About Me

Name: thekeenobserver
Email: reallykeenobserver@yahoo.com Biography
Loading...

Create Your Own Blog Find Other Townhall Blogs

Comments

Blog Roll

 

The grand economic anti-stimulus...our path toward "Europeanism"


"In a crisis, be aware of the danger, but recognize the opportunity"-- John F. Kennedy; from an excerpt taken from his book, "Profiles In Courage".
 
Wise words indeed from one of America's most beloved presidents. But today, wisdom is precisely what's lacking in Washington DC.

The reality of our economic crisis can be traced directly back to last year's spike in the cost of energy. The 4 dollar-a-gallon economic anti-stimulus triggered the mortgage crisis, and the subsequent onset of the worldwide recession-depression.
 
Currently, we seem to be locked into an ideological tug of war between fossil-fuel realty and renewable energy fantasy:

On one side there's the one basic necessity of ALL modern economic growth --cheap reliable energy--lined up against the fantasy of alternative fuels, which currently supply less than 4% of America’s energy usage. And we're overlooking one of the few benefits of the economic slowdown-- the welcome drop in petroleum prices.

As far as green energy goes, actual commercial demand is weak. Installation of wind and solar power is plummeting, due in part to the attractiveness of current cheap energy prices .

But instead of using this short term drop in prices to shore up our energy policy, the Obama administration has other ideas, which could leave the country short on oil in its second term. This could put both our economy and our military in the gravest of all circumstances-- not enough gasoline, and a strategic petroleum reserve bled dry!
 
So Instead of drilling for oil (or building nuclear plants) the Obama energy team of enviro-radicals has decided to stubbornly focus on renewable alternative energy, and all but deliberately ignore the basic structural problem of the nation's economy-- the mind-numbing amount of money we export to OPEC for foreign oil.
 
Talk about irrational ignorance.
 
Let’s play make believe. What if the U.S. had a prudent energy policy in place back in the 70's, and America now was energy independent. The result? Instead of the country being in dire economic straights, we'd be experiencing a prosperity boom.
 
Example: take the $750 billion we spent last year on imported oil.

What instead if that money could have been used to fund an economic expansion, the likes of which not seen since the early 60's? This was when President Kennedy cut taxes across the board, and initiated an investment tax credit for companies wishing to expand commercially. And back then, America was a creditor nation.
 
Think... 750 billion we wouldn't have to borrow...750 billion toward investment tax credits for corporations... 750 billion toward small business loans-- the true job engine of the U.S.
 
And we're just getting warmed up. 750 billion could go a long way. We could mail out stimulus checks totaling $2000 for every one in the country.
 
We could build a badly-needed high speed rail network.  We could fund the rebuilding of our infrastructure...rebuild the nation's manufacturing base ...or have the financial latitude to cut payroll taxes for everyone for a year.
 
The salient point here is that America, as a capital staved nation, could remedy itself from the primary source of its capital shortage-- the calamitous sums of money we send abroad for imported oil.

But the Obama energy czars--Stephen Chu and Carol Browner-- are heavily prejudiced against offshore drilling, and coal and nuclear power
 
So according to these environmental Nazis, what are supposed to do? Fill 'er up with a tankful of french fried, re-refined biodiesel? Or drive the currently non-existent green cars of the future? Or maybe we could revisit  the stone age era, and design a modern foot-powered Fred Flintstone yabba-dabba car. Just think of the mileage.
 
But in reality, petroleum now accounts for 96% of our transportation fuels. And without a concerted effort to increase domestic production of our own oil reserves, the U.S. is likely to face ever-rising future energy prices, ever more dependence on foreign sources; and ominously-- less reliable supplies in the future from hostile nations.
 
And we haven’t even considered the imbalance of our trade deficit.
 
But yet, the environmental Nazis argue that, "the age of oil is over ....we need to move to new forms of energy."
 
Bravo! Profound! But of what new forms of energy are they talking about? Oil and gasoline are here for the next 50-100 years. Currently there are 300 million internal combustion engines parked in the nation's  garages and driveways. And mass production of wind, solar, and biofuels literally remains a pipe dream.
 
