[quote=Arthur VIbert]The problems all stem from the same root: you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet. Yet our entire economy is predicated on the notion of infinite growth. Clearly, TMU (The Master of the Universe) know this, and no doubt also knew that eventually it would all come tumbling down. So they have taken steps to protect themselves. A massive redistribution of wealth started 28 years ago, but it’s been redistributing the wrong way, trickling up instead of down as we were promised. A final massive looting in the form of "bailouts" that is just another way of taking money from people who haven’t got enough and giving it to people who have too much. Meanwhile stupifying the common person by making him feel "wealthy" by extending apparent infinite amounts of easy credit for the purchase of flat–screen TVs, iPods and salad shooters.
It’s over, and my guess is that it ain’t coming back. On reflection, I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. Maybe it’s time to reclaim some of the simple values that made America what it was and should be, a place for independent thought, outspoken, involved citizenry living simple lives as part of a larger, mutually supportive community that values strength of character, honor and the consitution.
Or am I just hopelessly old–fashioned?
[/quote]
MC:
I think it is worth a try. I have seen some pretty dumb questions asked by Congress to Bernanke. I don’t think a lot of them have a clue.
Besides, how many brokers, politicians, and economists have you heard quote GDP, GDP growth, GDP as compared to debt? They think GDP is a real figure, they haven’t a clue it is cooked.
Really, isn’t this akin to investing in Enron.
Even I.O.U.S.A. quotes GDP to debt. That was an insightful book, I don’t think even they know that GDP is cooked. Chris bought that to light and I think this one topic is really important. I think, (to paraphrase) like he said, it has been messed with for so long that no one gets it.
I’m not for giving up. If Congress could get a clue the laws can be changed. That is democracy. To not try, wouldn’t that be like promoting something other than democracy?
GDP is the most quoted figure when it comes to judging our economies health. Screwing with that number, was, in my humble opinion, as dangerous as letting private banks issue money out of thin air.
Take care,
Dave
PS Right now our hope is 1 out of 435 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCiTykzX3ek&eurl=http://www.ronpaul.com/2008-10-14/ron-paul-you-cant-save-free-markets-by-socialism/
I can’t believe this was on Fox
Joe:
I’d vote for my late dog before I voted for a guy who crashed 5 planes and who is running with someone who has the IQ of, well Oliver Stone said it best, she makes W look smart. With him we don’t need any enemy, just give him the briefcase and or the combo to the economy. When he was captured the military saved a lot of money in balled up figther jets, we don’t need him balling up anything else, we have had over 8 years of that.
And as much as I like the other guys energy plan, the company he keeps scares me, his WM board wife included, any company who encourages employees to use government hand outs to feed their kids is a disappointment, anyone on their board is an even greater dissapointment.
I’m still going to write. Maybe they just don’t get it. A lot of them were threatened with martial law being imposed as the result of an imploding economy. If they get it and allow it then that is very, very sad. But I honestly think about 1% of this country realizes the problem is money and solvency and not credit. And I honestly believe that about 1/4 of that 1% realizes that the gauges economists use are cooked.
I look at the news and I say where is Chris, or the guy from shadowstats or anyone from financial sense. All we see is Ben and Paul and GDP to debt is okay. Or this went that way because of this (cooked) figure.
Pathetic.
Take care,
Dave
And about 1/4th of those realize that GDP never was, and never will be, a measure of economic growth. It is at best, loosely correlated to real economic growth. And that is well before fuzzy numbers enter the picture.
A
Nebraska district court judge has dismissed state Sen. Ernie Chambers’
lawsuit against God, finding that "there can never be service
effectuated on the named defendant." Chambers sued God in 2007, seeking
an injunction against acts of violence such as earthquakes and
tornados. He’s considering an appeal.
Your last words of your article held the most interest for me, namely that "you wish when our true emergencies in energy and infrastructure are made clear, they will respond with the same urgency and magnitude…"
I have every confidence that they will. Let’s imagine for a moment what those measures might look like.
We have an energy issue. Say, we have a major shortfall of oil, brought on by peak oil and our decades of buying SUVs and generally ignoring the issue, but the actual tipping event is some international problem that causes the world to suddenly go into a multi-million bpd shortfall, where the SPR can’t make up the difference.
Let’s draw a parallel from the response we’ve seen so far. What would they do? It has to be big, expensive, the people who have largely caused or ignored the problem have to distract attention from their failures (and ours), and ultimately it must result in maximum control residing with the government.
