Posted on 11/08/2007 9:42:18 AM PST by neverdem
Edited on 11/08/2007 9:48:34 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
No there isn't. Which isn't to say that the preseidential candidates on both parties won't latch on to what looks like an easy solution and run on it.
D’Oh!
Forever...
Don't even try to direct the "investment" of the revenue. Let congress waste it like most of the rest of the money we send them.
Honestly, I have thought the same thing for many years. The warning signs have been there all along the way. Now we are reaching critical mass and we wonder why we're in this predicament??? Conservation is nice, but there really shouldn't be much of a reason to not have a nice house or drive the car you want...if we had solved the energy issue. If we had, it probably wouldn't matter much what kind of vehicle you drove, or how big your house was.
The fact that fossil fuels have an abundance of stored energy is what makes them such an attractive means of powering vehicles, generating electricity, etc. All this "alternative fuels" nonsense is a lot of -- well, NONSENSE.
Everybody knows what to do.
Baloney.........We have seen the enemy ans it is us. VDH had it exactly correct when he said our politicians are asleep at the wheeel for over 20 years. I would say it has been that way for over 30 years, from the last oil shock of the 70’s. If we immediately push through drilling in ANWR, open up ALL coastal waters to exploration, and open more federal lands to oil and gas exploration we could soon have an impact on worldwide oil prices. Along with more exploration, we should also throw a few incentives to alternative energy options like wind, solar, geothermal. Place a 20% tax on all new domestic oil supplies in ANWR and use the money to fund alternatives. Nuclear power is booming everywhere in the world but the USA, and we invented it. 50-100 new nuclear plants should be in the planning stages now. Our politicians have utterly failed us and we may suffer the destruction of our very way of life as a result. Global Warming (if you are dumb enough to believe in it)will be the least of our problems if we can’t afford fuel to heat our homes in the winter.
Blaming the marketplace for oil problems is wrong. We have not employed market solutions in the past 30 years. In fact, we have done just the opposite. We have, through government fiat, restricted the domestic production and refining of oil. There is much less oil on the market today, than if pure market forces would have been allowed to dictate choices.
(G)overnment...should have been doing a lot more to mandate conservation, subsidize alternate fuels, encourage nuclear power and open up oil fields offshore and in Alaska.
Instead, doctrinaire free-market purists and radical environmentalists, hand in glove, for years have thwarted both conservation and exploration.
True, in a perfect world, the market would teach Detroit not to build gas-hungry big cars. Yet in the here and now, we are needlessly burning scarce fuel as too many 7,000-pound mammoths deliver single 180-pound drivers to work — while the auto industry continues on its path to irrelevance.
VDH needs to make up his mind about capitalism and markets. Americans have chosen the vehicles they've chosen based on their preferences. Why is this a problem? Yes, oil is high now and will likely, by many estimates, stay high and go even higher. So what?
Why do alternative fuels need subsidies? If they can't compete today with $100/bbl oil we were certainly wise not to use them instead of $30/bbl oil a few years ago. And if they still can't compete today then why not wait for $150/bbl or $200/bbl oil? Certainly there will be some alternative fuels that can compete then, right? If not, just wait some more! The car companies will build whatever people buy, and people can read the little numbers on the gas pump for themselves. Americans don't need Uncle Victor telling them what to do.
I'm generally in favor of lifting regulatory restrictions and exploiting American energy resources wherever they are, but the rest of VDH's rhetoric sounds like socialism to me. Why does the government need to mandate conservation? Conservation that pays for itself mandates itself, and there are plenty of private companies out there who sell energy conservation expertise to business and individuals. What can government possibly add to this except inefficiency and corruption?
The fact that the Saudis misuse their oil profits is a complete red herring here. Whatever America does for fuel the Jihadis are going to have plenty of cash for their plots. We will need economic strength and political and social determination to thwart them. It is impossible for us to render their oil worthless through technical innovation unless we discover alternatives that compete against ~$10/bbl (or less) oil and that just isn't in the cards. The Saudis and other Arabs will have massive cash flow until their oil is gone. (Their oil is the world's cheapest to produce and someone will always buy it at a price up to the price of the next-cheapest alternative. That's just simple logic, folks, i.e. capitalism.) Better we should hasten the day their oil is gone while preserving our own economic, military and political strength.
My plan is simple: Drain Arabia first. Destroy all who threaten us. Continue to grow and strengthen and innovate. Be free and be grateful to God for our freedom. Party down!
Who's with me?
That is always smart. Please don't stop being smart now.
“Victor Davis Hanson: Oil Hydra - Is there an easy way out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into? “
Yea, bring back the good old days when a government just went into another country, pillaged it and took the resources.
Use it or lose it. Screw trying to make a friggin “democracy” out of a bunch of tribal idiots...just take the oil.
This doesn’t really affect me directly. I live only 9 niles from work; my commuter gets 33 mpg and I do a significant amount of bike commuting.
But it effects the economy in which I live quite a bit.
We have taken that pain to heart and we have spent many billions of dollars over decades and developed many alternative energy sources. Those that can compete with $100/bbl oil have already been implemented, but for the most part we are still mostly buying $100/bbl oil. This should tell you something very important about those alternative energy sources. Does it?
“The Constitution allows the government to provide for the common defense.”
We’re talking about Bush here. You know...open borders / amnesty bush. The Constitution doesn’t concern him. He’s an oil guy, the more money the oil companies make...the better return he gets on his stocks.
He’s not going to cut his own purse strings.
It is my expectation that oil prices will never again be much below what they are now but rather will continue to climb, but that this is not a crisis and will not necessarily cause a recession. Is it impossible that I am right?
When you put OILMEN in the White House, you can kiss real oil conservation “Bye-Bye”.
Of course it is. But VDH and others are promoting government intervention in the marketplace. This is not technology but economics/politics. Do you support this intervention or do you, like me, trust enterprising Americans to find needs and fill them at a profit?
Is private investment not enough? Do we need government deciding where and how to invest?
I trust American enterprise.
However we are looking at hump we will have to get over, and it is going to take a while to get there. Government may need to use some “see money” to start these projects. Plus the government needs to make adjustments to the law to aid accomadate those changes.
I believe the article is riddled with economic fallacies and little else, but I agree with you about the one you have identified and explained well.
It is imperative that we stop the flow of cash to the Mad Mullahs, Islamo-Marxists, Political Fantasists, and spiritual/psychological infants in oil-rich regions. We are spending billions of dollars weekly, in order to provide the Baby with a Hammer.
The problem is that they receive money, not that they receive our money. As long as they have oil they will sell it to someone and use their profits to fund their evil plans. We cannot stop that flow of cash short of physically preventing them from selling oil to anyone or creating an alternative to oil so inexpensive that it no longer pays to pump Saudi oil out of the ground. I think that neither of these things can possibly happen and wasting money on subsidized windmills, etc, just makes everything worse for us across the board.
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