Harris Sherline: Obama Administration’s Contempt for Law at Core of Energy Policy

» Rambler on 02.05.12 @ 09:04 AM

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin? These are the people you use as references?

Don’t quit your day job, Harris.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» lou segal on 02.05.12 @ 08:39 PM

Hey you guys, how about telling us why Harris is wrong. Rebut his arguments with factual information. Is the Obama Administration illegally restricting drilling. Even if it is legal, do you agree that we should ban oil drilling anywhere in the US and in our coastal waters?

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» publius on 02.06.12 @ 04:15 PM

Mr. Sherline seems unaware that American refinery capacity is “ample” (take that
to mean, high). That American demand for petroleum is way “down”. That current supplies are “ample” (read that as, high). But retail prices are soaring anyway.

Yes, those who derive their “news” from Roger Ailes at Fox-TV could imagine that it is Mr. Obama who is causing these “free market” price variations.

But a simpler solution would be for Sherline to consider that the Big Five energy
companies are sustaining higher prices by deliberately shipping domestic surplus stocks overseas, to play the international spot market, where they’re making a killing for the shareholders, even if it’s at the expense of America’s
economic recovery.

But isn’t that the kind of unregulated free markets Sherline espouses?

So why drag Obama into this?

It was Obama who pushed Oil Futures up over $100@barrel the last month, even
though the “fear of Naval conflict with Iran” at Hormuz Strait was what was
originally cited for the price run-ups.

Could it be that Sherline’s beloved market speculators have more to do with
rising prices than the White House? Something ideologue Sherline prefers not
to consider.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 02.06.12 @ 05:51 PM

Publius makes a good point about oil futures speculators. I have never met a speculator that I liked. They are parasitic gamblers, plain and simple. They produce nothing of any value and they are the prime cause of inflationary bubbles. With all there is to do in this world to make money why we allow these parasites a place at the table is beyond me. Get a friggen job doing something of value for God’s sake!

I do not agree that big oil is driving this, it does them no good and they know it. Yes they are profiting from it but then that is the purpose of a business, to make money. As far as the stockpiles, what would you suggest the oil companies do with it? Certainly you are aware that China is sucking up every last drop of oil on the planet, right? If we don’t burn it they will. However if the American producers were to flood the market with more and more fuel, then China would suck that up as well with a huge pay off for our economy. We want to consume less and sell more Publius, that is what made America so damned rich the first half of the last century. What has driven us into near bankruptcy is the fact that we started consuming more than we produced. Not a good idea.

As for Lou’s comment, right on the money. Those gamblers are banking on America sitting out the production side to our demise while China sucks it all up. If we produce more than we consume Publius we are a net exporter. That is a good thing. We have a long way to go before we get there though so drill baby drill.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 02.07.12 @ 09:43 AM

There is nothing wrong with conservation Willie. But conservation, like any behavior, is a personal thing. It should not be mandated by a government. However, that being said, the government works for us and we should demand the government conserve as much as painfully possible. This is the difference between you and I. You want the citizen to be forced to conserve into starvation, while the government burns it all growing fat and bloated. If your precious bloated nanny coddling European style socialist government wants to it could set an example to the citizen by going on a diet and shedding huge amounts of bureaucracy, getting very lean and leading the way. Oh, but wait. Not one socialist or communist government has ever governed by example. Hmmmm. Seems they like the coercive style much better.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 02.07.12 @ 11:00 AM

Thanks for the grammar lesson. The ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ is well over used by abusive governments and intellectual narcissists, particularly those on the left. What they fail to realize is nature already has a built in correction factor, the same one our free market system is based on. The problem with folks like you jayarr, is you want to supersede nature and impose your own system of control. Fine, what I said is that it requires the subjugation of individuals by the state and the state should, therefore, set the example, which of course, history tells us never happens.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 02.07.12 @ 03:41 PM

Gee we did? Maybe you ought to tell your friends on the left, because they keep trying to re-invent the wheel over there.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 02.07.12 @ 07:14 PM

Ok, that is three non-sequiturs in a row jayarr, yer out! Do you have any idea what you are talking about or you just some jerk off contrarian who likes to read his own posts?

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 02.08.12 @ 12:54 PM

When you actually have a message, I’ll argue that.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 02.08.12 @ 04:41 PM

That’s more like it, thanks, jayarr. First we have never had “unfettered free market capitalism”, as some form of regulation has always existed. I also agree that some regulation is necessary. Proof is in the way our system works now where more than 90% of our economic activity is in non wealth producing enterprises like law, finance, entertainment, government, some services, medicine, infrastructure, military, and so on. Keynes had it wrong when he theorized that just moving capital produced wealth. It produces economic activity but it is a net value consumer. Few enterprises produce more value than they consume. Examples are resource extraction, agriculture and the biggie manufacturing. Yes some traditional services that are net consuming can add wealth if these services are sold to other economies, but that is a dangerous model to follow when you have a fifth of the world’s population. Those areas of the economy that produce less value than they consume should see the highest regulation, yet the opposite is true today. We squeeze resource extraction agriculture and manufacturing until they move out and let the parasites have free reign. No other country does this ass backwards crap to their economy, just the US. And that my friend is why we have the problems we do today.

