Brent Pricing: LIBOR Scandal For Oil?

Via Jay Ackroyd, an article from The Economist:

IT IS a lesson of the past five years that benchmarks in unregulated markets can fall victim to the incentives they create. Subprime mortgages bundled into securities often won high scores from ratings agencies that stood to profit in a busy market. The London Interbank Offered Rate, LIBOR, was sometimes underestimated by banks which were cast in a healthier light by lower interest rates. Has something similar been going on in energy?

That is the suspicion after a series of raids on May 14th by the European Commission’s competition authorities. The commission declared that it feared oil companies had “colluded” to distort benchmark prices for crude, oil products and biofuels. Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Norway’s Statoil and Italy’s ENI (which was not raided) all said that they were co-operating with the commission.
…
. At least 200 billion barrels a year, worth in the order of $20 trillion, are priced off the Brent benchmark, the world’s biggest, according to Liz Bossley, chief executive of Consilience, an energy-markets consultancy. The commission has said that even small price distortions could have a “huge impact” on energy prices. Statoil has said that the commission’s interest goes all the way back to 2002. If it is right, then the sums involved could be huge, too.

Scoring the Media on Coverage of the West Fertilizer Explosion

All roads lead to Charles and David.

Hugh Kaufman of the EPA in an interview with FAIR

HK: I think the worst [coverage] was the New York Times. The New York Times claimed that the company notified EPA that they had 270 tons of this explosive ammonium nitrate, but they did not notify EPA of that. In fact, they told EPA that the facility posed no fire or explosion hazard. The New York Times did not say that, and I think that’s probably the biggest problem.

Interestingly, Texas is a Republican state — a red state — and in fact, many of the leaders want to secede from the union, and they despise EPA — they want the EPA abolished. And yet the Republican newspaper, the Dallas Morning News, has probably has the best environmental coverage of the case, which makes it very ironic to me.

CS: You also pointed to Reuters.

HK: Reuters did a piece where they implied and stated that EPA and OSHA do not have authority to regulate the facility or this ammonium nitrate, and that’s totally false. Again, you have the Reuters and the New York Times taking the public off the scent. Of course, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox — none of the cable channels are covering the details. The only cable channel I’ve seen that mentioned the fact that this is law-breaking and they lied to EPA was on the Young Turks on YouTube.

CS: I think it’s still on Current TV too.

HK: Is it still on Current, yeah? And the Wall Street Journal has done very good coverage too. So you’ve got the Wall Street Journal on the right, Dallas Morning News on the right and Current on the left, doing the good coverage, and everybody in the middle doing no coverage or bad coverage. By the way, MSNBC did one good thing. They put on their website the sheet the company gave to the state of Texas that identified they did have 270 tons of the explosive material, so that was a good thing.
…
HK: Reuters did a piece where they implied and stated that EPA and OSHA do not have authority to regulate the facility or this ammonium nitrate, and that’s totally false. Again, you have the Reuters and the New York Times taking the public off the scent. Of course, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox — none of the cable channels are covering the details. The only cable channel I’ve seen that mentioned the fact that this is law-breaking and they lied to EPA was on the Young Turks on YouTube.

CS: I think it’s still on Current TV too.
…
HK: … You know who the largest owner of fertilizer business in the world is?

CS: I think you’re going to tell me.

HK: The Koch brothers.

These are the guys who want to buy the LAT and the Chicago Trib, so that their voice can be heard.

Here is the America of the future

Via Adrienne, Belén Fernández has an essay in Jacobin on what it is like to live under constant threat, as in Honduras:

The most harrowing event took place one night when I awoke to discover that a man had gotten into my second-story pension room after cutting away the screen and removing the glass window slats. My strategic response was to scream maniacally, run into the hall in my underwear, and abstain from sleep for another two years.
…
By pinning the blame for Honduras’ violence on gangs, leaders have obscured the state’s role in creating a climate where extrajudicial police execution of tattooed people and other alleged potential gang members is relatively common. Also obscured is the state’s role in overseeing the socioeconomic deprivation that boosts gang membership.
…
A decade after Jahangir’s report mentioning the allegedly detrimental impact on investment and tourism of the ugly surplus of street children in Honduras, the coup has paved the way for the establishment of aseptic neoliberal enclaves called “special development regions” or charter cities. These city-states will be severed from Honduran territory without the consultation of the nation’s citizens and will be unaccountable to Honduran law, governed instead by foreign corporate interests.

