[Leanan]

This a CNN show, formerly Moneyline. News with a sort of business spin.

From the Aug. 13 transcript (emphasis mine):

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'K')ITTY PILGRIM (host):
Let's move on to oil. And oil really gyrated a lot this week on this news. The great worry is the insurgents will continue to attack the oil pipelines, although oil exports are flowing normally through the south at this point. Jim, your assessment on what this means for business.

JIM ELLIS (Chief of Correspondents for Business Week): Well, there's a lot going on in the oil markets right now. I mean, there's the real uncertainty of what's going on with Iraq and whether we're going to be able to continue the transmission of oils we've been doing so far.

Venezuela, there's an election there that's making a lot of instability to the markets. And also, the continuing drama in Russia because of Yukos, and the government trying to take over one of the largest oil producers there. It means $46 a barrel oil.

What that means is that the recovery, it's still rather fragile, could be sort of, snuffed out and also means that the administration, which wants confidence to be high, has a hard time keeping that up. At the same time the people see the oil bills going up.

RON BROWNSTEIN (Political Correspondent for the Los Angeles Times): That's really the double wave politically. On the one hand, you have the oil prices themselves, the gas prices that people experience, and then you also have the question of what this is doing to the overall growth numbers: the job creation numbers and how that sort of rebounds on the president.

You know, I have been struck all year how much resonance John Kerry and other Democrats have received from their audiences, at least, on the idea of increasing energy independence. The President, obviously makes a different argument about increasing domestic production, but this whole question of whether our national security is overly compromised by reliance on Mideast oil, is one that I do think really does hit a lot of American voters.

PILGRIM: Well, a very compelling argument. Oil up $10 since the beginning of this year. Karen?

KAREN TUMULTY (National Political Correspondent for Time Magazine): Then of course, this week we saw the Saudis announce that they were going to open up the spigot and this was what everyone thought could possibly slow this increase down. And all we saw was it jump up even faster.

It does appear increasingly like the entire economic recovery could be completely bound up in these oil prices. And even as the news in the Middle East is looking more dire, when you talk to voters, you do find that their top concern by a long shot remains the economy.

[Leanan]

CNN's Lou Dobbs had a segment on energy tonight. A different take. He had Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson as a guest on his show. She is a physicist, and the current president of Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute. (A very geeky engineering school, and my alma mater.) Dobbs is apparently hoping to get American kids excited about math and science again, like in the days of the space race. Only this time, instead of trying to put a man on the moon, we'd be trying to solve our energy problem.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jackson didn't really have any answers as to how we'd accomplish this.

[Clouseau2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'U')nfortunately, Dr. Jackson didn't really have any answers as to how we'd accomplish this.

[MagnoliaFan]

Lou Dobbs is the only news program that I can stand to watch. Although I do take issue on some of his points, he does seem to care about what the average person goes through.

Is he beating that useful idiot O'Reilley in the ratings yet?

[Leanan]

I think O'Lie-ly is up against Paula Zahn, not Lou Dobbs.

I like Dobbs, too. He's the only one in the so-called liberal media who really takes the workers' side. I wish he'd take a serious look at peak oil. I think he's intelligent enough to see how big the problem really is.

[lee]

That is to say, the solutions exist, we're just
not hearing about them because they aren't
acceptable under the current political climate.

When hardship comes to the middle class, then
people will be willing to listen to the physicists.

[FatherOfTwo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'I') think O'Lie-ly is up against Paula Zahn, not Lou Dobbs.

I like Dobbs, too. He's the only one in the so-called liberal media who really takes the workers' side. I wish he'd take a serious look at peak oil. I think he's intelligent enough to see how big the problem really is.

[MagnoliaFan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'I') think O'Lie-ly is up against Paula Zahn, not Lou Dobbs.

I like Dobbs, too. He's the only one in the so-called liberal media who really takes the workers' side. I wish he'd take a serious look at peak oil. I think he's intelligent enough to see how big the problem really is.

[Dezakin]

Guess I'm truely alone on this website. I'm a pro-open borders pro business type of guy that thinks that Lou Dobbs is a ratings opportunist that decided to put basic Ricardian laws of comparative advantage out of mind for the sake of populism.

So is everyone here an isolationalist socialist then?

[MagnoliaFan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'G')uess I'm truely alone on this website. I'm a pro-open borders pro business type of guy that thinks that Lou Dobbs is a ratings opportunist that decided to put basic Ricardian laws of comparative advantage out of mind for the sake of populism.

So is everyone here an isolationalist socialist then?

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MagnoliaFan', '
')My politics are socially conservative and pro-middle class. I don't give a sh*t for the welfare whores of either the lower or the upper classes. Both of them are like vultures trying to get first dibs on the rotting corpse of middle class man. Honestly, I think that middle class man has had enough. He should simply go on strike and become a burden to society by stealing, collecting welfare and performing acts of sedition against the state.

[MagnoliaFan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', 'F')unny, how everybody believes that the world rest on their shoulders. The middle class believes they make the world go round. The lower class believes that the world couldn't possibly work without them (and they're right, who cleans up the rubbish and do all those jobs that the middle class won't do?). The upper class believes the rest couldn't organize themselves without help (probably correct as well, seeing how sheepish is the vast majority of people).

[holmes]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'G')uess I'm truely alone on this website. I'm a pro-open borders pro business type of guy that thinks that Lou Dobbs is a ratings opportunist that decided to put basic Ricardian laws of comparative advantage out of mind for the sake of populism.

So is everyone here an isolationalist socialist then?

[JoeW]

Here's the problem with capitalism...

Take a look at a simple example--the game of monopoly. Everyone competes to buy up the capital as quickly as possible, and when it has all been bought up, all the players are pretty much at the mercy of fate, and there can be only one winner. The rest are losers.

The US is slowly becoming more and more like that model of capitalism--where the winners slowly continue to acquire capital, while the losers slowly approach a state of servitude to the winners (think 40-yr mortgages and 7-yr car loans...the terms keep getting longer and longer, don't they?). Wages are stagnating in an environment of increasing inflation.

The winning capitalists don't have to do anything at all to contribute to production. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and never have to work for any of it. Their children, grandchildren, etc. will be gifted with the same experience.

I am not saying that this is right or wrong, but this is the case. Perhaps everyone gets what they deserve, or perhaps not. In the end, as anyone who has played monopoly knows, the losers sometimes become quite upset with the winners, perhaps out of envy or frustration. When the game never ends and it is for real, imagine how much more upset they might get. It is a dangerous situation.