The Democrats present the Trojan Drilling Bill, the stock market is in major jitters, investors look for safe places to put their money. Hence oil, gold/silver/precious metals go up. Pretty simple.

With the Democrat's no-drill oil bill, prohibiting drilling in most areas, there will be little change in our domestic oil supply. If we don't get a real Drill Here bill, we will be dependent on foreign oil for years and paying higher prices. It is supply and demand...the price will go up.

Anyone wondering if the Democrats are trying to create such an oil price crisis that the government must come in and take that industry over too? I am hard pressed to explain the Democrat's stance any other way.

The other factor involved in precious metal and oil price increases is the fall of the dollar. It had been improving since about July. But the Freddie and Fannie / financials bail outs cause the United States to expand the money supply. That is inflationary, resulting in the value of the individual dollar to fall. Again, it is supply and demand.

From the Financial Times: The Short View: Oil and the Dollar: 

By late morning in New York on Monday, the price of oil had climbed by 20 per cent in barely five days and scarcely anyone had noticed. Then it went into overdrive, hitting $130 at one point before settling at $120.92. Last Tuesday, it traded at $90.51 – a swing of 44 per cent from bottom to top.

This had little to do with the supply of and demand for oil and everything to do with the fallout from the “Paulson plan” – the proposal to risk $700bn of US public money in a bail-out of toxic securities held by banks.

Oil rose as doubts surfaced about the plan.

When people are nervous, they look for tangible products to invest in. 

A key variable is the dollar. So far, it has fallen in response to the possible huge rise in the US deficit. The markets seem to have gone a step further and assumed that this step will be be inflationary and cause financial assets to lose value.

In that situation, the thing to do was to head for real assets, led by oil, although other commodities, led by silver, also had a strong day. Unfortunately for the Paulson plan, the inverse relationship between oil and the dollar is one of the few financial constants to have survived the past few days.

I heard this morning that oil settled down to about $108/barrel in Asia. People are nervous worldwide. The US money supply is expanded beyond thin.

The last thing we need is another check writing spree by the government in the form of a Democrat 2nd $50billion stimulus package or a $1,000 energy rebate based on a windfall profit tax to oil companies as Obama is touting. (That tax would be passed onto consumers, making oil prices higher.)

Even the Federal Government can only print so much money if it is to be worth more than the paper it is printed on! 

Brookfield District 7 Info meeting, Wed., Sept. 24, 2-3pm or 6:30-7:30pm City Clerk Kris Schmidt will be in attendance to answer questions or concerns regarding recent news about the Van Hollen lawsuit against the state elections authority.

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Sunday we returned from a few days in Dearborn Michigan touring the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, and The Rouge Ford Factory. The Rouge Factory Tour was new to us. There was Bill Ford, the great grandson of Henry, up on the BIG screen telling us how Ford created this new Rouge factory to be friendly to the environment.

Much like our proposed Fountain Brook Crossing, The Rouge Ford Factory* has Gone Green. The roof is a garden roof, planted with sedum plants to absorb the rain water. They are increasing plantings wherever possible on the grounds; nets are strung up on the factory exterior for climbing vines.

Even their parking lots are water permeable. No more run-off. The paving material looks like asphalt but is a porous material that has sand and gravel below. The guide said that the water that runs through the pavement is filtered and very clean. It requires vacuuming twice a year to keep pores open and calcium chloride must be used instead of sodium chloride in winter.  The porous pavement is more expensive to install and maintain but lasts twice as long as conventional asphalt. Plus, no detention pond is needed...and it's good for the environment.

It seemed everything about The Rouge Factory was good for the environment or good for the employees. You could watch some of the assembly line in action. The workers were poetry in motion each doing their specific little jobs. While they are always under the time constraint of the moving line, it did not seem any were really hustling to keep up the pace. Some workers were on the cell phone, playing a hand held game, or even had newspapers there to catch a snippet of an article.

I asked a tour guide how much money these people made. She did not know specifically but said from what she read in the paper, it was around $20.00 per hour for new hires. Workers with more seniority were higher.

Another guide told us that Ford recently closed 2 other factories in other states, I believe, and now consolidated all of the work here at The Rouge. That sounded efficient. The Rouge's specialty was trucks**. Wonder where the other cars are made?

Monday's Investor's Business Daily answered part of that question: Movin' To Mexico!:  (My emphasis)

Ford's investment of $3 billion in two auto plants near Mexico City is the largest foreign company investment ever in Mexico. As oil prices soar and new climate-change rules are readied in Washington, Ford must shift from its reliance on trucks and SUVs to lighter, more energy-efficient vehicles.

This should be something that workers in Michigan and other Midwestern states with decades of automaking experience should excel at doing. Instead, Ford and other automakers are pushing more and more investment abroad — especially to Mexico.

The editorial cites reasons for an auto sales slump and the US losing jobs--mainly the UAW forcing higher wages and benefits--but increasing climate change rules and higher oil prices aren't helping the industry.

Like a coyote caught in a trap, U.S. automakers have been desperately gnawing off a leg to escape certain death. They're closing plants and slashing jobs in Michigan, Ohio and other U.S. union havens, in favor of non-union, foreign places. Like Mexico and China.

