Buffett, Recession & So-called MSM "Journalism"

Updating a famous quote:

“There are lies, damn lies and so-called MSM journalism”

Most so-called MSM “journalists” act as though notorious Democratic activist, Warren Buffett, is the foremost expert on the economy and economic forecasting. But, Buffett freely admits:

“I'm not an expert on the economy”

“I've never made any money out of economic forecasting”

An honest and objective media would rely upon this source, with these credentials for economic forecasting.

However, reporting that the economy is sluggish but not in recession and is expected to continue to grow throughout 2008 and 2009 is not in keeping with the political agenda of most so-called “journalists”. Additionally, hysteria mongering sells better (just ask Al Gore now much money it has made for him).

1) March 3, 2008

Buffett announces:

“by any common-sense definition, we are in a recession”

So-called MSM “journalists” go nuts over Buffett’s convenient redefinition of a recession (well suited to his Democratic activist point of view).

2) March 4, 2008

The San Francisco Chronicle properly and honorably takes Buffett to task. Kudos to them.

3) May 28, 2008

In Der Spiegel, Buffett more directly admits that his imaginary recession is:

“not [a recession] according to the economists' definition”

4) May 25-26, 2008 (stepping back in time)

Domestic MSM “journalists” apparently got advance word of the German article and, despite that qualifier from Buffett (along with the admission in the same article that “I’m not an expert on the economy”), so-called MSM “journalists” get even nuttier with their headlines (and also misquote the German article).

5) June 25, 2008

Warren Buffett does another interview on CNBC.

In the course of the interview, nobody ever utters the word “recession”. Buffett, after proding, does, however, take note of isolated areas of “weakness” [where the media have created utterly irrational fears among consumers] which “if anything… [is] accentuating a little bit” [thanks to still relentless 24/7 utterly dishonest fear mongering from the media].

MSNBC (worst of the worst among propagandists) takes those tiniest of nuggets (absent ANY discussion of “recession”) and screams from their headline:

“Buffett warns that recession getting worse”

If any part of this post is surprising to you (or not), I suggest you read this book, read this press release and read the associated academic quantification of media bias.

Today, most within the MSM who call themselves “journalists”, have far more in common with propagandists.

To learn more, click here.

Gun Rights Affirmed!

Finally, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” has been affirmed by the Supreme Court!

For those who have long argued the “well regulated militia” angle on the Second Amendment, you will find that eloquently explained in the decision of the court.

Click the image & read the
entire document from the Supreme Court

Click here for all Supreme Court documents on this case.

Mercifully, the residents of Washington D.C.
are no longer required by law to be sitting ducks:

Liberal Fascism - Totalitarianism by Any Other Name

Jonah Goldberg:
“It is my argument that American liberalism is a totalitarian political religion”

Newt Gingrich:
“We have replaced the divine right of kings
with the divine right of self-righteous groups.”

Obama supporters in Houston
display the Cuban flag with an image of Che Guevara.
Click the image to view the video it was captured from:

Now, read what an “assistant professor at Somerset Community College” has to say in support of the class warrior and notorious Marxist Hugo Chavez.

Chavez? Marxist? Well, The World Socialist Web Site seems to think so, as does The Communist Party, USA. But, Marxist.com really loves Chavez. These are just a few of the endless Marxist sites in love with Chavez.

Of course, this commentary from this “assistant professor” comes as no surprise to me. I’ve known for a very long time that so-called “Liberals” love totalitarians of all stripes.

Fascism and Communism are two sides of the same Socialist totalitarian coin. The political spectrum does not run from Left to Right, it runs from Freedom to Totalitarianism. At one end of that spectrum we find Anarchy. At the other end, we find whatever brand of totalitarianism the Dims embrace at the moment. Reason is found somewhere in between.

Click the image,
read the commentary and read the book.
NEVER say you weren’t warned!

Totalitarianism, by any other name,
is still the opposite of freedom & liberty!

