I have held my tongue this week, but the McCain/Palin tactics are starting to really disgust me. I have been scratching my head and asking myself what has happened to this man. I once admired him. I wanted to see him beat Bush in 2000. Now I wonder if it’s just that my views have changed so much, or whether he was ever the person I thought he was. (For a real hatchet-job that says he was never the man I thought he was, see the new Rolling Stone article: John McCain, Make-Believe Maverick ).
Christopher Buckley, the son of the late William F. Buckley, says McCain has changed:
Buckley, who praised McCain in a New York Times Op-Ed earlier this year and defended the Arizona senator’s conservative credentials against wary talk-radio hosts, said McCain is no longer the “real” and “unconventional” man he once admired.
“This campaign has changed John McCain,” Buckley wrote. “It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget ‘by the end of my first term.’ Who, really, believes that?
“Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis,” Buckley added. “His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?”
I would add to that the crazy mortgage scheme he proposed at the most recent debate, which has some conservatives up in arms:
McCain faces conservative backlash over mortgage plan
(CNN) – John McCain is facing a fresh round of anger from members of his own party deeply opposed to the Arizona senator’s proposal for the federal government to purchase troubled mortgage loans.
In a sharply worded editorial on its Web site Thursday, the editors of The National Review — an influential bastion of conservative thought — derided the plan as “creating a level of moral hazard that is unacceptable” and called it a “gift to lenders who abandoned any sense of prudence during the boom years.”
But he lost my vote the day he put Palin on the ticket. Any thought I had of voting for the man went out the window as soon as I heard that. As I said at the time, I don’t think she is qualified (and subsequent events have only reiterated my original opinion). I think his choice of her put politics ahead of country.
On the other hand, I don’t think Obama has a solid energy plan. Someone told me recently that his energy advisors are primarily environmentalists, but not energy experts. If true, that means his energy policy will contain a lot of unrealistic ‘solutions.’ I have a hard time embracing an energy policy that consists of “Fund X, mandate Y, and tax the devil out of the oil companies.” I just haven’t figured out how that last bit is going to help secure additional energy supplies.
I have held steady in my prediction that Obama will win the presidency (although that doesn’t mean I am voting for him). I predicted it to my father-in-law following the Iowa caucus, and have repeated that prediction several times here. But I have to give credit to my wife on this one, who predicted it following his speech at the Democratic National Convention four years ago.
However, I think there is a good chance that the winner of the election will only serve one term. They are going to govern through a very difficult four years, and two years in they will be catching a lot of the blame for not fixing a set of very vexing problems. I think they will preside over escalating energy prices, which will cause the economy to continue to struggle. And if Obama is elected as I expect, I think he is likely to make some serious missteps when oil prices spiral higher, exacerbating the problem.
I’m afraid Obama will be another Carter. If he is,God save us.
Indeed, Obama will win. The American people are repeating 1976 all over again.
When oil reaches 150+ next summer, a democratic congress plus Obama is almost certain to pass a large “windfall” profits tax, along with increased corporate taxes, dividend taxes and capital gains taxes. Economic growth will slow to a crawl and we will indirectly become a stagnant, European continent type economy unless another Reagan comes in to stop it. Yikes.
I consider myself conservative and tend to vote for the Republican ticket. In this election though it can be hard to tell who the Democrat and who the Republican is.
I get the feeling McCain is trying to lose. That way they can pin the blame for the dire financial situation that the Republicans created on the Democrats.
Anonymous Anonymous said…
I get the feeling McCain is trying to lose. That way they can pin the blame for the dire financial situation that the Republicans created on the Democrats.
I’ve had a sneaking suspicion for a while now that the republican leadership really doesn’t want to win this election. There are so many problems (many created or exacerbated by W.), that the next president will face many problems that he won’t be able to fix. If the next president is a democrat, many people will blame them, setting the stage for a republican win in 2012. My only question at this point is who the republicans are setting up for that election. I think whoever it is will make Reagan and Bush Jr. look like pacifists and champions of civil liberties.
Thanks for this post – I had also somewhat liked JM and had rooted for him a bit in 2000. The piece on him in Rolling Stone by (now deceased) David Foster Wallace at that time was also sympathetic. But I wholeheartedly agree that this person is too flawed and unpredictable to be in the Whitehouse; and the thought of S.Palin assuming the presidency in what would necessarily be a crisis situation is almost too ghastly to consider for long.
i also agree that Obama needs to ratchet up his energy policy with added focus on coming supply constraints. Perhaps someone can show him the updated version of Energy Security Leadership Council’s approach?
