Being a Good Conservative and Understanding Oil

I Like Elephants.

Good conservatives — primarily American Republicans, of course — understand all the important issues best.  Economics, the environment, politics, human rights, education, family values and morality…They say so all the time.  So I thought, heck, why not give it a try?  Why not undergo a conservative conversion?  I want to be the best, too.

I presume there is plenty of conservative superiority to go around.  They spend millions and millions to get people to sign on, after all.  If there were a limited supply of superiority, you would think wise conservatives would be asking Americans to spend millions and millions to join them, right?

(Ok, so liberals do it, too.  My Conservative Conversion isn’t complete.  I can still have some fun.)

I was listening to NPR — something I will need to forgo as a conservative, alas — when a story about the looming Obama-Romney presidential election focused on the politics of oil.  That gave me the idea to start my Conservative Conversion with oil, a topic conservatives know best.

The solution to our energy problem is simple.  We only need to drill for more oil in this country.

The conservative premise looks something like this:  If we produce more oil, oil prices will come down, our economy will recover, and we’ll all be back at the drive-in diner in the 1950s again.

The 1950s drive-in seems like a stretch, but it is quaint and I like it so I decided to roll with it.  The rest of the premise is more difficult to swallow, unless, of course, you graced with a conservative’s greatest self-serving asset:  Ignorance.

As my post started to fill with links to charts, studies, and smart people, I began to feel uneasy.  None of it was squaring with the “Drill, Baby, Drill” policy promoted as gospel by conservatives.  Newt Gingrich says we can have $2.50 gasoline.  Michele Bachmann, however, is a better choice.  She has us at $2.00 a gallon.  So what where did I stray on my early course toward conservatism.

I started to think about this in a common sense sort of way, and unfortunately I could not get get any of the facts to square with the conservative premise.  Not being a fully fledged conservative, facts and common sense mattered.  So imagine my frustration — and my disappointment — as I struggled to join the conservative bandwagon.

Fortunately, I was just being silly.  The first thing a good conservative must do is distance himself from facts, reason, and common sense.  And, by golly…I wasn’t doing that.  Jeepers, it is a lot harder being superior than I thought!

The facts fouling the conservative solution came from smart people doing research and sharing ideas and we know where those people come from.  Academe.  Or Hollywood.  They are the liberal elite and we must at all cost avoid the elite.  Better to look into the glassy stare of Sarah Palin or even Mitt Romney than rely on some unshaven leftist intellectual for your facts.  (Sorry, Paul Krugman.)

That simple mistake was screwing me up.

And when I figured that I didn’t need facts, my post became shorter and less troublesome.  Blog posts are supposed to be short and simple anyway, a  a bit of advice for which I never took much respect.

But even today, as a conservative wannabe, I don’t understand this.  The United States consumes almost 20 million barrels of oil a day and produces less than half of that.  But even if we were able to produce more than our demand, there isn’t any guarantee that our costs would go down.

There is a little problem in the conservative dream of controlling our country’s energy costs.  That problem isn’t Barak Obama.  It isn’t really a factor of domestic production and consumption.  The obstacle to controlling our energy costs is the global market for oil.

Nuisances like cartels and emerging markets will always wreak havoc on the idea of energy independence for as long as we choose to rely on a resource like oil for a major share of our energy resources.  Factors of production matter.  It costs about 1/10 as much to “lift” a barrel of oil in regions like the Middle East and the former Soviet republics than it does in the North Sea and North America.

If oil were to fall below $90 a barrel again, for example, it is hard to see how oil exploration would continue in the United States.  Oil wells would like go quiet here.  We would import “cheaper” oil and delay further our independence from oil and the global oil market.

But that’s neither here nor there…the United States doesn’t have the oil to cover its needs, neither in the short term nor in the long term.  A policy of drilling for more oil seems economically unsound.

“Drill, Baby, Drill” has terrible environmental impacts, too, as our remaining oil becomes more difficult to reach and as refining and burning lower grade oil products elevates pollutants and greenhouse gasses.

