As the grim sales figures coming out of GM predict a collapse of massive proportions,the management,always the last to know pretends that things will be better if they announce a "revolutionary" product.This time it is the so called battery powered car called the Volt.

Even this announcement was a loaded lie.The car has a battery which, when fully charged, has a range of 40 miles when it is run entirely with battery power.The car also has additional power available from an engine that can be run with gasoline, gasoline-ethanol mixtures and biofuel.

Unfortunately for GM, Toyota's Prius precedes GM's own by more than ten years.That car which cannot be kept on the dealers lot for than 24 hours as it flies off because of enormous demand,is going to be made into a plug-in hybrid version which promises to do everyting GM promises to do in  some unstated future date.What is remarkable is that Prius was developed from Toyota's own internal funding when there was no market for a hybrid car and gasoline was at about $1 a gallon.After the development Toyota introduced the car to the US market which ridiculed it.Yet, year after year, the car built up its market by demonstrating its reliability and its fuel efficiency.That performance has brought its sales figure to close to one million automobiles and even a company of Toyota's impressive resources is now finding itself hard to keep up with the burgeoning demand.

In recent months, as the price of petroleum has surged past $135 per barrel, Toyota says it is developing Lithium-ion batteries that can give a longer range than the current Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries and intends to go past petroleum to pure electric propulsion.

The reason GM finds itself in this unenviable situation is that sometime in the 70's GM gave up on making cars its central business and squandered the opportunity to build a car company that can be proud of its technical accomplishments.Instead it thought it could use money to replace innovation and compete with others because of its sheer size.That mindset was predictable when GM's board,in a palace coup,rid itself of an engineer CEO,Robert Stempel,and replaced him with an accountant/finance guy who was better at reading financial statements than be comfortable with product development.

This is also the theme of Kevin Phillips's book BAD MONEY where he shows how the relentless financialization of our businesses has undermined our competitive position in many industries and led to the hollowing of our manufacturing base.

Let us not delude ourselves.A car like the Prius could never have been allowed to be developed at GM because the accountants in charge would never have appreciated what the car could do and would have even less appreciation for the fact that it provided fuel efficiency when the price of fuel was only $1 a gallon.
This was highlighted by a comment by GM's Car Czar ( ha,ha,ha!) Bob Lutz, who said hybrid cars were crap.

There is no way for GM to recover from its present sad state unless the accountants are fired and engineers and scientists are put in charge.Because that is not likely to happen,GM is facing its demise,fast or slow.

Echoing a sentiment attributed to Che Guevara about Vietnam, it appears that Wall Street,especially the Investment bankers, have decided to bail themselves out by fleecing the consumers at the gas pump.The ploy here is to speculate that oil is going to be less plentiful and hike up the price of a barrel of crude oil, which has hit $137.00.

The moneys harvested by the investment banks will be used to bail them out of their fix caused by their mortgage crisis and collapse of several investment banks like bear Stearns and possibly Lehman Bros.

This bailout, like all previous ones, would be built on the back of the average American taxpayer and the return of poverty and starvation among the world's poorest people.

The Enron like hoax built on oil speculation will continue until the US taxpayer cannot bear the burden anymore and the collapse of empire occurs both domestically and internationally.

It is crunch time for the American Empire built on debt, speculation and war.

Although I am certain that George Carlin will not receive even a tenth of the adulation from the people who matter in American Broadcasting,he was a giant where it counted.In the hearts and minds of people who did not follow the herd.Conformity was not George's great suit and his biting commentary on religion,our social mores and our predatory attacks against the powerless have made him a cultural icon.In this he reminds me of Frank Zappa, a man whose perceptions rival those of Edith Wharton.

So we mourn the passing of a true American legend,one who kept us from losing our marbles completely.

In his last interview with Keith Olberman, George said in reference to the treatment of prisoners and the religious intolerance unleashed by Bush,"this country is finished".He said it in the sense of having lost its ideals and become a malignant entity.

Although it made me sad to agree with George, I know that so long as we continue to produce George Carlins and respect their contributions, we never have to worry about the small minded tyrants among us.

Rest in peace George.You were the best.