Robert,
If we had anything but an horrendously incompetent, utterly biased and absolutely untrustworthy media neither maccain or obama would have won the nomination of their party.
A functioning society requires a functioning media.
The ongoing and increasingly larger magnitude of failure of the mainstream media to do their job is dangerous to all of us.
TJIT
Robert,
You said
I have been scratching my head and asking myself what has happened to this man. I once admired him. I wanted to see him beat Bush in 2000.
Nothing happened to mccain. The only thing that has changed is the candidate he is running against.
The media wanted john mccain to beat george bush so they gave mccain highly favorable coverage.
After that election he spent a great deal of his time fighting republicans and working with democrats (mccain-feingold, mccain-kennedy, gang of fourteen agreement with democrats on judicial nominations, etc).
He got highly favorable coverage from the media because of this.
Now the media wants obama to beat mccain.
Because of this obama is getting highly favorable / fawning coverage. Mccain palin are getting highly hostile coverage.
Case in point the rolling stone article you referenced.
TJIT
I agree with RR, I just don’t see a responsible energy plan coming out of Obama. McCain’s plan to drill does little real either. We have a campiagn on non-sequiters, and attack ads.
I thought Obama would lose, until the last few weeks. The ground has shifted. Bushonomics is killing us. Huge federal deficits, huge trade deficits, huge energy problems, and no real plans on how to get out.
The joke? Terrorists knock down a building or two. Horrible, but we are nation of 300 million. We lose 30,000 a year in highway accidents, and we lost 3,000 on 9/11. We lose 18,000 a year in run-of-the-mill homicides by firearm. Terrorists are mosquitoes on the hide of a rhino.
The few punk terrorists should be wiped out without remorse, and mostly ignored.
Bush? His policies, and those of the R-party, are bankrupting our nation. We transfer hundreds of billions in wealth to Mideast thug states (including Bush’s favorite country on earth, Saudi Arabia), we run huge federal deficits, we have no energy policy, and we run huge trade deficits. But Bush waves a flag and talks tough, and people think he is protecting their interests.
Be very afraid of these new-age Republicans. I do not know what they are after, but national bankruptcy seems to be high on the agenda. They seem to want to create a banana republic of the north. They may have succeeded.
And oil ain’t going to $150 next summer, or maybe for the next 15-20 summers. Check out oil demand and prices following the 1979-80 price spike. Oil demand fell by 11 percent, and did not recover for 10 years. When the price was low again.
This time around we see booming biofuel production and EVs.
We may have seen Peak Demand this year, for fossil crude. If oil stays above $70 a barrel, demand may never recover.
But, we could see oil prices fall to just below the marginal cost of production, or about $12 a barrel, depending on how bad this recession is.
A drop of 11 percent in demand, like the fall after the 1979-80 price spike, would throw another 8 mbd on world markets, just as 2-3 mbd of new fossil supply hits the market. We could see excess supply of 10 mbd a day.
With 10 mbd sloshing around, how will we see $150 a barrel?
Even more interesting; OPEC nations would be squeezed for money — but could only make more money by pumping more crude. The screw has turned?
Interesting times.
OPEC will not let crude prices go very low. At the next meeting in November, if world economics prove that demand is lower due to banks failures, OPEC will decrease production. Specially since at the end of the year demand usually decreases since the major consumer, USA, is driving less.
Anonymous said,
OPEC will not let crude prices go very low.
The oil prices from about 1984 to 2000 argue that opec’s ability to control the market is highly exaggerated.
TJIT
“The oil prices from about 1984 to 2000 argue that opec’s ability to control the market is highly exaggerated.”
That is over-simplifying a complex situation. To take just one aspect of it, Saudia Arabia cut back production by the mid-1980s to about 30% of capacity — and that still was not enough to offset above-quota production by its OPEC peers. Situation is different today, with all producers at or close to capacity.
There is little question that a few key oil producers could set the price of oil today by trimming their production. But we should expect Saudi, Kuwait, Russia to act in their own best interests. They all have money invested in the West, and the OPEC producers depend heavily on the West for manufactured products. Plus occasional drops in oil price are a good way to take the fizz out of alternate energy and maximize the long-term value of their oil reserves.
