I wanted to make a new post in honor of my stat counter being about to rolling over the 50K mark. Basically, it’s just the same old story, though. Greed and an increasingly Big Brotherlike world. I wish I had something more heartening to post at the moment. I’ll keep looking.
U.S. and EU near deal on sharing data
The United States and the European Union are nearing completion of an agreement that would allow law enforcement and security agencies to obtain private information – including credit card transactions, travel histories and Internet browsing habits – about people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
and Sweden, a member nation of the EU has just passed its new law allowing
all cross-border internet and telephone traffic to be monitored
.
Lobbies to Protect Speculative Oil Trades
(E)xecutives from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, two of Wall Street’s largest investment banks, made the case that their multibillion-dollar investments in energy contracts have not led to higher oil prices.
I made up a little NNDB map of some of the top oil, securities and banking board interlocks. It’s nowhere near as big as some of the other board interlock maps I’ve worked on in the past since it is focused on a few narrow segments rather than the bigger picture.
Separately, lobbyists for the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and other financial entities such as hedge funds roamed through congressional office buildings this month and, in the Senate, left behind short policy statements that defended the current state of regulation. “Blaming speculation for the increase in energy prices is to confuse causation and correlation,” one of the documents said.
A second document, or “talker,” asserted: “Congress and regulators have acted to strengthen oversight of the energy markets. Give the new authorities time to work.”
But time is running short. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates oil trading, has drawn the increasing ire of lawmakers for exempting financial firms from rules that limit speculative buying, a prerogative usually reserved for airlines and trucking companies that need to lock in future fuel costs. The CFTC has also waived regulations on U.S. investors who trade commodities on some overseas markets, allowing them to accumulate large quantities of the future oil supply by making purchases on lightly regulated foreign exchanges.
ETA:
So, I went looking for posts about solutions to add a bit on to this post; here’s what I’ve got…
The World’s Worst Problems Can Be Solved
The Orion Project: Energy. Humanity. Hope.
Private surfing
Lawns To Gardens Episode 5: Worm Poop
