Flutterby™! : morning politics 2005-07-15 15:47:24.969958+00

morning politics

2005-07-15 15:47:24.969958+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

A few random political ramblings:

What are the ramifications of China's drop in oil consumption? (Dave's Picks)
Could Bush administration political maneuvering have caused the intelligence failures that led to the London bombings? He makes a good case.
David Lazarus connects the dots between the statements that Karl Rove is now documented to have made and Valerie Plame via public databases. Don't know if this qualifies as "disclosure" under Title 50 Chapter 15 Subchapter Section 421, but it seems to me that the only question remaining was whether Rove had valid access to that information, or if someone additional perjured theirself in the investigation. And Robert Novak claimed two administration sources...

I'm assuming that this is not a CNBC SquawkBox crowd, so let me parrot something that they've been saying for months: oil traders believe that China's oil consumption and, espcially, oil consumption forecasts are fabricated. Consuming lots of oil is equivalent to a roaring economy, the thinking goes, and China will do anything to make their economic picture look fantastic.

While the gist of the article was that the 1% drop in oil consumption in the second quarter versus a year ago signals an economic problem, one of the comments suggested that they've been stockpiling, and they've run out of need for extra reserves.

I could imagine some sort of Bernie Ebbers deal with trying to inflate oil consumption numbers though.

One difficulty with reading the inscrutable Chinese is that I think we have little reliable information. This is different from the old Soviet problem, where they lied to themselves as much as to us. If they are consuming less oil because the growth is stalling, wouldn't we notice a drop in prices for their goods, as they tried to keep the factories running? The PRC government may lie, but they are capitalist enough to sell their goods abroad. A problem this big would have other signs. Maybe we're just reverting to that old arcane art of Kremlinology; see who stands next to whom on May Day and speculate from there.