Americans Gaining Energy Independence With U.S. as Top Producer

By Rich Miller, Asjylyn Loder and Jim Polson

The U.S. is the closest it has been in almost 20 years to achieving energy self-sufficiency, a goal the nation has been pursuing since the 1973 Arab oil embargo triggered a recession and led to lines at gasoline stations.

Domestic oil output is the highest in eight years. The U.S. is producing so much natural gas that, where the government warned four years ago of a critical need to boost imports, it now may approve an export terminal. Methanex Corp., the world’s biggest methanol maker, said it will dismantle a factory in Chile and reassemble it in Louisiana to take advantage of low natural gas prices. And higher mileage standards and federally mandated ethanol use, along with slow economic growth, have curbed demand.

The result: The U.S. has reversed a two-decade-long decline in energy independence, increasing the proportion of demand met from domestic sources over the last six years to an estimated 81 percent through the first 10 months of 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the U.S. Department of Energy. That would be the highest level since 1992.

“For 40 years, only politicians and the occasional author in Popular Mechanics magazine talked about achieving energy independence,” said Adam Sieminski, who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to head the U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Now it doesn’t seem such an outlandish idea.”

The transformation, which could see the country become the world’s top energy producer by 2020, has implications for the economy and national security — boosting household incomes, jobs and government revenue; cutting the trade deficit; enhancing manufacturers’ competitiveness; and allowing greater flexibility in dealing with unrest in the Middle East.

Read the rest here.

For the past few months, the stock market has been behaving like a reveler who’s had just a little too much to drink, and the bond market has been behaving like the guy who wants to take away the stock market’s car keys.

We should probably listen to the bond market.

Read the rest here.

Facebook’s monthly and daily active user tallies have been celebrated in Silicon Valley, but a deeper analysis of those figures has revealed that they might not tell the whole story.

Read the rest here.

By Natsuko Waki

LONDON | Tue Feb 7, 2012 10:00am EST

(Reuters) – Gold prices have been too volatile to play a reliable role as a hedge against inflation, a study of financial assets over the past 112 years showed on Tuesday.

While inflation does not reduce gold’s real value, it has no yield or income flow and the precious metal has given a far lower long-term return than equities.

In the period since 1900, gold gave a real return of 1.1 percent in sterling terms and its value fluctuated widely, the study published by Credit Suisse and London Business School’s Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton.

“Gold is the only asset that does not have its real value reduced by inflation. It has a potential role in the portfolio of a risk-averse investor concerned about inflation,” it said.

“However, this asset does not provide an income flow and has generated low real returns over the long term. Gold can fail to provide a positive real return over extended periods.”

The report said global equities, the best performers among different assets since the start of the 20th century with a 5.4 percent annualized return, beat inflation in the long run.

However, their returns may be more the result of equity risk premium, the reward for holding risky assets instead of risk-free government securities, than rising inflation.

Looking at the relationship between real return and inflation, the research found that equities were not that sensitive to inflation, compared with inflation linked bonds.

For example, a rate of inflation that is 10 percent higher is associated with a real equity return that is lower by 5.2 percent.

When the inflation rate was at least 18 percent, equities suffered a loss of 12 percent on a real basis. Bonds were worse, suffering a loss of over 23 percent.

“Equities are at best a partial hedge against inflation; their nominal returns tend to be higher during inflation, but not by a large enough margin to ensure that real returns completely resist inflation,” the research said.

“Although equities are thought to provide a hedge against inflation, their capacity to do so is limited. While inflation clearly harms the real value of bonds and cash, equities are not immune.”

Inflation-linked bonds have the highest sensitivity to inflation but their yields have fallen in the past few years, providing little contribution to investors wanting to achieve a positive return over the period from investment to maturity.

Equities by far provided the best real return in the 1900-2011 period. Bonds returned 1.7 percent, while bills gave 0.9 percent on an annualized basis.

Read the rest here.

Created by: Clinical Psychology

Consumer credit jumped by $19.3 billion…

A shakeup @ Yahoo

Stock has gone hog wild lately…

Revenues did increase 5%, but the street does not like the results…

Net income rose to $0.73 vs $0.55 a year ago….

Neighbors want his ass in jail where it can be abused….

The ultimate sports cars

Roubini is bullish so Kass says sell….

BP earned $5 billion

and the survey says

via SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional because it violates the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.

But backers of the controversial, voter-approved law quickly signaled that they planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court ruled 2-1 to uphold the decision of a lower court judge, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco, who determined in Aug. 2010 that Prop. 8 was a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians. The panel also rejected claims that Walker, now retired, was biased in his ruling because he is gay and in a long-term relationship with another man.

