When it comes to energy policy I think it's really tough to find someone who is more clueless and destructive to America's long term interests than president Obama. The title of this piece is what he called 'Crude Oil' in his press conference today "the energy of the past". If he's right (don't worry - he's not) then we're in a LOT of trouble.
To help him out I took 45 seconds and threw together the chart above. It shows annual average price of a barrel of oil versus the the 4 year moving average of the annual unemployment rate since the 40's. Lots of things can cause unemployment and higher energy costs is definitely one of them, so naturally that's what he has planned for us in his new budget.
There is no fixing that relationship. It's not a question of having someone smart enough in office. Any second year economics student knows that the relationship between high energy costs and high unemployment is not going to be mitigated by 'redistribution'. Even recently Spain tried it, and got a 20% unemployment rate for their trouble. So how many times do we have to make the same idiotic mistake, over and over and over again before we finally - FINALLY - learn that lesson?
And just to be perfectly clear, it was hydrocarbon fuels which replaced windmills, not the other way around. Windmills were the real 'energy of the past'. They were invented in the 9th century, and when steam rolled along, they became utterly obsolete. In terms of economic efficiency they still are.
I can't imagine what Obama's life must be like, after having been sealed in amber since the Carter Era untouched by any of the wisdom gained in the intervening 40 years. Seriously - what a total dumbass this man is. The only way for us to avoid the unemployment of the future, is for us to stick with what he calls the energy of the past.
3 comments:
I generally don't subscribe to the Manchurian candidate type conspiracies regarding Obama, but I do think it likely he is AOK with these experiments failing again and again, provided that his core constituents (the greens, the unions, etc.) are net ahead of the game when he's done, and that the redistribution from top decile to bottom 3-4 quintiles is forced to continue apace. His policies are clearly dumb, and he is clearly a dumbass, to the thinking man. Unfortunately, those folks aren't who he is appealing to.
I guess I'm more upset by this particular mistake than some of his others. I mean, if you don't know the effect of some obscure policy about changes to depreciation schedules I say you should probably get a pass. But this war he's waging against petroleum fuels is the kind of thing that anyone of even modest economic literacy knows is going to end in disaster.
And yet he continues to march us all toward the machine guns - utterly unfazed by the scores of bodies in front of us.
[i]But this war he's waging against petroleum fuels is the kind of thing that anyone of even modest economic literacy[/i]
Tom,
Energy efficiency is the field I focus on. I have had discussions with people with educations who SHOULD know better, but are deliberately drowning themselves in a sea of ignorance and pretense.
You don't need a Phd to see that wind, solar, and the current crop of biofuels (ethanol) are not environmentally friendly, economically viable, or effective as a source of energy.
Try to discuss the facts? Get ready to be screamed at! The green movement has become a cult that is never questioned by its adherents. Petroleum bad! Wind and Solar good! Pay no attention to Al Gore standing behind the curtain!
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