Ok, here goes:
Instead of noting a complete lack of energy policy as the root cause, instead blame the oil companies for "price gouging". Response? Nationalize all domestic oil production (our mineral wealth belongs to all americans, not just the "oil pirates"). Also, punitively tax or regulate prices for all companies associated with the oil industry - drillers, oil services, etc. Cap wages and salaries of oil workers. Use the taxes for giveaways for our favorite programs.
Blame the speculators for causing the price of oil to climb during the shortage. Response? Eliminate the oil futures trade entirely, as well as all mechanisms for speculating (price discovery) on related commodities. The government can efficiently fix the price of oil and gasoline
Of course there would not be enough supply. But instead of using prices as a way to destroy demand, instead ration gasoline. Perhaps everyone would get a debit card that contained a fixed number of gas dollars they could spend each week, which would gradually get smaller and smaller as our resources went away. I’m guessing the well-connected would receive nicer debit cards. Mandated demand destruction.
Spend that tax money to dramatically ramp up corn based ethanol production (great for the farm states), as well as coal to liquids facility construction (great for the coal miners).
Spend also on subsidized conversion of cars to use natural gas, in addition to construction of natgas filling stations. This shocking instance of good judgement would be strictly accidental, and we would find that we’d reached peak natural gas even with the new horizontal drilling techniques. Response? Ration natgas as well. Oh and nationalize natgas production too.
Send hundreds of billions to the automakers to construct hydrogen as well as lithium ion battery cars as our "ultimate solution for energy independence." The research would be a success, only to find out we have reached peak lithium - and that we do not have enough power plants to charge our cars or generate our hydrogen. Lithium production would also be nationalized - to prevent price gouging again.
By this time, inflation will be a serious problem, since we would be running $400 billion deficits every year, and the Chinese would have long ago wisely ceased buying treasuries. Naturally that debt would be monetized by the Fed. The resulting inflation would be blamed on Saudi Arabia and the Arab world in general for causing all of the trouble. Perhaps we would start a war as a result.
Measures to "control inflation" and reduce our balance of payments problems might include making ownership of gold and silver (above $10,000) illegal, restricting the flow of capital from the US overseas to corporations, eliminating the ability of Americans (or American residents) to own bank accounts in foreign countries, or ownership of foreign instruments or currency (or interest in any fund that has such ownership) in excess of $10,000. Your patriotic duty as Americans during this crisis is to invest in America!
Am I crazy? Based on what I’ve seen in the past two months, I don’t think I am. I am certain the government will respond to the problem with dramatic action. I’m just not sure I’m going to enjoy the drama.
Under a fiat-currency standard, the purchasing power of the unit of exchange is politically determined by central planners. As Hayek observed decades ago, forecasting and investment are impossible when the unit of exchange is ever mutating at the whims of a group of "wise men."
We need new nomenclature. "Capitalism" is as antique as the gold standard – something your grandparents may have briefly glimpsed as children. "Socialism" and "fascism" carry left-wing and right-wing connotations, respectively, which are irrelevant to their functional meaning: a government-dominated economy with a vestigial private sector which serves as an agent for adminstrating and enforcing government policies.
Unlike communism, nominal private ownership remains. But with regulation, taxation and now even investment under government discretion, the scope of individual autonomy is severely circumscribed.
‘Kleptofeudalism’ comes close to getting at the essence. A plutocratic looter class has rendered 99% of humanity serfs. Implication: no more bourgeois middle class. You must be a master, a slave … or a fugitive from "justice." Run, Joe Citizen, run!
There is good reason for drilling, both in ANWAR and offshore. In the above commentary it has been mentioned that we spend 1.5 trillion every five years for oil overseas. That comes out a very conservative 300B per year. It is actually more like 600 billion for 15 million barrels of oil a day or about 5.5 billion barrels a year. That is about 109 billion dollars for each billion barrels of oil or 109 million for each million barrels. If we could increase US production by a million barrels a day, we could send 109 million less dollars overseas every day. That money could be used here for jobs, alternative fuel research, and to help keep our oil supply from declining as rapidly as it would otherwise due to overseas competition for a dwindling supply. If we could get domestic production up by 3 million barrels a day we could keep 327 million a day onshore. It is believed by many oil people that this is a realistic goal.
As an aside, have you considered that when government taxes business, then business passes the taxes along to the consumer if it can still sell product at the increased price (otherwise the business goes overseas). The process of having business profits taxed turns the corporation into a tax collector for the government, taxing the very lowest 95% of the population that Sen. Obama says he wants to cut taxes on. Taxes on corporate income have always been congress’ stealth taxes on the poor and middle class. The rich can afford it. It also keeps the lower 95% from knowing exactly how large their tax burden really is, which of course, is the point.
