Daily Digest 9/7 - Natural Gas Wars, Links With China Bring 'Long-Term Pain'

Economy

The 8th Largest Economy In The World Is Being Overwhelmed By A Tsunami Of Debt (David B.)

Even though Italy has implemented a vast array of austerity measures, the debt of the Italian government continues to explode.

Why Elites Will Always Try To Protect Their Wealth (westcoastjan)

This is not, as you might think, a book bashing today's "one per cent," the group that the Occupy movement has fingered as the bogeymen of an increasingly unequal age. But perhaps it could be.

One in three shops have shut in Thessaloniki (Alan W.)

Popular streets such as Aghias Sofias (photo) have seen a succession of closures, at a rate, on this particular stretch, of 34.2 percent, according to data released on Thursday by the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE).

VA won't cover costs of service dogs assigned for PTSD treatment (VeganD)

Trainers say that for veterans suffering mental disabilities such as PTSD or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), dogs can be trained to help avert panic attacks and wake them up as they enter a nightmare. The animals can be taught to remind veterans to take medications and alert them if they have left a burner lit on the stove.

Links with China bring 'long-term pain': study (westcoastjan)

"Those short-term gains very often create long-term pain in such a terrible way that I [have seen] the suffering of those people [who] were raking in new opportunities and then all of a sudden they dry out," Josephine Smart, economic anthropology professor at the University of Calgary and author of the report, said in an interview.

Flood of Pacific oil exports leaves West Coast refinery thirsty for crude (westcoastjan)

It’s those tankers that are, in many ways, responsible for the problems Chevron is having. The refinery’s scramble for oil is perhaps the single best indication of the tremendous shift under way in the oil patch, as oil companies rapidly move to seize new export markets that pay higher prices for crude.

Natural Gas Wars: A Look at Gazprom's Underhand Tactics (James S.)

Competitors include Russia’s number two, Novatek, and Norway—the second largest natural gas exporter in the world. So, in April, Gazprom had to lower its European sales guidance for 2012. Its market share in Europe was 27% last year, and it’s shooting for 30% by 2020, but if the US shale-gas boom ever infects Europe, those plans would become a pipedream—and if the high-profit sales from Europe tapered off further, it would have to raise prices at home, a political nightmare. Hence its fight by hook or crook against shale gas in France.

For Farms in the West, Oil Wells Are Thirsty Rivals (Sonya P.)

That thirst is helping to drive an explosion of oil production here, but it is also complicating the long and emotional struggle over who drinks and who does not in the arid and fast-growing West. Farmers and environmental activists say they are worried that deep-pocketed energy companies will have purchase on increasingly scarce water supplies as they drill deep new wells that use the technique of hydraulic fracturing.

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