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The Solari Report – 18 March 2010
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On this week’s Solari Report, I will be speaking with James R. (“Jim”) Norman, author of The Oil Card: Global Economic Warfare in the 21st Century, from his office in New York.
Jim is a veteran business journalist and energy reporter. He writes for McGraw-Hill’s Platts Oilgram News. He has been a senior editor at Forbesmagazine and was at BusinessWeek, where he served as Houston bureau chief. Prior to that, he won an AP award for investigative reporting (on an oil and gas scam) while a reporter for the Ann Arbor News in his home state of Michigan.
Jim’s knowledge of the energy markets is deep, representing years covering the big picture nationally and globally after mastering the local beat. Jim is one of those rare experts who can integrate the dots between billions in the futures markets in New York, with what that means to politics from Moscow and Beijing to London and Washington, and how that impacts you and me on Main Street.
This intelligence is invaluable as our businesses, households and savings are profoundly impacted by the availability and price of energy as dictated by global economic warfare rather than the “markets” taught in school and covered on the evening news. Global economic warfare means that commodities and financial markets serve vastly different aims than allocating assets and capital in the real economy. As the resulting volatility and uncertainty in commodities and financial markets rise, we hunger for an understanding of what is really happening – the kind that Jim can help us develop.
Jim and I will cover the fall of the Soviet Union, the subsequent “privatization” of Russian assets and the emergence of global competition with China and the “pipeline politics” that have inspired a long term U.S. military presence in the Middle East. We will talk about why we are skeptical of “peak oil” theories and what’s next in the competition for global strategic resources, including in Iran.
This will be a great one for helping you understand the trends driving U.S. imperial politics as well as a successful investment strategy for family and business. I will be covering current events in Money & Markets and responding to questions in Ask Catherine. Jim and I will be speaking for a full hour, so in Let’s Go to the Movies I will very briefly touch on Syriana – a movie that underscores what happens to Middle East rulers who try to close large oil deals with the Chinese.
Syriana Trailer
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This week’s Money and Markets charts will be posted at the blog on Thursday morning.