Back in January, General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz called global warming a “total crock of s—.” when talking to a group of reporters in Texas.

Of course, this completely outraged those who are trying to change global economic policy, and in effect requiring billions of dollars in capital spending, based on a measly 100 years of climate data.

Naturally, no one in global warming party is standing up to defend him, and many ignorant to the world of science have called for his removal from GM. Well, Bob fired back:

In a posting on his GM blog on Thursday, Lutz said …

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Venezuela has taken steps to fortify their dominance in the oil and gas market, and has said it will suspend oil shipments to Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM: chart, web, Y!). This is an obvious attempt by Hugo Chavez to thumb his nose at the United States, however I’m not sure what his true motivation is: money or power… perhaps both.

You see, the crude oil coming out of Venezuela is heavy crude high in sulfur, making it very difficult to refine in comparison to light sweet crude. The high sulfuric content wreaks havoc on industrial components due to its highly caustic and corrosive …

Big Ben opened his big mouth again today, and it seems his outlook on the economy is getting a bit more bearish each time his voice hits the airwaves.

Testifying today at the Senate Banking Committee, he said he now expects “sluggish growth” in the economy but predicted a “somewhat stronger pace” later in the year. He went on to attribute his stronger pace forecast to rate cuts and fiscal stimulus.

He threw in the caveat that housing and labor markets could deteriorate more than anticipated, emphasizing that “downside risks to growth remain.”

It seems that Bernanke is drawing criticism from Washington from both Republicans and Democrats, arguing that the recent efforts …

It’s been rather entertaining watching the fear spread over the stock markets for the last couple weeks, and I’ve been rampantly sifting through daily data and charts trying to come up with a diamond in the rough. That strong company whose stock price has been dragged down by the falling markets for no better reason than peer pressure.

I find it interesting that Microsoft (MSFT: chart, web, Y!) wrote up an unsolicited take-over offer for Yahoo (YHOO: chart, web, Y!) to the tune of $45 billion (that Yahoo has now rejected). Obviously they saw …

Just put the noise canceling headphones on and ignore the crashing sound of the stock market…

It should all be over by the time the batteries run out.

Congress finally got an economic stimulation bill passed today that will supposedly prop up the economy by shelling out cash to tax payers as a tax “rebate”.

Over 130 million households will get tax rebate checks starting this spring progressing through the summer. The Senate tacked on additional rebates to President Bush’s original tax plan, adding 20 million senior citizens and 250,000 disabled veterans to the package.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the Internal Revenue Service will get to work immediately, but it will take two to four months for the rebate checks to arrive. Of course, they want to process your …

I tend to view Jim Cramer as a ego-centric financial actor, but it sounds like we’re on the same page concerning the governments proposed economic stimulus package.

Evidently he agrees that lower interest rates will have a more immediate effect than handing out $600 to individuals.

On Monday the Fed dropped interest rates by a full 0.75% out of the blue. Unprovoked, unannounced, and unexpected, both in scale and timing. Sure, The Street had predicted a rate cut, but no one was predicting three-quarter basis points, and few were predicting an unscheduled cut.

There is something strange about this move.

Big Ben Bernanke has been fairly slow to react to economic data, and has at most taken a half basis-point chunk out of rates at any one time. So why the big bite all of a sudden?

I suspect that there is more to this interest rate …

Today President Bush shed some light on how the government plans to artificially stimulate the economy.

The President said he’s looking for “direct and rapid tax relief” for both consumers and businesses. To achieve this, he plans on implementing an income tax rebate of between $300 and $600 per person, and depending on your circumstances, your rebate may be even bigger.

The white house is looking for a repeat performance from the plan implemented in 2001. It seemed to work back then, however I think the direct effect was a bit over inflated.

But this time it’s different.

We’ve got a different situation this time, with different economic pitfalls pushing the health …

So we’re going into a recession. There are few out there who have not yet accepted this, and the only thing left to debate is whether we’re already in a recession, and how deep the pain will be.

There are several periods in time when, as investors, we’ve been backed into a similar corner. Perhaps like many of you, I’ve never personally been through a recession with a highly vested interest in the outcome, but there are a vast majority that have.

Recession, the ’90s Version

If you were around in the recession during 1990 and into 1991, you might be …