New Record Gold Price

The FRN-denominated price of gold set a new record recently. The price of gold is the least biased inflation measure that's publicly available.

My father enjoys watching the Communism Channel (CNBC). He recites their propaganda very well. There are all sorts of pro-State troll excuses for not buying gold.

Here's one common excuse for not buying gold. "Gold is a deadweight asset. You have to pay storage costs. There's the risk someone will steal your metal, if you keep it in your home. With stocks, you get a dividend and the growth of the business."

The fallacy is that, with stocks, there's fraud and theft. The CEO gives himself and other executives stock/option grants, diluting your ownership. The CEO gives lucrative consulting contracts to his friends. There's all the waste and inefficiency of a corporate bureaucracy.

When I realized that a stock investment doesn't outperform true inflation (gold), it was like discovering that Santa Claus didn't exist.

A pro-State troll says "In 1979-1980, the price of gold sharply rose and the it crashed. The price of golf sharply rose recently. Therefore, it will crash again."

From 1933-1975, it was illegal for individuals to own gold in the USA and most other countries. In the USA, gold dealers are heavily taxed and regulated. This creates additional costs for would-be gold investors. In China, gold ownership was recently re-legalized. Politicians in China are actively encouraging individuals to invest in gold. China now has a more liquid gold market than the USA! When it comes to gold investing, people in China have more economic freedom than gold in the USA.

From 1933-1968, the official price of gold was $35/oz. Most individuals did not have the right to trade their paper for gold at the official price. This allowed the farce of $35 gold to be maintained, in spite of fiat money inflation. Whenever the free market price of gold rose over $35/oz, the central banks sold enough gold to push the gold down. Foreign central banks, like France, started refusing to accept paper dollars and started demanding gold. Eventually, the farce could no longer be retained. Even insiders could no longer redeem their paper for gold at the official price.

In 1975, individuals in USA were allowed to buy gold again. This law was sponsored by Ron Paul. There was no official connection between gold and fiat money anymore, making the ban seem silly. More than a generation later, people had been brainwashed to believe that paper was money and gold was not money. Fake pro-State troll economics brags about the superiority of paper money to gold money. In the present, many laws and taxes make it impractical/illegal to use gold as money.

Once gold-ownership was re-legalized, the price of gold skyrocketed. The banksters started to panic. In 1975, the central banks were hoarding gold, because it was the only valuable asset they owned. They could not push the price of gold all the way down to $35/oz. However, they could use their gold reserves to suppress the price. They started selling some, but not all, of their reserves, causing the price of gold to crash. They adopted a policy of selling gold whenever the price sharply rose. For this reason, the historic volatility of gold/$ is much less compared to silver and other commodities. Lower gold price volatility is a symptom of gold price manipulation.

In effect, the banksters were selling back to the people the gold that they stole in 1933. Having nearly exhausted their reserves, the central banks are losing their ability to manipulate the price of gold. That's the reason there won't be another gold market crash like in the early 80s. The banksters would crash the gold market if they could, but they don't have enough physical metal.

There are plenty of people that would buy gold and take physical delivery, if the price of gold suddenly tanked. In late 2008, the official price of gold sharply tanked, but many online gold dealers had no inventory. As long as gold futures buyers can take physical delivery, the "official" price shoudn't deviate too much from the price at which you can actually buy gold coins.

There's another amusing joke on the Communism Channel. Whenever the price of gold sharply rises, they say "It's too late to buy gold! You missed your chance!" Whenever the price of gold temporarily drops they say "We told you! Gold is a lousy investment!"

Contrast this with stock market propaganda. They say "The stock market is hot right now! Buy or you'll miss out!" Alternatively, they say "Stocks are cheap right now! It's time to buy!"

It's always a good time to buy gold. To minimize the impact of swings, you should make equal purchases at regular intervals. This is "dollar cost averaging".