It's true that more diverse sources of energy would be a good thing; but Obama and his green energy lieutenants conveniently say zilcho about the need to produce energy from existing sources, such as oil, coal, and nuclear.
 
In reality, renewable energy sources are years away--they are mere symbols of what should be done. But the enviro-radicals ignore the stark scientific and technological realities of what can be done.
 
Environmental symbolism shouldn’t drive public policy. Starting exploration in offshore coastal areas (and ANWAR) would be important steps toward influencing the world market; and it would keep petroleum prices low enough that it would provide our economy the chance to become robust in the long term.

And we must shun this idiopathic notion that wind/solar/biodiesel fuels will be available any time soon in sufficient amounts to replace fossil fuels. This reckless propaganda is both a danger to our economy, and our long term national security.
 
America must also shun environmental symbolism. And long into the foreseeable future, we'll need sufficient oil resources, and we'll continue to burn coal--it's as bluntly simple as that.
 
And here's a most welcome thought: by expanding America's domestic energy supply, we can turn the tables on our good buddies, OPEC and Venezuela. The recent dip in energy prices have hurt these regimes rather grievously.
 
But the U.S. remains the ONLY oil-producing nation on earth that's deemed its reserves illegal! According  to the Minerals Management Service, there are 14 billion barrels of petroleum in the restricted areas off our continental outer shelf. But the leftist environmental Nazis, in their zest to "save the planet", have used their treasonous influence in Congress to retain the mindless offshore drilling restrictions.

But it's for sure that the Chinese, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and other nations will continue to explore offshore.

So why have we unilaterally chosen to disarm our oil exploration industry? Surely our current safeguards against environmental damage are as good as any in the world. And ironically, America was the technological innovator for deepwater offshore drilling.

And rival nations continue to use our technology to their advantage; while we sit back and worship polar bear sanctity, and mail huge monthly checks to OPEC for the same oil we could be pumping from our untapped energy resources.

So is it any wonder that the U.S. is a debtor, capital-starved nation, all but begging OPEC for a break? Compare our situation to that of other oil-aggressive nations. They’re not going forward with green energy, but expansive worldwide petroleum exploration.

And with all these government restrictions on our energy production, just what actually are we saving?

In a short period of time, we will eventually become another Europe; a nation of people sleeping in 60 degree bedrooms, and riding bicycles and roller-blading to work, unable to afford the coming specter of 6-dollar a gallon gas.

This is indeed frightening; and we should kid ourselves no longer...it’s soon to be a reality, unless something changes.

We have abundant energy sources all around us. But yet the politicians seek to deny the people the fruits of our great nation.

Perhaps Cicero, the great Roman orator and philosopher of the first century A.D., had it right when he wrote..."Governments are the enemy."


www.keenobserver.blogtownhall.com

Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

The Axis of Evil may forever turn History against George Dubya Bush

 

Let's all play pretend for a minute; pretend that an oil strike was discovered along the Israeli-Gaza border. Like the fabled story of Jed Clanton- a wayward Katusha rocket exploded somewhere in a field and..."up from the ground came some bubblin' crude"...a new, 5 billion barrel oil field!

Something like oil wealth from an actual discovery could go a long way to resolve the hatred between Israel and the Palestinians; a bitter rift that supposedly cannot be reconciled. But in the Middle East, oil money changes everything; and it would certainly go a long way in "healing" the historic divide between the two side-by-side populations. But alas, they reside on land that has no oil to be found.

Currently the conflict is raging into its second week, as Israel continues its war on the Hamas rocketeers and their radical Islamic leaders; who defiantly continue their aggression by firing a barrage of 40-50 rockets a day; and all are provocatively aimed at civilian targets within Israeli territory.

With all the media reports of the intense suffering of the civilian populations, people around the world can only wonder, "Why do these people continue to hate each other so much... especially when they reside so close together? Like Rodney King once posited, "Can't they all just get along"?  But is there more at play here than only hatred? For Israel in the Gaza strip, the source of their conflict lies 1200 miles to the east.