Predicting the price of oil is difficult. Unfortunately, it is easy to predict that an Obama presidency will be desperately painful & futile.
If demand for oil falls by 11 percent (as it did after the 1979-80 price spike), we will see another 8 mbd on the market. No way OPEC can cut back that much. Plus, there is another 2-3 mbd coming on stream. Kuwait is planning a 2 mbd increase all by itself. If Iraq ever, ever recovers, there is another 2 mbd. Same for Iran.
The OPEC thug-nation daisy chain is talking about cuts of 500,000 bd.
And like I said, the screw may turn. they may have to pump more to make more.
On Obama: Inheriting the Bush mess will challenge anybody. But Clinton cleaned up Bush Mess #1 pretty well, and was running surpluses by the end of his second term. Those were some of the best years economically we ever had. Low interest rates, low inflation, federal surpluses, no expensive foreign entanglements, no nation-building.
The R-party hated Clinton, but I never could figure out why. He actually accomplished what the R-party only talks about. Maybe that is why.
If Clinton is to be faulted, he did not take advantage of the good times to lay a groundwork for a long-term energy policy. But oil was down to $10 a barrel in his second term. Tough to get anybody motivated under those conditions.
Obama has a lot of the same Clinton people around him. We can hope for the best.
Oddly enough, I keep running into R-partiers who day they are going to vote for Obama. Bushonomics, and the complete collapse of our financal system under the Bush watch, and an endless war can do that. It you draw a trend line starting in Bush’s first day to now, and extend it another eight years, we are finished as a nation. The amount of debt will crush us.
“And oil ain’t going to $150 next summer, or maybe for the next 15-20 summers.”
That’s only possible if we’re not at or near peak oil Benny. You’re talking maybe 11% less demand. Peak oil would eat that much production up in 3 years. If Iraq,Kuwait,and KSA managed to bring another 10M bpd into production,that would give us another 3 years….max. Peak oil isn’t just a theory. It happens everywhere eventually. This is one last chance to buy oil companies for the long term imo. How long it will last is anyone’s guess. I’m thinking months,not years.
“If Clinton is to be faulted, he did not take advantage of the good times to lay a groundwork for a long-term energy policy.”
Few people know Clinton signed the bill barring regulation of derivitives. The same unregulated derivitives that threaten to bring down western civilization today. Yeah,it could get that bad. Many an expert is comparing this crisis to the one that brought us the great depression of the 30’s. Btw,it was the “Oracle of Omaha” that persuaded Congress and President Clinton not to regulate these derivitives. We should have heeded Warren Buffet instead. He called them financial weapons of mass destruction.
“No way OPEC can cut back that much.”
OPEC production cuts:
1980: 12.7%
1981: 15.0%
1982: 14.6%
1983: 8.8%
By 1985, OPEC was producing at 54% of its 1979 rate. I doubt that’s in the cards again this time, as they don’t want to kill the golden goose, but some members such as Iran and Venezuela are certainly very hawkish. I wonder though how their desire for maintaining high prices stacks up against their need for cash flow. Chavez is probably starting to lie awake at night. On the other hand, I’d guess that the Saudis, the UAE, and Kuwait are sitting on enough reserves that they could weather a fairly long dry spell. The rise of the Russians adds a new plot twist. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
“The oil prices from about 1984 to 2000 argue that opec’s ability to control the market is highly exaggerated.”
Agreed…. but…. the 1986 price drop was caused by the Saudis, who had grown tired of limiting their own production while fellow OPEC members reaped the benefits. So in a sense this argues against your point.
The Economist ran a poll of 142 economists and found that, of those economists who call themselves non-partisan, 71% said that Obama had the better grasp of economic principles; even Republicans gave Obama the edge by 46% to 23%.
The two words “President Palin” send shivers up my spine.
On second thought,the most liberal Senator is about to become President,and Democrats will control all three branches of government. If 99.9999% of Americans favor a windfall profits tax,Obama might just go out on that ledge. Maybe it’s not the time to buy big oil after all. How exactly does someone become more liberal than Kennedy or Pelosi anyway?
