Today's quote from my favorite curmudgeon...
You gotta love Kuntsler. He's one of the few folks on the Left that I can read without going apoplectic. Well, he describes himself as a Liberal, but I think he is a Libertarian in Sheep's Clothing.
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And speaking of love... My favorite "Progressive Libertarian", Gerry Celente, was interviewed on the Financial Sense News Hour this past weekend (hit the link and skip the first interview. Celente is very much worth listening to). Celente is THE MAN, the guy folks like me hold in awe given his track record as a forecaster... but it is the interviewer, Jim Puplava that brings up what REALLY destroyed the family farm in the U.S.
ESTATE TAXES. No, not factory farms, thought they certainly did some damage, it was the f^&%%ing U.S. (estate) tax code that destroyed the backbone of the small farming communities in the American South, Midwest, and West.
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Matt Simmons (they don't get more Republican and establishment as Simmons, he was an important energy advisor, and contributor, to GWB), of Simmons International, in his most recent presentation at the ASPO conference published that "BEST CASE 2020, World Crude production would be 55mm to 60mm bpd" - that's down from 73 million bpd. Given that only 35 mm of world oil production is exported currently, and the exporters are increasing their domestic consumption... My bet is ZERO oil imports, outside of Canada, into the U.S. in 2020 or so.
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Barak Obama is now a full fledged War Time president. I have no idea if he is doing the right thing or not, but I look back at the disgusting treatment GWB received by the opposition and the media, and I refuse to do likewise. Much as I oppose most of the president's policies, I support a sitting president doing what he is charged by the Constitution to do - protect us. I am glad that I am not the one making that decision.
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Gasoline demand dropped out of the bottom last week according to the EIA (inventories of gasoline increase 5.7% in a week). Of course, this might be a "catch up" increase in inventories... though the EIA says demand increased .1% from this time last year...Nothing in the data supports the view that the U.S. industrial economy is expanding, and the Oil imports decline rate remains alarmingly high.
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13 comments:
Greg,
I have a darker view of Obama's speech.
I believe he had no choice in the matter of an escalation. He is not doing his job protecting Americans, he is doing the job he is REALLY tasked with: saving and expanding the military-industrial complex. It was a conservative Republican president and general who warned us about it, and the cancer is now terminal.
Obama is a mandarin: a well-educated, well-spoken mouthpiece for the establishment. This establishment does not have the interests of the people in mind. Libertarians like you, Greg, are just as much a part of the "little people" as everyone else not in the beltway or on the boards of transnational corporations with clout.
I was particularly alarmed by Obama's ode to "unity" and against dissent. He made it clear that unity is necessary, and the ugliness of dissent and debate is not good. Will he take actual steps to quell debate? I do not know. The presidency in recent decades has become far too powerful to allow a democracy to exist, however. The FISA courts, police powers, SWAT teams, powers of eminent domain, drug wars...
Obama may mean well, but I do not believe he has the power to really do anything to reverse terminal trends. I am not even calling it a conspiracy: any political leader is constrained by the body politic's virtues and desires.
What desire is their in the American body politic for the hard, difficult choices that must be made to save the republic from fiscal and social ruin?
I have no ideology or viewpoint to push, here. I'm observing like a scientist.
As far as the wars go: an astute ex-diplomat wrote a book recently ( the name of which escapes me) proving that foreign policy is mainly determined by domestic politics. Obama and the establishment don't give a rat's ass about the Afghan people. The surge is about placating domestic constituencies, or at least not appearing weak. It may also be about extending bases to the edges of our effective empire, and resource control.
It won't work. Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, despite having the best technology, best speakers and rhetoric, and most advanced science. What did they do to self-destruct? Too much debt. Over-reaching and pushing its own allies around. Sending its troops too far using its superior navy. In the end, the rhetorical geniuses of Athens were destroyed by their own unfounded, excessive faith in themselves. Hubris.
Sound familiar? The emphasis Obama gave to how unique and essential America is to the world is exactly the same.
Real patriots love their country, their land and people, without needing to believe that they are superior. Whatever happened to the modest and prudent parts of American character?