As one speaker after another ascended the podium to deliver his praise for Russert at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts,it occurred to me that this display by well known figures in Russert's own profession should be seen as an audition for potential replacements for his chair which was very lucrative for Russert himself.That such an audition would involve two qualities that the chief recruiters at NBC would require is also beyond question:servility and being a reliable articulator of the point of view of the ruling class.

To understand this, one needs to go back to Russert's own personal history. He started out as an intern for Senator Moynihan of New York, another unabashed basher of the people who do not have any power in our society.He was the one who coined the term "benign neglect" to consign the needs of black people to the trash bin.Having imbibed that poison during his internship,Russert set about redirecting his energies to the art of becoming wealthy which he discovered was better than being idealistic.His statement "idealism is for paupers" says it all.

His search for means of getting wealthy led him to Neutron Jack Welch, the powerful Chairman of GE,the ultimate money making machine in American life.In a barren life that viewed the bottom line as the be all and end all of existence, Neutron Jack has bullozed all things good about life by his relentless drive to optimize profits.After his retirement from GE, Neutron Jack discovered his inner sex drive,promptly divorced his long suffering wife and went straight into the arms of a student,30 years his junior, who interviewed him for a Harvard Business Review article.That article,of course, elevated him to near mythical status among American business icons.

Like many other manufactured personae in American life that too is a lie.GE's business model, such as it is, is based on total aversion to risk and creation of monopoly status in a spectrum of industries.The risk aversion produced the GE Aircfat Engine Business which depends on huge defense related contracts year after year cranking out predictable profits year after year.These profits are plowed into subsidiaries like NBC which too has become hugely profitable because many companies which supply parts and services to GE Aircraft Engines become advertisers on NBC.Then,of course,there is GE Capital which is bigger than most of the banks existing worldwide and is now reeling from the crisis in capitalism.So, this is the man to whom Russert turned to as he sought riches for himself.

His efforts were rewarded when Neutron Jack sat him on the throne of Meet the Press from where Russert launched his shabby attacks on anyone who attacked the Establishment which meant anyone who said anything that Neutron Jack disapproved of.In doing so, Russert stood the old maxim "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted" on its head.That endeared him to Neutron Jack even more and he became an icon of every wannabe in the broadcast world.That,of course, included the ever more bland Brian Williams,and an army of Brian Willaims clones.

Those clones were,in essence, auditioning for the part of Moderator of Meet the Press which would open a window to the world of the Powerful by making it possible for the person to learn exactly what the Powerful think.The job essentially involves slipping these ideas into current political narratives without showing that you have been coached.

Through their orgiastic display of affection for a man who articulated his own shameless vision of how he perceived his function,these wannabes signaled to the recruiters that they would be just as servile as Mr.Russert was.

That,they perceived this to be the most important qualification, tells us all we need to know.  

When President Bush asked me to take a walk through the streets of Baghdad to show how well the 'surge' was working I jumped at the chance.I didn't know much about Iraq, why we were there and who the Sunny and the Shites were.I just knew that I had to make sure I could walk the streets of Baghdad without looking scared.My friend Hillary did that but then Hillary is the one who scares everbody.

After our plane landed at the Baghdad airport, I had to duck and run for cover quickly to avoid getting hit by sniper fire.That was my first indication that something was awfully wrong in Iraq.I was determined to find out what it was.So, I put on my kevlar vest and headed in the APC to General Petraeus hideout.

General Petraeus is a great American.He explained to me what the surge was doing.From what I gathered the 'surge 'was just putting more troops on the ground so American officials who visited Baghdad for their show tours would be able to walk at least two blocks from the Green Zone without armed escorts numbering one whole brigade.That made a lot of sense to me because I was about to take such a walk myself.The second thing the General,who is a great American, told me was that there are two kinds of Iraqis: the Sunnys and the Shites.The Sunnys are our allies and the Shites are mad at us and they are the troublemakers.That is only for this week.Next week it will be the other way around.

That was so clear to me,I asked the General, who is a Great American, how come no one has explained this to me before?The General, who is a man of few words but a great American nonetheless, shrugged his shoulders and said I did not know this myself until I spent many months inside the Green Zone in my bomb proof bunker.My Iraqi interpreters explained everything to me.Next day, they went out of the Green Zone and blew themselves up suicide bomber style and killed dozens of people who work for me.

