Here’s some fun news for a Monday.

I happened to be browsing the news and, yet again, oil prices are about to hit a record high. It appears that a weekend workers’ strike at a refinery in the UK and military unrest in Nigeria could see prices reach $120 per barrel. So, if you’re like me and already paying over $3.50 per gallon, you can expect to pay a few more cents at the pump this week.

But, wait, it gets better.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil is saying that he sees oil prices reaching as has as $200 per barrel. Now, get this — he is saying that it is not due to a lack of supply. Instead, Khelil says, it is due to the weakening of the dollar.

As you know, the value of currency is not static. Because it is a commodity, it is subject to rise or fall in value based on the same rules of supply and demand as any other commodity. But, to go a little deeper, it’s value is also determined by what’s backing it. Up until the early 70’s, we had the gold standard, which meant that we had some collateral backing up all the paper money we were printing. Now, we have the standard called the “full faith and credit” standard. In other words, it’s like America saying, “trust me…I’m good for it!”

Usually, this would work but, George W. Bush was never our president before. Now, to avoid having rich people pay a fair share of taxes but, still be able to “afford” a costly war, we borrow money.

Just to relate this to an average person, say you keep getting more and more credit cards, then maxing them out. You might even pay them all them minimum on time but, your credit rating will eventually take a hit because of the potential liability you become to those who hold your debt.

So, very soon, we could be fondly reminiscing of the time when gas “only” cost $3/gallon.

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…and, ABC News, your debate stunk.

I understand that there have been a lot of Democratic debates (last night made the 21st) but, seeing how they sunk to the levels of tabloid journalism in presenting this debate, they could have left it at 20.

Many bloggers have already panned this debate. It was over 50 minutes before a single policy question. Instead, we were treated to a rehash of Rev. Wright, Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia story, an obscure reference to 60’s radical William Ayers and — *gasp* — flag pins.

However, it’s not just me and bloggers. Just check out the comments on ABC’s web site. There are over 12.000 at this point and from what I have read, the general consensus is that ABC did a horrible job last night.

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Late last week, the buzz out of the Clinton camp was about an apparent conflict of interest on the part of her now-former chief strategist Mark Penn (though it appears that he is still working for her campaign), who was trying to help the Columbian government push through a trade agreement that Hillary Clinton has publicly opposed.

However, it appears that conflicts of interest might hit a little closer to home for the Clinton campaign, this time in the person of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

You see, in the past, Bill Clinton has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees on behalf of groups now attempting to get this trade agreement pushed through the U.S. Congress.

Former President Bill Clinton has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars speaking on behalf of a Colombia-based group pushing the trade pact, and representatives of that organization tell The Huffington Post that the former president shared their sentiment.

In June 2005, Clinton was paid $800,000 by the Colombia-based Gold Service International to give four speeches throughout Latin America. The organization is, ostensibly, a development group tasked with bringing investment to the country and educating world leaders about the Colombia’s business opportunities.

The group’s chief operating officer, Andres Franco, said in an interview that the group supports the congressional ratification of the free trade agreement and that, when Clinton was on his speaking tour, he expressed similar opinions.

“He was supportive of the trade agreement at the time that he came, but that was several years ago. In the present context, I don’t know what his position would be. It is not only about union trade rights. It is about what benefit or damage it can do to the US economy,” said Franco. “Events with the Clinton campaign [concerning Mark Penn] are not good at all for the trade agreement… Right now it became a campaign issues and that is sad, because it needs to go through.”

Now, why didn’t the campaign disclose this fact? Granted, Bill Clinton spoke on behalf of these groups years ago but, given his prominent role in the campaign, especially after the Mark Penn fiasco, shouldn’t this have been made public by them and Bill Clinton be asked to clarify where he currently stands on this trade agreement?

Again, we are getting into the area of credibility and this seems too big a deal to chalk up to just and oversight on the part of this campaign.