The Damage Done by The Media

During the course of this so-called economic “crisis”, personal income has consistently risen faster than inflation (even when normally excluded energy and food inflation was included) and unemployment is, by historical standards, very low.

And yet, real retail sales have slowed significantly and consumer confidence is at near record lows. Why?

The simple answer is that the average American has fallen for the utterly irrational hysteria pimping (aka Obama pimping) from so-called “Journalists”.

Note #1: As long as the green line is above the red line, personal income is growing faster than inflation.
Note #2: The red line (CPI inflation) includes energy and food. Nothing is omitted.
Click the image to enlarge it and view the source data:


The rest of the story is found here.

Peak Oil & Oil Shale

Updated 6/24/08
Click here for the primary post on this topic.

We hear a lot of suggestions that world “Peak Oil” production is right around the corner (or, already here). Cooler (and more analytical) heads at the Energy Information Administration compiled a more sober view on when the world could reach “Peak Oil” production. Each of the following images was captured from a presentation developed by EIA.

Calculating “Peak Oil” is, and shall remain, a moving target. Many estimates of when the world would reach “Peak Oil” have come and gone (along with so many prophets of doom standing on any given street corner on any given day). This analysis seems to have many advantages over some of the alarmists which have already been proven wrong.

I am certain this presentation will also be proven to be wrong. New discoveries and new technologies will, without a doubt, delay “Peak Oil” further into the future -- much further. Furthermore, Peak Oil will NOT be the catastrophe envisioned by the prophets of doom. It will be a period of gradual adjustment and it will usher in greater economic incentives to develop alternatives. These alternatives will be developed if and ONLY if government stays the hell out of the way.

Many prophets of “Peak Oil” Doom have already been proven wrong
Click the image to enlarge it:

Here are a range of estimates calculated by the EIA in 2004
These estimates exclude our own tremendous Oil Shale resources
Click the image to enlarge it:

Here is a description of the modeling scenarios used by the EIA
Click the image to enlarge it:

Here is a description of the comparative advantages of using the EIA Model
Click the image to enlarge it:

These are the conclusions drawn by the EIA with respect to “Peak Oil”
Click the image to enlarge it:

Again, our tremendous Oil Shale potential is NOT included in this analysis of “Peak Oil”. The following chart puts into perspective just how important it is that we begin NOW to develop our tremendous Oil Shale Resources.

USA Oil Shale in Perspective
Click the image to enlarge it:

I personally created and uploaded the above chart.
The data used in the above chart are found in:
1) Total Oil Shale - This document downloaded from this source
2) Current Proven Reserves
Long after we have moved away from gasoline, we will still need and want petroleum for a variety of other products.

It is essential that we begin now to develop our tremendous Oil Shale potential so that we:

1) Ensure a more healthy balance between World Demand and World Supply. Without that healthy balance, world economies will decline, venture capital will dry up, and we may never get beyond gasoline! The hydrocarbon economies create the capital which is necessary to invest into the development of future energy sources!

2) Continue to have a reliable longer term source of petroleum in order to provide the variety of other products which depend upon petroleum.

Kiss The Dems Goodbye!

Okay, I’m going to make a prediction here.

“Drill Here, Drill Now” is THE single issue which WILL defeat Obama. And, I predict the predicted gains for Dems in Congress will turn into losses.

The Dems are seriously out of touch on this issue. And, in the age of the internet, their monopoly over the MSM cannot save them.

Quoting IBD:

“It seems Americans are well aware that members of Congress, not the oil executives they've demonized for decades, are to blame for the punitive prices we are having to pay at the gas pump. They want lawmakers to do something about it.

But as long as Democrats remain in the congressional majority, it's unlikely that prices will fall even modestly. The solutions the party is offering are, at best, useless. Actually, we're being overly generous, because the Democrats' answers to the oil issue are childish responses that would do more harm than good.”

Be sure to read the rest of that obituary for the 2008 Dems!