An ancient proverb:
"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
The American people are mad. They can't stop disastrous wars. They can't stop entitlement programs. They can't stop shopping. They can't stop eating junk food. They can't stop their drug habits. They come up with reality TV shows like "Teen Mom."
Kunstler: I read his "Long Emergency" book (first thing I ever read on Peak Oil, by accident) and I read his Monday morning pieces every week. However, what Mr. Kunstler's real bread-and-butter is is a deep hatred for the idea of suburbia. I think the oil thing just came along at the right time to justify his position.
Estate taxes: 80% of the Federal budget goes to 5 wildly popular programs that will NEVER be cut. What would you like to tax to fund those programs instead?
Simmons: this is from 3/31/09:
"We are three, six, maybe nine months away from an oil price shock [Ok, it's nine months -- where's the shock?]. We are not talking 3-5 years away." I read a lot of Simmons' stuff, but the more he gets pressured on "what's gonna happen next?" by the media, the more he drifts into "predictions," and he is not good at predictions. Nobody is good at predictions.
Obama's war: I gave that guy $500 in 2008 to "change things," and he's doing exactly what Bush would have done. I did not support him to bailout the rich and execute wars we cannot afford anymore. Blah! Where's Ron Paul ..
Demand for gasoline: it is about where it should be for this time of year (EIA graphs say), and the surplus in gasoline stocks is marginal. We still have a lot of oil out there, though as you mentioned before, if you pay a lot you can get a lot.
(On the estate tax thing, also keep in mind we have food stocks, like oil, coming out of our ears. They have the 20 lb. bags of rice for sale again at the Jewel.)
Pub:
As always, I well thought out, measured, intelligent response...
I need more time than I have no, but I do wish to respond to your comment - for now, I only wished to point out that while I think Obama is a socialist, and I deeply distrust his supporters, he IS the president. One who is sitting between a rock and a hard place vis a vie Afghanistan.
I am not privy to his, nor the Pentagon's, intelligence. Therefore I reserve judgement on the policy in order to give the president and our military the support they need. He is likely doing what McCain, GWB, or Clinton would have done. If it had been GWB, the media would have excoriated the man. Obama gets a pass.
I agree with Pub that Obama had no choice, and at least in Afganistan there IS a reason to be there; not for the Afgan people as such, but to try to end the more extreme Taliban elements that provide refuge for Bin Laden. Sadly I think that's impossible, because of Pakistan, and because NO-ONE has ever subjugated the Afgans; the Brits had two goes in the
1880's, then the Russians, now the Americans. Waste of money and lives.
Strikes me that if the money was spent on agricultural reform, seed banks, proper education, healthcare and contraception, we'd have done more good for less money.
eanwhile, back at the oil face, there was this from Bloomberg?
"China, the world’s second-largest energy user, increased crude oil imports 19 percent last month from a year earlier. China Investment Corp., the nation’s sovereign wealth fund with almost $300 billion in assets, has spent more than $4 billion since September on stakes in energy and resource companies."
So they're nabbing the remaining oil-for-sale, and they can afford to pay more if they need to (and get rid of all those dollars in the process).
The writing is on the wall.
Greg,
Good point.
We just disagree somewhat on some assumptions, but I'm willing to change my assumptions based on evidence.
The evidence as I see it leads me to believe that Obama is not committed to any ideology whatsoever, other than a wishy-washy modern corporate-friendly liberalism (not liberalism as defined still in Europe, meaning free-trade and libertarian social policies).
He seems to have been good, throughout his career, at attracting highly placed supporters and politicos - in Chicago, near the University of Chicago campus. He has been very gifted at seeming to agree with you (if you are a deep-pocketed donor, or a voter, or a media pundit).
Another assumption I have is that all politicians are severely constrained in what they are allowed to do. Most of this constraints are political. Some may be darker and more conspiratorial. If you read about some of the deals and threats and false-flag operations that go down, it's easy to start joining the loony conspiracy crowds. However, the evidence backs up the idea/fact that there is an agenda for this nation (and most nations), this agenda is chosen and determined by the elites, and they attempt to carry it out.