UPDATE: CNN is reporting that Bill Clinton remains a supporter of the Columbian free trade agreement, which makes him the second very high-profile member of the Hillary Clinton campaign that is undermining her opposition to this agreement. This is particularly bad considering how many of the working-class people in Pennsylvania are against such agreements, as they have cost the state thousands of jobs.

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This child, DeVaughn Davis, is one of 3,450 homeless children attending public school in Detroit.  His mother is out every day looking for a job and some place for them to stay.  But, for now, she gets $480/month on public assistance and is trying to save for a deposit on an apartment.

But, for now, she is forced to try to keep her family together by moving from homeless shelter to homeless shelter every few weeks.  These moves also mean new schools for DeVaughn and his sister, Cherish.

In the state of Michigan, some 20,000 homeless students join their struggle.  Who knows just how many homeless children their are that don’t attend school.  I shudder to think of what their circumstances lead them to do to survive.

In America, we can find money to build “bridges to nowhere” or fight wars with no end but, we it comes to helping out Americans, our concerns wane.  It is my hope that the DeVaughns of this world make it, despite their circumstances but, the fact is, too many won’t.

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I remember complaining because I had student loans. But, I kept telling myself that it went towards a good cause. However, had I not gotten loans, I might not have been able to finish college.

Today, I read something that showed me how close to home this credit crunch is going to hit Americans.

It appears that some banks are now no longer offering student loans.

In the past fortnight, some banks, including HSBC, have pulled out of the $85 billion (£42 billion) a year US student loans market, fuelling anxiety that the turmoil that hit debt markets on Wall Street last summer is spilling over into the wider economy and making credit more difficult to secure for ordinary American households.

In the US, many undergraduates take out a federal guaranteed loan and top up their financial needs with a private loan from lenders such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citi-group. In the academic year 2005-06, $17 billion in private student loans was used to finance higher education.

Banks have become reluctant to offer private student loans because worsening credit conditions have meant that they cannot package up the loans and sell them on.

Although the brightest students who win places at America’s rich Ivy League universities will be affected less because of generous bursaries - which do not have to be repaid – less able students applying to other institutions are expected to face difficulty in securing private loans to fund their study. At one end of the field is Harvard University, with $34 billion of endowments, and at the other are many community colleges and low-tier universities with limited resources.

So, unless you kid’s in an Ivy League school, chance are that securing a loan is going to be a problem. Mark my words: this will be the next cause for a major credit crisis. When scarcity becomes an issue, you’ll see the vultures swoop in, offering student loans at bad rates. When things subside in the housing market, these bad loans will be sold to them and default rates will skyrocket.

Why do I think this? It is because the current presidential administration’s answer is to bail out big business and leave the little guys to fend for themselves, which leaves them vulnerable to unscrupulous practices. So, I will not be surprised when the issue arises again, in a different form.

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Well, as much as I hate spring cleaning, it’s always good to get rid of unnecessary things. Speaking of unnecessary, it looks like HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson is on his way out.  Jackson, citing personal and family reasons, will resign effective April 16th.

Jackson seemingly typified the cronyism so prevalent in the Bush administration.  He first came under the microscope when it appeared that he might have been using a Bush loyalty test to determine to whom HUD would grant contracts.  More recently, he was under fire for allegedly creating problems for the city of Philadelphia, PA for not hooking a friend of his up with a plum land deal and for paying another friend $392,000 as a contruction manager in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

So, yet another loyal Bushie is out the door. I’m just looking forward to the grand exit in January when we will hopefully turn a new page in this country.

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Well, sort of.

Chester Davenport is believed to be one of the wealthiest black entrepreneurs in America. Via his Georgetown Partners firm, he has made quite a name for himself.

Now, he is trying to influence one of the largest business mergers of the upcoming year. As you may be aware, the two satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius are talking about joining forces. This could mean that there would be more than 300 nationwide radio channels under one company’s control.

Davenport believes that there should be opportunities for minority broadcasters to lease channels on the new XM/Sirius network. What Davenport is speaking of is a share of the pie that could mean between 50-100 satellite channels. Right now, the odds are not stacked in his favor. The current FCC chair, Kevin Martin, has shown that he is willing to side with the big corporations over the rights of minority ownership.

