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NYT Changes Reasoning For Recent Oil Rise
Oil prices had their biggest gains ever on Friday, jumping nearly $11 to a new record above $138 a barrel, after a senior Israeli politician raised the specter of an attack on Iran and the dollar fell sharply against the euro.
Reasons given for the oil rise: A. Israel, B. Dollar
The above is how Laura Rozen and dozens of other people quote the first graph of a story in today’s New York Times.
But when I read the piece under the same URL a bit later the sequence of the NYT’s explanation for the rise of oil prices had changed.
The rise in oil prices turned into a stampede on Friday with futures jumping a staggering $11 a barrel to set a record above $138 a barrel. The unprecedented surge came as the dollar fell sharply against the euro and a senior Israeli politician once again raised the possibility of an attack against Iran.
Reasons now given for the oil rise: A. Dollar, B. Israel
It is not only the opening paragraph that changed.
The complete earlier version of the piece is still carried
by the International Herald Tribune. It expands on the threat from
Israel in the sixth paragraph and on the dollar fall in the ninth.
The later ‘corrected’ version at the NYT site expands on the dollar in the fifth paragraph and on a possible Israeli attack on Iran in the eighth.
Which version is factual more correct in its emphasis?
Yesterday the US dollar index fell by 0.93% from 73.066 to 72.390. Crude futures for August delivery went up by 7.8% from 128.13 to 138.16.
Is a less than 1% change in the U.S. dollar the prime explaining factor for a 7.8% rise in crude oil?
Or is a threat of another war on the second biggest OPEC producer by Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz the more important reason for the oil rise?
"If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," said Mr Mofaz, referring to pressure by the United Nations security council to end Iran’s disputed programme of uranium enrichment. "Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable."
The answer seems obvious to me. The market freaked because of the war drums, not because of a slight dollar move.
So why did the NYT editor change the piece and preferred to cite the dollar fall as the primary explanation?
“Total international global food aid donated so far was $155 million contributed, and $108 million pledged, including the response to the Flash Appeal for $201 million, two thirds of which had been met in contributions and pledges.”
In other news, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is asking the state’s highest court to reinstate four of six claims in a lawsuit seeking to recoup part of the $190 million annual pay package of former New York Stock Exchange Richard Grasso, accusing him of bullying and manipulating his way to vast wealth.
Imelda Marcos, the wife of former Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos, is launching a jewelry collection using castoffs from her wardrobe and, she claims, flea market finds. Pieces will start from $20. The jewelry collection is a far cry from the dozens of suitcases of diamond tiaras, ruby brooches, emerald necklaces and other jewels the government confiscated from Marcos and which officials plan to auction off, from an estimated $14,500M the Marcos’s are known to have embezzled.
The Philippines needs to import more than a million tons of rice each year to meet the minimum needs of its citizens, but due to the crisis, it is trying to acquire 2 million tons this year. As has been widely reported internationally, every Philippine tender for rice purchases over the past month has failed to obtain the needed quantities, and what they can purchase is at triple the price of 2007. The last tender, on May 5, called for 675,000 tons—they obtained not one grain, at any price. [ed. Rice has since moderated considerably in price and demand]
And yet 25 years ago, the nation was self-sufficient in rice production, the result of a Green Revolution, carried out under the Presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, coordinated with the international Green Revolution implemented by the institutions set up by Franklin Roosevelt and his Vice President Henry Wallace, under the direction of the famous Norman Borlaug.
The collapse of that program in the Philippines can be blamed directly on then-U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, who ran the coup against the Marcos Administration between 1983 and 1986. That “regime change” by the NeoZi’s Shultz and Wolfowitz, destroyed the Philippines nuclear program, its industrial aspirations, and its Green Revolution for food self-sufficiency — exactly as intended.
300,000,000 humans liquidated, a Hecto-Holocaust, live on prime time digital TV, with full plausible deniability. It just, you know, happened. Commodities do that, yeah, they do! G-d, there’s nothing but crap on cable! Let’s hit the casinos!!
Posted by: Silly Stilly | Jun 8 2008 4:09 utc | 16
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