Censored Whig Letters

Hyperinflation for sale: Newsmax and Dick Morris cash in on anti-Obama rhetoric

Since President Obama’s inauguration, right-wing website Newsmax has repeatedly used inflammatory anti-Obama rhetoric and stoked readers’ fears of hyperinflation and economic collapse to drive sales of the financial-services products it offers, including newsletters and investment programs. Fox News analyst Dick Morris and Steve Forbes have played key roles in promoting Newsmax’s financial products and economic rhetoric.

In this report:

Newsmax uses anti-Obama rhetoric and stokes fear of hyperinflation to drive sales of the financial-services products it offers.
Newsmax promotions entice participants to spend $1,295 or more on investment schemes that promise a “Potential Reward” of thousands in return.
Newsmax’s investment schemes center on stock tips from Newsmax’s “chief financial adviser,” or advice on entering foreign currency trading markets.
Morris was paid to tout one Newsmax promotion to his mailing list, and Newsmax rented Morris’ mailing list to promote another scheme.
Morris and Forbes have appeared in the videos and webcasts Newsmax uses to promote the website’s financial products.

FULL TEXT HERE: http://mediamatters.org/research/201004260010

Dick Morris uses Fox News cred to shill for Newsmax financial schemes

Over the past year, Dick Morris has repeatedly used anti-Obama rhetoric and stoked fears about the economy on Fox News, in his latest book, and in videos for the right-wing website Newsmax. Newsmax has used those videos to the promote financial-services products it sells, which the website has pushed by playing on similar anti-Obama fears. Morris has been paid by Newsmax to use his email list to plug such products; he builds his email list through his website, which he often promotes on Fox News.

In this report:

Newsmax drives sales of its financial products by using anti-Obama rhetoric and stoking fear of hyperinflation.
Newsmax has paid Morris to use his email list to promote those products.
Through his email list and in appearances on Newsmax webcasts, Morris has explicitly endorsed Newsmax’s financial-services products.
Morris builds his email list through his website, which is frequently promoted during his Fox News appearances.
In his Newsmax appearances, on Fox, and in his latest book, Morris has echoed the anti-Obama rhetoric and predictions of hyperinflation Newsmax uses to promote its products.
Morris has repeatedly used his Fox platform to shill for groups he is affiliated with.

FULL TEXT HERE: http://mediamatters.org/research/201004270013

UAW optimistic about growth as economy revives

BY BRENT SNAVELY
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

http://www.freep.com/article/20100415/BUSINESS01/4150401/1207/Business0104/UAW-optimistic-about-growth-as-economy-revives

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said Wednesday that he is hopeful the UAW can reverse its declining membership as the economy recovers and the nation’s labor laws are changed.

Gettelfinger said industry sales are off to a good start in April and he believes that Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and the industry at large are on a path to recovery.

“We’re right on the verge of having 12 million in vehicle sales” for 2010, Gettelfinger said during a speech at Wayne State University. That would be a big improvement from 10.4 million in 2009, the U.S. industry’s lowest sales in nearly 30 years.

Gettelfinger, whose second and final term ends in June, has guided the union through a retrenchment during which membership fell to 355,191, a post-World War II low.

He is both praised and blamed for convincing UAW members to accept concessions on contracts the union fought for decades to win in an effort to prevent General Motors and Chrysler from failing.

Many Americans still want to join unions, Gettelfinger said, but U.S. laws make it difficult to organize. Employers can delay certification votes and even threaten workers with recriminations or even firing.

In 2007, he said 58,000 U.S. workers voted to join a union. Two years later, 37% of those workers were still without a labor contract with their employer.

The proposed Employee Free Choice Act would allow a union to be certified to bargain with an employer if it collects signatures from a majority of the workers.

However, James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said Wednesday that passing the legislation, commonly known as card check, will be difficult because Republicans can block the bill unless the Democrats have 60 votes in the U.S. Senate. After Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to succeed the late Democrat Ted Kennedy, Democrats can count on only 59 votes in the Senate.