Don’t worry, conservatives, I haven’t given up.  I want to be right!  And, man, do I look not-so-great in red.  But superiority and bliss is my goal.  Perhaps I’ll have better luck joining you on important policy issues like marriage and keeping the children of illegal immigrants out of our declining schools.  Of course there’s the fight to defend America’s disaster…it’s decaying health care system.

On at least one issue, intelligence, compassion, and common sense won’t matter.  Correct?  Please advise.

Related articles

• Paul Krugman: Natural Born Drillers (economistsview.typepad.com)
• Why Are Conservatives Anti-Science? (robertlindsay.wordpress.com)
• Some Interesting Oil Industry Statistics (gravmag.com)

Is it Taxes or Demand?

Paul Krugman and his peers must be frustrated.  Even the most simple and straightforward solutions to our economic mess are beyond the reasoning abilities of most Americans, including those we deem to be among our brightest and most talented.  If there was ever an era that begged for the rule of philosopher kings over the rule of the people, this has to be it.

Today’s lead story in the New York Times reports on employer reaction to President Barak Obama’s jobs plan.  Business owners explain that Obama’s proposal  is welcomed but will not change any minds soon.

Why?  Because what the business really needs is an increase in demand.  This of course is where Krugman et al chokes on their morning coffee.  Even simple people like me have been trying to explain this simple fact.

You can give business owners all the tax breaks they ask for, but they have no reason to invest in workers if they have no demand for what the workers do.   But we have been hearing nothing but the tired call to cut taxes on the “job creators.”

So, of course, Obama includes some tax cuts in his plan to placate that crowd.  And what do we find out?  Most employers would use that credit to support hires they were planning to do anyway.  In essence, therefore, the tax cut contributes to the bottom line of the “job creator” and does not stimulate growth.

For the mathematically challenged out there, that’s what has been going on in recent decades.  Tax cuts giving the wealthiest earners among us a bigger break haven’t “trickled down” as planned, but have kept a concentration of wealth at the top.  Trillions of dollars in tax cuts and trillions of dollars in unbalanced wealth in the United States; subtract from one (middle class) and add to another (upper, upper class) and you see how these numbers roll up (literally).

Even for the small business owner, a tax cut means nothing for hiring decisions if there is no reason to hire another worker.  In fact this logic is especially true for a small business.  If I mow lawns for a living and I get a tax cut on any new hire, why would I hire someone who I might need to pay $20,000 in order to get a $4000 credit if I am not going to have the work to generate revenues to cover the hire?  I won’t.

This is such basic stuff that a person has to question the sincerity or the intelligence – or maybe both – of the conservative class today.  What it looks like to many of us is conservatives leveraging economic hardship for political gain.  In other words, bad times are good for conservative politics – they scare and mislead the public – and change social and economic policy in the process.

But let’s get back to this demand argument and President Obama’s plan.

Again critics are showing a short-sighted understanding of the plans benefits.  A large part of Obama’s plan is putting construction workers on infrastructure projects.  One way or another, if they United States expects to remain an economic leader, we need to upgrade our 1960s era infrastructure.  The construction industry and all that supports it – suppliers, designers, engineers, financers – need work.  Put a solution to that need.  That’s what Obama’s plan supports.

Of course if you sell refrigerators this stimulus plan is not going directly to you.  You won’t be getting a contract that will enable you to hire new workers.  But your customers – your market base – will be getting jobs…and money.

Construction workers are more likely to spend their new or increased income (unlike the rich) and there is a ripple effect here, called a multiplier.  Dollars given to people who
will spend increases the value of those dollars.  (This holds true for tax breaks, too.  It would be better for the economy to tax the working class at a lower rate than the fortunate class.)

Ultimately everyone is better off.  The business owners now complaining about the state of the economy and arguing that they cannot hire will have legitimate economic reasons to hire.  It will be in their best interest – i.e., growth and profits – to add to their workforce.