The book title and link below is one of the well-researched books on this topic. Some caveats: there is a crazy idea that is mainstream in the USA, that we do not have elites who runs things. BS. Every nation/empire throughout history has had one. Ever wonder why almost all recent presidential candidates seem to have gone to Harvard, or Yale, etc.? The rare exceptions prove the rule. The educational factories of the Ivy League instill the ideas, habits, and agendas. They make the participants feel that they are part of a club. They separate them from the plebes. Well, blah blah blah... The rare elite who betrays his class isn't treated too well. Final point: the elite agenda has nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative, or libertarian vs. statist. Well, it tends to support and increase statism over the long run, because the state is where the power is at.
The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present
Pub,
Do you see a leftist-corporate alliance, kind of like the Third Reich without the hate and mass murders? The big corporate money does flow to the Democrats. They claim to regulate for the good of the little guy, while protecting their patrons with plenty of expensive barriers to competition and market entry. Seems like a lousy deal all around.
No one can come out of nowhere like Obama did without big support from somewhere. It is pretty obvious now who set him up. GS, GE, BoA, et al.
Some of this might come unglued as the idea that global warming is a hoax gains traction. People do vote their wallets, and no one is going to support a carbon tax if the world is getting cooler. Someone will come up with the idea that fossil fuel depletion is the real problem, and the left has fiddled while oil burned, and worse, scammed the entire world. If this play out, the Democrats will lose big time.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Pub:
I am not an Obama supporter by any stretch, but I WILL support a sitting president to a certain extent.
I have no diplomatic training or international political experience. If I were the big cheese, I would not spend a single dollar or life on Afghanistan, or Iraqi Oil, for that matter - that does not mean that that is the best policy for a US president to take.
My point was that BHO gets a pass while GWB got excoriated for making the same decisions.
In the final analysis, this ALL about control of the Middle East Oil. Every president recognizes how quickly America would look like India economically if the imports were to be constrained or cut off - and politically things would be worse than that. Every president has tried to put off this day of reckoning... but it has caught GWB and now BHO.
It is what it is.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it." -- Henry David Thoreau
Greg, some good info there, although I completely disagree that stirring a hornets nest makes anyone safer in regards to Afghanistan. Obama said he would do this before elected, I remember watching videos on youtube of him speaking about it, so it comes as no surprise and was one of the main reasons I never quite trusted him.
Zero Hedge has a small and to the point piece about it:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/prolonging-war-threat-our-national-security
Publius, I agree completely with with you, although the benefits of war, despite supporting and being promoted by the military industrial complex, remain in doubt.
Congressman Kucinich said today:
America is in the fight of its life and that fight is not in Afghanistan -- it's here ... We are deeply in debt. Our GDP is down. Our manufacturing is down. Our savings are down. The value of the dollar is down. Our trade deficit is up. Business failures are up. Bankruptcies are up.
The war is a threat to our national security. We’ll spend over $100 billion next year to bomb a nation of poor people while we reenergize the Taliban, destabilize Pakistan, deplete our army and put more of our soldiers’ lives on the line. Meanwhile, back here in the USA, 15 million people are out of work. People are losing their jobs, their health care, their savings, their investments, and their retirement security. $13 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, trillions for war; when are we going to start taking care of things here at home?
When you say 0 oil imports, what about all of the oil from Iraq? Simmons doesnt seem to mention it really and I remember on the oil drum reading about a lot of oil soon to come online from there, so despite the export land model, America has control of this oil does it not?
oOOo:
Never said the policy makes anyone safer. I am unilateral pullout of Iraq and Afghanistan. But what do I know? I don't have the intelligence apparatus that the PUTUS has...
I would not spend a nickel on either war. Not one.
BTW, Kucinich is the last guy I would give any credence to. If it were for his ears I would change the channel whenever he came on - but he is just sooooo entertaining... I can't help myself.
haha, I really enjoyed the Celente chat by the way, good find.
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