I remember the Carter years. I thought they were pretty bad at the time … but that was before I had the Bush II years for comparison. Right now those “bad” years are looking pretty good in comparison.
What was bad? Depressing talk of sweaters and turning down the thermostat?
You know, I was just remembering yesterday how Reagan came in with optimism, in fact a cocky optimism. Reagan did not peddle fear.
I think we can contrast that pretty starkly with the core McCain support, so weird and fear based that McCain has to answer it. I actually had a friend tell me that he “feared an Obama President because he was a Christian.” I didn’t answer it directly because I thought there was a possibility he was messing with me … but later he said something about our talk being reassuring …
Go back to the study of conservatives and spiders. It says more that we want to acknowledge.
(I’m voting for Obama … because I’m not scared.)
– odograph
Anonymous said…
Anonymous said,
OPEC will not let crude prices go very low.
The oil prices from about 1984 to 2000 argue that opec’s ability to control the market is highly exaggerated.
TJIT
Yes, but that was due to the Alaska and North Sea finds. We’ll need another one or two of those to weaken opec’s control. And notice that your end date is 2000, about when the North Sea production peaked.
“Yes, but that was due to the Alaska and North Sea finds. We’ll need another one or two of those to weaken opec’s control.”
Get real about the scope of the challenge!
Oil fields decline for reasons that are governed by the Laws of Physics. Much debate about what the global average decline rate in existing fields is, but 3-7% is a reasonable guess. Which translates to 3-6 Million Bbl/D of new production required each year just to stay even.
Prudhoe Bay at peak (now long passed) produced 1.5 Million Bbl/D. The world needs somewhere between 2 & 4 new Prudhoe Bays every year just to keep up.
That is why long-term the price of oil is going up.
If we had anything but an horrendously incompetent, utterly biased and absolutely untrustworthy media neither maccain or obama would have won the nomination of their party.
Your (valid) point about the media not withstanding, the idea of the original favorites (Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani) running a bitter campaign against each other is to pathetic to contemplate.
We dodged a bullet on that one. But the press had nothing to do with it. Giuliani had no strategy before Super Tuesday, and Clinton none after it.
The media wanted john mccain to beat george bush so they gave mccain highly favorable coverage. &
Now the media wants obama to beat mccain.
Oh, I see, it’s the evil liberal media, again!
TJIT, explain to me, if the evil liberal media is so powerful, why have we only had two Democrats in the White House for the last 40-odd years? Seems like the liberal media is either incompetent or perhaps (perish the thought!) Republicans (these days, anyway) need no help looking corrupt and incompetent, themselves.
Once again the conspiracy charge doesn’t stick. Got any other crackpot theories we can help you with?
There is an obsession with supply in doomer circles, but little with demand.
If we have a global recession now, demand will likely fall by more than 10 percent.
Meanwhile, even the worst doomer-sniveler concedes total liquid production will go up by several mbd for the next several years. say from current 87 mbd, to more than 90 mbd.
I just don’t see how oil prices can hold with 10 mbd of excess supply sloshing around on world markets. Hopefully, we will dodge a global downturn.
But even with a good global economy, we have seen demand rising by less than a percent a year lately, and possibly no increase this year.
If there is a recession, and demands follows the pattern of the last global recession oil price spike (1979-80), you will have 10 years before we get back to a demand level of 87 mbd.
Except that in all those years, biofuels will be booming, and EVs will be making greater inroads. Also, 10 years of CTL growth, and every kind of alternative liquid fuel.
One could make a strong case that we have seen Peak Demand for conventional crude oil, and way before Peak Oil.
Sad to see what happened to McCain, and the really sad part it that he chose to do it to himself. Somehow he bought the theory that he needed the hard right (some might call it the religious right) to win. The reality is that these guys only had to decide between voting for McCain and not voting at all. My suspicion is that most of them would vote for McCain anyway. Hard to believe that Palin would make much of a difference among these folks.
If I was advising McCain, I would have pointed out that many voters are tired of the partisan politics we have in Washington these days. Many are tired of nothing getting done because of it. A few (myself included) are often relieved that so little gets done, due to these partisan politics. Either way, the table is set for somebody who works accross party lines to run away with this election. With Obama’s left-leaning record, he would have made a pretty easy target.
