite possibly more bankrupt than industrious China or petroleum rich Russia. Any traditional military advantage is now “on the table” with the Russians, that is, no, they can’t take us, but, yes, they can project power pretty convincingly now that George Bush has so savagely consumed our own military pursuing his “oil war” in a devastating leadership vacuum and our infuriated alliances with his cheap, irritating ideology.

We won’t recover from that damage any time soon. We should probably try to get a little more comfortable with photos of the Chinese Premier visiting Fidel Castro or Russian war ships lazing off the coast of Venezuela.

Bush’s childish “cat fight” over his empty scheme for U.S. missiles in Poland reveals a whining, toothless, embarrassing, over weight giant, not a respected leader of the Free World.

We have a new President, but he, and we, still have a terrible reputation. Our toxic debt has fairly thoroughly poisoned the water world wide. We can ponder a graceful approach to our collapsing sphere of influence while we pay down Bush’s ten trillion dollar balance for the next few decades.

What exactly did we buy, again?