After this excellent introduction to Iraq,it was my turn to ask the General:"General, with due respect, I cannot tell the difference between a Sunny and a Shite, how do you manage to do it?They all look alike to me".The General had a knowing smile, he leaned over and whispered "promise me John that you will keep it secret.I don't know a Sunny from Shite.But I can fake it better than anyone back home.That makes me an expert,don't you think?"

Now the entire Iraq war began to make sense to me.I am going to go back home and tell the people we are winning the war.As my friend Hillary says, perceptions are the only things that count.

As the pundits who showed up to vent their grief upon Tim Russert's sudden death went on about his many qualities that they found affecting,I wondered what it was about Tim Russert's work that was so extraordinary.In a time in which erudition is frowned upon and even considered nerdish, none of the pundits could provide a shred of evidence for Tim Russert's knowledge base.

His knowledge was limited to a few square miles around Washington, D.C. and quite possibly also around the posh island of Nantucket where men of his means flock to get away from the riffraff.By his own admission he had given up on his idealism which he developed during his internship with Senator Moynihan.He was bent on acquiring wealth and he realized that idealism is for paupers.Acquisition of wealth required that you make the wealthy comfortable.Russert did it better than anyone in the NBC menagerie by cozying up to the neanderthal Chairman,Jack Welch of GE/NBC.

Welch realized that he had an eager lapdog who will do his bidding and gave him the chair at Meet the Press.As the moderator of that show, Russert managed to carry out the edicts of Jack Welch and, by osmosis, those of the Republican Party.He managed to produce a show titled "A Day in the Life of President Bush", which outdid all others in dressing up an idiot in  philosopher's clothes.Welch was so impressed by that performance he made Russert a very wealthy man by showering him with salary, bonuses and stock options.Russert, not content with this, decided that he would reap even greater benefits by becoming Jack Welch's neighbor in Nantucket Island.

It is this that the network mourners of a few days ago were regretting.Now that Russert was gone, and Jack Welch is out of the picture, how do I cozy up to Jeff Immelt(current GE CEO) and come at least close to the harvest Russert reaped?This was a thought on  everyone's mind.

In our society, money occupies a central place.If you have it you are good.If you have it in plenty you must be very good.And if you have it in incalculable amounts, you must be wiser than Solomon.Russert showed through his ability to decipher the ways of corporate titans that the purse strings could be loosened to one's benefit by saying the right things.And even more importantly, not saying the things your corporate masters don't want said.

This is why shows like Meet the Press cannot examine why there were no WMDs and why Judith Miller's piece of trash was quoted on the show by Cheney during the run up to the Iraq War.Russert made sure that MTP was a sanctuary for corporate and administration criminals as they lay waste to civilians, nearly a million of them, for the crime of being brownskinned Iraqis.

That the pundits would mourn such a man for more than fourteen hours does not give one hope that the times they are gonna be a-changing any time soon.

The Caspian Sea is one of the earth's great natural resources.It is adjoined by Russia,Iran,Azerbaijan,Turkmenistan.Not far away are Iraq, Armenia and several countries that hold great promise for oil and natural gas.In addition to oil, this region is the world's only repository of sturgeon which yields caviar.And I did not even mention that the Caspian is the largest reservoir of freshwater in the world apart from the Great Lakes.

To understand why the Bush administration conquered Iraq and is now eying Iran as its next victim, we need to go back to the PNAC document which lays out the scene in stark terms for us.These people populate the upper reaches of the American Empire and came to the conclusion that if the American dominance has to be preserved into the next century it must not merely have access to oil but it must deny such resources to potential adversaries.Which,of course, means absolute control over those resources.

The PNAC documents also calls for a Pearl Harbor style cataclysmic event to make Americans support any initiative against oil-rich countries under the guise of a war against terror.The entire Caspian region except for Russia and the more distant Armenia are mostly Islamic.And where have we heard of an event similar to Pearl Harbor carried out by Islamic terrorists?