See also Todd Gordon and Jeffrey R. Webber:

“We are rotten to the core,” former [Honduran] congressperson and police commissioner Gustavo Alfredo Landaverde told the Miami Herald just weeks before being silenced by motorbike assassins at a traffic light in Tegucigalpa on 7 December 2011. According to Landaverde’s conservative estimate, one out of every ten members of the Honduran Congress is tied to drug cartels. The Honduran national police force is linked to death squads and traffickers, and judges and prosecutors are likewise implicated in complex and overlapping networks of power. According to Franck, “drug trafficking is now embedded in the state itself, from the cop in the neighborhood all the way up to the very top of the government.”
…
The democratic delusion on offer here has been a staple of US-Honduran relations since the late nineteenth century. If Lobo is the latest emblem of that delusion in practice — having apparently re-established law and order after the unseemly interruption of Micheletti — he also exposes its ruthless center: elections as theater, direct rule by capital, and unmediated violence in civil society. We have seen much of this before, and we’ll see it again.

The US is headed this direction.

Ornstein’s swan song: GOP sucks

20 years too late, Norm Ornstein sees the light, The Hill

There are no more moderate or liberal Republicans — the Sherwood Boehlerts, John Porters, Amo Houghtons and Michael N. Castles are long gone. What now passes for a moderate would have been considered a bedrock conservative in the early 1990s.

The House GOP has veered sharply, even drastically, to the right from what already was a pretty rightist center of gravity.

But more important has been the attitudinal change. Respect for the institution of Congress — much less for the framers’ vision of policymaking through deliberation, debate and an effort to find common ground, or at least grounds for compromise — has been replaced by obduracy, contempt for compromise and a level of demonization of the other side, starting with the president.

The ‘wingers are just doing what their masters tell them to do. Wreck government so that corporations and the wealthy can rule.

Folies State Department, 3/25/13

For full context on this story, see Dan Beeton at Upside Down World. But for now, simply marvel at the State Department’s response to a question about Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla, a fugitive in 2003, now Honduras’s head of the National Police.

Yikes.

Patrick Ventrell
Acting Deputy Spokesperson [State Department]
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
March 25, 2013
…
QUESTION: Okay. And I have a question about Honduras, if I may.

MR. VENTRELL: Okay.

QUESTION: If you were about to close the book, I’ll stop you right there.

MR. VENTRELL: Okay.

QUESTION: We had a story about the U.S. support for Honduran police –

MR. VENTRELL: Yeah.

QUESTION: — which you’d long said had nothing to do with the police chief Bonilla, and we’re saying that every single one of the units you claim was vetted reports directly to Bonilla. How do you square that with what you told Congress and what you’ve said publicly about this?

MR. VENTRELL: Just to say, first of all, Brad, that we remain concerned about high levels of impunity and corruption in Honduras, and we’re working in partnership with the Honduran Government and civil society to address these challenges, advance citizen security, build capacity within the rule of law and judicial institutions, and protect the human rights of all Hondurans.

I can tell you right now that there is a review process undergoing. It’s standard practice for the U.S. Government to form working groups and review and evaluate institutions that receive U.S. assistance. So we review all relevant information that may affect assistance the United States can provide to Honduras, including under the provisions of the Leahy Law. So I can’t comment on the internal deliberations, but we remain in close communication with the U.S. Congress, in compliance with the legal requirements of the Leahy Law.

QUESTION: How did you vet these people if – I mean, they are police units under the police chief, and you say they have no – nothing to do with the police chief.

MR. VENTRELL: I mean, again, I can’t get into the actual vetting procedures other than to say we absolutely comply with congressional mandates and congressional requirements.

QUESTION: Are you urging the Honduran Government to relieve Mr. Bonilla of his duties, since you’ve essentially raised the allegations of extrajudicial killings and various human rights violations by him and his alleged death squads?

MR. VENTRELL: I’m not aware that we’ve taken a position before this review is finished, so I think we’re going to conduct a thorough review and then take a look and be back in communication not only with Honduras but with the U.S. Congress.

QUESTION: You specifically said that you’re withholding money from anything that he touches.

MR. VENTRELL: Right, but –

QUESTION: So I would wonder why you would not urge that he then be removed if he’s an obstacle of your cooperation.

MR. VENTRELL: We’ve got to get to the bottom of this through our review before we make any decisions.

QUESTION: Do you know how much – I can’t seem to find anywhere that says how much money you guys are actually providing the Honduran security sector. According to, I think, like, the State Department/USAID website it was zero, which can’t be correct since –

MR. VENTRELL: Yeah, we have large security cooperation with a number of Central American partners.