So, let’s see what happens. I will say that I hope that we will not see minority radio owners shut out of the new frontier of satellite radio.

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Honestly, I wish big money weren’t such a requirement to be President. I think a lot of good people with good ideas get left out because they can’t raise the big bucks. But, at least for now, we are stuck with this system so, how much money one raises is a big deal.

In January, the news was that Barack Obama outraised Hillary Clinton by more than 2-to-1. Her campaign brought in about $14 million while his brought in $36 million, which was record for a primary candidate.

The February numbers are rolling in and Hillary Clinton’s camp released their total — $35 million for the month, which is nothing to sneeze at. However, it appears that Obama’s campaign may be releasing a number that will shatter this amount. Insiders are hinting that they may be talking about a number in the range of $50 million for the month.

This means that the Obama campaign could set yet another new bar for fundraising. Even more interesting is who’s donating to his campaign. A huge number of his donors are donating $100 or less. This means that he can consistently come back to these donors for donations for the remaining primary races as well as the general election, should he be the nominee.

So, if money is an indicator, Obama seems to be the people’s choice.

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Okay, if this wasn’t such a big deal, I would laugh. It’s amazing to me how some people’s egos force them to deny reality. We have oil topping $100 per barrel, with no sign of going down, at least significantly (the price of oil has more than tripled in the past 5 years). You have two wars that continue to drain resources from the economy (by some estimates, it’s costing us about $275 million per day). On top of that, you have a housing market where the bottom has fallen out, causing major devastation to many American families.

But, according to George Bush, the economy’s only experiencing a “slowdown”.

So, Bush is out there pushing the whole “economic stimulus package”. You know, the Congress-approved band-aid-on-a-bullet-wound measure to help get the economy on track. We are expected to believe that if some single Americans are given $600 and some married couples are given $1200 (plus, a little extra if you have kids), the economy will be jump-started. This goes to show you just how naive some people are.

The belief that people will go out, spend this money and boost the economy makes a lot of assumptions. First of all, you assume that everyone will be able to treat this as disposable income. You have a lot of people who are behind on their bills and will use this money to catch up on mortgages, utility bills, car payments, etc. I’m sure that it would be welcomed for these families but, this will not help kick start the economy again. Secondly, you have people who have dipped into savings just to keep things afloat so, I suspect that, for a lot of folks, this money will be put into savings. Again, it’s needed but, not going to boost the economy. Finally, you have to realize that, for a economy to flourish, that money needs to circulate among various individuals or businesses in a population. Think about it this way — say you go out an buy a TV with your rebate. Who gets paid? Maybe the corporation that runs the store and a few employees. But, with so little manufacturing going on in the U.S., the money goes offshore to pay suppliers in foreign countries, leaving American workers out of the picture. This means that you end up with fewer middle-class folks who buy the houses, cars, etc. that keep the economy afloat.

I am saying two things:

1) We are dealing with more than a slowdown and
2) We need better ideas than this to get us out of this mess.

Right now, George Bush is much like the kid who cleans up a mess by stuffing everything into a closet, hoping that no one opens it, at least until he’s in the clear. Therefore, I think it’s time to be serious and say that, as a country, we should chalk up the last seven years and the year to come as a loss and gird ourselves to be ready to see just how big this mess is, once the truth is allowed to come out. I have a feeling that, once the next administration starts turning over the rocks, we’ll see just how much truth was hidden from us.

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To put it bluntly, there has to be a special place in hell for people who do things to the least among us.

What am I talking about?

While you have people living in trailers some 2 1/2 years after they lost their homes to a hurricane and flooding, $600 million from a housing program that was supposed to go to housing is being used to hook up Bush cronies (surprise!).

Housing and Urban Development secretary, Alphonso Jackon, recently sent a letter to Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, approving the diversion of funds to a ports project that would include a casino and resort facilities.

So, once again, it’s screw the poor and one more big cash cow for Bush’s buddies. Come on January 2009!

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