Re: [PEN-L] oil dollars Guthrie and Verga

Thank you very much for this piece from Woody Guthrie, I have found that this song is in the album 'the ballad of Sacco e Vanzetti' and I will try to get a copy of it. Giovanni Verga wrote that only artists can properly address social issues. I don't know if that specific text was ever

[PEN-L] Oil dollars

I normally don't like second-guessing the masters of empire, since they run the world and I'm just carping from the margins, but it may be that the Bush gang is stuck in some 19th century model of empire, and they may wildly overestimate the returns of controlling real estate and resources. Doug

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

--- Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: CB: Has there been an actually existing empire ( since the 19th Century or otherwise)gaining returns without controlling territory ? -- Hi Charles, Isn't controlling territory part of the definition of empire? (Maybe you just mean powerful state.)

[PEN-L] Oil dollars

Devine, James wrote: so far, the Bushwhackers have succeeded in steering most of the benefits of empire in the direction of their fraction of the capitalists, while costs are borne by the vast majority. In the longer run, that may not be true. I think the costs and benefits of empire

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

There are two new phenomena in the oil market. The first, relates to the disappearance of the cushion provided by surplus capacity, which reflects on the short and intermediate price and where the issue of physical scarcity only affects the forwrd price and more strategically issues of

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

What is seignorage is it borrowing at no interest because of paper money issue and therefore it is only the forgone interest payments on the loan amount of issue or is it that fiat money can be held against real assets and therefore it is the bubble (real asset gaps with money)and the foregone

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

sam gindin wrote: Agree with the points you've been making re oil and the dollar - the issues go far beyond seignorage - but not on the American state being atavistic (unless you meant this tongue in cheek?). Leo and I have been arguing that the nature of the American empire has revolved around

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

From: PEN-L list on behalf of Doug Henwood Sent: Sat 2/26/2005 12:28 PM To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars John Exdell wrote: But let's assume Henwood's point that whatever financial benefit the U.S. reaps is more than offset by the expense

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: February 27, 2005 10:04 AM To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars sam gindin wrote: Agree with the points you've been making re oil and the dollar - the issues go far beyond seignorage

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

Devine, James wrote: so far, the Bushwhackers have succeeded in steering most of the benefits of empire in the direction of their fraction of the capitalists, while costs are borne by the vast majority. In the longer run, that may not be true. I think the costs and benefits of empire

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

I think the costs and benefits of empire (pre-capitalist as well as capitalist) have almost always been allocated in rather twisted ways. I think a good argument can be made that during the entire span of English occupation of India, it cost more to control India than _England as a whole_ got out

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

Doug Henwood wrote: But I think the Bush crowd may be too crude and impatient for maintaining that kind of empire, and prefer crude displays of power instead. I don't see the evidence for this proposition. Despite occasional flutters (as in Foreign Affairs a year or two ago) the u.s. ruling

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

I wrote: so far, the Bushwhackers have succeeded in steering most of the benefits of empire in the direction of their fraction of the capitalists, while costs are borne by the vast majority. In the longer run, that may not be true. Carrol: I think the costs and benefits of empire

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

I would say it's not exactly mistaken so much as completely out of proportion to the effects ascribed to it. Let's pretend that there are literally no oil sales for any currency other than dollars. So, if I (holding GBP) want to buy oil from Norway's Statoil (Norwegian Kroner), I have to buy

[PEN-L] Oil dollars

I think the pricing of oil in dollars has the following effects: (1) it induces the central banks of countries other than the US to keep a part of their currency reserves in dollars. I can see two reasons. (a) It removes the exchange rate risk: whatever the exchange rate of the dollar with any

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

Daniel Davies wrote: So the USA in this world is only earning seignorage on one day's float. The amounts of money that any reasonable estimate of the size of this float might be worth, is just an order of magnitude smaller than the amounts of money that the USA is alleged to have spent

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

Doug writes: The estimates I've seen of the benefits of seignorage to the US are quite small. For example, here's an excerpt from a 1999 talk http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/99-06/meyer.cfm by Lawrence Meyer: On the other hand, having an international currency can provide substantial

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

I don't agree with this; all that happens is that the exchange rate risk is pushed into the oil price. As a matter of fact, you can't buy the same amount of oil with $100 that you could two years ago and it looks to me as if this is a currency effect; the euro price of oil has only gone up 15%.

