I know we are all very preoccupied with Bolt's 9.69 sec 100m, and how many chicken sandwiches Phelps eats for breakfast and other trivia that makes a whole lot of difference in our lives. So, i am almost feeling guilty about posting this link for you to read and well..think.
It’s common knowledge that I am a huge fan of Bette Davis. So after an all too long time, I watched another Bette Davis movie – The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1938) in garish Technicolor . Bette of course delivered a stunning performance. There might be some places where she went a tad bit overboard but that was the way they acted back in those days (late 30s). She went as far as to shave her head to create the bald look of the aging queen. Her face was painted white for the entire movie. In all this hideousness, there was something heartbreaking about her portrayal of the Queen. There is this famous scene where she goes on a mirror shattering rampage in the palace. In about 4 seconds in this scene, she examines herself in the looking glass - at her most insecure, most vulnerable, most yearning and most without-a-mask moment. My heart went crack when I saw her just for these 4 seconds. For a minute when you see Bette acting out this breathtaking turmoil on screen, u do...
Comments
for one, if prices were artificially inflated, shouldn't that show up in decreasing consumption? i.e oil inventories should be higher because people start buying less oil.. that doesn't seem to be happening.
also the common view among a lot of people in the 'know' (by this i mean the extremely erudite cabdrivers in singapore who advise me on everything from property investments to whether or not to support Chiru's new party)is that oil price rise is mostly due to the loss in dollar value. Simply, it just costs a lot more dollars now to buy oil.
things go bad, everyone blames wall st. things are good, everyone blames wall st. bah!
Thus, I now have to believe the other theory that says significant part of the increase can be attributed to the downturn in US economy (led by mortgage crisis) which led fed to take steps that lowered the dollar value.
I guess the democratic primary contenders contributed significantly to this theory with their objective of sounding pro-poor, they never seemed to have talked on how much (according to their theory) would the oil prices come down if those speculators can be reined in. Also, the oil producers goal is to maximize the profit from the oil, it happens at optimal price, a price higher than this would lower demand significant enough resulting in lower overall profit.