Rikiki

Congressional Insanity: Sue OPEC over Oil Prices

Our intelligent public servants elected by our educated populace at work! There should be only be two absolutely mandatory requirements before running for public office in both Federal and State governments.

1. Every public elected individual must personally prepare his own income tax returns within 8 clock hours and be audited by the respective Federal and State taxing authorities.
2. Every public elected official must take and obtain a certified "B" or better grade in college level "Economics 1" and in high school level "ethics".

There should be also a limiting of terms of office for these arrogant condescending twits.

Rikiki
MN, CA, HI, WA, TX

Drivers Are Feeling the Pinch

Most respondents to the "Oil crisis
completely skip the second half of the Supply/Demand equation. I see tremendous waste of gasoline and diesel fuel here in Texas and around the country in summer.

1. Each summer nearly every county road and highway is sheared by gasoline and diesel tractors which pull huge rotary mowers to mow medians and shoulders of roads ( sometimes dozens of feet wide). When did this "beautification" or "fire abatement procedure" become so required of nearly every county in the country? How many millions of gallons of fuel are wasted. How many tractors sit idle 9 or 10 months of the year.

2. Each summer millions of households mow the lawan many times a summer. And how many millions of weed whackers/trimmers (gas/oil poluters) run hours each summer. Here in Texas $3-4000 riding mowers are common place. And there are A LOT OF THEM.

3. Texas Drivers routinely let their cars set in parking lots with engines running even on temperate days and nights. Diesel pickup drivers are the worst offenders. Texans are BIG WASTERS! I have lived in many other states than Texas.....! I even witnessed a brand new Volvo in the Post Office lot in Cedar Park, TX on an 80 degree day running for at leas 20 minutes while I was mailing a package. There was no person or animal in the car. Destroyed my illusion about Volvo drivers being "Tree huggers"

3. Independent truckers routinely let their rigs run for hours on end especially in summer overnight. A Kenworth size rig will burn near 2 gallons just running at idle. The independents bitch about fuel prices and yet they seem to be the worst wasters. Go figure. Hey guys check into an airconditioned motel and turn the engine off!

Conservation and wise use of a limited resource can help reduce the demand side of the equation. I have no real hope for counties to do the conservation thing.... they will just bury the increased fuel cost for mowing in the budget and then raise your taxes to cover it.

Rikiki
Round Rock, Texas

Agricultural Commodities: Playing an Acknowledged Theme

If indeed the climate is warming, the amount of land in the extremes of North and South of continents will come into production. They will be growing more grains in heretofor unfarmable land in Alberta, Alaska, Siberia, Chile, New Zealand, etc.

Availablility of water irrigation is critical. Israelis "made the desert bloom" as we have done in the US in the San Joaquin valley, the Coachella Valley, Rio Grande Valley and others. The San Fernando Valley was desert before water was brought down from the north is the 20s and 30s. Humongus areas here in Texas are desert because we cannot move fresh (desalinated) water from the GOM 200 miles inland. There is really little if anything with the water delivery capability of the Central California Water Project or the Colorado River Project in the entire world.

Crop yields have grown considerably in the past 20 years.. Due both to use of fertilizer and genetic selection.

The urbanization factor in land use will mitigate itself as the tiime and cost of commuting become become unbearable for the vast majority of people who cannot handle the burden. People will resign themselves to living in European "stacked boxes". Perhaps some remote housing deveopments might even revert to farm land. Not a lot of people will commute daily from Tracy, Manteca, Gilroy and from Patterson, CA to San Jose any more.

It is the price of energy sources and human population grown which are the real limiting factors for the standard of living level around the world. Both have to be controlled to ensure adequate food supplies and quality of life for humans.

Rikiki

Chesapeake Energy, Monsanto: Paying Tit for Tat

If you indeed are bullish on the mentioned stocks and want to do call options, I suggest you use a bull call spread. By doing so you will limit your loss if stock goes south. You can achieve almost the same effect with a bull put spread. Limited losses, and of course limited gains result from selling (often) the front month higher call and buying a like number of lower strike calls with the stock price somewhere (usually) in the middle of the spread. Spreads give the option trader more control of his money in the speculative kitty. Gamblers in volatile stocks with naked call positions can get skinned very quickly. See BIDU, CF, POT, ISRG. et. al.
Rikiki