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

The seignorage benefit is real; it's just out of proportion to the amount of money the US spends on maintaining global hegemony. For example, the US appears to have spent eight or nine years' worth of seignorage on the Iraq war so far. Being a global hegemon has all sorts of economic benefits,

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

Daniel Davies wrote: The seignorage benefit is real; it's just out of proportion to the amount of money the US spends on maintaining global hegemony. For example, the US appears to have spent eight or nine years' worth of seignorage on the Iraq war so far. Being a global hegemon has all sorts of

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

At current prices we can estimate the rough annual dollar value of global oil consumption. Rounding things off: 80 million barrels/day $50/barrel 365 days/year I believe this comes to $1.46 trillion/year, more than twice the annual U.S. balance of payments deficit. Intuitively, that seems to be

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

I do not know much about the subject. We had a similar discussion regarding divergent views of Jane D'Arista and Ellen Frank -- whose book which had just completed its outstanding. I have several questions that you may be able to answer. Is it possible that the importance of the dollar for

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

John Exdell wrote: But let's assume Henwood's point that whatever financial benefit the U.S. reaps is more than offset by the expense of protecting it. That would imply that the projection of U.S. military power in the Middle East has additional motives, which it does -- e..g, the profits that

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

Fascinating piece on a U.S. navy website on petroeuros, the Iraq war, and seignorage: http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/nov03/middleEast.asp. Conclusion: pricing oil in dollars and seignorage are No Big Deal. Doug

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

Interesting. He cites Brad DeLong and Henry Liu. They do not appear together very often. Doug Henwood wrote: Fascinating piece on a U.S. navy website on petroeuros, the Iraq war, and seignorage: http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/nov03/middleEast.asp. Conclusion: pricing oil in dollars and seignorage

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

Fascinating piece on a U.S. navy website on petroeuros, the Iraq war, and seignorage: http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/nov03/middleEast.asp. Conclusion: pricing oil in dollars and seignorage are No Big Deal. Doug Very interesting piece indeed. They write most of the things that I have heard before

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

A friend in Florida, a financial consultant and investor, writes This is completely correct as far as it goes...but completely inadequate in that it misses an essential element: Over the last two years the dollar has crashed from 85 cents= Euro to $1.30=1 Euro...about a 50% devaluation. Since

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

concerns about military and popular support, response throughout Latin America, etc] -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: February 26, 2005 3:28 PM To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars John Exdell wrote

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

And b) so what anyway; if you have some euros and want to buy something quoted in $, it is not exactly difficult to find someone who will sell you $. I think the point is that if it were generally true that oil purchases can be made only for dollars, so that you have to change your euros into

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

The article below does not say whether the oil futures market requires purchases in dollars. Is this the case? Also, some commentators claim that Iraq before the war was planning to sell its oil directly for Euros, breaking with the general practice of selling for dollars. How would such a

[PEN-L] Oil dollars

Hello! Question regarding oil and dollars. I understand the logic behind petrodollar recycling, where rich oil producers parked their wealth in the US, thereby mitigating US deficits and helping the latter prosper. But, I am somewhat unclear on oil pricing in dollars. Do the major producers

Re: [PEN-L] Oil dollars

noop, you can buy and sell oil in whatever currency you wish. This urban myth of the left economics world (that there is some very great importance about the fact that oil is typically quoted in dollars) has its genesis in the fact that if you want to buy and sell petroleum or petroleum futures