Today, at the Aspen Institue Ideas Festival a deeply knowledgeable panel discussing "Global Insurgency" included former secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Representative Jane Harman, General (Ret.) Jack Keane, and member of the president's Intelligence Advisory Board Mike McConnell with Slate columnist Fred Kaplan as moderator. The panel ruminated on...

It is a further example of the deep dysfunction of our government. Bad enough that Wall Street was bailed out while dragging down the economic standing of the nation together with trillions of its citizens' dollars, only now to find Wall Street blithely going back to fat bonuses and...

In its lead front page article yesterday the Financial Times reported that "U.S. lodges WTO case in China dispute". The article goes on to inform that the U.S. together with the European Union lodged a joint complaint with the World Trade Organization over China's export quotas on raw materials....

The outrage we are witnessing on television and over the airwaves is an abomination to all fair minded people. To see the street beatings of innocents, the shooting of demonstrators, the silent march of millions has exposed the emptiness and extremism of the governing mullahs. How it will evolve is...

With all the issues of critical importance facing President Obama, be it the financial crisis, our energy dependence, the flashpoints of North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, of no less importance is the commitment to health care reform. Therefore I feel it incumbent that if one comes across a...

Please be patient; this is as complicated as it is outrageous. Complicated because that's the way Wall Street and the Financial Community wants it to be, so that they can run rings around us while we don't know what's going on until we are presented with the tab, and then...

The price of oil has leapt by more than 100% since February from a shade under $33 a barrel to over $71/bbl at yesterday's close on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Clearly the sudden and sharp escalation in prices is a looming danger to a deeply fragile economic recovery. To...

CNBC reported yesterday that up to nine banks will soon be allowed to pay back their TARP loans. JPMorgan has received some $25 billion from the TARP program, has petitioned the government to permit repayment, and will, in all likelihood, be among the banks permitted to do so.

Yet,...

In a forthright television interview on June 2nd between President Medvedev of Russia and Maria Bartiromo of CNBC, the subject of oil prices was discussed -- an issue of particular concern to Russia as the world's largest energy exporter. The gist of the conversation was enlightening. Simply put, Medevedev confided...

There they are again. The good nabobs of OPEC are going to Vienna to munch their strudel while exuding billows of lamentations about the urgency to push prices to the $75-80/bbl level before they can order a second course. As is his wont, the OPEC pop star, forever holding center...

This week provided us with two coincidental news items. The Financial Times printed a powerful article on the current price of oil ("Recovery in Oil Prices Ignores Fundamentals",05.20.09), commented that the price of oil has surged dramatically by 85% reaching $60.48/bbl from a February's low of $32.70/bbl.

The article...

Our economy is at a critical crossroads. The financial mess has threatened to tip our economy into depression. The administration is valiantly trying to steady a listing ship in sight of an iceberg. And yet in the last five months, in spite of all the government's efforts and the need...

Five days before President Obama was sworn into office, the outgoing president left him with a policy imbroglio of potentially staggering dimensions. Without meaningful consultation with the incoming administration, Bush signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates saddling the Obama administration with a critical policy issue...

It happened. And it was irksomely stupid. The Air Force One 747 flying low over the still un-rebuilt and raw lower Manhattan. With no warning and fearing the worst, thousands of residents and office workers flooded emergency hot lines, many evacuating their buildings and running into the streets in panic....

Today, CNBC provided an example of why the public has been led so far astray when we are informed by the media about oil and its market structure.

Sharon Epperson, CNBC's oil market specialist, went on the network this morning to report on the price of oil. She advised that...

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that Citigroup Inc. is seeking the Treasury's approval to pay special bonuses to key employees. According to the Journal, the focus of the request is the highly profitable Phibro trading division whose energy trading unit is at the point of losing key employees...

An especially revealing article in the New York Times on Thursday, "Oil Prices Resist The World's Recession Trend," took cognizance of the following, "In recent months oil prices plunged as consumers curtailed use...with some analysts predicting that dire economic circumstance would cause oil to fall to $20 a barrel...

President Obama pledged to end the "Tyranny of Oil." Much needs be done but enormous strides have been taken and are underway. The Energy Information Agency expects a reduction of 6.9% in petroleum based gasoline consumption this year from the 371.2 million gallons/day consumed in 2007. Demand for all petroleum...

Incredibly, Wall Street is being showered with billions upon billions, even though they have brought the nation to its knees, destroyed the savings of millions, wreaked havoc on the nations homeowners, and crushed our confidence in the capitalist impulse that had been a meritocracy and a beacon unto others. Our...

In a troubling example of how access, power, and influence over the government and media is literally lifting billions from the pockets of taxpayers, one need go no further than the incestuous relationship between the government and a firm called PIMCO. Those in the biz know PIMCO well. You see,...