Unfortunately McCain chose to employ Karl Rove tactics. Well, you reap what you sow. If you’re too much of a coward to stand behind your own record, why maybe giving you the keys to the White House is not such a good idea…
“I remember the Carter years. I thought they were pretty bad at the time … but that was before I had the Bush II years for comparison.”
I don’t think you remember them well Odograph. They were horrible. Inflation was double digit. So was unemployment. And interest rates. The Japanese were buying up chunks of Hawaii,California,and NY. Our day in the sun was over…kaput. The next century belonged to Japan,or China,or anyone but the USA. We were in a deep funk. Iran took Americans hostage and Carter spent like 444 days in the Rose Garden,doing jack diddly squat.
There’s no way Bush years were worse than Carter. Our economy has been “Alice in Wonderland” stuff since Reagon. We never had unemployment,inflation,and interest rates this low at the same time. The fairy tale’s lasted 25 years. And people think times are BAD….LOL.
OT, but exciting news from ther world of oil palms.
An Indonesian plantation company has filed the first patent applications for a hybrid variety of palm oil seeds and their production that it expects will increase palm oil yield by several hundred per cent.
London Sumatra, a British-founded company now part of the Indofood Group, is confident the new hybrid palm oil varieties should boost yields from the Indonesian average of about 4 tonnes a hectare per year to at least 18 tonnes.
More than 90 per cent of maize grown in the US is of F1 hybrids and yields are almost six times what they were before the varieties were introduced 80 years ago.
By the way, some experiemental plantations are already claiming yields of 36 tons (roughly 9,000 gallons) per hactare (or about 3,650 gallons per acre).
New varieties of “cold tolerant” oil palm can be grown in huge swaths of India and Brazil, and possibly the southern rim of the U.S.
I see a huge future here.
Biofuels might make up one-third of liquid fuels supplies by 2030, especially if demand is crimped by EVs.
“If we have a global recession now, demand will likely fall by more than 10 percent.”
For reference, the largest one year fall in world crude oil consumption since 1965, according to the BP Statistical Review, was 4.1% in 1980. This was followed by drops of about 3% in each of the next two years. But this overall 10% drop over three years was due to consumer reactions to strongly higher oil prices in those years. After 1983, demand has grown steadily, even in recessionary periods (apart from a 0.2% decline in 1993). I don’t believe there was much a of a drop in demand until oil got much higher than its present $80 or so. So if oil stays at current levels for the intermediate term, then I don’t see a repeat of the price related falls of the early 1980’s. Demand drops would then have to be related to recessions, decreases which history (admittedly not a huge sample) shows to be fairly mild.
“I just don’t see how oil prices can hold with 10 mbd of excess supply sloshing around on world markets.”
I think OPEC would probably act before this much surplus crude could come into the market.
“Hopefully, we will dodge a global downturn.”
If we do, we’ll likely see another rise in demand. Global demand rise, 2002 through 2006, from BP:
1.2% 1.8% 3.5% 1.4% 0.8%
According to the EIA, global demand has risen right about at 1% for the past two years.
And what about OPEC spare capacity? I suspect it’s significantly less than it was in the 1980’s, and that plus the potential for further rapid expansion in the developing world are important differences from the 1980’s. We are also increasingly relying on ever more expensive oil at the margin, so significant price drops would eventually result in a drop in supply from these sources.
The impact of alternatives is a wild card that could be a world changer, but I have no idea when that’s going to happen. Personally I think most people are overly optimistic about this (particularly the time frame), but I hope I’m wrong.
Aren’t you describing the Gerald Ford years?
(Which themselves were the product of R. Nixon’s explicit decision to hold down interest rates before his election and suffer the consequences later)
I guess what I see is Carter shouldering that, just as Obama might have to shoulder it as Carter II.
It would be sad later if revisionists thought that was his recession.
– Odograph
I see strong inflation-adjusted GDP growth in the Carter years:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/images/13146600.
From the Heritage Foundation no less!
– odograph
Armchair-
That’s what I am saying — a global recession could lead to a drop in demand of 11 percent. Oaky, spread over three years — but the same three years in which supply is expected to increase.
We have sharply higher prices now, just like in the early 1980s (although the recent bubble burst has changed the picture somewhat). Your figs from BP are spot on (same ones I use).
Back then (early 1980s), we had a lot of power plants switching from oil to gas. This time, we have EVs and biofuels.
