March 10

Bank of America says nearly half its mortgages are bad. WBJ Morning Call.

Saudi foreign minister warns against protests. The Independent.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said today that dialogue — not protests — is the way to bring reform and warned that the oil-rich nation will take strong action if activists take to the streets..... Prince Saud al-Faisal... said his regime would cut off any finger raised against the regime

Saudi Arabia is losing its fear. Guardian UK.

It's very difficult to predict what will happen on Friday. My guess is that there will be protests. The larger protests will be in the eastern region and mostly by Shia Muslims. I also expect smaller protests in Riyadh and Jeddah. What tactics the security forces use will greatly influence not only the demonstrators but also the people watching from their homes. If undue violence is used against the demonstrators, it could possibly ignite the same fuse that led to full-blown revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Erste Oil Special Report: "Force Majeure - Middle East". zerohedge.

Exclusive: Ex-CIA Chief Says Saudi Arabia Is Vulnerable. Plug-in Cars.

Could the political unrest spread to Saudi Arabia?

It’s quite possible. Yemen is in flames. Bahrain is at least seriously shaken. And they’re both right on the borders. And the Saudis in the eastern province have a huge population of Shia that they’ve treated very badly. And Iran is almost certainly using Hezbollah and Al-Quds [Iran’s revolutionary guard] to stir things up in the Gulf, in Bahrain, in Yemen, and quite possibly soon in Saudi Arabia. We just don’t know.

Will the U.S. work to quell those movements in Saudi Arabia, considering what would happen to oil markets?

If we will not even criticize Ahmadinejad in the mildest terms when a year and half ago he stole the election and there were millions of Iranians in streets risking their lives, and the most we could say is “Hmm,” then how in the world does anybody think that we can affect something in that part of the world? How are we going to keep Iran from funding Hezbollah and the Al-Quds force from creating disruptions and problems in much of the Gulf, when we won’t even criticize them?

IEA confirms peak oil was in 2006. (according to Energy Watch Group).

For Big Oil, Libya is just another fix it's in. Foreign Policy.

No end to the Tunisian contagion and $100-plus oil prices. Foreign Policy.

There's a presumption out there that things look tough in the Middle East, but that soon enough -- maybe by summer -- they will sort themselves out, and becalm the volatile prices of oil and gasoline. Not so, says veteran oil analyst Edward Morse, a student of history who correctly called the 2008 oil bubble while everyone else was still throwing money into the pot. "This is not a one-off disruption," Morse says. Instead, we're in a new age of geopolitical risk that threatens to disrupt the region for a decade or even longer.

Lurching toward the peak. Marc Brodine.

The old American dream is a nightmare. interview with James Howard Kunstler, Grist.

The end of growth. Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute.

6 energy experts address the economic impact of Middle East unrest. Post Carbon Institute.

The coming misery that Big Oil discusses behind closed doors. Foreign Policy.

Demanding cheaper oil is disastrous. Johann Hari, The Independent.

What would the world be like today Jimmy Carter had been listened to by the Western world, instead of being demonized by Big Oil and booted out of office as a "whiner"? With the U.S. no longer backing Arab petro-tyrannies and occupying Arab territories, there would probably have been no 9/11. There would have been no Iraq War. There would have been no BP oil spill. We would not be facing an oil price shock today that could cripple our economies and leave backing some of the worst dictators in the world. The Copenhagen climate summit could well have established a path to dealing with global warming, rather than burying it. If we pursue Drilling As Usual, what unnecessary disasters will they curse us for 30 years from now?

Joseph Tainter: talking about collapse. Cassandra's legacy.

Former Goldman Sachs analyst Charles Nenner joins Marc Faber and Gerald Celente in predicting major war. Washington's blog.