Why is the conquest of Iran vital to this agenda of American imperialism? Oil, to be useful,has to be transported over long distances by pipelines to the end users.In this case the markets happen to be in India and China, two great emerging economic powers with nearly 40% of the world's population and with growth rates averaging close to 10 percent annually.
The most logical route to this market would be overland through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.An alternate route through Turkey is also available at much greater cost.The subjugation of Iran would yield plentiful oil and natural gas for distribution and would also provide the cheapest pipeline route to India.Iran has such a plan along with Pakistan and India to distribute natural gas.That would cut out the middle men of the US oil companies which is why there is an urgency to create a terror scenario for Iran with or without the help of our satrap,Israel, in the Middle East.

It would not matter if all of the Iranians suddenly became Christians overnight, the die is cast for them.The demonization has started and it is only a matter of when, not if, Iran is invaded.It is just too valuable a property to be let go.

The bottom line in the Empire's thinking is this: All the world's oil is belonging to us.We will have it for the making of the glorious American Empire.Even if we have to pay $10 a gallon at our pumps and impoverish most of our nation.

One look at the map around the Caspian sea tells us why.That inland sea, as is well known, has an enormous potential as an oil source.Already the wells at Baku are large producers and nations like Armenia,Azerbaijan,Turkmenistan,Tajikistan are clamoring to develop their fields or discover new ones.One might say that the US has all these countries well under its thumb.

Iraq, which is practically swimming in oil, has been conquered by the thugs of the Bush administration,It is not too far from the Caspian basin.Iran is the only power,rich in oil and natural gas, that is not yet under the control of the US.What is worse is that the delivery of these fuels to the markets in India or China would require laying a pipeline through Iran to a port in West Pakistan.So, one might say that Iran is the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle that the US needs to have.

Following our usual practice of demonizing a country before invading it and stealing their resources,the demonizing has been going on for quite sometime.The Israelis have of course chimed in like an Amen chorus accusing Iran of developing enriched Uranium for weapons.The US will continue this drum beat until the day of invasion.Mrs.Clinton, who is well schooled in the art of abetting Bush's invasions while professing to be against them, has already threatened to "obliterate " Iran and will keep ratcheting up the volume on cue.

The invasion of Iran has nothing to do with nuclear weapons.It is about the need of the hegemons for other people's resources.That groundwork has already been laid with the invasion of Iraq.Iran will complete the ringing of the Caspian Sea with American lap dogs.

The term Imperial Overstretch was coined by the historian Paul Kennedy in trying to explain the decline of the Roman and the British Empires.What the term means is that in the intial stages of empire building, the victories against weaker opponents come easy and the natural instinct is to expand ones hegemony over more and more opponents.The British Empire,not content with its dominance over India, managed to extend its dominion over Southeast Asia,Africa and the Middle East.As this process went on, the Empire found itself enmeshed in brushfire wars in many regions consuming more and more of its resources to the point diminishing returns set in.Rivals like Germany and Japan started eying the big power and wanted a piece of the Empire for themselves.WWII was reflection of that rivalry.

Our Empire builders who went into Iraq with fantasies of a cakewalk are running into the reality based world
even as they celebrate their macho achievements.The price of oil has reached $140 a barrel and by some predictions could reach $200 a barrel by the end of 2008.

If that prediction comes true,the Empire will reach the point of overstretch  on an accelerated schedule.Not merely is the United States dependent on oil for its domestic needs its military forces are to a great extent dependent on oil too.In fact, the US military is by far the largest consumer of petroleum based fuels.This means that the cost of wars, even to an enormously productive power like the US, will become prohibitive and will prove to be a drain on its resources.An economic collapse cannot be ruled out under these circumstances.

It is at these historic junctures that rivals to our power will emerge.I see a coalition of powers along the lines of BRICs (Brazil,Russia,India and China) will see an opening and begin to assert themselves.Whether that will be sufficient for the US to shed its dreams of world hegemony,only time will tell.But,I think the bells are tolling for the demise of hegemony.

As the price of oil approaches $150 a barrel, the rationale of the Bush-Cheney cabal for going to war in Iraq becomes clearer.

The world passed the peak in oil production somewhere in 2005, according to experts.Whatever reserves are left are going to be increasingly more difficult and more expensive to extract.That,plus some speculation, accounts for this dramatic rise in prices that we are experiencing.

