Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

THE PENDULUM SWINGS

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Our next Backgrounder will examine why MainStream Media is doing such a bad job of providing the information citizens need to make intelligent decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth.

From time to time MainStream Media does do a very good job of documenting the results of citizens making bad decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth.

A case in point is the series WaPo is running on “Harvesting Cash” – details of federal farm subsidy pork barrel / fraud. In another good example, WaPo recently ran a series on the disasters generated by federal pork barrel water projects about which the veto override made the news this week. Both are available in the archives at http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Of interest today is the Page One coverage by Steven Mufson: “Oil Price Rise Causes Global Shift in Wealth.” The wealth transfer is stupendous, the graphic on the jump page with respect to the impact on the US of A is frightening.

The US of A is a wounded whale with a lame duck president and such dysfunctional settlement patterns that there is little hope of changing course without massive economic, social and physical pain.

Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns is the only possible course of action that will significantly reduce foreign oil dependency. It is the only way to substantially reduce the demand for Autonomobile use other transport waste that consums 70 percent of the oil imports.

Fundmental Change in settlement patterns is the only way citizens can be happy and safe, and not be hostage to rising oil prices.

WaPo tells us where citizens are going due to past errors in the marketplace and in the voting booth. They did not tell citizens that there were alternatives nor did they articulate the result of the current trajectory when the resources were available to make Fundamental Change without massive pain.

Enjoy to game.

EMR

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5 responses to “THE PENDULUM SWINGS”

  1. Not Ed Risse Avatar
    Not Ed Risse

    Ed writes, “Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns is the only possible course of action that will significantly reduce foreign oil dependency.”

    Not in his lifetime. There is too much sunk investment in the existing infrastructure – houses, stores, office buildings, roads, etc.

    For a quicker solution, why not try drilling in Alaska, Virginia, off the coast of Florida, etc.

    Why not build more nuclear power plants.

    Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal in the last few days about how $100 oil won’t last, because there are too many cheaper ways to get the energy.

    The free market will take care of this in short order, and nobody will have to change their settlement patterns to suit Ed Risse.

  2. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “There is too much sunk investment in the existing infrastructure – houses, stores, office buildings, roads, etc.”
    .
    .
    .
    “Yet Japan has been weaning itself off oil for years. It now imports 16 percent less oil than it did in 1973, although the economy has more than doubled. Billions of dollars were invested to convert oil-reliant electricity-generation systems into ones powered by natural gas, coal, nuclear energy or alternative fuels. Japan accounts for 48 percent of the globe’s solar-power generation — compared with 15 percent in the United States. The adoption rate for fluorescent light bulbs is 80 percent, compared with 6 percent in the United States.”

    more excerpts:

    “A winner is Toyota. Soaring gasoline prices have buffed the image of the hybrid Prius and Toyota’s other fuel-efficient models..”

    while our own auto companies do what?

    “Britain’s national average gasoline price topped 1 pound per liter, or about $8 a gallon, “

    remember Britain HAS drilled off it’s North Shore Coasts.

    The US … is, in effect, financing – Iran and Venezuela and others who are using our own money to undermine us…

    and our strategy is to continue to drive 15mpg SUVs and drill off of Alaska?

    sigh….

  3. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    George Bush had an historic opportunity to push alternative energy in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

    We are now involved in a wealth transfer of epic proportions. Iran, Venezuela, etc. are taking in money at a torrid pace. Russia is again menacing the world with its pumped up energy money.

    And what do countries do when they start getting rich? They bulk up their military.

    We are not just transferring wealth, we are funding the armed forces of our enemies.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    If we manage to spend all the money it will take to change our settlement patterns it will have about one quarter of the effect of whatever China does.

    We not only fund the armed forces of our enemies, we supply them with arms as well.

  5. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Our calculations suggest that it will cost far less to evolve functional human settlement patterns over the next two decades than it would cost to try to maintain the current dysfunctional ones.

    The economic, social and physical cost of the current settlement pattern is what makes it dysfunctional.

    The problem facing citizens is that, having blown the potential to make changes from Oct 1973 forward — especially, as Groveton points out after Sept 2001 — there may not be the resouces to do either.

    This is not a new prespective. In the 90s we started warning of Bangladesh on the Potomac unless citizens created a new tracjectory for society.

    Our column today outlines some thngs citizens could insist on, unfortunally the two major parties are too busy prepareing for the nexts meaningless election there is no end in sight.

    EMR

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