 

The images from the fighting in Gaza are harrowing but ultimately deceptive. They portray a mighty invading army, one equipped with F-16 jets bombing a civilian population, and defended by a few thousand fighters armed with primitive rockets. But expand the picture, and the true nature of this conflict emerges: Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, is a proxy for the real enemy Israel is confronting- Iran.

Many in the West have yet to grasp that the Middle East conflict is no longer just about creating a Palestinian state, but about preventing the region's takeover by radical Islam.Iran has co-opted Hamas into transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a jihad against the Jewish state.


So now lets proceed to connect all the dots; but first, we must partake of a brief history lesson:

 

For years, the shahs ruled Iran. By 1970, Iran was the world's second largest exporter of oil. Iran had great geo-political importance, because it was seen as a buffer between the Soviet Union and the world's largest oil reserves. These factors made the Shah's overthrow in 1978, and Ayatollah Khomeini's rise to power, all the more important.

    
Oil also provided the funds for Iran to export their revolution and fundamentalism. Huge oil revenues paid for their extensive political campaigns abroad, funded the worldwide networks created to recruit radicals, and provided the financial support for Iran's surrogates in the Islamic world. So now connect the dots.

DOT # 1: In Iran, they need not keep a large standing army; they merely use other Islamic radical factions like Hamas and Hezbollah as military proxies to perform their dirty work, and remain aloof above the fray. And in conjunction, Iran is behind all the Palestinian suicide bombers; paying each family $25,000 for sacrificing those offspring deemed "to have no future"

Dot# 2: Iran is PAYING Hamas big money to launch a certain number of rockets everyday, and aim them all directly at Israeli civilian targets. This explains why Hamas' leaders remain so staunchly defiant against the overwhelming strength of the Israeli military.

Dot #3: After the inevitable U.N. ceasefire that will be forthcoming between Israel and Hamas, Iran will fire up Hezbollah in the north, and resume the intense pressure on Israel. The Iranians know the more the world's attention remains focused on that part of the world, the less attention is focused on what they are up to at home.

Dot #4: Iran's president, Mamoud Akmadinejad. He cleverly decided to divert the world's attention away from Iran's nuclear weapons program, and refocus on that good ol' mainstay, the Israeli-Palestine cauldron of woes. Just before the conflict arose, the world's attention was focused on Iran. The news contained buzz words that people didn't quite understand, like 'centrifuge' and 'heavy uranium'.

Dot #5: The timing of all this is what's interesting: it shows just how clever Akmadinejad and the Iranian mullahs are. Right when Bush is departing, and President-elect Obama is entering, the deceptiveness of the Iranian strategy is nothing short of brilliant. Last December, Obama and his foreign policy advisors were anxiously focusing on how to garner support from Europe for what to do about Iran getting "the big bomb."

But now Obama, who's been putting forth policy feelers about almost everything else, has clammed up tight about the Israeli-Hamas fray, because there is no middle ground he can seek here; and Akmadinejad knows it. Thus, the Iranians picked the ideal time to approach Hamas with, "Have we ever got a jihadist inspiration for you! Rocket launchings for big-big shekels". Just like any situation that involves political intrigue; you just follow the $$$.

Going back to 9-11 in 2001, relations between Iran and the U.S. actually began to warm for a brief period. But Bush, in his supreme arrogance, blundered the opportunity only as he could do. At that time detente was a possibility between Washington and Teheran, whose ties had soured back in the days since the Iranian revolution. Iran had been having its own problems with the Taliban, who were outspoken in their abusiveness to all the Shiite minority who resided in Afghanistan. Thus with Iran and U.S. now on the same page, it was "the enemy of thine enemy is my friend" type of budding alliance.

So for a time, Iran was cooperating with the U.S. to destroy the Taliban, and the Afghan Shiites were in a position to help with the capture of Sunni extremist Osama bin Laden.  But that cooperation came to a sudden dead end in early 2002, when George Dubya decide to huff and puff about his "axis-of-evil-Bush-doctrine" fiasco, and heedlessly singled out Iran as the center of the axis.

