In 2005 I said there was NO WAY that the U.S. would produce 1mm bpd of ethanol before a decade.... famous last words. The last 4 weeks' ethanol production in the U.S. was 787k bpd... I am willing to concede that ethanol production will crack 1mm before 2014. The significance of this cannot be understated.
The increase in domestic production in 2009, to which I earlier credited "drill, baby, drill", came ALMOST ENTIRELY from the Thunderhorse field in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico (about 300k of the 350k bpd increase in 2009). So much for "drill, baby, drill". Still, the point is that there is not another Thunderhorse out there, nor another million bpd of ethanol. These were "one offs". In 3 years, net Oil imports into the U.S. have fallen from 12.5 million bpd to 9.8 million bpd - and the decline accelerated this year, down 1.3 million bpd in 2009 alone.
Said another way, the market required nearly $73 per barrel on average to clear and balance the market - that does not argue for a declining demand issue as much as a supply constraint issue... but I am a glass half full kind of guy.
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It should be readily apparent to ANY Obama-phile of last year that our issues are systemic - no presidential personality can effect the kind of change as promised in any campaign or hoped for in the most fervent camps of believers. I do NOT believe all politicians are crooks, or all government employees evil... I believe the system takes good folks with better intentions... and then the system fails them - an it fails us, The People.
The system I am talking about is the "something for nothing" social programs that cannot now be stopped and that will absolutely cause our system to hit the "reset" button. Wasting breath on how to "fix" them is an exercise in futility - and such exercises are a bore.
Not to worry though... REAL change you can believe in is coming.
8 comments:
Cheap energy from oil and natural gas did indeed compensate for a lot of waste, mistakes and inefficiencies. Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton and Bush #1 had their legacies greatly juiced by cheap oil. If what you are suggesting is that all the "backup plans" have been tried and found wanting (corn ethanol simply cannot displace much oil, the new domestic oil sources like Thunderhorse just aren't up to speed, and the politicians have a shrinking pool of dollars to turn into debt), then we'd better start coming up with some real solutions before we are forced to rely on "government" to make them for us. God help us.
By the way, we elect people to office, and as far as I can tell, they do EXACTLY what we demand they do. We want no taxes and lots of benefits, pure and simple. In a cheap oil-rich world, we could compensate for this nonsense before. Not any more. It isn't the system, cause it is the system we demand. It isn't the representatives we elect, cause they do whatever we tell them to do. We have met the enemy ... and it is US!
I agree with B on some level, but his analysis isn't accurate or honest in an important way: our "democratic" system is a managed democracy, managed so effectively by the elites that the choices of candidates and policies we are allowed to choose from are selected for us beforehand. The real choices are made by forces and organizations and people other than the voters. This is simply a fact. The two party system has entrenched itself by writing the rules of Congress (which aren't in the Constitution), and by the power of special interest group money.
On a state (barely), and definitely on a local level, voters have more of an effect. When it comes to national policy, voters are guided or ignored. The voters opposed TARP. It passed. How many voters would support the recent second bailout of GMAC, or the extension of unlimited supporto to Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac?
The important decisions are made by unaccountable appointees and bureaucrats. The element of voter choice is a simulacrum of choice, meant to prevent open revolt. Once the nature of this sham becomes appreciated, probably due to mass misery, then I think the gloves will come off, on both sides (rulers and ruled).
But who knows... maybe 1984 is the outcome. Or Animal Farm. Or Atlas Shrugged. Or the great unknown...
80% of the Federal dollars do not go to special interests, or exclusively to the elites (tho the rich do do well), or to foreign aid, or to illegal immigrats, or to Isreal, or were spent by the bureaucrats (that's me!) on pet projects, or by any other unseen, tinfoil hat, off-the-grid mysterious forces. It is spent on the old (social security and medicare), the poor & sick (medicaid), on interest on the debt and defense. It's easier to blame ghostly phantoms for your problems. No such luck this time.
Another big problem with Bureaucrat's position is the equation of democracy with personal responsibility.
Just because a majority of my fellow citizens vote for something, does that make me responsible for the decision? I think not.
I used to be a big admirer of Rousseau and the idea of the General Will, but I don't buy that faith-based load of crap anymore.
Those who oppose the war in Iraq, or the bailout of Goldman Sachs, etc., are NOT responsible for those decisions of their corrupt "representatives" (in quotes, because they really represent those who contribute the most money to their campaigns and PACs, not their constituents).
Until all campaign donations from people who are outside the district or state are banned, the voters are in no real way responsible for the corrupt or stupid decisions of their representatives.
In fact, I would postulate that citizens are no longer obligated to pay taxes into a system that has now brazenly and cynically proven that it no longer abides by the Constitution, and is therefore illegitimate. The only reason to now "voluntarily" pay into the system is because you are afraid of Leviathan and prison. There is no longer a moral obligation to support a system that is rigged to profit the corrupt elites and wealthy, and use the peasants as sources of revenue.
Once this becomes a commonly accepted view, the government (national) is doomed. This will be a catastrophic event for those who benefit from the status quo (including retirees on Social Security), but it will be a great blessing and the birth of a new liberty to everyone who wants to provide for their own families, and reap the rewards of their labor.
One thing that is almost never addressed by those who fetishize numbers and economics is that the entire economic order would completely collapse overnight if people just stopped doing what they are obligated (supposedly) to do: pay their debts, their mortgages, their bills, and taxes.
If nobody shows up to the game, it's game over.
Let's call Bureaucrat's view the Fallacy of Democracy: a fallacy on many levels, because we don't have a democracy, and even if we did, you still wouldn't be responsible for the stupidity of your lazy, overweight, ignorant, deluded, sheep-like fellow citizens.
Sorry, but that's a lot of bluster signifying nothing. Only one entity votes, and that is the voter. We get what we vote for.
There seems to be another field called Tiber in the GOM that is larger then Thunder Horse. Discovered in 2009 it has about 4-6 billion barrels.
Best,
Chuck H.
Means test social security. Kill the insurance companies. Remove the ceiling on fica taxes. Shrink the military by 60-70%. Stop government from propping up dinosaurs. Raise capital gains tax to 20 or 25%??? Morally why should "unearned" income be taxed at a lower rate than punching a clock income??
I do agree that many set off with the best of intentions soon to be soiled by the system.
I am laughing in my friends faces who voted for Obama. So many of them feel taken, like a game of street side three card monte was perped upon them. One of my friends has a kid in the military (3 tours so far due to stop loss) my friend voted for Obama believing that he would actually end the occupations. Hahaha!! My friend is pissed. What a rube!!
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