 
“Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted,” the ruling stated.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt, the author of the majority opinion, went on to write: “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for laws of this sort.”

RELATED CONTENT:
Download The Complete Court Ruling (.pdf)
pDownload A Summary Of The Decision (.pdf)

Reihardt, who was appointed to the appeals court by President Jimmy Carter, was joined in the majority opinion by Judge Michael Hawkins, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.

Judge Randy Smith, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, dissented, saying he disagreed that Prop. 8 served no purpose other than to treat gays and lesbians as second-class citizens.

KCBS’ Doug Sovern Reports:

Tuesday’s ruling did not mean, however, that gay marriages would resume in California anytime soon as the decision of the three judges appeared to pave the way for a likely Supreme Court showdown over the issue.

“No court should presume to redefine marriage. No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people,” Brian Raum, one of the lawyers hired to defend Prop. 8, said in an e-mail sent to CBS San Francisco.

“We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way. But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court,” Raum added.

 
Margaret Russell, a professor of constitutional law at Santa Clara University School of Law, told CBS San Francisco that the Supreme Court did not need a conflicting circuit-court decision in order to take up the case, but rather just four justices who deem it worthy of review.

Prop. 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote in 2008 and outlawed same-sex marriages just five months after they became legal in California. Two same-sex couples then brought a lawsuit in 2009 seeking to overturn the measure.

PHOTO GALLERY: The Proposition 8 Court Battle

American Foundation for Equal Rights President Chad Griffin, who formed the legal team that waged the court battle on behalf of the two couples, called the three-judge panel’s ruling “a historic victory.”

More than 150 people who gathered outside the federal courthouse at Mission and Seventh streets in downtown San Francisco also greeted ruling with cheers. They held signs and waved rainbow flags.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris hailed the decision too. In a statement sent to CBS San Francisco, she called it “a victory for fairness, a victory for equality and a victory for justice.”

The Attorney General’s Office had declined to defend Prop. 8 in court, leaving it in the hands of proponents of the measure to mount a defense, after concluding that the law could not be defended on constitutional grounds.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who also refused to defend the measure, issued a statement in which he said, “The court has rendered a powerful affirmation of the right of same-sex couples to marry. I applaud the wisdom and courage of this decision.”

via CNN

In a change of position, Barack Obama’s reelection campaign will begin using administration and campaign aides to fundraise for Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing the president.

Obama has been an outspoken critic of current campaign financing laws, in particular a Supreme Court ruling that allowed the creation of super PACs. Until now he has kept his distance from Priorities USA Action.

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But in the wake of the group’s anemic fundraising, made public last week, the campaign decided to change its position, and announced the new stance to members of its national finance committee Monday evening.

Two Obama campaign aides confirmed that senior campaign and administration officials who participate at fundraising events for the president’s campaign will also appear at events for Priorities USA Action, the PAC supporting Obama.

“This decision was not made overnight,” one campaign official said. “ The money raised and spent by Republican super PACs is very telling. We will not unilaterally disarm.”

The president, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden will not appear at super PAC events, the aides said.

In an e-mail to supporters, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said the decision was a reaction to massive fundraising posted by super PACs supporting GOP presidential candidates.

“The campaign has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PACs,” Messina wrote.

“We will do so only in the knowledge and with the expectation that all of its donations will be fully disclosed as required by law to the Federal Election Commission.”

Messina was careful to point out the president’s opposition to a Supreme Court ruling that sparked the onset of super PACs, noting the administration was still looking for ways to put limits on campaign spending.

“The President opposed the Citizens United decision,” Messina wrote. “He understood that with the dramatic growth in opportunities to raise and spend unlimited special-interest money, we would see new strategies to hide it from public view.

“He continues to support a law to force full disclosure of all funding intended to influence our elections, a reform that was blocked in 2010 by a unanimous Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate. And the President favors action – by constitutional amendment, if necessary – to place reasonable limits on all such spending.”

Priorities USA Action posted receipts of $4.4 million through December 31, 2011, compared to the more than $30 million reported by Restore our Future, a super PAC supporting former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

In an e-mail blast, Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for the conservative groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, called the Obama campaign’s move a “brazenly cynical” reversal for a president who just two years ago called spending by these outside groups a threat to democracy.

Collegio highlighted a quote from an October 2010 rally in Philadelphia, when the New York Times quoted Obama as saying, “You don’t know, it could be the oil industry, it could be the insurance industry, it could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose. Now that’s not just a threat to Democrats, that’s a threat to our democracy.”

American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS plan to raise $300 million to help defeat Obama and his agenda in November.

Mitt Romney’s super PAC reported raising $30 million in 2011, the vast majority of which was spent on negative advertising.