To this day, Akmadinejad contends, "We helped America in Afghanistan; but the result of our assistance was Bush threatening us with an attack. And for six years, he's been engaged in similar talk against us".

 

And with a more moderate Iran in 2003, would the Iraq war have gone more easily? And would Israel and Hamas even be fighting today? The entire geopolitical map in the Middle East may have turned in a different pro-western direction, as opposed to the present reality.

 

With the winding down of the long Iraq war, the moderate Islamic states now realize that it's not Israel, but a nuclear-armed Iran that should be the focus of their attention. Even the Russians have good reason to be nervous-- a nuclear-capable Iran would pose a huge threat to all their surrounding "stans"...Uzbekistan, Kurdistan, Kazakstan, etc.

 

And would Iran now be on the verge of nuclear proliferation, and threatening the entire Mid East with nuclear aggression? Future history can only answer that.

 

And as history unfolds, not the Iraq war, but Bush's recriminations about Iran, and cornering the mullahs into a defensive posture unnecessarily, may turn out to be the biggest U.S. foreign policy blunder since FDR at Yalta in 1945. It's been a blunder that might produce a hostile, nuclear-armed Iran running loose around the world for all the 21st century, when it all might have been avoided, except for that fateful State of the Union address in Jan of 2002.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Place your bets: alternative energy vs. oil addiction...can anyone win?


Uh-oh, it’s back to the future time. Here we go again! President-elect Barack Obama has selected Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Chu, as his energy secretary (er...energy czar). Chu is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., and is a leading advocate of reducing greenhouse gases by developing new energy sources.

 

And make careful note of that phrase..."developing new energy sources". (More on this later). 

 

The President-elect vowed to, "move beyond our oil addiction and create a new hybrid economy." The selection of Chu, a Chinese American who shared a Nobel Prize for physics in 1997, received widespread praise on Capitol Hill.

 

Obama was peacock-proud about the selection: "His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science. We will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that facts demand bold action," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago. "We must control our own destiny; America must develop new forms of energy and new ways of using it. And this is not a challenge for government alone; it's a challenge for all of us".

 

Umm hmm... once again, Obama used that ominous phrase..."develop new forms of energy".

 

And just what new forms of energy is he talking about? While Obama huffs and puffs about wind and solar, there's just one little teensey-weency fact that the science-challenged president elect hasn't mentioned: what about all the nearly 300 million vehicles currently residing in our nation’s driveways and garages, that are powered by internal combustion engines? Will we just trade 'em all in for the new-fangled hybrids of the future?

 

Last August, during his Denver convention speech, Obama was quoted: "As president, I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy; wind power and solar power and the next generation of bio-fuels..."

 

Thus, this brings up another vehicular conundrum--just drive by any large construction site today and witness the actual nuts and bolts of a growing economy. There will be nonstop activity: heavy trucks coming and going; cranes moving busily hoisting materials up and down; yellow front-loaders and Caterpillar bulldozers moving all about . And every worker in step, doing his own individual job as efficiently as possible.

 

So this begs the question, how could our country function without the heavy diesel vehicles that are vitally instrumental to a growing economy? Are they supposed to run on old french fry oil, which is basically how you derive biodiesel?

 

But Obama and his leftist, enviro-marxist democrats despise oil, and all its refined forms of energy, and want to tax all fossil fuels out of existence. They will permit no new drilling, and no new refineries. And what might occur if Obama has his way, and levies heavy consumer taxes on gasoline and diesel, to FORCE us into the green energy era? America must be aware of Obama's creeping socialism-- do we really want the government regulating us for everything, including what we shall drive?

 

Sales of elecric cars are plummeting in Europe. Why? Basically it’s the same reason that Americans are to find out the hard way when Obama interferes with the domestic auto market: Even in green-obsessed Europe, people still like powerful, sexy cars. 

 

Belgium is trying to force mandatory caps on European manufacturers of gasoline and diesel-powered cars, but is running into fierce opposition led by France and Germany. And not only are the ugly electric cars no fun and lack power, the bedeviling problem of their 40 mile range won't be solved until the battery can be replaced with some new breakthrough, which might not come in this century. 

