The Sp(Oils) of Politics. Tragic and blameful.

I’ve decided to break off again from writing my book to weigh in a bit on the catastrophe in the Gulf that is rapidly threatening to spread out even farther. Let’s first take a look at this from a consumers standpoint and we will eventually come full circle.

In 2007, the US was the #1 consumer of oil. We used approx; 20 bbl/day. (billion barrels of oil per day). China was #2 at around 7 bbl/day and Japan 3rd with around 5 bbl/day. In 2008 China actually overtook us at #1 and we moved to #2. Complete statistics are now muddled in truths/untruths and profits.

The AAA Atlas of Population & Environment list the US as the Worlds largest consumer in absolute terms. On the list of the Worlds 20 major traded commodities, the US takes the greatest share in 11 of them. We like our big cars and energy. We want our heat in the cold as we must be comfortable. We have a need and desire to have all we want when we want it. I know I do. Do you? This creates demand. Demand creates opportunity to supply. This is where it gets corrupt my friends.

Snapshot of the last 10 years or so:

Bush’s regulations and Cheney’s deregulations & Clinton’s lack or foresight enabled the current state of events. The current Administration’s Interior Department inherited a cesspool of corruption from the back room meetings and backdoor deals that went on during the Bush Administration. BP didn’t start drilling and changing their practices over the last 16 or so months. The relationships between Big Oil companies and the Federal Government had been a love-fest during the Bush/Cheney years. Personal relationships between Cheney & executives from BP, TransOcean and Halliburton had been widely known. Cheney had secret Energy Commission meetings with Big Oil Execs &  hunting trips with Supreme Court Justices. Did those meetings help the Big Oil companies get the OK to pass on the $500,000.00 remote shut-off switches that could have prevented this spill from being as bad as it was? Is this type of information getting any play on Fox News or at Tea party rallies? If oil starts showing up on the beaches in Florida, would that be enough to really find out who is really at fault.

Also, to call this catastrophe Obamas ‘Katrina’ is not really appropriate in my opinion. This event can and will probably have an impact on a Generation of people who make their living in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Restaurant owners and employees and more. I am in no way minimizing the impact now or to come. However, with Katrina, people were dying in the streets. They are two totally different measure of tragedies. I believe that Bush inherited a very much broken FEMA, as Obama has inherited a very much broken Minerals Management Service.

Everything now relies on how we respond right? Here’s a response for you. GOP Rep. Joe Barton from Texas during the Congressional hearings with BP CEO Tony Hayward last week said ” I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private Corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a $20 billion shakedown”. He of course was referring to the $20 billion escrow account the President demanded of BP to pay out claims against BP by people of the affected Region. Republican Rep Barton then went as far as apologizing to BP on Americas behalf. I REPEAT: “Apologized to BP on Americas behalf.”

Who do you want in your corner America? Again, don’t let petty prejudices and misdirection allow you to vote, think, compromise and protest against your own interests.

Something to think about anyway.

He ain’t heavy, he’s my stimulus.

Here we are, about a 1/3rd of the way through the $787 billion budgeted stimulus plan and we have so many naysayers talking about how the Administration has failed and/or the stimulus didn’t work. Here is where I have some fun. It is literally ignorant and irresponsible to refer to something that is only a 1/3rd of the way through as a failure. Now the Wall Street Journal has already this week showed us in ‘living color’ the hypocritical nature of a bunch of Republican congressmen/women who took the stimulus money for their individual states and championed to their people as to how some jobs were created and saved and/or the money was put to good use. However, when it came down to actually giving any credit politically to the Administration they have nothing but contempt and criticism for the stimulus. Even worse, they have in turn led some of their more impressionable and/or closet racist followers to believe that failureof the stimulus is the case. I will try to help put the stimulus into a more ‘here’s the bottom line’ type of speak so that even the cheap seats can follow. ( A rather sarcastic sports reference) Thank you very much!

Much of the first 1/3rd of the stimulus was to maintain social services and government jobs and to provide tax cuts for workers. Now, the pace and direction of stimulus spending are about to change.

Infrastructure spending is on hand for year two of the stimulus program.  Private-sector employers will benefit a lot more from this. The way I look at it. Those private businesses that are run by Republicans that would rather keep a partisan stand to spite their businesses getting money to help them gain momentum or hire and/or keep employees should refuse the money and it should be noted so that when the money helps other businesses the partisan bullshit won’t hold water. I wouldn’t allow them to take the money then around election time have Rush or Glen of the mouth. ( My clever stool spouting reference ) Thank you very much!

Note this: Many Republicans leaders have criticized the relative lack of private businesses hiring directly attributed to the stimulus.

Oh what tangled web we weave when we weave webs…. (My clever Bushism) Thank you very much!

This week is the stimulus program’s one-year anniversary. Is there anyone who can with a straight face say that it didn’t keep us from going into a deeper recession? Not to mention that the stimulus is still largely incomplete.  It’s still got a whole lot more to do. That’s why it’s easier to mis-inform and scare you about it now so that they have more ammunition bearers to help with the Tea Party, Lunatic party or radicals party mis-information gatherings..

Most of the money alocated to specific projects hasn’t been paid out yet, and there are still an additional $195 billion in tax cuts on the way. Let me repeat that again. $195 billion in tax cuts money on the way. How impressionable and feeble minded do you have to be to see that as a ‘fail’ , a bad thing, communist or a Government takeover? A takeover of what, help and assistance?

The bulk of the money proposed for projects like new rail lines and water projects, about $180 billion, will be spent this year.

Now the first year of Infrastructure spending didn’t really have a big impact on net employment, simply because a lot of the activity was mechanized. Do you really think there won’t be any jobs created from the aforementioned rail lines and water projects?

Many agencies have been holding competitions to decide which projects should get stimulus grants, vetting applications for grants for initiatives such as high-speed rail construction or electric-vehicle projects. In some cases, federal agencies have had to go as far as set up entirely new programs. There has also been $20 billion allotted for doctors to create electronic medical records, $4.5 billion for an energy Smart Grid and $7.2 billion for broadband networks. You will see this probably towards the end of this year to early next year.

(Do you start to see a pattern here?)

I used to wonder and get angry at how Obama could be so cool, calm, collect and quiet when confronted by all this bullshit. I am now beginning to get the picture. Many of the radicals and naysayers tried to make it seem as though if the seas didn’t part and everyone wasn’t running around in new jobs and a ‘Barney’ type of euphoria after the first year, that Obama failed, the stimulus failed, the bailout failed and Cash for Clunkers failed. This is not the case people.  Spending by state and local governments has about the same effect as spending in the private sector, and not cutting a job has a similar macroeconomic impact to creating a new one. Recipients of stimulus money say they are currently funding the jobs of about 595,000 people. However, in reality, as many as two million jobs have been supported directly or indirectly by stimulus money. Government data has indicated that most of the jobs supported by stimulus spending belonged to public employees at the state and local level, including about 325,000 teachers and school staff. This cannot be a bad thing can it? I didn’t vote on Bush for his first term but I did for his 2nd term. I just didn’t think Kerry could do the job. If Bush had made these choices I would applaud him. Funny part is, so would most of the Republicans downplaying the choices right now. Subsidizing those jobs avoided layoffs, or state and local tax increases that could have further undermined the economy. But they didn’t result in substantial hiring of people who had lost private-sector jobs. Let this thing play out people. Check out the chart below and hopefully it can help to shed a little more specificity into the stimulus breakdown.

Until next time my friends. WELCOME TO THE REVOLUTION!