Mind you none of what I just said has anything to do with who owns or controls the means of production and distribution of goods and services. Canada is booming under semi socialism because it is stripping its vast natural resources and selling them to us faster than their nanny state can spend the wealth that brings in, to their relatively small population.

This is the biggest problem we have today jayarr, we see things in terms of control and ownership, rather than production versus consumption. While you and I argue state versus private economies we are consuming way more than we produce in terms of net value or wealth. What in blazes name does it matter if you are going bankrupt? If you think of our net wealth or value as a pie, we argue over who has a bigger slice, who holds the knife but meanwhile we are eating more pie than we are making and this has been going on for 4 decades now. Our relative prosperity is not a function of our productive power but how much we friggen borrow!

Yes, I believe less regulation and getting the biggest wealth or value consumer, government, out of the market is better. But if those of us who believe that are all bankers and friggen lawyers we will still go broke. If you have been following my rants here the last 3 years that is the message I have been trying to get across to people, mostly to no avail.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» AN50 on 02.09.12 @ 10:12 AM

Yep, sounds ideal, jayarr. All activities we do, including breathing, consumes natural resources, it’s unavoidable. China does not produce more efficiently, that is a myth. They do it cheaper because their energy input (on the labor side) is much cheaper. They just exploit their labor force more than anyone else. BTW – they are now experiencing a boom in wage levels and that is forcing them to exploit cheaper labor in other Asian markets like Vietnam. No jayarr, the most efficient and productive manufacturing in the world is done right here in the USA. Hard to believe, huh. Plus the greatest economic benefit from technology comes from turning ideas into real products (manufacturing) so shipping that portion of the job offshore has a net negative benefit for our economy as a whole.

But I know where you are coming from with this and it’s the old why can’t we just be an R&D center for the world so we don’t consume anything but brain power. Well as nice a thought as that is, who will buy your ideas if they don’t translate into tangible things people can use and then who will make them and how if we don’t consume resources? Remember our very being here consumes natural resources. The only way to stop is to eliminate humans from the planet or find a way to do it that doesn’t kill us in the end.

As to your second question, we don’t need a charismatic leader to come along and do this. We just need a belief system that promotes a selfless life style. I found one and its 2 millennia old and works well for me. I believe in doing for others before myself, that the greatest joy in life is extending a hand to someone in need, personally, not through some mega government program. I don’t judge others, because I know I am not perfect and in fact am flawed. And most importantly I do this not out of religious duty, not because a law tells me to, not because obsessive compulsion forces me to, but simply because I want to out of love. Sounds sappy and dopy I know but man what a relief to know that none of my material possessions means squat to me, only the care for my fellow man.

That said, I don’t begrudge the materialists their shallow desires for filling that hole in their soul with goods, I just don’t need to anymore. Now if this were to spread world wide would it mean an end to our voracious appetite for natural resources? Somewhat, but not completely. Further more, and this is the big moral conundrum with the sustainability folks, the biggest benefactors of our materialism are the poorest among us. The first to suffer when we cut back are the poor.

That is not an easy one to reconcile, but I suppose if someone were to have a way to do it they would be very popular indeed.

You and I may disagree on politics but that is no reason why we can’t explore these philosophical problems. I look forward to this kind of stuff, far more than the inane banter we usually find ourselves in. Cheers!

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» lou segal on 02.09.12 @ 01:17 PM

I don’t know, AN50, I like it when you’re taking no prisoners. Like the British say - Don’t go soft now.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» jayarr on 02.09.12 @ 02:22 PM

“Take no prisoners?  What’s the point of all this?  To advance the thinking, get closer to what might be correct, valid, or the truth?  Or to try to sound most authoritative, cock-sure, make the person with an opposing view appear stupid, and “win” the argument?

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» lou segal on 02.09.12 @ 04:42 PM

Jayarr, it is interesting that you quote Lord Keynes, the godfather of an economic theory which has become a rigid ideology to some and has never been known for its adaptability to the prevailing economic conditions.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» jayarr on 02.09.12 @ 11:56 PM

Would you agree that, not knowing what a dead man might say, we’d have to give Lord Keynes the benefit of the doubt, and no matter what others might have subsequently done with his theories, consider it possible that he might simply change his mind?

Not that it is probable that he would have, since it is impossible to prove an economic theory right or wrong (controlled experiments in the discipline being impossible). Even the more “precise” field of micro-economics provides only degrees of probability rather than certainty.

And I don’t know if it can be said that Keynesian macro-economic theory “... has never been known for its adaptability to the prevailing economic conditions” (as ambiguous as that statement might be). Nixon apparently would not have agreed with it (his famous quote - which might or might not have been a mis-quote by him of Friedman): “We are all Keynsians now”.

Whether for good or evil, the fundamental question as to the validity of approaches for reviving economies has been cast as whether it is most effective to encourage consumption, or rather production (there are important secondary questions involved, but it boils down to that).  And I don’t see us getting any closer to an answer.

The conventional contrarian answer is that the Keynesian-inspired pump-priming of consumption did not help end the depression, the war did.  But that is arguable too: didn’t the war simply provide a new consumer with a voracious appetite - the War Department?

These questions will probably loom long after we are gone.  But they sure are fun to debate.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.

» jayarr on 02.10.12 @ 09:37 AM

Re: “the ideologues on the left ...”

I’m sure you didn’t mean to exempt the ideologues on the right.

You don't have permission to flag this entry.