9/06/2008

Fools For Fuel

"Our entire economy depends on the expectation that energy will be plentiful, available, and affordable. Nations like Venezuela and Iran can use oil and gas as political and economic weapons by manipulating the marketplace. Half of our trade deficit goes toward buying oil from abroad, and some of that money ends up in the hands of terrorists."



"During our first oil crisis, in 1973, we imported 40% of our oil. Today, we import 60%. We’re like someone who won’t go to the dentist until he feels pain. Right now, we’re close to the point where the pain has become intolerable. The next administration is going to have to chart a long-term strategy and plan. This is going to take the same kind of leadership as going to the moon did in the 1960s."

Gen. Jim Jones (USMC, Ret.)
Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO

1 comment:

Roadkill said...

Concur. Here's the strategy:

Drill here, Drill now.

We have plenty of fossil fuel resources, but POLTICAL barriers must be overcome before we can use them.

Banning exploitation of huge national reserves will only cause immense national pain and expense in the short term. And it is unneccessary.

Yes, Wind and Solar will be part of the long-term solution, but so is coal and nuclear energy. We need a comprehensive plan to become energy independent, and it will take some time to acheive. But in the interim, as these newer technologies slowly become ecomonicly feasible, we need to use the resource we have now.

And by the way, if your picture suggests that we went to war for oil, why is it that we still have to buy it from Iraq? The fact is, Iraq will sell their oil for market cost, which we will pay. Just like we pay for Iranian and Venezuelan and Mexican and Canadian oil.

As I have mentioned the past, the Middle Eastern countries that sell their oil but refuse to develop a market infrastructure will be left high and dry once the west develops cost-effective energy technologies. They will end up like the Spain and Portugal of the 1500's, content to live off the plunder of new world gold -- and using the rest of capitalist Europe as its workshop -- until their golden goose stop laying eggs. Only then -- when their gold or black gold runs out -- will they realize that they should have been developing their own market ecomonies.

Before you and I are gone, I predict, the the oil-rich Middle Eastern countries will have reverted to back-water, third world economies. Such is the price of their vanity and myopia.