Workers will be better off because they will have living wages again.  They can make investments and purchases consistent with what had become a traditional middle class
lifestyle.  (Unless, of course, Republicans get away with gutting education, social security, and healthcare programs, which they are eagerly trying to do now.)

President Obama’s Jobs Plan is a necessary investment and provides what the private sector cannot provide now:  Job opportunity.  In time the jobs created by our government investment will translate into demand and growth in the private sector.  It is the sort of spark we need to reunite our overall economic engine.

I am going to write more about this later, but it simply defies logic and reason to side with the complainers on the right.  NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WORKS FOR
THEM!  And unfortunately for us, too many Americans are not bold enough or smart enough to push them aside.  You want America to work again?  Stop voting for Republicans.

 

A Room of His Own

It has occurred to me that perhaps President Obama should take a tip from Virginia Woolf.  Woolf promoted the idea that women could achieve literary success if they had the same opportunities as men, especially in terms of financial security and privacy.  Woolf talked specifically of literature, but her arguments are generally taken as a feminist text that also promotes the value of equal opportunity for women.

Instead of literature, let’s think of Virginia Woolf’s argument in a political context.  Can one make the argument that perhaps Barak Obama is smothered by the discourse of the political right?

Even with ill-advised leaks of Obama’s Thursday night speech — a poor strategic movement, in my opinion — all the talk this week has been about the GOP presidential candidate wannabe debate.  More importantly, Obama always appears to be reacting, rather than leading, when addressing economic and jobs issues.  He isn’t laying out a plan that is his own and aggressively selling it.  Instead he is making fruitless efforts to appear deliberate and bipartisan in a reckless and partisan world.  He doesn’t have his space…a space of his own.

Just as Woolf argues that women are capable of producing meaningful literature, ideas, and success of their own, I believe Obama — and Democrats generally — are able to do the same.  The problem is simple, however; Democrats follow more than they lead.  Too often Democrats work in a political environment framed by the Republicans.   Rather than propose bold ideas, they try to fit Democratic goals into a Republican agenda.  More than ever, that’s like trying to push a square peg into a round hole.

Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson certainly had rooms of their own.  They had the luxury of ideological space.  Granted, a lot of that space came from the people who chose them as leaders, but they also fought a bitter opposition, especially in the case of FDR, and still managed to succeed.  It is about more than just appealing to your base, it is about putting yourself on equal footing with your opposition and overcoming your opposition.  Obama hasn’t been at that level…he’s too much of what a Democrat is today.

Let’s see how things go tonight.

What President Obama Should Do…

Reading the papers this weekend you can find a lot of smart commentary about our political and economic situation.  Plenty of people get it.  Unfortunately the loudest voices drawing the most attention seem to be the least informed and most destructive.  We’re not in polite society anymore and the nation’s future is at risk.  So it is time to stop pretending that Republicans — and Tea Partiers especially — are well-intended good Americans with valid political ideas.  They’re not.

Anything Barak Obama will propose to help the economy will be shot down.  Republicans haven’t a clue and anyway they benefit politically if unemployment stays high and the economy remains depressed.  Obama shouldn’t expect any cooperation from conservatives and he should stop trying to work with them.  Move on, let them implode.  But he can only do this if he offers a strong alternative to their anti-government whining.

At the very least, the president should do all he can not to legitimize their narrative by trying to co-opt their fears and policy positions.  It is pointless.  Even worse, it is destructive.  There isn’t a valid idea anywhere from the right.  None.  That is an intellectual wasteland hijacked by religious zealots.  Get away from those ideas.

President Obama should set the tone and agenda for his presidency; he should make the bastards come to him and not the other way around.  The lesser half of American politics is lost anyway.  They won’t come around.  Promote smart solutions to the people with a head for solutions.

