First off, Lenin's Tomb writes the best summary of Zionist logic I've read yet. Israel is always 'responding' to something, never the aggressor. Every N. American media outlet I've heard describes Israel as 'hitting back'. The Tomb takes it apart - he even has the patience to seek out all the instances of Israeli atrocities, and name Israel for what it is: colonialist, apartheid and racist. I urge everyone to check it out.

Rather crude oil

The oil minister of Qatar confirmed the inflationary effects of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon on oil prices:

the Qatari oil minister said yesterday that supply was not the problem.

"The main thing is that we see that there is no shortage in the market at all," Abdullah al-Attiyah said. "Speculators are using the geopolitical situation to their benefit."

That's fascinating. Investors pay more for oil because they're afraid the supply will be disrupted. But there's lots of oil, and the oil-producing countries admit it. Speculators are playing on the fears of investors.


Every day is Oil Appreciation Day

How does that work? Investors read the news; presumably they know, just as well as speculators, that the world market is awash in oil. Yet somehow they're convinced that might change. This is a 'capitalization of fear' argument: more fear = higher prices.

Does it take a war to sufficiently scare investors, so they begin to think the speculators are right? Don't they catch on after a while, figure out there's always enough oil? Is that why the wars have to continue - like a horror movie fan, do they get bored with what scared them in the past and need gorier plots to get their pulse racing? If that's true, we're in for a truly awful stretch of capitalism.

Considerations on Western Marxist academics

'Kay folks, I've procrastinated long enough. This is an official call-out to start the blog-reading group on Perry Anderson's Considerations on Western Marxism. To reiterate, I suggest we read a chapter a week, and have a blogger responsible for writing up their thoughts about it. Everyone responds in the comment box. The following week we move to another blog. As of now, Rob, Nathaniel and Poulod have expressed an interest. If there's anyone else (Sontin, I know I left a copy at your house), by all means feel free to come in on it.

I'll kick things off by hosting the first chapter, The Classical Tradition, here on Saturday, July 22.


I approve!