QUESTION: Could you get back to me with how much you provide?

MR. VENTRELL: I will endeavor this afternoon to get you –

QUESTION: I imagine it’s more than zero.

MR. VENTRELL: I will endeavor to get you an expert this afternoon.

QUESTION: Thank you.

Your tax dollars at work.

Corrupt head of Mexican teachers union accused of corruption

Jo Tuckman, The Guardian:

[Elba Esther] Gordillo [aka The Teacher], leader of the 1.5 million-strong national teachers’ union in Mexico, was arrested on Tuesday evening after the private jet in which she had travelled from California landed at an airport near the capital. She spent the night in a Mexico City jail before appearing in court where she was formally read the charges of “operations with resources of illicit origin” and “organised crime”.
…
With the aid of complicated diagrams, the attorney general, Jesús Murillo, laid out a triangulation scheme in which nearly 2,000m pesos (close to £100m) was funnelled out of union bank accounts in Mexico into other accounts at home and abroad of three associates and a business, and then used to finance Gordillo’s legendarily expensive tastes, from luxury homes to plastic surgery.

In an editorial, La Jornada explained just how corrupt (my hasty translation):

Especially serious are those in regard to her responsibility in the murder of the magistral leader Misael Núñez Acosta, which occurred 1/30/81 in Ecatepec, allegations of kidnappings and illegal detentions instigated by Gordillo and her predecessor Carlos Jonguitud, of dissident professor from 1980 to the present; repeated accusations of opacity and corruption in the management of labor union dues; subpoenas for illegal enrichment by The Teacher; as well as indications such as that drawn up in 7/11 by Miguel Ángel Yunes– ex-Gordillo ally who was yoked director of the Mexican Social Security last presidency–in the sense that the Chiapan Leader [Gordillo] demanded of him 20 million pesos monthly from the funds of Social Security to finance the New Alliance Party.

A real sweetheart– and one of those who installed former president FeCal in office.

Thirty years too late, justice may at last have noticed her. I would place no bets that she ends up in jail.

Rich Grabner’s reaction: “This is friggin’ huge.” For your entertainment, he also has the many faces of Elba Esther Gordillo.

Donors Trust Exposed as Billionaire Puppet Show to Create State Climate-Denial Astroturf

[Posted in different form at DK]

Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, in partnership with Mother Jones and Center for Public Integrity (via DemocracyNow):

Conservatives used a pair of secretive trusts to fund a media campaign against windfarms and solar projects, and to block state agencies from planning for future sea-level rise, the Guardian has learned.

The trusts, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, served as the bankers of the conservative movement over the past decade. Promising anonymity to their conservative billionaire patrons, the trusts between them channelled nearly $120m to contrarian thinktanks and activists, wrecking the chances of getting Congress to act on climate change.

Now the Guardian can reveal the latest project of the secretive funding network: a campaign to stop state governments moving towards renewable energy.

From Paul Abowd at Center for Public Integrity, a useful graphic

As Suzanne Goldenberg said, what distinguishes the recipients of these trusts from left-wing or centrist foundations that similarly collect money from donors to distribute to projects is that the function of Donors Trust is to promulgate lies and distortions. In some cases at least, they are the primary donor to state-level puppets. Here’s an example of the kind of in-your-face lying that they engage in (from Abowd):

One report from a New Mexico affiliate [New Mexico Watchdog run by the Rio Grande Foundation, which gets most of its money from Donors Capital Fund, a partner of Donors Trust] housed at a free-market think tank also funded by Donors Trust garnered national attention when it reported that millions of dollars in federal stimulus money had been allocated to non-existent congressional districts.

The government database on stimulus spending had indeed listed non-existent districts as receiving funds, but the Associated Press reported that the problem was due to data errors and that “’phantom congressional districts’ are being used as a phantom issue to suggest that stimulus money has been misspent.”

When asked to comment on the criticism, Franklin Center spokesman Moroney said: “Franklin Center adheres to the highest degree of journalistic integrity and we stand by our Watchdog.org reporting 100 percent. In this case, the Associated Press had it wrong.”

FOX Noise turned it into a big pseudo-scandal. Other news organizations looked at it and found that the money was spent appropriately. The “phantom districts” were just mislabeled.

Now, in a sense, this is an old story. We’ve known that there are state-level foundations like Heartland that are being run by billionaire money. But John Mashey of DeSmog has a full list. In Minnesota, they funded the Minnesota Freedom Fund and the Minnesota Family Institute. And the fact that this is a coordinated effort and that it specializes in political hit jobs suggests to me that Donors Trust and Donors Capital are not 501(c)3s but money laundering fronts for lobbying organizations.