Get ready Dems! You might as well sing goodbye to your candidate(s) now. You’re fixin’ to shoot yourselves in the foot AGAIN! You just can’t help yourselves, can you?

What I really love about them lyrics (in the previous link) is:

“He might be thrillin’ baby, but my love’s so dog gone willin’ [to be drillin’]”

Buh Bye Bama [and pals]!

Brazilians Aren't Stupid

Click here for the primary post on this topic.

Unlike our own Congressional Dims, Brazilian politicians are not stupid and self-destructive (to their national interest).

All quotes below are from this Wall Street Journal entry (click the link and watch the video).

When Brazil discovered “billions of barrels of oil sit in difficult water beneath a swath of the Santos Basin, 180 miles offshore from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo”, its legislature did not announce that, “for fear of oil spills hitting Rio's beaches or altering the climate, it would forgo exploiting these fields”.

Maybe, unlike our own Congressional Dims, Brazilian legislators understand that Man Made Global Warming is nothing to be even remotely concerned about and that mother nature contributes vastly more petroleum to the world’s oceans than offshore drilling does.

What is certain is that Brazilian legislators are far more pragmatic than our Congressional Dims (who are bouncing on the puppet strings of a pack of ill-informed Environmental Extremists).

Pragmatism dictates that “It’s about admitting the need to strike a balance between the energy and security realities of the here-and-now and the potentialities of the future.”:

“The Democrats' climate-change bill collapsed last week under the weight of brutal cost realities. It was a wake-up call. This is the year Americans joined the real world of energy costs. Now someone needs to explain to them why we – and we alone – are sitting on an ocean of energy but won't drill for it.”

Click here to learn more.

Dims Reject Offshore Drilling

Click here for the primary post on this topic.

Quoting CNBC (be sure to click the link and view the associated video):

“ A congressional subcommittee struck down an important bill, which could have opened up reserves [in the Outer Continental Shelf] worth billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, on Wednesday [6/11/08].”

It was a purely partisan vote with Dims, once again, blocking access to our own tremendous domestic energy resources.

The mean estimate for our Outer Continental Shelf alone is 86 Billion Barrels of oil. That is FOUR TIMES our current proven reserves and it is more than the entire proven reserves of 14 of the 20 countries listed on the following chart:



As long as Congressional Dims refuse to allow access to our own domestic resources, prices at the pump will remain artificially high. It is economics 101, supply and demand.

Click here to learn more.

Progress in Iraq

Updated 2/9/10 - Fixed some broken links with updated data.

By every objective, quantitative metric, the surge is working:

Click the image to enlarge
Click here to see the entire set of graphs

1) Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, our Ambassador to Iraq, agrees. The surge is working.

2) With reports last September of improved security in Iraq, critics shifted their attention to less than stellar progress on the political front.

However, we now have irrefutable evidence of impressive political progress:

"Overall, according to Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, the government of Iraq 'has now met 12 out of the original 18 benchmarks set for it, including four out of the six key legislative benchmarks. It has made substantial progress on five more, and only one remains truly stalled.' The one benchmark that remains stalled is the hydrocarbon law, but its purpose (the equitable sharing of oil revenues) is being accomplished de facto through the budget."

Click here for the details on the benchmarks.

3) For a time, the Dems argued that Iraq was a “distraction” from the central front of the war against al Qaeda. However, as this link eloquently proves and broadly substantiates, that argument was too preposterous to take seriously:

“It would appear that our military, our allies, the Iraqi government and even al Qaeda itself believes that Iraq is the central front in the war against al Qaeda. At the other end of the spectrum is the Democratic leadership and Senator Chuck Hagel, oh yes, and certain media outlets, which insist we have set off a civil war with al Qaeda responsible for a minor share of violence"

Now that we have irrefutable evidence of strong military, political and economic progress in Iraq (the central front in our larger war), the Dems have shifted their focus again. They now claim we cannot afford the monetary price of victory. That, of course, is a bald faced lie. The fact is that, as a percentage of GDP, defense spending has been on a long term downward trend.