In recent years, gold has outperformed the stock market by 10%+ per year. If this trend continues, eventually even a buy-and-hold gold investor from 1980 would have outperformed a buy-and-hold stock market investor. If you had bought-and-held an equal amount of gold every year since 1980, you probably would have outperformed an equivalent stock market investment, although I haven't checked the calculation exactly.

Gold and silver, taking physical delivery, is the best way to protect yourself from theft via inflation. For this reason, State comedians denigrate gold investors at every opportunity. For this reason, there are many taxes and regulations restricting gold investors. People who try to set up alternate monetary systems based on gold or silver find themselves the victim of State violence, as occurred with the Liberty Dollar and E-Gold.

Stupid Psychiatrist

Because I relapsed, I'm forced to start seeing a psychiatrist and therapist again. Legally, I'm not forced to go. However, my parents would object if I said "I don't want to waste time with these fools."

It was interesting to observe my new psychiatrist. I'm refusing to take the drugs/poison, and she can't legally force me to take them. I noticed that every psychiatrist asks the exact same questions! It seemed that I didn't even need to be there. She was mindlessly asking questions and filling out forms. By now, I've figured out the "correct" answers to the questions.

My psychiatrist was obviously pretty stupid. It's the type of stupid you have to spend years working at. It's similar to the way politicians act professionally stupid if someone asks them "Is taxation theft?" It seems that psychiatrists are brainwashed to ignore feedback from patients, so they don't notice they're hurting them.

Every psychiatrist asks the same questions. I've memorized the correct answers. Some of the "correct" answers are false. For example, one question is "Can you see secret messages on TV?" You're supposed to say "no". However, there really are obvious secret messages when you watch TV. The secret messages are very obvious, now that I've cracked my pro-State brainwashing. They reinforce that you're supposed to think and act in a certain way.

That question makes me really suspicious. It seems like the psychiatry/murder industry is designed to silence people who start achieving greater awareness. Why is it wrong to see secret messages on TV, when they're actually there? One recent example was the 60 Minutes story on "illegal immigration", which had a secret hidden message "The law banning illegal immigration is valid."

Having a therapist is also dangerous. You can wind up substituting the therapist's judgement for your own. For example, I might do what my therapist wants me to do, instead of what I want to do. I'm aware of the intellectual trap now, so I shouldn't be fooled.

It seems that the therapist's job is to re-pro-State brainwash me, rather than help me discover the real truth. That can make the therapist worse than useless. After my ex-therapist called the police when I fired her, I don't see how I can trust a State-licensed therapist.

You really can't discuss anything important with your therapist. For example, none of my therapists were willing to seriously discuss "Taxation is theft!" or "The USA has a corrupt monetary system!" Their assumption is that I am defective, and there are no large-scale problems affecting everyone.

It's annoying that I'm forced to waste time seeing a clueless therapist and psychiatrist. Now that I know how their scam works, they shouldn't be able to hurt me. However, it's still risky. As long as I refuse the drugs/poison, my psychiatrist can't hurt me. It also is risky, because they can call 911 and have me involuntarily hospitalized. As long as I don't relapse, the risk of that is low.

As long as I know to trust my own judgement, my therapist won't be able to re-pro-State brainwash me. Hopefully, I'll be able to avoid relapsing. After a few years without relapsing, I'll stop seeing them.

I feel that I've made more progress cracking my pro-State brainwashing. I'm noticing more favorable reactions from coworkers and women. I don't feel like I'm doing anything different, but I'm getting better reactions. My logical mental state must be getting better synchronized with my emotional mental state. I feel that I'm still making progress.

It's annoying that I had to relapse so many times when cracking my pro-State brainwashing. It's annoying that the "mental health" system only offers treatment options that are worse than useless.

Weird Stock Market Behavior on Thursday

On Thursday, the stock market unexpectedly dropped sharply, and then rebounded. There were weird huge drops in Accenture (ACN), Apple (AAPL), Procter & Gamble (PG), and others.

It seems that an single person/bank is responsible for the huge drop. One explanation is that a single huge trade was entered. It was either for a single stock, a basket of stocks, an index future, or an ETF.