Meanwhile, foreign companies have no problem making cars here. They do it in the non-union South, where the UAW is weak.

So foreign companies can get around our high wages by being non-union, but even they and their products are subject to U.S. emission standards for factories and cars.

You would think that with our ailing auto industry our government would be doing all it could to help encourage instead of hinder. Yet Washington continues to hamper oil exploration and increase auto emission standards (i.e. new diesel emissions will be cleaner than intake air.) 

Add to automakers woes, both U.S. and foreign made here, the latest millstone around the neck: Cap-and-Trade, and I think we have the recipe for outsourcing more industry of all kinds.

Ford may have greened up its Dearborn plant and created an ideal work environment, but if more industry follows suit in exporting jobs to countries that don't care about workers or the environment, what good paying jobs will be left in America?

This was written before Tuesday's post Kohl, Feingold, and Doyle's reaction to GM closing Janesville plant

Related articles: Toyota workers in Kentucky plant made more than UAW members last year

More handwriting on the wall, GM closing Janesville assembly plant by 2010 

*The Rouge Factory was named for the Rouge River in Dearborn. The banks of the river were red clay, hence the name Rouge (French for red). 

**A guide told us this was the last year they would be making Mercury trucks. 

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Last night I heard Senator Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) on the Mark Levin Show.  They were discussing S. 2191, the Senate "Lieberman/Warner Global Warming Bill and the disastrous effect this would have not on just the country as a whole, but the individual." (My emphasis throughout post.)

Wall Street Journal referred to Cap-and-Trade as Cap and Spend

As the Senate opens debate on its mammoth carbon regulation program this week, the phrase of the hour is "cap and trade." This sounds innocuous enough. But anyone who looks at the legislative details will quickly see that a better description is cap and spend. This is easily the largest income redistribution scheme since the income tax.

The Washington Post said, Just Call It "Cap-and-Tax" 

"...One of the bad ways [to control greenhouse gas] is cap-and-trade. Unfortunately, it's the darling of environmental groups and their political allies.

The chief political virtue of cap-and-trade -- a complex scheme to reduce greenhouse gases -- is its complexity. This allows its environmental supporters to shape public perceptions in essentially deceptive ways. Cap-and-trade would act as a tax, but it's not described as a tax. It would regulate economic activity, but it's promoted as a "free market" mechanism. Finally, it would trigger a tidal wave of influence-peddling, as lobbyists scrambled to exploit the system for different industries and localities. This would undermine whatever abstract advantages the system has.

...Call this "environmental pork," and it would just be a start. The program's potential to confer subsidies and preferential treatment would stimulate a lobbying frenzy. Think of today's farm programs -- and multiply by 10.

After listening to Senator Inhofe, I think we could also refer to it as Cap-and-Raid! If it passes, it will raid every worker in America's wallet!

Senator Inhofe said, Senator Barbara Boxer insists this is not a tax bill. But if you have looked into the bill itself and at the linked articles, it is difficult to understand how this could not be considered a tax bill.

Inhofe then quickly listed some points to ponder. He mentioned the Wall Street Journal referring to it as the most extensive reorganization since the 1930s. He called it worse than the Kyoto Treaty for the economy. Cap-and-Trade will need 45 more Big Government Bureaucracies to enforce the standards.

Using Boxer's figures, Inhofe pointed out that Cap-and-Trade would collect $6.7 Trillion dollars from industry (those costs will be passed onto us!). The maximum rebate to customers is $2.5 Trillion dollars. Do the math: That means $4.2 Trillion goes where?

That sounds like a tax to me!

He went on to remind us that the Democrats have killed every domestic drilling bill. The US relies on coal for 53% of all of its electricity production. Cap-and-Trade will tax coal fired electricity production. Consider that China "cranks out a new coal electric plant" every 3 days (?). (I think he said 3 days, which fits with this - certainly between India and China it would be true.)

Manufacturing jobs will go where there is (cheap) energy/power, Inhofe said. This is also what Congressman Sensenbrenner talked about at his Town Hall Meeting when he called Cap-and-Trade "Catastrophic for Wisconsin". I would add that manufacturing jobs will also go where environmental regulations are more lax.

Senator Inhofe suggested people take a look at Liberman-Warner Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed  It is chock full of quotes, links and articles.

The Senate is debating this bill this week. While some say the bill will not pass, as you know, once the foot is in the door, the issue will not go away.  Considering all 3 Presidential candidates support the concept of Global Warming, I would just say, the bill probably won't pass...yet.

Our Senators' response to my emails: Not much hope of a NO vote here--unless they feel the heat from constituents.

This is important! Please contact them both: Senator Kohl (Phone: (414) 297-4451, (202) 224-5653) and Senator  Feingold (Office of Senator Russ Feingold | 202/224-5323) and let them know what you think about this bill.

More reading:

George Will's Cap-And-Trade: A Devious Tax Plan

Good chart of key players and terms explained at end: Senate taking up key climate-change bill 

The Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell: Carbon Capping in Bizarro World 

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