What you are not mentioning is that global demand for crude took 10 years to recover after 1979, and then only when oil was cheap again (again, according to the BP stats).
If oil does not become cheap again in this cycle, then we may never see demand recover (at least for fossil crude).
I contend we have just two ways to go from here: Either oil becomes cheap again, or demand for fossil crude has permanently peaked.
The price mechanism is a wondrous thing.
trying that link again, this time with an a-tag
– odograph
Odograph,the “misery index”,inflation plus unemployment,hit a post depression record of 20% in 1980. I’m not saying the economy was perfect before Carter,but it’s hard to find a time when it was worse. His response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Olympics. THAT really showed them! He helped put the mad mullahs in power,and then pontificated in the Rose Garden while they held Americans hostage. I remember the Carter years very well. The word “stagflation” was coined during his administration. His “malaise” speech made me want to puke. Reagan oversaw the longest peacetime expansion of the economy ever. Before Reagan,unemployment of 5% was a pipe dream. No serious economist envisioned 5% unemployment,3% inflation,and 5% mortgage rates at the same time. Anyone suggesting it was even possible would’ve been hauled off to the looney bin. The last 25 years were a fairy tale economy. Americans complaining of how bad it is have very short memories,and they’re in for a world of pain when a REAL recession hits. I’m afraid Obama will spend the next 4 years daring to hope to dream of change….while everything turns to shiite.
Benny,
Yes good point about the 1980’s fall in demand… I think the main causes of this were the switching you mentioned, and also conservation measures that were implemented worldwide on a grand scale (from smaller cars to indoor sweaters). Between the late 1970’s and the late 1980’s oil consumption per GDP dropped by around 20-40% or so in most large oil consuming nations. We’ll have to repeat this level of efficiency gains to see the same downward supply pressure we saw in the 1980’s. I’m not sure this is doable unless there are some real breakthroughs.
Also, this time around, the switching has already been done. Add long term economic growth in Asia, and I think in the next 10 years there will be higher demand growth (or less of a fall?) than we saw in the 1980’s.
Maury, that’s like blaming the cleaning crew for the frat party.
The damage is baked in at this point, as it was when Carter took over for Gerald “Whip Inflation Now” Ford.
I liked Ford, actually, but there is only so much you can do with that kind of starting point.
… you aren’t impressing me one whit with the logic that whoever digs in to clean up this stuff becomes the cause of it.
That is not chronologically rational
-odograph
*Nixon instituted wage and price controls (when not authorizing burglaries).
*JFK cut the top tax rate from 90 percent to 50 percent. (Under Eisenhower and an R-Party Congress, the top federal tax rate was 90 percent.)
*The Dow tripled under Clinton.
*Likely the Dow will be down during the Bush No. 2 years. Eight years of no returns to equity holders.
*Bush No. 2 has all but nationalized our financial system.
*McCain says “corruption and greed” rules Wall Street. His veep says she “took on Big Oil,” and that her hubbie is a union man.
*Clinton ran federal surpluses.
*Reagan, Bush and Bush No. 2 proposed and ran a Niagara of red ink budgets. Keynes would have been a piker in these administrations.
So, who are the “liberals” and who are the “conservatives.”
If you judge by actions…..
Odograph,by your logic,no President is responsible for what happens during his administration. They’re doomed to whatever problems the previous administration foisted on them. Even if what you’re saying was true,nobody bequeathed Carter the doom and gloom that permeated his administration. There was a sense of defeat in this country. That the American dream had gone bye-bye and would never return. I voted for Carter the first time around. I’m no diehard republican. I even voted for Clinton the second time around. Maybe Obama isn’t another Clinton. Maybe there’s some substance under all the hype. There better be. It can all go to hell in a handbasket,and quicker than most folks realize.
“So, who are the “liberals” and who are the “conservatives.”