Oh, and one more thing. From what I have been seeing, ANWAR could be online within 3 years. The technology is there, the people and rigs are available, and the oil is not that deep. With only 70 miles of pipeline to build to the existing pipeline, it is possible that it could be online even sooner if the government gets the hell out of the way. Offshore will take longer if it has to drill out over 50 miles where there is likely to be the least oil. Also there are no rigs available right now, but once available, it have heard it said that offshore could be up in 5-7 years, not 10-30. We need to insist that drilling be permitted up to the 12 mile limit.
Also, Gov. Palin has more executive experience than Obama, has dealt with more people, and made more decisions. Obama has not introduced a single bill while in congress. In my view he is even scarier than Sen Palin. I would rather have experience on the top of the ticket, not on the bottom. Having a do-nothing as president might be an advantage, but can we trust his judgement when this financial situation gets even worse? Both choices are terrible, but having different parties in the executive and legislative branches sure looks attractive to me since, hopefully, they will never agree on anything.
Well today should be a great day for Wall Street
Eclipsed by who beat who in the debate, Madonna and Richie’s divorce, Palin buying diapers at Wal-Mart, and the FBI starting an investigation on a Democratic Congressman was the fact that the overseas markets tumbled last night with double digit losses.
Not one mention of the fact that our GDP, if calculated without Enron math, would indicate and has indicated for some time we are in a severe recession - or worse.
This is like not reporting that Katrina is barreling down on us.
Surprise! Look whats here! The big D.
All viable long-term energy solutions include substantial increases in domestic drilling if for nothing more than the transition to alternatives.
switters asked:
Can you tell me what evidence you base the statement above on?
I don’t want to argue the preeminence of one govt agency over another, so will preface my reply with the following caveat:
ALL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES RELATED TO ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT ARE HIGHLY POLITICIZED AND ANYTHING THEY DO OR SAY SHOULD BE APPROACHED WITH A HEALTHY SKEPTICISM.
Therefore, to respond to your question on evidence, it depends on what the meaning of “evidence” is. Much of what I believe is based on a career as an environmental consultant, including a lot of work for energy and mining clients. But for something more reputable see the Minerals Management Service’s 2006 assessment of technically recoverable oil and gas resources of the Outer Continental Shelf:
·total technically recoverable resources of the U.S. OCS are 85.88 billion barrels of oil (bbo) and 418.88 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas (not including resources in areas already under lease).
·73.4 Bbo and 330.54 Tcf considered economically recoverable with prices at $80/barrel and $12.10/Mcf.
Granted, a lot of that energy is in Alaska and off the Atlantic where the lack of infrastructure would delay production by at least 10 years (the time estimate for the new Alaska pipeline). However, there’re about 14 bbo off CA and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico that are a lot closer to existing pipelines.Plus we’ve got on-shore resources that are slow to tap due to the gov’t and enviro-litigators. All those shales you hear about (Floyd, Barnett, Marcellus, Haynesville) are loaded with gas but they also have a lot of oil, all in close proximity to existing infrastructure.One of the factors EIA considers in estimating future production is the number of idle drilling rigs, which has decreased as the price of oil made it profitable to drill domestically again.EIA does not adequately consider the possibility that new rigs could be produced to meet increased demand.They also look at the historic timelines to establish new fields, but that history does not accurately account for technical and knowledge advances, nor the substantial efficiencies that could be realized if procedural impediments were reduced.The two biggest impediments to domestic energy production are the government and the environmentalists.If the Feds decided to expedite the lease process then tens of billions would start flowing into the treasury.Plus, there would have to be some means of limiting the litigation that delays every single energy opportunity in this country.I do not suggest abandonment of environmental regulations (that would put me out of work) but there need to be boundaries on the process.
AP Stocks fluctuate following tame inflation report Thursday October 16, 10:19 am ET By Tim Paradis, AP Business Writer
Another financial genious of an article/headline…
Another oxymoron, tame inflation.
No wonder…
As an ex-airline captain I would equate this with dissabeling every warning light in the cockpit AND not looking outside.
Thanks Chris - you are one "for such a time as this".
I think you’re on to something Ron (comment #2). This is definitely a "roll-out" of a plan that’s been baking for a while. I suspect we shouldn’t be too surprised to see the unveiling of the "Amero" and a "Yuan/Yen/Won" alongside the Euro as an interim step to a single global currency. What say you, Chris?
Paul