Suppose someone sold a huge bunch of index futures. Some market maker would buy those futures. He then would sell the stocks in the index, to hedge. Just looking at the stock trades is insufficient to figure out the cause of the problem. You also have to look at index futures. Some sources say there was a lot of unusual selling in S&P 500 futures, which led to the stock market declining as traders hedged those futures.

This is somewhat of a problem. Stocks are regulated by the SEC. Index futures are regulated by the CFTC.

Some of the trades may be canceled. That is potentially unfair. What is the cutoff? What if someone bought options to hedge the stock? It would be unfair to cancel the stock trade but not also the option trade.

It seems that a cutoff of 60% was chosen, which seems obviously too wide of a cutoff. However, suppose someone bought stock at a cheap price and later sold or hedged. It is unfair to cancel one trade but not the other.

This also illustrates the stupidity of using stop-loss orders. If you had a stop-loss order, you would have sold your shares at a lousy price. When the market tanked and then rebounded, your stop loss order would have been activated.

Instead of using stop-loss orders, you should sell some of your shares. Even better, you should sell stocks and buy gold/silver. You should take physical delivery of your metal. It was amusing to see gold skyrocket while the stock market tanked. Until Thursday, this year had been relatively favorable for stocks compared to gold.

How can one bad trade cause the entire market to decline? There are computer programs that assume stocks are correlated. P&G and Microsoft are both Dow members. This makes them somewhat correlated. When P&G tanked, computer algorithms automatically moved down other Dow stocks, assuming they're correlated. Once traders realized what was going on, they turned off their computer program and started buying.

I read another interesting quote. One trader said "We knew that some trades would be canceled. Therefore, we turned off our algorithm." That's one reason that all the offers in those stocks disappeared. Knowing trades would be canceled, market makers pulled all their quotes.

It was interesting to see some mainstream media writers say "This incident makes individuals question the wisdom of investing in the stock market." The best way to protect your savings is to buy gold/silver and take physical delivery. Also, if you didn't panic and sell, the anomaly didn't affect you.

Suppose a trader really did enter a huge sell order by mistake. Those trades are not sent out all at once as one huge order. One huge sell order would be obviously suspicious. The specialist on the NYSE would probably halt the stock if he saw a suspicious huge order. It would have been broken up into a bunch of small sell orders. Each order would not be suspicious, by itself.

This is now a common practice. Traders break up huge trades into tiny pieces. There are computer algorithms that look for someone else who is making a huge sell order in little pieces. They try to sell ahead of the algorithm, so they can buy back later at a better price. In this manner, one huge sell order could cause other computer algorithms to start selling.

Suppose one trader made a huge sell order by mistake. That trader is not solely to blame. The bank is supposed to have limits on each trader. Suppose a trader has a $10M limit. Then, the bank's computers are supposed to automatically cut him off if he makes a trade bigger than $10M, either as one trade or as a combination of trades.

The NYSE is supposed to close if there's a big drop in one day. However, the cutoff is 10%, and it was just barely not reached. There probably should also be a per-stock rule. I.e., if a stock drops by 5% in 5 minutes, automatically halt it for 10 minutes.

The NYSE has a per-stock circuit breaker. If a stock moves more than a certain amount in 30 seconds, electronic trading is temporarily suspended. The specialist manually picks the price of the next trade, and then electronic trading resumes. Since the price is chosen manually, it may take a minute or two for the specialist to place the trade. During this time, the NYSE publishes a "slow" quote.

When the NYSE is in "slow" mode, the fully electronic exchanges don't have to honor the NYSE's quote. They can trade at any price. If some program was pushing down the stock market, it would have completely ignored the NYSE, because the NYSE quote was in "slow" mode.

I didn't understand why the NASDAQ CEO was criticizing the NYSE for going into slow mode when the market suddenly tanked. The NYSE system was working exactly as intended. NASDAQ and the other exchanges will probably adopt a circuit-breaker system similar to the NYSE.

It seems that a error is responsible for the huge rapid drop. It probably was a combination of bad software, and a human error.