You’re talking politics Benny. I’m talking Presidents without substance. Bush may well be the worst President ever,but at least we knew where he stood. There was none of that hoping to dare of dreaming to change…..something. Maybe he’s not another Carter. But,he’s going to be put to the test….by Russia,China,North Korea,Iran…..and who knows how many others. We can only hope he doesn’t freeze like a deer in the headlights at the first sign of a crisis. I’m not hopeful.
armchair – there’s still plenty of switching to do. Cars today could be far more fuel efficient than they are, but almost every technological improvement that could reduce fuel usage has been met by an increase in horsepower. I saw an ad over the weekend bragging about a car with 450 HP – the small cars we switched to in the 70s were more along the lines of 125 HP. If we consumers decide that we’d rather have the good mileage than the ability to go from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds, we could save quite a bit. But this is America, and we may never make that decision. We hate wimpy cars.
anon,
By “switching” I meant the changeover from oil to natural gas that was widely implemented by the utility companies in the 1980’s and 1990’s. That route has almost been exhausted by now.
I have no doubt that Americans could still make huge gains in efficiency through conservation and technological improvements in lots of different ways. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to happen as quickly or pervasively as we’d all like unless sufficiently high oil prices provide the incentive. Don’t ask me to define “sufficiently!”
Jeez, I drive around L.A., and it just has to be a myth the “the easy stuff” for conservation has already been done. Some of the SUVs are bigger than the house trailer I live in.
Also, EVs are coming. Now they say
the next-gen GM Volt might get 80-mile range, on same size battery. That’s up from 40.
The PHEVs are the most exciting development since Dolly Parton matured.
PHEVs shift energy demand from liquid fuel to the grid, and the grid can be powered by nukes, wind, solar, geothermal, coal etc.
And grid demand can be reduced by better lighting (LEDs on the way) and HCAV systems. I work with architects a lot. Lemme tell you the built space in America will use less, not more, energy in 20 years.
And none of this is sci-fi stuff. The PHEVs are here, We have buiolt nukes for generations. Wind farms are being built. LEDs are getting better every year.
We have a tremendous chance to build a more prosperous and cleaner world. They are doing it in France, Germany, Sweden, even Thailand. I sure hope we do it.
This time, we have EVs and biofuels.
Except that we don’t. Not in meaningful quantities, anyway. It may change in future, but speaking of today…
I’m afraid Obama will spend the next 4 years daring to hope to dream of change….while everything turns to shiite.
Why so negative, Maury? You’re not a Kool Aid drinker, are you?
Big leaders start with big visions. Check. Of course, the devil is always in the details. So vision alone doesn’t mean much. We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.
Part of being president is being the national cheerleader-in-chief. Obama should excel at this.
Part of why McCain is falling behind is the lack of a coherent view, a story line that ties his policies together into a whole. Hence his tendency to bounce from one extreme to the other.
So, who are the “liberals” and who are the “conservatives.” If you judge by actions…..
Interesting stuff, Benny. Chalk me among conservatives very disappointed by Bush. And let’s not even start with the GOP in the House…
Maury, did you reverse course on me? You said Carter was responsible for high inflation, worst misery index, etc. I said he was clean up other people’s mess.
Are you agreeing?
– odograph
“I said he was clean up other people’s mess.
Are you agreeing?”
Carter was the biggest failure we ever had in there Odograph. Nice guy,but he ran this country into the ground. No,I’m not agreeing with you. I’m saying that even if you were right about the economic problems,he was a failure on every other front as well. You must be under 50. Otherwise,we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
“Why so negative, Maury? You’re not a Kool Aid drinker, are you?”
I survived Carter,and survived Katrina as well Optimist. But,I learned that what we enjoy in this country is tenuous and fragile. It can be gone in a blink. All it takes is a knucklehead President,a natural disaster,or maybe some nutjob in the Middle East.
“So vision alone doesn’t mean much. We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.”
That’s my point. He’s not a peanut farmer from Georgia,but damned if I can think of anything but Carter when I hear him speak. I really do hope I’m wrong.
“However, I think there is a good chance that the winner of the election will only serve one term. They are going to govern through a very difficult four years…”
That “they” is politically correct gender neutrality gone mad. We know damned well that whoever is elected, he will be a man – both candidates are men, and there will only be one winner. Put “he”, since it belongs there and it is ungrammatical to use the plural when there is only one.
“Put “he”, since it belongs there and it is ungrammatical to use the plural when there is only one.”
“They” can be president, vice-president, and the administration. Obama won’t govern by himself.
I’m right around 50, and I don’t think you’ve named anything concrete that Carter did badly, except for the fact that he could not wave his hands and make the economic problems inherited from Nixon and Ford go away.
This has bearing, because we sit with a really crappy inheritance for any next president.
