Sunday, June 29, 2008

Are Our Gas Bills Tied To The New American Oil Contracts In Iraq




On the Bill Moyers show, On or about June 28, 2008 he summarized a story about
new no-bid American oil contract going to Iraq. Two organizations, one conservative and one liberal sued, and found that government officials were having secret meetings. They also found that at the secret meetings they discussed giving no bid contacts to four major American oil companies to operate in Iraq. This, Bill Moyers says, is proof that the Iraq war is about the aquisition of their oil and not terrorism.

The picture above is the beautiful Saint Laurence River in Quebec City, I took this
picture last year when I visited the city. It is a gorgeous place to visit.

Check your local listing on PBS to see the Bill Moyers show.
Msfinancialsavvy

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Bill Moyers & Michael Winship: It Was Oil, All Along
Below is an piece by Bill Moyers and JOURNAL writer Michael Winship. We welcome your comments below.


It Was Oil, All Along
By Bill Moyers & Michael Winship

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire, and ashes. And now the bottom turns out to be....the bottom line. It is about oil.


Alan Greenspan said so last fall. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, safely out of office, confessed in his memoir, “…Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” He elaborated in an interview with the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first gulf war."

Remember, also, that soon after the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, told the press that war was our only strategic choice. “…We had virtually no economic options with Iraq,” he explained, “because the country floats on a sea of oil.”

Shades of Daniel Plainview, the monstrous petroleum tycoon in the movie THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Half-mad, he exclaims, "There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet!" then adds, "No one can get at it except for me!"
No wonder American troops only guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior in Baghdad, even as looters pillaged museums of their priceless antiquities. They were making sure no one could get at the oil except... guess who?

Here’s a recent headline in the NEW YORK TIMES: "Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." Read on: "Four western companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power."

There you have it. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts – that's right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places. And these war profiteers have friends in very high places.

Let’s go back a few years to the 1990’s, when private citizen Dick Cheney was running Halliburton, the big energy supplier. That’s when he told the oil industry that, “By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.”

Fast forward to Cheney’s first heady days in the White House. The oil industry and other energy conglomerates have been headed backdoor keys to the White House, and their CEO’s and lobbyists were trooping in and out for meetings with their old opal, now Vice President Cheney. The meetings are secret, conducted under tight security, but as we reported five years ago, among the documents that turned up from some of those meetings were maps of oil fields in Iraq – and a list of companies who wanted access to them. The conservative group Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed suit to try to find out who attended the meetings and what was discussed, but the White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the press and public from learning the whole truth.

Think about it. These secret meetings took place six months before 9/11, two years before Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq. We still don’t know what they were about. What we know is that this is the oil industry that’s enjoying swollen profits these days. It would be laughable if it weren’t so painful to remember that their erstwhile cheerleader for invading Iraq – the press mogul Rupert Murdoch – once said that a successful war there would bring us $20 a barrel of oil. The last time we looked, it was more than $140 a barrel. Where are you, Rupert, when the facts need checking and the predictions are revisited?

At a congressional hearing this week, James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who exactly twenty years ago alerted Congress and the world to the dangers of global warming, compared the chief executives of Big Oil to the tobacco moguls who denied that nicotine is addictive or that there's a link between smoking and cancer. Hansen,
who the administration has tried again and again to silence, said these barons of black gold should be tried for committing crimes against humanity and nature in opposing efforts to deal with global warming.

Perhaps those sweetheart deals in Iraq should be added to his proposed indictments. They have been purchased at a very high price. Four thousand American soldiers dead, tens of thousands permanently wounded for life, hundreds of thousands of dead and crippled Iraqis plus five million displaced, and a cost that will mount into trillions of dollars. The political analyst Kevin Phillips says America has become little more than an "energy protection force," doing anything to gain access to expensive fuel without regard to the lives of others or the earth itself. One thinks again of Daniel Plainview in THERE WILL BE BLOOD. His lust for oil came at the price of his son and his soul.

Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of BILL MOYERS JOURNAL.