A lot of the trades will probably be canceled. That is potentially unfair. If you make a mistake, you should suffer the loss. If the policy is "such trades get canceled", then why would anyone bother to take proper precautions? I invested in Citigroup and Bank of America and lost money. How is that any different from a careless trader and lousy software?

Having a policy of canceling stupid trades encourages dishonest/incompetent behavior.

Regulators are saying "We can't figure out who was selling." That is nonsense. The exchanges have to keep track of the buyer and seller for each trade. They need that information to properly settle and clear the trade! It's a simple SQL query or Perl script to figure out "Who was selling during those 5 minutes."

It seems that regulators are covering up who was really selling when the market crashed. I don't believe that they can't figure it out. It probably was one bank or a small handful of banks responsible for the crash.

Corporate Death Penalty

The BP oil spill caused some people to write about the corporate death penalty. This is almost never invoked.

If executives at a corporation commit egregious abuses, one rare punishment is to revoke the corporation's license. Its assets must then be sold. The sale proceeds are paid to the victims or back to shareholders.

The corporate death penalty is almost never invoked against a large corporation. The only example I can remember is Arthur Anderson. As a result of their criminal prosecution for accounting fraud at Enron, Arthur Anderson was barred from performing audits. This forced Arthur Anderson to shut down, even though their conviction was ultimately overturned on appeal. However, most Arthur Anderson partners merely moved to a competing firm, taking their clients with them.

Ironically, the corporate death penalty is sometimes invoked against small business owners and individuals. If you own a bar, State thugs may revoke your liquor license. That makes your bar worthless, even to sell, because the new owner would have to apply for a new liquor license, which takes years. When you sell a bar, you can usually simultaneously sell the liquor license. Liquor licenses are usually revoked for political reasons rather than legimate reasons.

Another example is for careers where you need a State license. For example, if a lawyer explains jury nullification over the objections of the judge, then the lawyer might lose his law license. This is a type of "corporate death penalty" against that lawyer's career.

Most commonly, corporations die only when they go bankrupt. Even then, most large corporations qualify for a bailout. Executives at a struggling business like Palm can usually negotiate a buyout by a larger corporation. Only severe accounting fraud is punished. Only severe rapid losses result in bankruptcy.

If an individual commits a crime, he goes to jail. For corporate crime, the executives usually have plausible deniability. Each executive made a reasonable decision from his point of view, but the overall result is evil. One "benefit" of a corporation is to allow evil, without anyone being responsible.

One solution is to punish executives is with fines and punitive damages. However, insiders successfully lobbied for "tort reform", limiting their liability. There was a $75M cap on damages for an oil spill. Vaccine manufacturers are absolutely immune from liability. There are caps on medical malpractice damages. In almost every industry, insiders lobbied for laws restricting damages. This encourages dishonest and negligent behavior.

To justify being protected from consequences, insiders developed a corrupt legal theory. Damages in a lawsuit should never be so large that the corporation is bankrupted. This justifies punitive damage caps. This is silly. If a penalty were so large that the corporation is bankrupted then the plaintiffs should become the new shareholders.

The corporate death penalty is one way to limit abuses by insiders. Unfortunately, it is almost never invoked. Insiders use a corrupt legal system to provide the illusion of justice, while they're protected from negative consequences when they're dishonest or negligent.

Greek Bailout

It appears that the Greek government is going to get bailed out by the rest of the EU. The bailout will be for 100B-120B euros, the equivalent of $132B-$158B.

It's a no-win situation for politicians in the EU.

If Greece defaults on its debt, then the banksters/insiders who own Greek debt lose money. The banksters took on no real risk when buying Greek debt. They borrowed from the EU central bank and bought Greek debt. They spent money lobbying to ensure a bailout. The banksters had enough connections to know a bailout was inevitable, when they bought Greek debt.

