This is a graphic of the near shore oil spread, just for today. Most people are aware there is now a second plume of oil. A plume is not a leak, although it could imply one, more a plume describes the shape and character of spilled oil.

This newly discovered oil plume is 22 miles long, 6 miles wide and 3300 feet deep. In other words, the oil on the surface, goes all the way down to over half a mile. The thickest area of the goo is at 1300 feet. It is drifting towards Mobile Alabama like the 1950's horror film, The Blob, but this horror show is real.

Michael Collins

This analysis looks behind the scenes at how the ban on offshore drilling was lifted and what that had to do with the ultimate prize for big oil, the American Power Act.  It focuses on the current administration.  That in no way implies that the problem originated in January 2009.  The out sized and destructive influence of the oil monopoly has been with us for since the 1870's.

Banning Offshore Drilling

In 1969 a Unocal oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara, California began leaking oil.  The extent of the leak, damage to wildlife, and the shoreline caused considerable outrage.  The state of California banned offshore drilling shortly after the leak.  In 1980, Congress banned offshore drilling in most federally controlled waters.  President George H.W. Bush reluctantly banned off shore drilling in 1990 for California, Florida, Oregon and Washington and in the North Atlantic.

The other day many of us were exposed to a BBC interview where a business reporter kept repeating the tired old mantra that hedge funds had no involvement with the global economic meltdown.

Oh really?

Then surely, given the opaque nature of these private investment concerns, there would be no surprises forthcoming if they were to be intensively audited by forensic accounting teams together with certified fraud examiners?

And while we're at it, might not the same auditing processes yield interesting results if also directed at those private equity leveraged buyout funds (LBOs) and the major credit derivatives dealers, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America (with Credit Suisse FB, UBS and Deutsche Bank in the mix as well)?

Awhile back, Dr. John L. Goldberg of the University of Sydney, was brought in by the Australian government as a consultant to research the financing behind a number of public-private partnerships concerning Australian toll roads and infrastructure projects.

Now public-private partnerships, where securitizations with the subsequent generation of credit derivatives occur, incorporate the same underlying fundamental financial model as hedge funds, private equity firm LBOs and credit derivatives dealing by major ("too big to fail") banks.

Dr. Goldberg's three principal points, taken from one of his executive summaries, were as follows:

"Paying equity dividends with virtually no cash flow available (CCT)"