Article: Ebb and Flow

Do you feel the economic rebound? Has it come your way, or have executives around the country done what they always do, cut another half a million jobs so they can report that their companies are doing financially better. The government and financial pundits swallow this poisonous porridge feverishly.

Do they really think the economy is getting better? Chrysler has filed for bankruptcy, and GM did today. The home mortgage situation isn't getting better, it is getting worse, as some 12% of homeowners are delinquent and the foreclosure rate doubled in the first quarter of the year.¹ These aren't just the famous subprime type loans either. Unemployment is still rising, and the aforementioned bankruptcies certainly won't help those numbers.²

As much as you may hope things are about to get better, be prepared for the reality that there will be no rebound. Why? Have you been watching the price of gas? If you are still employed, you've certainly been paying it. Let's not forget, as I pointed out in my article, America Obsolete, oil prices and mortgage defaults are intricately linked. As gas prices rise along with oil, mortgage defaults will be joined by credit defaults and an increase in bankruptcies. Americans have not even closely recovered from past summers' oil companies raping us. There are doing it again (See Speculative Greed for proof that the market is being manipulated).

Prices for oil rose 30% over the past month.³ According to a USA Today article, "There were signs of optimism about the economy, which could lead to a rebound in demand for energy." Now they're speculating on speculation. In other words, they believe people believe the economy is getting better, and so that leads them to believe that will create a new demand for energy.

In the same article, they state that "... fundamentally, there is little reason for the recent price spikes and that consumers should expect related costs to come down before the summer is over."⁴ And, again in the same article, they state that "OPEC has cut down on the oil it produces to combat huge surpluses in supply. By some estimates, there are 100 million barrels of oil afloat at sea in tankers." In other words, there is no supply problem at all, they just aren't delivering to force down delivered supplies, yet another way to manipulate the market.

Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, must be worried about his $27 million salary⁵ and desperate to score a few more record breaking quarters. It is interesting that ExxonMobil has quite a bit to lose if the economic numbers don't agree with what they want the government and the public to believe. He is frantically trying to turn his dust back into gold.

When the jobs do come back, they'll more than likely be filled with cheaper foreign labor. While native born Americans have been losing their jobs and lifestyle's in droves, more than 50% of employed men in America are now comprised of those not born here.⁶ It certainly doesn't help that American companies are working to fraudulently bring in H1-B workers.

Many self-annointed experts stated that the economy is getting better because April unemployment numbers were better than in March. Yet, there is a minimum threshold of employment for any given company. At some point, laying off more means to stop providing products and services. So to say that after 6 months of steady increase in unemployed that a decrease is an improvement ignores the possibility that companies are reaching the minimum point of their ability to lay off before shutting the doors.

We are still being fed one lie after another, if not from the government, then from the corporations. As oil prices rise under the false pretenses that the economy is getting better, the number of foreclosures and credit defaults are about to rise. As automobile companies, in their recent efforts to try and reduce their debts, have now been offering to cover the cost of autos for their buyers, they will find they will have to meet that obligation more often than they anticipated, overflowing them and their financial companies with red ink.

Believe me. It isn't over. Unless someone gets full control of the illegal commodities markets where ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP run the show, trading oil 20 to 30 times before releasing for delivery, America and the rest of the world's economies will continue to suffer. We were delivered a heavy blow during last year's raping by the oil companies. The next hit may indeed be the knock-out punch.