Tag: commodities

UN Report: Green Growth is Better, Safer Growth

I just caught this a short while ago and just in time to stream most of the press conference, without even finishing my first pot of coffee.

Did some searching and found a couple of reports, more are being added as I type this, as well as the UNEP site page with the full report broken down in sections to download, read and study.

One doesn’t need to believe in ‘Climate Change’, using the label ‘global warming’ in a simplistic way to feed the detraction of the obvious, detractors of advancing technologies and individual advancements and dreams have always been around. Developing, long over due and argued about, the technologies and finding the possible new means to the goals of a cleaner planet and cleaner living are just the same as any advancements man has made as we’ve evolved.

Greening should help bring about cleaner living. Greening should stop many of mans conflicts {think national securities and the continued growth of hatreds} on his fellow man, who will go to war to try and control anothers sun or wind,or what other possibilities can be found to cleaner energy needs through other advancing technologies and not with fossil fuels or anothers mineral assets.

Advancing to green economies brings growth, everywhere, as well as the needed trades and expertise to be able to carry out the advancement needs. Developing and growing towards cleaner living, cleaner manufacturing, cleaner air, cleaner water and much more, a cleaner and possibly less hostile planet.

Environmentalism and the cycle of commodities

One of the main reasons our era is faced with intractable environmental problems is that we tend to look at the world with capitalist eyes, as an ensemble of commodities.  Specifically, our world is forced into a cycle of commodities, in which the ultimate end of things is determined not by regeneration but by commodification.  When something can no longer be a commodity, then, it is “externalized” — made into trash.  This diary will explore the cycle of commodities, and suggest an alternative way which doesn’t present such intractable environmental problems.

(crossposted at Orange)

Why I’m a little worried about the drop in oil

Can’t sleep, been thinking about the price of oil, worrying about it to be honest. Now you may be thinking “Venom, what are you crazy? A putz? A drop in the price of oil is a good thing!”  And I would reply, yes, under normal circumstances it is.  But these days, things ain’t so normal.  Actually, right now, oil is up since yesterday, but it’s been in a slide for the past week or so.

Sign of the times: $.99 says they can’t sell for under a buck!

While Larry Kudlow and the rest of the neo-con Kudlowites are telling you the economy is Goldilocks, reality is trying to remind us that things aren’t so golden.

Manufacturing Monday: Gustave’s effect on energy & manufacturers

By now, Hurricane Gustav is ravaging the great city of New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast.  Our hopes and prayers goes out to the good folks of the area.  Well you probably have guessed, that Johnny Venom would’ve found the economic angle on all this.  Rest assured, fellow Kossacks, I won’t let you down!  But once again, I do hope for the best for the folks aflicted by Gustave.  

Manufacturing Tuesday or Monday part deux!

Yesterday I had hit on the situation going on with the automakers.  Originally, I had intended to include some other stories, but the first piece was large enough (perhaps too large?) that I realized that I had to push the other pieces. Well, as promised, we got some interesting stuff. First on the auto front a cool piece on zero emission cars.  Next we got fallout from biofuels and water preservation.  Third, it seems the Chinese aren’t so thirsty for the black stuff right now. Lastly could the current woes Australia’s mining sector tell us something?  

Despite recent grain crash, long term food $$ is on the rise

The contrarian in me is screaming that Reuters’ recent piece on food prices is the food inflation equivalent to Businessweek’s famous “Stocks are dead” headline from a 1982 issue.  Yet another piece is whispering in my hear “baby, it ain’t over yet!”  

Manufacturing Monday: Price fixing, the big grain crash of ’08 and speculators for hire?

Greetings ladies and gentlemen to the latest episode of Manufacturing Monday. Couple of interesting things to discus today, and some interesting numbers to watch this week.  First we have what appears to be a new take on price fixing by manufacturers.  Next we explore the recent collapse in the price of grains. Our last piece is a story from the Financial Times where companies and groups are hiring the very element that help drive up their costs, speculators, to well…sorta fight speculators.  Kinda reminds me of those old westerns where they hire a gunfighter to take on the baddie.  Finally, as mentioned, there are numbers we’re watching, the Producer Price Index being released tomorrow, Jobless claims and the Philadelphia Fed Survey on Thursday.