On the "money not going too far", I recommend this little book (330 pages in young language, black humoured and sometimes aggressive - which the matter deserves well, but very substantial information by two insiders), in German. It is a bestseller over here. I finished it last November, within one week

http://www.amazon.de/Der-größte-Raub...9847573&sr=8-1

Two days ago, there was this interview with the authors:
http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrich...3/02/01/21664/

When you are done reading it, you will feel ready to massacre banks and insurers and politicians in piecework style, this much I can tell you.

Money not going too far?! It already is beyond that. Never before has there been so many debts circulating as trading objects. Never before has there been so much money circulating. Never before have states been so depending on private banks, and have banks had states so hopelessly deep in their pockets.

The fiscal system, having entangled itself in a lethal vicious circle and being beyond any solutions, will collapse, the question to me is not if, but when. And the reason for why it will collapse, inevitably, is quite simple.

It's collapse is the solution to it, for the disease is the very system itself.

So why is this government hell bent on us not to be drilling ??? I from New York State escaped years ago I can't believe whats going on up there, so afraid of drilling for gas and you only get 7 shots to save your life, and the state is billions in the red.

And another German piece, some days ago, on the shifting snetiments of Germans towards America, and anti-Americnaism spreading since Bush. Also showing that quite irrationally the sentiments and high expectations of Germans on Obama have not changed to four years ago.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/d...-12034804.html

The drop in pro-American trust and sympathy due to the Iraq '03war, is nothing else but dramatic. And the hail being seen in Obama, is nothing but irrational.

In other words: imo the overwhelming majority of Germans is totally disconnected from reality in their views of America. I used the word several times in recent weeks, regarding the Germans, but I indeed mean it serious: the Germans have turned into a people with hysteric obsessions.

Consider this.

There is a finite amount of oil in the world. There are domestic supplies and foreign supplies. From the United States' viewpoint, which supply of oil should be used up first?

It is to our strategic advantage to use "their" oil up before using "our" oil up.

When, in the future, the supplies of oil become limited, would it not be nice if the US had their own supply?

Often it is better to use the other guy's strategic resources instead of your own even though it may be more expensive.

Using cash, which can be replaced to buy a resource that can't be replaced is a wise investment.

I would also think the US (like every other nation) would try to exploit resources worldwide, before being forced to go for the own (leftover) ones ?

I just wonder what this sudden hype is about ? You can "produce" (wrong of course, but 'oil speak') oil and gas by fracking and re-entry of old oil fields, and quench some more out.

If you imagine how much of that stuff is under the surface of e.g. Siberia without needing to use those expensive fracking and much more expensive getting it out of the ground, oil and gas being produced that way would be much too expensive in comparison.

But there is a reason why this has not been done before: It is too expensive, let alone talking about the allgeged quantities.

Seeing is believing - it would be good if we had not any problem of energy support using carbon hydroxides in the future.
But from a geologist and hydrocarbon industry point of view i am not convinced; it seems more than induced hype for whatever reason -