SERIOUS ALERT: S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq Futures Reach `Limit Down' Level

Over four months ago and while oil prices were rapidly climbing, Lindsey Williams predicted oil to go to $50 per barrel before the elections. His prediction was based upon a private conversation that he had with a (former?) CEO of an oil company while Williams was emploted as pipeline chaplain. The reason? To drive OPEC to insolvency.

Most people thought Lindsey was nuts. clicky, clicky:

http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/

OPEC is freaking out. Construction is either halted or seriously curtailed in Dubai.

OPEC agrees sharp output cut
Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:21am EDT

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE49L50I20081024

By Michael Georgy and Peg Mackey

VIENNA (Reuters) - An emergency OPEC meeting on Friday reached swift agreement to chop production by 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in an initial attempt to halt a deep oil price slide.

International benchmark U.S. crude has slumped by close to 60 percent from a record high of $147.27 hit in July. On Friday, it fell again to below $63 a barrel.

"The decision was straightforward," Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said after the meeting.

"OPEC will do whatever is necessary to balance oil markets."

The speed of the oil market's collapse after a record rally stirred memories for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.

OPEC's sluggish response then as demand disappeared and oil stocks mounted up helped to push oil to less than $10 in 1998.

"OPEC is showing it is not going to make that mistake again," said David Kirsch, a manager at Washington-based PFC Energy.

Before the roughly two hours of talks, which ended just before noon (1000 GMT), ministers had agreed about the need to reduce production, but differed over the extent of any cut.

Saudi Arabia and other core Gulf producers have relatively low price requirements and are nervous about further destruction of demand in consumer countries as the world economy falters.

They had favored a relatively modest reduction of around a million bpd, delegates said.

Venezuela and Iran are more dependent on higher oil revenues and were among those who had pushed for a deeper cut, with some asking for around 2 million bpd.

SHOW OF UNITY

But the extent of the market's collapse focused minds and the two sides soon met in the middle.

"The message to the market is, first, of the strength and unity of OPEC in terms of its decisions. There was no dispute or fight, here we were all in agreement," said Venezuela's Energy and Petroleum Minister Rafael Ramirez in an interview with Venezuelan state television.

OPEC's President Chakib Khelil of Algeria said the only option for member countries was to respect the new agreement.

"They don't have a choice. What choice do they have? See the oil price go down to lower levels? They'll make the cuts," he said.

He also said OPEC would take further action if necessary before the next scheduled meeting in December in Oran, Algeria.

Under Friday's agreement, the 1.5 million bpd being removed from the September production ceiling of 28.8 million bpd includes 466,000 bpd less from top exporter Saudi Arabia and 199,000 bpd less from Iran, the second biggest exporter, OPEC said in a communique.

Although the group said at its September meeting it would strictly adhere to targets, it is still pumping above its collective ceiling.

Khelil said the total removed from the market by the end of the year would be closer to 1.8 million bpd as overproduction was eliminated.

Saudi Arabia, the only OPEC member to be pumping significantly above target, has already reduced supplies slightly. It unilaterally increased its production when prices were racing to their July record.

(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall, Luke Pachymuthu and Rania El Gamal in Vienna and Deisy Buitrago in Caracas; writing by Barbara Lewis, editing by William Hardy)

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
~~ attributed to Senator Everett Dirksen

AN OBAMA PANIC?

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10132008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/an_obama...

By CHARLES GASPARINO
October 13, 2008 --

Barack Obama has re mained cool and confident amid the financial melt down, even as John McCain at times has been embarrassing, lurching from one proposal to the next. But while the polls are reflecting Obama's steady hand, the markets haven't. In fact, they're getting worse by the day as Obama's lead widens.

See Gasparino Talk About Obama's Economics on CNBC.

Most investors know the devil is in the details - and the details of Obama's economic plans are anything but reassuring.

Of course, the market turmoil is first a reflection of grim reality - the bursting of the housing bubble and the billions upon billions in writedowns and losses that have forced upon the hugely leveraged financial firms companies that had cranked big profits during the bubble years.

The resulting credit crunch is hitting Main Street harder than ever before. The country is headed for recession; the only question is: Just how low can the markets and economy go?

It could be a lot lower - it all depends on the policies of the next president.

