Paul Krugman is very worried about the economic implications of surging oil prices thanks to the rising demand for oil (especially due to the expansion of Chinese economy -- cf. "China, in particular, still consumes only 8 percent of the world's oil -- but it accounted for 37 percent of the growth in world oil consumption over the last four years" [Paul Krugman, "The Oil Crunch Is Not Going to Go Away," New York Times, May 8, 2004]; and "China overtook Japan last year to become the second biggest consumer after the United States, soaking up about 5.49 million barrels a day [bpd] of the world market of 78.66 million bpd" [Felicia Loo/Reuters, "China's Oil Thirst Changes Global Flows," Forbes, May 12, 2004]) and the increasing rarity of discovery of major new oil reserves since 1976 except "two large fields in Kazakhstan" (Krugman, May 14, 2004), compounded by war and terrorism . . . . What does it all mean for the working class of the world? . . . What about American workers in particular? . . . Will Kerrynomics be the second coming of Clintonomics? . . . Or, given Bush's trifecta legacy of war, deficit, and the crude shock, will we have to rewrite Marx's formula: the first time as farce, the second time as tragedy? The full text at <http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/first-time-as-farce-second-time-as.html>. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