What men like Bush,Cheney and Rumsfeld have known for some time is that this scarcity is going to dramatically change the power equation in the world.

Following the congenital American impulse of hegemony
and predatory power, our ruling class adopted a strategy of putting down any rivals to our power, such as China,Russia,Brazil or India.

Along with this strategy of military confrontation, they also adopted a strategy of invading and holding weak,oil resource rich countries like Iraq and Iran so that their oil could be denied to any potential rivals.

This is why a War on Terrorism was invented through the stage managed pseudo event of 9/11/2001.

That laid the foundation for a never ending war against the weaker nations rich in petroleum.

That war has bipartisan support with many Democrats like Hillary Clinton,Dianne Feinstein,and others lending support to this counterfeit war.

I am not sure where Mr.Obama stands on this issue.I am sure that given the imperatives of oil demand and the political and economic pressures that he is going to feel soon, his freedom of action might be very limited.

Remember that this country does not just want access to oil,it wants total control of that oil which only hegemony will give.So, talking with Iraq or Iran or Venezuela is out of the question.We want their oil,or more accurately we need their oil and we are going to take it forcibly.

It is this knowledge that made Hillary Clinton vote for the IWR,it is also this knowledge that made her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment.So, don't be fooled by Hillary's overtures to Obama,she is waging a guerilla war to regain the Presidency at a more opportune time and will do whatever it takes to keep herself current in the political arena.

Including pretending to be a peace loving person.

For those who are wondering if Hillary has gone bonkers and keep making one outrageous demand after another and keep moving goalposts after each demand is found to be irrelevant or implausible, I have a possible answer.

The tactic is to keep Hillary from becoming irrelevant and less newsworthy as Barack Obama gets nominated.This charade will continue up to the convention when Hillary will find another way to keep herself in the news.

This is not different from Joe Lieberman's ploy during the Connecticut Senate Race.Then too Joe would keep making one outrageuos statement after another till he lost to Ned Lamont.Even after his loss, he kept himself current by posing as an independent with Republican support.

The possibility of a Hillary morphing into an independent candidate a la Joe cannot be ruled out.If that happens an McCain wins, Hillary will pick up enough IOU's from the Republicans to contest the 2012 elections as an independent.

If Hillary was in the same situation, delegate wise, against John Edwards, how likely is it that she would have resorted to the tactics she is employing against Barack Obama today?

unable to find the money for essential services.

Last week the city of Vallejo,California became a casualty of the subprime mortgage crisis.As homeowners could not afford the higher interest rates after a reset,the county's tax base collapsed and the city could no longer pay its police,firemen and other officials.It has declared bankruptcy.

Even with the mortgage crisis the city could have weathered the crisis if it had not been shelling out money for years under an insurance scam perpetrated by the ratings agencies like Fitch,S&P and Moody's.Essentially, these agencies intentionally gave a lower credit rating to municipalities compared to corporations even though municipalities have taxing authority that brings steady revenues and their default rate is practically zero.Corporations on the other hand have much higher default rates on their bonds.

Yet the agencies have continually rated bonds from municipalities lower than corporate bonds.Not merely that, the bond insurance companies,in cahoots with the rating agencies hit the municipalities for fat fees to rate them again after they took out insurance from the Bond Insurers like Ambac,MBIA etc.That steady stealing of funds from the municipalities continues to this day.

If the municipal issues were valued and rated correctly,not only would local and state governments save money on the premiums but would not have to pay for the "services" of the ratings agencies at all.

I am surprised that other than Barney Frank, no politicians,Republican or Democrat, has raised a stink about it.

We should end this billion dollar windfall for the Insurance companies and get the moneys available for people who are paying taxes to receive services.

There is only one word for this: Daylight Robbery.

The first,uttered by none other than Donald Rumsfeld, went:"The soldiers are fungible.They do not bring any special skills to the theatre of war".

Think about the cool callousness required to say those words.

Not to be left out or outdone by his mentor,Rumsfeld's Sancho Panza chimed in recently upon the gruesome injuries suffered by a soldier:"Remember he chose this.He volunteered".

Monsters in our midst.