The solution seems to have three parts. First, the rest of the EU will lend Greece money. Second, Greece's government will cut spending and raise taxes. However, there's a limit to how much taxes can be raised and spending can be cut. State bureaucrats in Greece still have to get paid. Third, the EU central bank may directly monetize Greece's debt. They will print new money/euros to purchase Greek debt, driving down the interest rate Greece pays when borrowing and refinancing its debt.

Real interest rates are negative. Lending Greece's politicians money at a negative interest rate is logically equivalent to outright giving them money. The loan can be repaid with devalued money.

The cost of the bailout isn't free. Everyone else holding euros pays the cost via inflation. Why should someone living in Germany experience higher inflation, just so Greek politicians can get a bailout?

"Government debt is sacred and must be repaid!" is an important evil fnord. The benefits of deficit spending go to insiders, and not the average person. Government debt is sacred because most government debt is owned by banksters/insiders.

A long time ago, the banksters learned that loaning money to governments is much more profitable than lending to individuals. State violence and taxes guarantee repayment.

The interest rate on State debt is artificially low. As long as Greece can keep refinancing its debt, they'll be able to pay it off eventually. The loan is devalued via inflation. Perversely, negative real interest rates provided an incentive for Greece to borrow as much as they can. Negative real interest rates, plus the bailout, mean that Greek politicians profiting from borrowing, at the expense of other euro member countries.

The government, via the central bank, repurchases its own debt, keeping interest rates low. If an individual buys government debt, he will get ripped off by inflation. The banksters buy State debt because they borrow cheaply from the central bank and use high leverage.

The Greek bailout indicates a problem with multi-government fiat monetary systems. The USA has all its debts in its own money. For the euro, no single country controls it. If one country has high deficit spending, they are, in effect, stealing from the other member countries via inflation.

If Greece is bailed out, it isn't fair to people living in other euro member countries. One interesting solution is to give each euro member country a proportional check. I.e, if Greece is 5% of the EU, and they got a $100B bailout, then the other countries should get $1.9 trillion, divided proportionally. Of course, that would cause massive inflation. There's no fair way to regulate a fiat debt-based montary system. Every possible action has negative consequences. The people injured are usually non-insiders. Politicians usually adopt a policy of inflation.

The Greek bailout indicates a fundamental problem with multi-country fiat debt-based monetary systems. Deficit spending by one country robs the others. Greece used an accounting trick (via Goldman Sachs) to temporarily hide deficits. If you close one loophole, others are used instead.

As long as there is a fiat debt-based monetary system and legal tender laws, insiders will steal via the State monetary system.

Illegal/Unlicensed Immigration

I was watching "60 Minutes" to see the Conan O'Brien interview. Of course, they waited until the end of the show to air that part. There was an interesting story on "illegal immigration".

The story was about a canal on the border between Mexico and California, the All-American Canal. A lot of illegal immigrants died trying to cross that canal.

"The law banning illegal immigration is valid!" was an unstated hidden assumption. Instead, they were debating "Should safety features be installed on this canal, even though most of the people who die are illegal immigrants. Making the canal safer would merely facilitate illegal immigration."

That's a common State mind control trick. You debate Y, while X is taken as a hidden assumption. X is the real important issue. That really was a story advertising "illegal immigration", even though superficially they were talking about the canal.

There was one particularly offensive part. They interviewed a woman, whose husband died crossing the canal. He was an illegal immigrant. He got caught and deported. The way immigration law works, once you're caught as an illegal immigrant, you can never again reenter the country legally. He tried crossing the canal to get back in the USA, and drowned in the canal.

The interviewer said (paraphrasing) "He was committing a crime. He was trying to enter the country illegally." He implied "HAHAHA!! He deserved to die!" The woman agreed with the interviewer, rather than saying "Hey! Illegal immigration is a bad law!"

In the entire segment, they didn't interview anyone who said "The law banning unapproved immigration is bad." The segment was really a hidden advertisement for the State ban on illegal immigration.

Maybe people should call it "unlicensed immigration" or "unapproved immigration" rather than "illegal immigration". The phrase "illegal immigration" has as an unstated hidden assumption that certain types of immigration should be illegal.

