cynical and disgusted

5 Ways to Diversify Away from the Dollar

I don't know what drunken sailors have ever done to you to earn such an insult. When it comes to spending, drunken sailors are complete pikers as compared to the current administration.

The current administration has rung up 4 trillion dollars in debt in the last 7 years. 720 Billion in the last twelve months.

An Energy Policy That Makes Sense, Revisited

Who is responsible for the current energy crisis? Clearly it is the energy policy (or lack thereof) that has been in place for more than 40 years.

The US has been a net importer of oil for nearly 40 years. Predictions that we would become a net importer were around for nearly a decade prior to that. Despite this, we have had a domestic energy and economic policy that has encouraged the consumption of energy.

For many years we have not taxed gasoline nearly as heavily as other developed nations. Cheap gas encouraged the purchase of millions of automobiles a year. This kept the automobile industry busy churning out more and bigger cars, trucks, and SUVs. The automobiles were accommodated by new highways. This kept the highway construction industry busy building new ways for people to leave the cities and settle in the suburbs. The suburbs of course were busy enjoying a building boom, thus keeping the construction industry busy building 4000 square foot homes, shopping centers and office malls.

The end result of this is an infrastructure that demands we use much more energy than can possibly be produced domestically: natural gas to heat huge homes, unleaded gas to drive SUVs to work and shop, and jet fuel to fly us to destinations that could be well served by bus/train. We have been left with empty broken cities, mass transit that is inadequate, and non-existent rail service.

It was a good plan. The democrats must have figured that when prices got high enough they could finally fund the development of alternative energy. The republicans figured that this would be the opportune time to abandon environmental protections. Unfortunately either of these solutions as well as changing the infrastructure to be more energy efficient are many years and additional trillions of dollars down the road.

In the meantime, we can blame the Chinese and Venezuelans. We know that they use too much energy because their governments subsidize energy prices. Blaming third world countries for using too much energy is the ultimate in audacity. It is ludicrous.