A) According to The Washington Post, these are the trends in defense spending as a percentage of GDP:

World War II - “nearly 40 percent”

Korean War - “15 percent”

Vietnam War - “10 percent”

Currently - “less than 5 percent”

B) As a percentage of GDP, current defense spending is below the average for the last 45 years:

* From the Congressional Budget Office (click the image to learn more):



* From Heritage.org (click the image to learn more):



* Click here to access the 2009 Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Table 8.4 (which Heritage.org cited):

4) If only we could say the same about Entitlements (also measured as a percentage of GDP):

* From the Congressional Budget Office (click each image to learn more):





* From Heritage.org (click each image to learn more):





* Again, for those who don’t believe the Congressional Budget Office or Heritage.org, The Washington Post reported on this in
May of 2007:

"Entitlement programs have dramatically changed the budget landscape. Today, national security spending accounts for less than 5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product -- compared with nearly 40 percent during World War II, 15 percent during the Korean War and 10 percent during the Vietnam War. That makes it sound like it should be easy to win the needed defense funding. It won't be. The enormous sums committed to mandatory federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid dwarf all other aspects of the budget. Left unchecked for a decade or two, they will consume a larger share of the nation's GDP than all our federal programs today combined. Coupled with increasing interest payments on the government's rising debt, they will either force up taxes or produce dangerous deficits. Unless we get entitlement costs under control, Social Security will inevitably square off against national security."

The sad fact is, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have already squared off against national security. But, neither the Dims nor their propaganda arm (the media) will admit it.

Even sadder is the fact that we could completely eliminate the tiny 4% of GDP we currently spend on Defense and it wouldn’t even make a dent in how long it will take for Entitlement Spending to bury us alive.

Folks, deficit spending is not driven by Defense Spending, it is driven by Entitlement Spending. And, without immediate reforms, Entitlement Spending will bury us alive!

Oil Shale in The USA

Click here for the primary post on this topic.
Please sign the petition to drill here and drill now!

Quoting a study by the Rand Corporation (with my own emphasis):

“The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.”

“For policy planning purposes, it is enough to know that any amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint in our estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.”

Quoting The Wall Street Journal:

“America remains the only nation in the world that has curtailed access to its own energy supplies/ Meanwhile China will soon begin drilling for oil off Cuba and in Venezuela.”

Quoting The Wall Street Journal:

“ The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.”

USA, Mean Estimate From Oil Shale = 800 Billion Barrels
USA, Mean Estimate From The Outer Continental Shelf = 86 Billion Barrels
USA, Mean Estimate From ANWR = 10.4 Billion Barrels
Saudi Arabia, Proven Oil Reserves = 262 Billion Barrels
Remaining Proven Reserves Are Depicted in The Chart Below

Click here to learn why Ethanol was a giant mistake
Click here for more information on how to lower gasoline prices
Worried about offshore drilling? Click here to check the quantitative facts
Click here for directly cited peer reviewed science on Man Made Global Warming
Please sign the petition to drill here and drill now!

Democrats vs. Obama

We Knew it Was Coming
Even Democrats Know Obama is Not Qualified

Hat tip to Tony Phyrillas

Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less

The Political Problem:
Energy Obstruction by Democrats
Click the Image to View The History

But, the above link covers only ANWR.
Click here for obstruction regarding drilling in The Outer Continental Shelf
Click here for obstruction regarding developing our tremendous Oil Shale resources.
President Bush long supported drilling in ANWR.
In 2008, President Bush strongly reiterated that position.
President Bush lifted the executive order banning drilling in the OCS.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has drafted the
proposed Oil Shale regulations to ensure environmental protection.
Congressional Democrats are the ONLY remaining obstacle!