"Illegal immigration" is one of those issues used to distract the clueless slaves. People blame illegal immigrants for declining real wages. They really should blame a corrupt economic system. Trillions of dollars a year are spend on direct and indirect bailouts. That's much more damaging than "illegal immigration".

I live in NY. It's perfectly legal for me to move to California and get a job there. Why is it illegal for someone to move from Mexico to California? National boundaries are arbitrary and created by the State.

Illegal immigration derives from the idea "People are property of their government." The leaders of various countries signed treaties, agreeing to respect each others' property. By banning/restricting immigration, State parasites agree to not compete with each other. Otherwise, the most skilled workers would move to the country with the most favorable laws. By banning/restricting immigration, it's easier for every country to have corrupt laws.

The more often that the State propaganda engine hypes an issue, the bigger a lie it is. For example, "Support the soldiers and police!" is repeated as often as possible. The issue of "illegal immigration" is also discussed as often as possible.

In a Communist society, there's a fixed pool of jobs due to the State. If you import workers, that drives down wages. In a really free market, adding workers doesn't decrease real wages, as long as each new worker performs work worth more than his wages.

However, most mainstream debate focuses on "What are we going to do about illegal immigration?", rather than questioning the validity of the law. Even Ron Paul says that the law banning illegal immigration is valid.

The current hype against illegal immigration is a stark contrast to the policy 100-150 years ago. The USA had an open immigration policy. Ambitious people who lacked opportunity in their home country would move to the USA. It was so bad that leaders in Europe were concerned about a "brain drain", as the best workers moved to the USA. The solution was to cripple the US economy. With the creation of the income tax and Federal Reserve, economic freedom in the USA was severely cut. The USA has much less economic freedom now, compared to before 1913.

In a really free market, there's a natural equilibrium. Workers will only move to an area if wages are greater there compared to their old home. In the present, then State immigration ban ruins this equilibrium. State restriction of the market makes it hard for new workers to start new businesses, creating the perception that extra workers drive down real wages.

In a really free market, there's no such thing as "illegal immigration". As long as you can find a job and someone willing to sell/rent a place to live, you can move. Smart workers looking for better jobs would naturally lead to an equilibrium.

I don't "own" my US citizenship in the same sense that I own a car or house. I can't move to another country and sell my right to live/work in the US to another person.

State parasites promote "illegal immigration" for two reasons. First, "illegal immigration" is a good issue to divide and conquer the masses. It creates a scapegoat for economic problems other than the real cause.

Second, "illegal immigration" is related to "people are the property of the government". State parasites made treaties to enforce immigration laws, because they agree to respect each others' property. Without illegal immigration, the best workers would move to the country with the most favorable laws. Then, State parasites in various countries would be competing with each other to offer the best working conditions.

There's no such thing as "illegal immigration" in a really free market. National boundaries are arbitrary and created by the State. It's silly that you get more or less opportunity based on where you are born.

Deepwater Horizon

You've almost definitely heard about this story. There was an accident at an offshore BP oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, near Louisiana. The name of the drilling rig was "Deepwater Horizon". Eleven workers are missing and presumed dead.

The well is leaking 5k+ barrels of oil per day. It hasn't been stopped yet.

Initial reports were "1k barrels of oil per day". That estimate has been raised to "5k barrels per day". It's amusing how State agents underreport the severity of a problem.

This story was really interesting. The amount of leaked oil might be 25k barrels per day, and not the current official estimate of 5k. The rate of leakage might be increasing. The gushing oil is probably eroding the pipes and equipment already there.

Oil trapped underground is sometimes under pressure. This creates the risk of a blowout or "gusher". That's what happened in this accident.

When people first started drilling for oil, blowouts/gushers were common. In the early 20th century, they started using safety plugs/valves to prevent blowouts. Superficially, a gusher seems good, because it means you found a lot of oil. However, a blowout wastes oil. It damages the drilling rig and equipment. It can injure employees. The spilled oil causes environmental damage, even on land. Oil drillers rapidly developed blowout prevention tools.