And, as it looks increasingly likely that Obama will be that man, the markets are casting a vote of "no confidence."

To be fair, McCain hardly instills confidence among the Wall Streeters I speak to. Why has his campaign spent the last week focusing on Obama's friendship with former terrorist William Ayers - when it should be hitting Obama's blind loyalty to policies that bring together the worst elements of Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter?

Recently, Obama said he wants to expedite loans to small businesses, so he seems to have a clue that they produce much of the country's job growth. Yet his income-tax hike on upper brackets will hit vast numbers of small businesses - they'd face the highest rates they've seen in decades.

Overall, his plan includes some of the most lethal tax increases imaginable, including a jump in the capital-gains rate. He'd expand government spending massively, with everything from new public-works projects to increases in foreign aid to a surge in Afghanistan - plus hand out a token $500 welfare check that he calls a tax cut to everyone else.

This is clearly the wrong way to go in the wake of an economic meltdown - yet Obama, for all his talk of how willing he is to compromise, of how he'd bring people together, is sticking to his tax guns.

I know at least one top Wall Street executive, an Obama supporter from the start of his campaign, who has recently urged Obama to rethink his tax plan - and that was before last week's record losses on the Dow.

But if Obama is rethinking, he's not saying. As his running mate, Joe Biden tells us that it's patriotic to pay higher taxes, Obama remains committed to squeezing businesses even if the recession grows.

The closest evidence I could find of compromise from Obama on taxes came in a June interview with CNBC, when he said: "Some of those [tax hikes] you could possibly defer. But I think the basic principle of restoring fairness to our economy and encouraging bottom-up economic growth is important."

It's easy to understand why so many of my colleagues in the media have fallen head over heels for Obama. He's smart, ambitious and cool under pressure. But what is he really like under the surface?

Some reckon that a President Obama won't go through with his plans. They look at his (thin) record and see a wimp who's never taken a firm stand on much of anything, much less enacting tax hikes during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

I look at Obama's record differently. From his days as a community activist, to his years in the Illinois Senate and now his brief time in the US Senate, he has shown little inclination to deviate from his party's tax-and-spend orthodoxy.

And if he governs like a liberal ideologue - with a belief that the government that works best is the one that's biggest and raises taxes the most - he won't even have to work hard to get his way. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won't stop him - the Democratic majorities in Congress are only likely to grow.

And the markets know this - even if pundits (even many of the financial ones) refuse to face it.

No one can blame the faltering stock market solely on Obama's tax plans or McCain's own inanity on economic issues. But stock prices reflect current market conditions plus best guesses of what's coming down the road. And I keep hearing nervous traders and investors talk about "a lack of leadership from Washington."

Charles Gasparino is on-air editor at CNBC and author of the forthcoming book "The Sellout" about the current financial crisis.

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
~~ attributed to Senator Everett Dirksen

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
~~ attributed to Senator Everett Dirksen

How To Make An Angry American

Most Americans angry about nation's state of affairs: poll

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hRprLX-QE26cDqFRmJQqpzvRJ91A

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Three out of four Americans say things are going badly in the country and they are angry about it, according to a poll released on Tuesday by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation.

Seventy-five percent of those polled between October 17 and 19 said things were going either pretty badly or fairly badly. Thirty-five percent said they were very angry, and 40 percent said they were somewhat angry.

Tuesday's results were down slightly compared to the same poll taken October 3-5, which found that 80 percent of respondents believed things were going badly in the country.

However, the numbers were a sharp increase from the same time a year ago when 49 percent felt that way.

Asked if they were scared about the way things are going in America, 24 percent said "very scared" and 43 percent said "somewhat scared".

The poll did not specifically mention the economy, which has been plunged into economic crisis sparked by the collapse of the US housing market.

Only 27 percent of those polled said they approved of the job US President George W. Bush was doing, up four points from the same polling two weeks ago, with 72 percent saying they disapprove and one percent having no opinion.

The survey had a margin of error of about three percentage points in either direction.

Answers were culled from 1,058 adult Americans via phone interviews, and the sample also included 983 interviews with registered voters and 746 interviews with likely voters.

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
~~ attributed to Senator Everett Dirksen

Originally aired April 2007.

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
~~ attributed to Senator Everett Dirksen