 

How practical is it to talk about developing the new energy sources of the future? Ask the Chinese, who recently showed off a modern line of electric-powered buses that ran in an eight block area of Beijing to ferry passengers for the Olympics.

 

But hidden nearby in an off-limits area, there were 2 full time robots, operating to change all the dead batteries from buses that were drastically limited in their operating range.  Each high-tech swap took about eight minutes. But this could be the last charging station in China: the Chinese are now faced with the environmental problem of hundreds of non-recyclable dead battery clusters from the 'modern' buses, which now no longer operate in Beijing any more.

.

High costs, coupled with a lack of clear policy support from the central government, could limit China's one-time use of battery powered buses, trucks and cars to the Olympic weeks. Meanwhile, the country is struggling to plot a future course for an alternative vehicle industry.

 

So far, China's car buyers have shown little interest in alternative vehicles. Only 414 shoppers last year bought the only hybrid car available on the Chinese market. Feng Fei, deputy director in China for the Industrial Economy Department at the State's Development Research Center, revealed that China's alternative auto industry is in disarray. He blames a lack of clear plans for development.

 

Basically, whether you examine Europe or Asia, its the same chicken vs.egg conundrum:  does it pay to create a market that's virtually non existent for alternative energy vehicles? Or do you wait for the demand, and then take on the engineering costs to develop them? And China has 6 times more engineers than the U.S.; yet they, like the Europeans, remain 'oil-addicted.'

 

Thus, given the econo-scientific reality of all these false hopes, picture the enviro-Obamian economy after 4 years: People shunning the green cars of the future...gas lines winding around the block...men pushing cars toward gas pumps...drivers anxiously leaning out their windows looking ahead...white bags covering the nozzles...violent arguements about "next in  line"... worried driver facial expressions-- civil disorder as people suffer across America-- all waiting for the magical appearance of the "alternative energy sources of the future".

 

And magical is no exaggeration! The Democrats are the know-nothing party when it comes to the hard scientific hurdles that delay the onset of alternative energy. Mass produced electric and hydrogen cars are decades away. They remain prohibitively expensive. The battery and fuel-cell reliability problems have yet to be solved; and only hybrid vehicles with gasoline assist are practical now, yet remain expensive and unpopular. 

 

We cannot replace oil and coal, with solar or wind anytime soon. Just ask any engineer; (preferably, a republican) if you want to get the real story: We are at least fifty years from seeing alternative energy being mass produced; and right now alternatives account for just 1.5% of America's total energy BTU's produced. But coal is at 60%.

 

Obama is either dreaming or misleading. If we all understood physics a little better, we'd know you cannot take money away from drilling, and then use it to INVENT a new alternative type of energy. Once again, ask any engineer in America, or Europe, or in China.

 

Was coal invented? Oil? Nuclear? Electricity? How about the great invention of the wind?

The last great energy "breakthrough" was 160 years ago, when Drake struck oil in Pennsylvania. Ask Isaac Newton..."energy cannot be created or destroyed"...it's Newton's first law of physics. And Obama probably thinks physics is an old remedy sold at the drugstore for people who can't properly 'go'.

 

Obama might not be cognizant of it, but his "damn the fossil fuels-save the environment" energy policy will destroy economic growth, jeopardize our military security, and ruin our economy. Bulldozers and all heavy vehicles run on diesel. There will never be an all-electric freight train, or fuel cell airliner this century; nor any wind powered tanks or solar-driven fighter jets.

 

So will Obama's "jolly green-environment" spike gas prices to $6 a gallon in the next four years? The only people who would benefit would be the bicycle shops --the rest would suffer. This no-growth policy will prolong the recession, give OPEC more leverage, and put us on the road toward becoming the world's most advanced third world country. 

 

And to where will all this government environmental extremism take us? Since when did we lose faith in our free markets? They've worked for 235 years to make America great. And now, Obama and his liberal do-gooders, have decided to throw it all aside, and claim more government development of alternative energy is the answer to a problem that doesn't even exist.

Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive
« Previous1Next »