Most of the job will be cleaning up after, literally, the worst President ever.
– odograph
Carter, 3rd highest jobs growth in the century?
I think that’s what this shows
Hey, you Bushies wanted an ownership society? Now, we all own banks!
You want libertarian bent? How about that Sarah Palin who took taxpayer money to build a…..hockey rink? We taxpayers had to build that? That’s an absolutely vital government service?
McCain says we taxpayers should buy sour home mortgages all across this land, and let deadbeats stay in their homes on mortgages with sweeter terms. It’s called the “You Don’t Pay, That’s Okay” plan.
And we are still engaged in a decade-long “nation building” project, to create a nice, Islamic-Shia state in Iraq. Hey, $10 billion a month forever is not a bad deal.
Where is Everett Dirksen when you need him? He would bolt from this modern-day R-Party of feeble weenies.
*Subscription only
CAMPAIGN 2008: A look at who’s advising Obama and McCain on energy, environment (08/21/2008)
Darren Samuelsohn, Greenwire senior reporter
Want to see who’ll play key roles in setting energy and environment policies in the next administration? Then look closely at who is advising the presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain.
Obama, an Illinois Democrat, has a notably deep bench of experts to help him answer key questions on energy prices, oil drilling and global warming. His advisers on those issues outnumber those of his Republican rival by more than 3 to 1.
Obama’s team includes former congressional leadership aides and high-ranking officials from the Clinton administration’s U.S. EPA and the departments of State, Energy and Commerce. Some see the size of the Obama group as a sign of the Democrats’ eagerness to return to power.
“They’ve been out of power for seven years,” said Jeff Holmstead, a Republican energy lawyer who served from 2001-05 as President Bush’s top EPA air pollution official. “You have people who care about these issues and want to be involved.”
By contrast, McCain’s campaign relies on a small group of longtime friends and advisers. Campaign staff would not comment on why their advisory team isn’t as large as Obama’s, but sources say the staff’s size reflects how frequently the Arizona senator departs from the Republican Party line on environment and energy issues.
“I’m not sure a McCain EPA would look any different than an Obama EPA,” quipped Brian Kennedy, a former House Republican leadership aide. “He might even bring Carol Browner back.”
If anyone cares to see the list, subscribe to E&E Publishing's Greenwire. Perhaps I can email it directly to Robert. It's obvious there are no oil-men in either group, which is not to say none are unofficial advisors.
Article in today’s Wall Street Journal that Iraq is signing contracts, plans to double oil output in four years, or more than 4.4 mbd. Kuwait has a similar expansion going on.
Baghdad has $90 billion in the bank, and the cost rehabbing and developing new fields is modest.
Now, if Iran can be brought on board….
To the anonymous who posted just after me: you are mistaken, the term “winner” shows clearly that that was talking about electing a singular person, not a group (which would have been rather strained anyway, even if there hadn’t been a singular term in there already). That really, really, should have been “he” up there, not “they”.
Reagan’s economic policies in a nutshell.
“Let’s put the federal budget on a credit card! Nothing could possibly go wrong with that!”
If I’ve defended Carter, I can defend Reagan too … I think he honestly wanted to cut spending and balance the budget. I don’t think the expanded debt was what he really expected.
I think every time a budget came around Reagan thought he could make cuts to balance his military spending.
He was wrong, in retrospect, but I put him in a different boat than this last crew. The GWB administration had that model to learn from. They knew that tax cuts and expanded military spending did not automatically balance the budget.
We still hear from people who will claim that tax cuts always produce more income. Either they are foolish enough that they don’t know the history, or they are lying.
(in certain happy cases tax cuts will spur the economy, but it is not a sure thing, it has to be tested, and when it fails, rejected.)
– odograph
All it takes is a knucklehead President,a natural disaster,or maybe some nutjob in the Middle East.
To me the difference is this: Bush is like a teenager: he knows so little, that he is completely convinced he’s right in his convictions. That kind of damn-the-evidence-I-know-what-I’m-doing would probably not get replicated in several generations.
Can’t see Obama matching W’s level of knuckleheadedness, try as I might…
We still hear from people who will claim that tax cuts always produce more income. Either they are foolish enough that they don’t know the history, or they are lying.
Yeah, it’s pretty disappointing to see the GOP latch onto no more taxes like it’s the Eleventh Commandment…