Deficit spending: the elephant in the political room

From this Sunday's Washington Post, some straight talk about the budget deficit and how neither candidate is really talking about it. Frankly, I think this is one of the most disappointing things about the current Administration; at least in the past you could count on the GOP to be for cutting budgets and fiscal responsibility. Having a POTUS who was willing to expand spending a lot + a Congress who rubber-stamped everything (and vice-versa) got us where we are today. If Obama gets in it may get substantially worse than if McCain gets in, since the former will have a heavily Democratic Congress to work with, while McCain will likely have to compromise with the opposite party to get anything through, which in the past has been an arrangement which curtailed the worst abuses.

Oil, grain: so what's it all mean?

Stratfor takes a shot at trying to put together what the higher oil and food prices will mean for geopolitics. Summary: more peace in the Middle East as they swim in oil money, hard times for China as their industrial miracle may be derailed by high fuel costs, and more or less a push for the USA.