The Myth:
Dems Claim Oil “Speculators” Are The Problem
Click the Image to Dispel the Myth

The REAL Problem is Supply & Demand
(Made Worse by “The Political Problem”):
In 2007, World Demand Exceeds World Supply
Click the Image to Enlarge it:

I personally created and uploaded the above chart.
The data used in the above chart are found in this spreadsheet downloaded from this page.
Click here for more details on supply and demand issues.

The Result:
In 2007, Crude Oil Prices Begin to Soar
Click the Image to Enlarge it:

I personally created and uploaded the above chart.
The data used in the above chart are found in this spreadsheet downloaded from this page.

The Result:
In 2007, Gasoline & Diesel Prices Begin to Soar
in Lock Step With Crude Prices
Click the Image to Enlarge it:

I personally created and uploaded the above chart.
The data used in the above chart are found in this spreadsheet downloaded from this page.

The Wishful Thinking:
Domestic Conservation Will NOT Solve The Problem
The Growth in Demand is Not Under Our Control
Click the Image to Enlarge it:

I personally created and uploaded the above chart.
The data used in the above chart are found in this spreadsheet downloaded from this page.
Click here to see where the demand is growing (and not growing).
Click here for the source of the previous link.

More Wishful Thinking:
Saudi Arabia Cannot Just Twist a Spigot and Produce More Crude
They Have Plenty of Oil
What They Lack is Production Capacity
We Can HELP!
Click The Image and Learn More:

And Still More Wishful Thinking:
According to NPR, the best near term alternative to hydrocarbons is what Matthew Wald of The New York Times calls “Wishful Thinking”. We WILL transition to alternative energy, But it WILL take decades. In the interim, without more hydrocarbons, world economies will grind to a halt, venture capital will dry up and WE WILL NEVER GET THERE! The hydrocarbon economies create the capital which is necessary to invest into the development of future energy sources!

The Solution is NOT Found in Choosing Between Oil or Alternatives
The Solution is Oil AND Alternatives

Click the Image and Listen to The Audio Report From NPR:

The Best Near Term Solution:
The Mean Estimates for ANWR and OCS Alone Place us
Ahead of Iraq in The Amount of Domestic Oil!
So, Open ANWR and The Outer Continental Shelf for Drilling
Click the Image to Enlarge it:

I personally created and uploaded the above chart.
The data used in the above chart are found in:
1) Proven Reserves - This spreadsheet downloaded from this page
2) ANWR Mean Estimate - 10.4 Billion Barrels
3) OCS Mean Estimate- 86 Billion Barrels

ANWR Covers 19 Million acres
2,000 Acres is Proposed For Development
Thus, 1/100th of 1% of ANWR Would be Developed:
Click the Image to Enlarge it:

ANWR Drilling (on Frozen Tundra)
Will be More Eco-Friendly Than Ever
Click the Image And Learn More:

Worried About Offshore Oil Rig Spills? Don’t!
Click The Image and Learn The Quantitative Facts:

Slightly Longer Term Solutions
That We Need to Start on NOW:
Oil Shale and Coal Liquefaction
Click the Image to Enlarge it:

I personally created and uploaded the above chart.
The data used in the above chart are found in:
1) Proven Reserves - This spreadsheet downloaded from this page
2) ANWR Mean Estimate - 10.4 Billion Barrels
3) OCS Mean Estimate- 86 Billion Barrels
4) Bakken Formation - “on average, 200 billion barrels” Technically Recoverable
5) Oil Shale Mean Estimate - 800 Billion Barrels
6) Coal Liquefaction Mean Estimate - 535 Billion Barrels
Oil Shale technology was proven on a commercial scale at least as far back as 1924.
The largest Oil Shale facility has been in commercial operation since 1980.

Worried About Climate Change? Don’t!
Click The Image and Learn The Facts as Described by
Directly Cited Peer Reviewed Science, IPCC Scientists and More

Worried About Air Pollution? Don’t!
It is Well Controlled and Continuing to Drop:
Click the Image to Enlarge it
Click Here For the Entire Report

Click here to learn more.