Contact BRENT SNAVELY: 313-222-6512 or bsnavely@freepress.com

What’s driving up oil prices again? Wall Street, of course

by Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Oil consumption has fallen, demand from U.S. motorists for gasoline is flat at best and refiners that turn crude into fuel are operating well below capacity. Yet oil prices keep marching toward $90 a barrel, pushing gasoline toward $3 a gallon in many markets, and prompting American drivers to ask, “What gives?”

Blame it on the same folks who brought you $140 oil and $4 gasoline in 2008: Wall Street speculators.

Experts attribute much of the recent rise in prices to flows of speculative money into oil markets. These bets are fueled by investor expectations that the U.S. and global economies are poised to return to growth and thus spark increased use of oil. Strong growth in China supports the narrative of rising oil consumption and tightening supplies.

“The thinking goes that rising stock (market) prices implies expanding business activity, implies growing energy demand, implies rising oil prices. I think you can make that case, but it’s awfully weak,” said Michael Fitzpatrick, vice president-energy for MF Global, a financial firm that brokers the sale of contracts for future delivery of oil.

While there are signs of U.S. economic recovery, such as a slight uptick in consumption and strong manufacturing data, there are plenty of ho-hum signs too, including dismal construction spending and continued high unemployment.

“I just don’t think if you look across the entire spectrum of the macro-economy that it creates a picture of a growing body of incontrovertible evidence that there is a strong, sustainable recovery. I just don’t see it,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think it should be closer to the range we were seeing in late summer and early fall, $67 to $72″ a barrel.

On the last day of July, oil traded at $67.50 a barrel and gasoline sold at a nationwide average of $2.52 a gallon for regular unleaded. On Thursday, oil prices settled at $84.87 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and regular unleaded gasoline averaged $2.80 a gallon and more than $3 on the West Coast, according to the AAA.

“It’s the story we’ve been talking about . . . . It’s really about oil being an attractive investment for investors right now,” said Troy Green, a AAA spokesman. “You’ve seen quite a bit of money flooding into the oil markets because of that.”

What’s different about today’s price run-up from two or three years ago is that oil is now in ample supply.

“If you look at the fundamentals right now, there is certainly an abundance that is available (of oil) to the market for the next 12 months or so. It’s not a near-term supply shortfall,” said David Dismukes, the associate director of the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

U.S. motorists and businesses consumed 18.69 million barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum product last year. That’s projected to rise slightly this year to 18.89 million bpd. However, it remains far below peak consumption of 20.80 million bpd in 2005.

The latest data from the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, shows that as of mid-March, U.S. refiners were operating at 81.1 percent capacity. They’re making eight gallons of gasoline for every 10 they’re capable of producing, a clear sign that demand is down.

Perhaps the only argument that would justify rising prices is that global consumption is expected to grow by 1.6 million bpd to 86.6 million bpd this year, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

Even so, there’s 6 million bpd of oil that’s shut-in, a technical way of saying that recoverable oil is being left in the ground by the world’s oil producers.

“When you look at inventories and shut-in capacity, (oil) prices today are above what those would indicate,” said Daniel Yergin, the author of “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power,” the recently updated Pulitzer Prize-winning book that chronicles the history of oil.

When oil traded above $140 a barrel nearly two years ago and pundits warned that the world was running out of oil, Yergin suggested that a glut of oil would come onto the market in 2010 and beyond. The 6 million bpd of oil now on the sidelines suggests that he was right.

Today’s spare production capacity is three times what it was in 2004 and 2005, when supply actually was tight.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries signaled this week its concerns about rising prices by not calling for hard enforcement of production quotas by its members. That suggested the cartel will tolerate an open-spigot policy by its 12 members as needed to stabilize prices.

“While OPEC was silent on any threat to the recovery, speculation continues that the cartel is deliberately allowing members to exceed production quotas in order to limit upward price pressure,” wrote analyst Matt Robinson, in a research report Thursday by forecaster Moody’s Economy.com.

Rising oil and gasoline prices are deja vu all over again for Michael Masters. The hedge fund manager has crusaded for legislation that would prevent so much speculative money in the oil markets.

Wall Street is “gaming” the price of oil, he warns……..

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/01/91487/whats-driving-up-oil-prices-again.html#ixzz0k2VsgYlF