Is this meltdown and high oil prices ultimately good for US?
By: Skip Stein
09-19-2008
As much as I hate what is happening to the financial markets and the oil prices, can this be a good thing? Yes I said GOOD~! Maybe this is America’s wake up call! Wake Up America!
Everyone is ticked off at everything. Foreclosures are tossing people out of their homes. The stock market plummet has destroyed savings and retirement accounts. The Federal Government’s bailout of these mismanaged and poorly run companies is going a long way to bankrupt the entire country. Guess who has to pay for it? US! Worse, this is Socialism!
What ever happened to responsibility for actions? These companies were managed by greedy idiots; or worse, criminals. They have taken advantage of people who just wanted the American Dream of owning their own homes. Taking advantage by obfuscating paperwork and terminology; lying about interest rates and payments. Confusing legal mumbo-jumbo only a shyster attorney can understand!
Oil prices! What a mess we have there. Now this should be no surprise to anyone. The folks in Washington D.C. and other so-called leaders have known for over 30 years that we are running out of National petroleum reserves. Since the 1970’s ‘Oil Crises’ and gas lines, the handwriting has been on the wall. Why do you think the National Petroleum Reserve was created in the first place?
What have our ‘leaders’ done? NOTHING! Sure they subsidize corn ethanol and screw up the food supply (cattle feed to corn flakes!). What a fiasco that continues to be. They force ethanol into our gas tanks, which gives LESS mileage per gallon. They talk a nice talk about how concerned they are; but what the hell have these ‘leaders’ been doing for the past 30 years? Not a damn thing!
Oh some have tried, but they are either smothered by special interests or coerced by their political parties; who are controlled by special interest groups. Huge companies rule Washington; the moneyed elite; not the small business person who is the heart of America. Not The People who live in what politicians refer to as ‘fly over states’. They disdain our opinion for what they just ‘know is what is best for us’! Bull Corn, or should I say Bull Ethanol?
It is time for a real revolution. Talk to your neighbors; I bet they all feel the same way. Even the leftist opinion polls tell everyone what the People think of Washington. A sane person would think that if the BOSS thinks you are doing a lousy job, maybe your job is in jeopardy? Not the Washington Elites! Nope, they just sit in fancy offices, eating expensive lunches paid for by the taxpayer or by the special interest lobbyist (graft and corruption runs rampant!).
Who do you think ultimately pays for these special interest lobbyists? WE DO! Yes, these huge companies who hire huge lobbyist organizations are the same ones who supply the local gas stations, grocery stores and ‘box stores’ with products. We purchase their products and they use the profits to fund the lobbyists who work against our own interests. It makes NO SENSE!
So what do we do? Throw the bums out!
For starters, get involved! Attend your local community activities, council meetings and public hearings. You can’t attend all of them, but have you ever attended any? It will go a long way to educate you on how silly and inane government agencies are. It has filtered all the way down from Washington D.C. to your local state and city/county governments. They are more concerned with Federal handouts than with governing in the interests of the people. Listen to the ‘developers’ and special interests wanting subsidies or grants for miss-managing and destroying public lands. Listen to the petty bickering and power struggles. This is NOT what they were elected to do!
Do as much business as you can with your locally owned businesses. Buy from local producers; or at least from locally owned stores and shops. Sure, you can’t get everything from them, but if we all just increase 10% of our purchases to local businesses instead of large chains, it will have an impact on your community.
Write, call and email your representatives. Tell them they will be fired if they don’t start doing the job they were elected to do! Who do they think pays their salary? Of course much of their ‘income’ may be from ‘other sources’, but there is no easy way to show that. Watch who gets awarded local contracts. Start asking what Return on Investment (ROI) can be expected. Challenge the expenditures; it is YOUR money!
See that is what everyone has seemed to forget. All the taxes we pay (for most it is close to 50% of the total paycheck), as sales tax, gas tax, property tax, school tax, federal income tax, social security tax, unemployment tax, Medicare tax; it goes on and on. Then there are all the ‘hidden taxes’ you pay as part of your airline ticket, cell phone, telephone, corporate taxes paid by companies with the revenue they get when you purchase their products. All this money comes out of OUR POCKETS!
All this money is managed (and not very well) buy the people we elect to office. By voting in these yahoos and giving them taxing power over all of US, we have given up our very rights to choose how our hard earned wages are spent. We think it is just GREAT when we get a tax refund! Heck that is YOUR money you have overpaid the government who has used it interest free for a year! How often to you buy groceries and pay an extra $10.00 and tell them they can return it later; after you prove that you gave it to them in the first place! Stupid? Well that is what we do with our Federal Taxes (and most state income taxes)!
High oil prices have driven up gas prices at the pump. This winter, fuel oil will be higher. All this was predictable, but our so called ‘leaders’ have done nothing. We must have energy to survive and to thrive (see also: http://www.skipstein.com/Commentary/world_energy_crisis.htm). Supply and demand must be allowed to govern prices. The artificial pricing that the Oil Cartels use to control and make the USA and other countries bend to their will has to be put to an end. The only way to do that is to create NEW supplies of energy. Detroit (another huge lobby group) hasn’t invented much new technology since Henry Ford created the early gasoline powered automobile. They have created a HUGE industry that feeds on itself; oil filters, oil lubrication, etc. It is doomed to crumble as will the supporting petroleum derivative companies will fail as alternative forms of energy make new modes of transportation available.
Yes, all the petroleum based companies are eventually going to go belly up! After all we are running out of the product they sell. We need to hasten the conversion to alternate fuels. Those companies who are well managed will migrate to the alternate fuels, power and transportation industries; the rest will fail. That is how the free market works, when allowed to function without outside and restrictive controls.
Make waves with your local, state and federal representatives. Force them to listen or fire them! We must have a national goal of energy independence. You can make a difference. Maybe not as much as T. Boone Pickens (see The Pickens Plan at: http://www.thepickensplan.com), but there is someone to hold up and say, he is doing something with what he has. What about the other billionaires in the USA? How many of them are outsourcing jobs and resources beyond our borders. You can lobby their companies by limiting or eliminating their products from your expenditures; and tell them you are doing so and why! The cash register has ears!
Once we get the politicians out of the way of progress and free up American Free Enterprise, new energy resources will be forthcoming. We will create new transportation systems and vehicles. Aren’t you just sick and tired of Washington telling everyone in the USA what we can’t do? We need to focus on what we CAN do as a nation of individuals working together. The financial and energy problems we face today are surmountable. WE THE PEOPLE can fix it; not the government. WE THE PEOPLE have to be freed to create the solutions. WE THE PEOPLE have to take back the power of freedom and self determination with which this Great Country was founded.