[Texgreen] Bigshots win surprise election victory over struggling masses

[Roger Baker]

<http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/local/ 
stories/DN-trinitywhy_07metro.ART.State.Edition1.426335a.html>

It seems that when you get the right spin doctors, and a united front
of special interests, who together can outspend the grassroots nearly
eight to one, then voters in a low turnout election will vote for toll
roads, just as the politicians and their bosses wish.

Toll roads are a deficit financed bonanza for the big road contractors
to assist the large land developers to build roads to serve
unsustainable suburban sprawl development with public money. That
would be bad enough, but these public subsidies are to build obsolete
oil-addictive infrastructure -- based on the presumption that oil will
somehow not keep getting more expensive, as its world production peaks
and declines, and as the dollar is devalued* What is more amazing is
that all the amendments, including issuing $5 billion for new road
debt, passed.

The bad news that hardly anybody understands yet is
this:  it is probably impossible to keep a global economy growing
while the supply of oil used to fueling that expansion shrinks. And if
the global economy shrinks, the whole capitalist investment cycle at
the heart of the global economy is in trouble.   -- Roger



*Maybe oil prices really depend on whether the Chinese are going to
dump a trillion or so of accumulated dollars as they are hinting they
are about to do:

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2206584,00.html

Dollar hits 26-year low against pound

"The pound climbed about $2.10 for the first time since 1981 this  
morning,
boosted by speculation that China was preparing to shift its foreign
reserves out of dollars".

"A vice director of China's central bank, Xu Jian, was also quoted as
telling the conference that the dollar was 'losing its status as the  
world
currency'".

"Thanks to China's booming exports, the country now holds the largest
reserves of foreign currency in the world. The People's Bank of China
reported last month that at the end of September, China's foreign  
reserves
were worth $1.434 trillion"...