The High Japanese Yen and OPEC

The Dow Jones Index is down to 1998 price levels. This means, long term investors have earned nothing for ten years. The Nikkei is down to 1982 levels. This means that the Japan investor has earned nothing in twenty six years. It is questionable now whether the stock exchange is really a safe or worthwhile place to be making long term investments. It is more like a Casino nowadays.

It seems as though the whole world is now buying up as much Japanese Yen as they possibly can. As a result, it is sky rocketing. It is projected that before long, in the quite near future, the US Dollar will depreciate to about 80 JPY.

Does this currency trend benefit Japan? It might benefit the Bank of Japan in the very short term, but it is going to kill Japanese exporters, the money earners of Japan who uphold this economy. It may appear to the world that Japan is the winner of this economical world chaos, but what everybody doesn't seem to realize is that the majority of the owners of all of this appreciating JPY are American and Chinese. They are the main ones among others who are coining in on this trend. In other words, at the expense of Japanese industry's competitiveness in the world market place, foreign capitalists who don't help Japan at all and want quite the opposite, are cashing in on this trend and making a quick juicy profit right now.

Japan's main markets for export are the USA and China. Both these economies are in serious trouble. Unemployment in these countries will be rising to record levels in the near future irrespective of who will become the US President. On top of this grim picture, Japanese products are now between 14 and 40% more expensive than they were just six or so months ago today. The differential will probably be much worse in two months from now.

What forced the price of oil to 147 Dollars a barrel in July of this year? The main contributing factor was China and the USA's competition for the world reserves. The deliberate under supplying by the oil companies also ensured their greater profits.

If the activities of oil producers and companies are not controlled, the price of gas at the pump can quite easily go up to 10 dollars a gallon in the US if and when the economy is moving again. These oil monopolies must be made accountable for the effects that they impose on the rest of the world.

We certainly live in times of Texan Oil Cowboy Crooks.

At this rate, if there aren't unified quick big changes around the world, all of the industries which need this oil will go out of business forever. Of course, those businesses won't be needing employees anymore either.

Take a look at the UAE. They have been building whole new cities in the entire region during the Bush administration years. Needless to say, they are dripping with gold and luxury. Doesn't Sir David Beckham own a house/palace on that man-made island in Dubai? How much money did it cost to build that island? Whatever it cost, it doesn't take a genius to work out that it was paid for by the high fuel costs we have all been suffering recently for too long. Or maybe they would have you believe that because their clerics have been allowed to pass on their genes to future generations for centuries, they have evolved into super-intelligent human beings who just can't help but earn lots and lots of money (or some other ridiculous theory).

Isn't it Dubai where they have the biggest indoor ski-resort in the world? Didn't they recently make a bid to host the Winter Olympics in their country? In a desert?? Where's the money going to come from to build that project? Are we all going to continue being burdened with high fuel costs again to pay for such an unnecessary extravagance? Would it even be ecologically friendly? Does anybody care even?

OPEC are now in the middle of an Emergency Summit. The purpose of this summit is for them to agree with one another, how much they are all going to reduce their production so as to induce an increase in the price of oil again. Is this really what the rest of the world needs now, as the world economy is collapsing? Even though oil is at about 60 dollars a barrel now, it is still double the price of what it was only two years ago. Shouldn't the greed of OPEC be regulated by the rest of the world? OPEC and the global oil companies are defenitely some of the culprits that have caused this world economic crisis. They must be made accountable for their actions.

Which is more important, the car or the gasoline that goes into it? Which is the chicken or the egg? It is true that one is useless without the other and there needs to be a healthy balance between the values of both. However, the very survival of car manufacturers are being threatened at the moment. If they are allowed to disappear, we will still be needing cars, won't we?

The value of money itself must once again represent the popularity of products and the work and investment that went into making them. We must not let the value of money further become based on something that comes out of the ground through taps that can be turned on and off whenever these people like to manipulate its value. In the world today, we are all living in a room where the air we breathe is not for free. The ones who supply this air to us have been extorting us whilst suffocating us. Some of us have already started dying. Do they realize that it will start happening to them too as a result?