Bill Moyers Journal

Msfinancialsavvy.com

Thursday, June 19, 2008


People Finally Swept Up In Mortgage Fraud Arrests
by Msfinancialsavvy.com

In reading about all of the Mortgage Fraud reports I couldn't figure out why
the gangs, mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders, mortgage investors, lawyers and
the like had not been arrested. We saw some of the largest mortgage fraud in
the history of the United States and all that happened is that a few million
innocent homeowners lost their homes and many big cities are now booming with
former homeowners as homeless.

The following is a quote taken from associated press writers
LARA JAKES JORDAN and ALAN ZIBEL, in conjunction with the FBI reports:

Law enforcement officials said their stepped-up focus on mortgage cases aims to combat problems that have grown out of the risky lending practices prevalent until the mortgage market collapse started last year. Officials have identified 10 "mortgage fraud hotspots" nationwide in California, Colorado, Texas, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Georgia and Florida.

To people who have committed fraud or are contemplating doing so, FBI Director Robert Mueller said: "We will find you, you will be investigated and you will be prosecuted."

Those named in the cases include housing developers, mortgage lenders and brokers, lawyers, real estate agents and appraisers, said Sharon Ormsby, section chief in charge of financial crimes for the FBI.

In some cases, gang, drug and organized crime investigations have resulted in mortgage fraud cases because such schemes enable criminals to launder money, Ormsby said.

Mortgage foreclosure rescue scams, which promise to help struggling homeowners stave off foreclosure and keep their homes, also have become a major problem, officials said. Typically, unsuspecting owners sign over their homes and then find they are victims of fraud.

Read the entire article

Read Msfinancialsavvy, to avoid such scams

Thursday, June 12, 2008


How To Make A Vacation A Staycation

Many of you have lovely homes you rarely get to visit. What I mean
is that, you get up early, go to work, come home, and spend most of your
time getting ready to go to work all over again. On the weekends...

The above picture is a picture of the sun setting on the rustically beautiful
back bay of hampton roads virginia. The back bay includes a secluded beach and
bike trails, along with a fishing area in the bay.

Find Out More...

Wednesday, June 11, 2008


Ed McMahon and His New Found Wealth

Ed McMahon may not have to move out of his Los Angeles
Mansion after all. Rich friends help rich friends, and this
has proven to be true with Ed McMahon. Reportedly, Jay Leno
will be bailing Ed McMahon out of his foreclosure crises.

Now, if we could find a consortium of rich people to help some of
the poor people being put out in the streets with their kids,
this world would be a better place for poor people too.

Get Savvy With Your Money and Your Life

Friday, June 06, 2008


Update On Ed McMahon And His Multi-Million Dollar Foreclosure Home

I saw Ed McMahon and his beautiful young wife on Larry King. He was
to explain why he is $644,000 behind on the note of his $5 million
dollar home at the age of 85. It was basically, well...stuff happens.

He explained with his two divorces, his accident, and well...he forgot
to mention his third beautiful young wife who had to have a $5 million
dollar home as her first house, but that was about it.

Because of his accident he can't work at the age of 85. Wow! who works
at the age of 85 to support a multi-million dollar mortgage. Anyway,
my heart goes out to him, he has my thoughts and prayers. And, if
anything comes out of this let it be a savvy money lesson for all of
you senior gentlemen out there, that some things are not THAT important.
Save your money, live off of your retirement.

Learn More At Msfinancialsavvy's Retirement Investing

Thursday, June 05, 2008


Young Women, Older Men, Financial Security and Ed McMahon

Ed McMahan has had a long and successful career as a pitchman
for Johnny Carson and then for the sweepstakes. With his career
came large payouts for his services. But, now his home is in
foreclosure. Then that begs the question; how could he be in
such horrible financial trouble at the age of 85?

Read More Of This Juicy Article...

Msfinancialsavvy

Tuesday, June 03, 2008


Renters Are The New Casualty Of The Foreclosure Crises

We saw many programs on television during the real estate boom,
about flipping houses. Flipping is buying, remodeling, and immediately
selling homes for profit. There were signs posted all over my community,
stating "we buy houses quick". There were real estate meetings

Read More At Msfinancialsavvy.com