Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

I don't think it's necessary for ground troops in Libya; that will only create more problems. The use of bombs on where Gaddafi lives would be more strategically effective.

I don't know what the hulobaloo about Gadhafi as South American dictaors did the same killing to protestors and with the instigation of the United States - Pinochet in Chile and other places like Nicaragua, etc. The difference is that there is oil in Libya.

Now Yemen has fired on protestors. So do we have a no-fly zone in Yemen an ally of the United States?

Yes, and there is oil in Iraq; it's a miracle that the US is standing back on this one. I believe Europe and China should have more interest in the Libyan crisis; they're the ones who gets their oil from that country.

With the higher demand for oil in China and India, their price of gas will continue to rise - as well as in the US (but we pay one of the lowest prices for gas on this planet).

US households are already suffering from the higher cost of fuel and food, and it makes me wonder how the stock market continues to hover in the current range. I'd expect it to hit about 10,000 with all the problems in the Middle East and higher demand for fuel that impacts everything everybody buys.

I also don't understand why the US dollar is losing against the Euro when many of their countries are bankrupt and unable to pay back on their bonds.

So many mysteries surrounding the world economies today, I'm at a loss.

Yemen soldiers fire on protestors
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/09/3159203.htm

The US dollar is going down as the international market is drying up because of Bush policies. Middle Eastern countries aren't buying American goods and it is the intention of the US Reserve to cheapen the dollar to lower manufacturing costs. Britain has its North Sea oil and the US from Canadian oilsands in Alberta so they are free to act as they like . I see France as an odd ball as they act like they have their own oil supply under Paris. Germany is dependent on Middle Eastern oil as well as Russia.

That's an interesting concept; cheapen the US dollar by the feds. If they continue on that course, China and Japan will begin to unload US bonds, and that'll create the worst scenario for the US dollar; it'll become monopoly money.

The feds never know how to handle monetary policy; they always seem to do the opposite of good money management.

Japan will be selling their US bond holdings for the reconstruction of their country. We'll have to wait and see what kind of impact that'll have on US treasury bonds. If the US keeps increasing the price and reduce the interest, the payment on those bonds to Japan will bankrupt the US.

Ehem ... more than 60% of the German oil import comes from Russia (35% of total import), Norway and the UK.


Source: Federal Office of Economics and Export Control

Walter, Germany still relies on Libyan oil, and a precipitous drop in supply from that country will surely impact the cost of energy in Germany.

Germany gets about 7% of its oil from Libya, as I read Walter's chart.

rjb, Do you think a drop in oil from Libya will have an impact on energy cost in Germany? Why or why not?

Correct: 7.7% actually. (16% of our oil import is from the total MENA region.)

Meant Germany dependent on oil from Middle East and Russia.

I don't think it is quite as simple as that ci. I think there's a cultural problem that runs deep. Churchill mentioned it. So did Sir Anthony Eden. And it is demonstrated on A2K all the time. Geoffrey Gorer in The Americans analyses it. Both Evelyn Waugh and Aldous Huxley referred to it.

It is that Americans think nobody else will respond in a way which interferes with any idea they have. That any scheme they have afoot will just go as smoothly as they imagine it will. It's all over the evolution threads where pro-evolution or anti-intelligent design teaching are promoted in a way that complacently assumes that the opposition will just roll over. In many ways it is a strength.

Gorer's analysis is shallow. He said too much Momming. I think it is because the goldmine American's found in the empty and defencless country they found and founded using European technology and tradition was so easy to make a great success of that it got taken for granted and they thought the success was due to some wonderful characteristics they alone magically possessed and conveniently forgot that they are ordinary eating and shitting machines no different from any of the stocks from the loins of which they had sprung. What European news programmes have a feature like CBS's The American Spirit. What other country has its national flag so much waved about. It's hubris. Misplaced hubris at that because it was the goldmine that did it and anybody else could have done the same landing in it under those circumstances or else there's a mutation occurred due to some biological effect of the latitude and longtitude of what is now defined as the USA.

I'm sure the Feds were quite confident at the time of acting that they knew what they are doing. And before everything went global they probably did know because any mistakes were easily ignored as the goldmine divulged its flood of easy wealth.

So I think they will continue in the same way, they can't help it, until America gets a bit more humility and can see itself in the same way that the rest of the world sees itself. We had the problem when the Empire gave up its riches. We got a class of Hooray Henry pratts running things. We still have them.

Germany paid so heavy a price for the same thing that it now wants nothing to do with any easy to say ****. It might be the most civilised country in the world. And humility has been discussed here in relation to the other great loser in 1945. America got the chance to pick up the best pieces in the wrecked countries.

A serious cynic might say that Russia and China abstained because they wanted to see how our kit performed on something other than exercises where everything but everything always goes to plan. And to divert our attention.

That's why you play sports nobody else wants to play. Then objective comparisons are avoided.

Do you think a 5 year old could write that?

Perhaps. The following is from brynmawr. Heck, you might be a genius!

Good God ! Why would we want more geniuses ? They pay a great personal price to drag the rest of humanity in dangerous new directions as humanity is kicking and screaming that they don't want to go .

Not that you might care but I think that you did a good job even though I could not understand anything you said!

Just kidding Spendius there seems to be some truth to what you said. Good job!

At 5, ci., I had no time for any of that ****. I lived a life not unlike that of Emily Bronte. I wanted to be a train driver.

Anyway--Gadaffi is now making allegations that the rebels have committed crimes against the Libyan people and I have no doubt that they have.

When is the no-fly zone coming to Saudi Arabia then? They can't say boo to a goose there and Gadaffi can't be accused of that on the evidence of the last few weeks.

No-fly zone is a good idea. Only a guy with a fly causes problems.

I gave a green thumb up yours because I thought it was very accurate, mainly because it agreed with me .

I used to give my kids .05c for every fly they killed, but that was over 35 years ago. LOL Never cared to use those sticky stuff to catch flies.