Weapons of Mass Destruction
The term, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), was first used either in 1937 in reference to an aerial bombardment of Spain or in 1945 from the Hiroshima/Nagasaki A-bombs. J. Robert Oppenheimer (who led the Manahattan Project) was quoted to mouth those words in a 1947 speech. President George W. Bush again made WMD popular in the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Although WMD can be chemical, radiological, biological and nuclear, the latter three today are of concern, biological because of unseen dangers from genetic engineering, and nuclear, because the Soviets had at one time built a 100 megaton (MT) H-bomb and exploded a 57 MT monster in 1961. The Oklahoma City fertilizer (chemical) bomb was said to be 0.000002 MT, and the largest A-bomb possible (Little Boy as much as 0.000015 MT and Fat Boy 0.000022MT) is far less than 1 MT.
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The greater menace, though, now, are the potential dirty radioactive bombs of terrorists. For the sake of peace, at least nuclear WMD devices have shrunk from 100 MT to 0.00000001, plus or minus a couple of decimal points. So, ironically, the least feared of the three, radiological, seems now to be the most dangerous. Future postings on this subject will deal with why, how to build a dirty bomb, and even an Atomic Bomb. Terrorists need not wait, for you can go straight to Google and get all the information you need.
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The Dow Jones Industrials dawdled in the negative until the final two hours, reaching a high of +175, then settling to plus 91 at 7487. No, the bashing of AIG bonuses had nothing to do with the upbeat movement. It had more to do with the Federal Reserve indicating that it would buy $300 billion in long-term Treasurys. This will bring down interest rates. I wonder where they're getting all this money, but the FR also announced that they would be purchasing an additional $750 billion in mortgage-backed securities. Remember that the total cost of the Manhattan Project, Marshall Plan and Apollo Project, brought up to 2009 dollars, was less than $250 billion. The FR also held the interest rate at 0%. Oh, the FR sat in on all those meetings with AIG to give those ridiculous bonuses, and apparently, never bothered to tell the White House, Treasury or Congress. This info will no doubt be adjusted later today, but that was what seemed to come out of the congressional hearings today.
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Crude oil is inching up there, increasing $1.84/barrel to $49.62. NewEdge speculated that oil soon will hit $55/barrel. Remember, also, that the U.S. Department of Energy and Morgan Stanley were recently pedicting that the average price of oil would remain in the $40/barrel range, and average $55/barrel next year. Well, it's going to happen this year. I repeat my mantra: those who predict oil prices are sometimes right, but are usually wrong. Gold jumped $26/toz to $943.
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