If there's a spill on land, only the area surrounding the well is contaminated, although the spill can reach the water table. A spill on water is much more dangerous, because a lot of coastline can be contaminated. Water carries the spill to a large area. It only takes a thin coating of oil to cause damage, killing fish/shrimp and wildlife/birds.

In some ways, the Deepwater Horizon spill is worse than an oil tanker spill. An oil tanker contains a fixed amount of oil. This blowout is spilling more oil every day. It hasn't officially reached "Exxon Valdez" levels yet, but it might before it is stopped.

There was one severe risk I read about. The oil is coming out under pressure. It also contains sand and rocks. The blowout is eroding the pipes and equipment already there. This could lead to an increase in the oil leakage rate over time.

There was one really offensive part of this accident. There was only one blowout cap. I heard different versions of this from different sources. One source said a second backup blowout cap could have been purchased for an additional $500k. Another source said that the blowout preventer should have had a remote-control shutoff feature. BP didn't want to spend the extra money. Such a cap is used in other countries. Some US companies use it, even though they aren't legally required. US regulations don't require this safety feature due to lobbying by corporations like BP.

This is the usual "captured regulators" problem. The oil drilling regulators answer to the interests of insiders, rather than recommending genuine best practices. They lobbied for a regulation that allowed them to cut corners. BP's liability is limited. Therefore, it might have made economic sense for them to cut corners on safety, even though they made a huge payout. The huge payout this year might be more than offset from extra profits in other years.

It's easy to say now that BP should have paid the extra $500k. If you compare the cost of an accident with the cost of the extra safety feature, it seems obvious. However, the extra $500k would be paid for every single well; it's still probably justified.

It was amusing to hear President Obama say "No new offshore drilling! (for awhile)" Oil industry insiders will wait a few years until people forget, and then lobby for more offshore drilling.

It was interesting to see the alternatives for dealing with the problem. That is hard, because the oil is under pressure. The oil is coming out with force, rather than merely leaking.

They are trying to close the malfunctioning safety valve, via remote-control underwater submarines. That isn't working. If that was going to work, they would have succeeded by now.

They are making a steel cap to cover the well. That will contain the oil so it can be pumped away. However, it will take a few weeks to make a steel cap. Why didn't they make one ahead of time?

They can drill a 2nd relief well into the original one. That would be used to pump dense mud into the ground, to stop the leak. It isn't used to directly relieve the pressure, although that's what the name sounds like.

One interesting solution is to bomb the ocean floor. The debris would cover up the leaking well. Why didn't they try that? The only drawback is that it's make the current well unusable.

Catching the oil after it leaks to the surface is the hardest way to do it. When oil comes into contact with water, it spreads out over the surface.

Also, State agents waited a few days before deploying containment booms. That makes it harder to contain the spill, because it's already spread.

The problem is that people have no choice but to rely on the government defense monopoly to clean up after the accident and stop the leak. It's very hard to tell if they're doing a brilliant job or barely competent job. Most likely, it's a barely competent job.

It's amusing that this is being referred to as "Obama's Katrina". When Bush was president, the Federal government did a lousy job after Hurricane Katrina. Now, with Obama as president, the Federal government did a lousy job after the oil spill. The common theme is not Democratic/Republican president. The real problem is that government does a lousy job, because it has a monopoly. Most low-level State employees are the same no matter who is President; they're the ones who do the actual work.

Is offshore drilling a bad idea? You can't conclude that from this incident. The real problem is that State law encourages negligent behavior. Just because BP executives did something stupid, doesn't mean everyone should be banned from drilling for oil offshore. BP will only be required to pay compensatory damages; punitive damages are capped.

Another interesting bit is the the oil underground is owned by the Federal government. BP's contract specifies a fee per barrel for oil drilled. Does BP have to pay for the oil they're spilling?

The Deepwater Horizon accident is an example of government endorsing dishonest behavior. The mainstream media portrays the government as heroes, because they're the ones trying to fix the problem they caused. This is an excellent example of "captured regulators".