Anyone know a lawyer who could sort that out for us?

How the gun industry funds the NRA

Kos linked an important Business Insider article by Walter Hickey that explains the mechanism by which the gun industry funds the NRA. This is a very important distinction to get. As long as public anger is focused on the NRA, it is not focused on the manufacturers. As I think it was Rachel pointed out, Wayne LaPierre is the rodeo clown who keeps the heat off The People Who Matter:

Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA, Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun industry include Cabala’s, Sturm Rugar & Co, and Smith & Wesson.

The NRA also made $20.9 million — about 10 percent of its revenue — from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications in 2010, according to the IRS Form 990.

Additionally, some companies donate portions of sales directly to the NRA. Crimson Trace, which makes laser sights, donates 10 percent of each sale to the NRA. Taurus buys an NRA membership for everyone who buys one of their guns. Sturm Rugar gives $1 to the NRA for each gun sold, which amounts to millions. The NRA’s revenues are intrinsically linked to the success of the gun business.

The NRA Foundation also collects hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industry, which it then gives to local-level organizations for training and equipment purchases.
…
The chief trade association for gun manufacturers is the National Shooting Sports Federation, which is, incidentally, located in Newtown, Conn. But the NRA takes front and center after each and every shooting.

“Today’s NRA is a virtual subsidiary of the gun industry,” said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center.
…

It’s possible that without the NRA, people would be protesting outside of Glock, SIG Sauer and Freedom Group — the makers of the guns used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre — and dragging the CEOs in front of cameras and Congress. That is certainly what happened to tobacco executives when their products continued killing people.

This is what the gun industry is protecting:

The photos show an arsenal of weapons the reader just legally bought including a Russian made Saiga-12 shotgun, an AR-15 assault rifle, a huge cache of ammo, and several accessories.

The reader bought the shotgun at a gun show where there was no wait or background check. He left with the Saiga, a 30-round drum, a 10-round magazine, and an additional 5-round magazine. On top of that he added night vision, three laser sights, and a tactical light.
…
…
the reader has been in plenty of legal trouble.

In addition to a restraining order, and time in jail for violating it, the reader was tried for conspiracy to commit murder against his wife.

Yeah, yeah, innocent until proven guilty.

Start the dragging.

What happens when you tolerate/aid coups

Via Adrienne, AP’s Alberto Arce reports that Honduras is “no longer functioning” in the words of Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy. Street surveillance cameras turned off for non-payment, with threats of cutting off police radio as well. Teachers unpaid for six months. Soldiers unpaid. The Constitutional Branch of the Supreme Court not in session because it has been screwed over by the Congress, in a move so brazen even the US mentioned it (though did not condemn it).

Adrienne reports a conversation with a “local cop,” by which I assume she means a DC policeman:

He told me about the interesting couple weeks he spent in Honduras (San Pedro area, mostly) at the behest of the State Department in 2010, giving trainings in community policing. He also did the same in El Salvador and Panama on the same trip. He was mostly impressed by the Honduran police force’s lack of basic supplies—gasoline, etc. But he also noticed a total lack of internal mechanisms for accountability, and framed things in terms of corruption, using a version of that argument that “if you don’t clean things up, it’s easy for criminals to infiltrate the police”—as if criminality were not intrinsic to [Honduran] policing, and as if criminality were a permanent state of being or character trait (the NRA argument) and not something that is defined through one’s actions. Although in Honduras, of course (as well as here in the U.S., in various contexts), it is legally a state of being…He had also gone to the COBRA training facility and appeared as a guest on Frente a Frente with Renato Álvarez, where he was invited to talk about corruption and the work he was doing, cop-to-cop trainings. How did he respond to questions about human rights abuses by the Honduran police? I asked. Oh, that was the one thing that the State Department made clear—he said—I wasn’t allowed to say anything about human rights.

NM Governor accused of voter fraud

I have no idea whether these allegations will go anywhere, but it’s always amusing to see how casually the party of voting integrity takes voting laws.

Election documents, obtained by ProgressNowNM, from a 2011 school board election in Dona Ana County show that both Martinez and her husband Charles “Chuck” Franco requested absentee ballot applications from the County Clerk (they are still registered to vote at their Las Cruces home). However, the county clerk confirmed to us that he refused to process the applications because he believes the signature of Franco was forged by Martinez. And that, according to New Mexico law in effect at the time is a violation of the Election Code