More importantly, our president must focus on engaging better, smarter Americans, especially the battered middle class.  He needs to create a narrative that is his own and repeat that message over and over and over again.  Instead of a gutless “Grand Bargain,” give us a grand plan.  Explain the history and economics behind sound government stimulus during a time of recession.  Educate and motivate America’s intelligence behind legitimate economic solutions, don’t wallow in the insanity of the misguided policies that have to this point wrecked our society and economy.

There really isn’t much of a fight for the opinions of the educated and informed voter.  Republicans have a list of presidential wannabes that defy common sense and civic responsibility; these are not legitimate leaders and enough people are smart enough to understand this to keep them from winning an election, but only if the president engages smarter voters.  Apathy could kill this country in a hurry if we face a President Perry or President Romney.

But these people are not an immediate threat, not yet.  They’re still tussling with each other in primaries.  Now is the time to offer a strong solution, sell it, and get started on a path to winning re-election.

Will it be Obama’s Economy in 2012?

It is a McConnell-Cantor-Boehner Economy Stupid

Oten you hear people comment — either with frustration or joy — that in 2012 President Barak Obama won’t be able to say he inherited Bush’s economic mess.  Is that entirely true?  Can it even be true?

Certainly President Obama comes up short when you look at his fiscal solutions.  A stronger stimulus program and now a second stimulus program would be wise and beneficial, but there is nothing like that anywhere on the horizon.  How could there be?

President Obama is up against a political mindset that is decidedly anti-government and perhaps more significantly, anti-Obama.  This mindset governs a political party that would rather inflict further harm on our society than serve our best interests all in the name of an ideological fight.  It is difficult to see how these people can truly believe they have facts on their side.  The facts about our economic situation are out there, but opinions reign supreme when facts don’t square with your ideological goals.

In reality, the conservatives own this economy even more than they did in 2008.  They have done absolutely nothing to work with Democrats.  Nothing.  They deny what success has occurred — the economy did topple a little toward recovery after government intervention — and focus on the destruction they have wrought.

We have our own history and best practices to show how a functional balance between government and business supports a strong economy.  This is a social contract between the people and their government to help manage the best interests of all, not a fortunate few.  Conservatives don’t remember that history, they suggest myths of economic individualism and “objectivism” in its place.  And as these ideas get implanted in our public debate and policy decisions, the results have been disastrous.

Ask again…are we better off today than we were 10 years ago?  20?  30?  50?  Certainly we have benefited from our past success.  Technology is a simple way to show that everyone is a clear winner in the long run.  We take for granted today many things that would have been available only to the very wealthiest individuals, and many more daily goods and services would have been unimaginable 50 years ago.  That is due to economic growth.  But where is our growth today and are we setting ourselves up for a future of ongoing sucess or a future that look more like society today?

As a percentage of GDP we have a lower tax rate than any time in almost 60 years.  The wealthiest individuals and corporations – the “job creators — have more wealth now than any time since 1928…where are the jobs?  Where is the prosperity?  What should give us confidence that more of the conservative economy is going to bring about a better future?

Obama’s economic effots have been hijacked by bad ideas and lies.  Progress is held hostage by a pack of ideologues beholden to people who dress up in a Revolutionary garb.  (If only these people understood the history they claim to honor; an age of secular enlightenment and reason.)

In 2012 this will not be Obama’s economy, this will be the GOP and the Tea Party economy.  Until the Party of No grows up and learns to compromise, there can be no mistake about this.

I Can’t Get Enough of This Picture

Arrrr! I Got Me a Maiden to Ransom!

I’m sorry…I can’t help myself.  And enjoying this photo is a much more valuable use of my time than debating meters and millennia with Roger…

Isn’t this one of the best pictures you’ve seen recently?  Honestly.  I break out laughing thinking about it. 

Imagine you’re sailing the Seven Seas when — oh no! — pirates!  And this little guy jumps onto your deck! 

Have you ever seen a more proud and self-assured pirate? 

Oh, god…I love it.

Now scroll down and read one of my other posts.  And tell your friends to do the same.  Thank you.