#1
Its a harbinger of a nationwide investment boom spreading from the oil fields of North Dakota and the Marcellus gas shale in Pennsylvania to power plants in California and chemical refiners in Texas.
So does the Democratic Party, and that's the problem. If the numbers we're seeing are even remotely close to right, then there really IS enough fossil fuel out there to hold us for a few centuries yet...and that means the Dems are pretty much wrong on their energy policies, which are in turn the cornerstone/justification for a great deal of their economic policies. They ever flat out admit that, they're dead - people want to be happy and prosperous and in control of their own futures, not freezing in the dark while our masters and betters decide what's good for us...and that much fossil fuel out there means the Dems can't control us.
Not that they won't try, of course.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/19/2012 11:13 Comments ||
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#3
Average tax on a gallon of gas is 48.1 cents per gallon. Average profit Exxon makes is only 2 cents per gallon.
When Hillary Clinton heard about Exxon profit, her response was, "I want that."
The issue with the communist party is not if we have enough energy, it is that we the private sector process it, and they are doing everything they can to keep us away from it until they can completely control it. That is the plan for the major sectors of the less and less free market economy of the U.S..
#4
Mad Eye, Exxon makes a good deal more profit than that - the 2 cents is the profit from the Refining & Marketing part of the business. They make most profit these days from Production - probably something like 30 cents per eventual gallon of gas. When oil prices collapse though, they lose money on production, but probably still makes a few cents at the pump.
I think their current tactic is to ban coal because of "global warming" and then use up the natural gas that could replace imported oil in replacing the domestically produced coal instead.
#6
A farmer or lease holder used to get one eighth of one percent royalty on crude oil production. May be a bit different today. The US Gummit is the lease holder for all off-shore drilling as I recall. Wonder if anyone is keeping track of those royalty payments?
#8
I would not be surprised at some sort of plan by government to take over the domestic energy production under the guise of using the money to pay down the debt.
#9
heh. "We aren't asking you to pay more taxes, but fuel and heating oil is now $15+/gallon."
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/19/2012 15:13 Comments ||
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#10
Despite mucho MSM-Net Artics both for + against "Peak Oil", "Biotic Oil", + "Shale Oil, etc. I still don't see enuff of a common consensus from Govts-Perts as to reliability.
"SIRIUS" + SOLAR STORMS EVENTS ASIDE, FOR ALL WE KNOW, THIS DRIVE TO INVEST IN SHALE OIL EXISTS BECAUSE TRADITIONAL "DEEP" RESERVOIRS ARE EXHAUSTED. Incidentally, iff true it makes it imoerative for the ongoing natural oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico to be studies + capped.
A generation has passed since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, which begat other conferences and protocols (e.g., Kyoto). And, by now, apocalypse fatigue -- boredom from being repeatedly told the end is nigh.
This began two generations ago, in 1972, when we were warned (by computer models developed at MIT) that we were doomed. We were supposed to be pretty much extinct by now, or at least miserable. We are neither. So, what went wrong? People are smarter greedier than the experts think they are.
The modelers examined 19 commodities and said that 12 would be gone long before now -- aluminum, copper, gold, lead, mercury, molybdenum, natural gas, oil, silver, tin, tungsten and zinc. Lomborg says:
Technological innovations have replaced mercury in batteries, dental fillings and thermometers; mercury consumption is down 98 percent, and its price was down 90 percent by 2000. Since 1970, when gold reserves were estimated at 10,980 tons, 81,410 tons have been mined, and estimated reserves are 51,000 tons.
Since 1970, when known reserves of copper were 280 million tons, about 400 million tons have been produced globally, and reserves are estimated at almost 700 million tons. Aluminum consumption has increased 16-fold since 1950, the world has consumed four times the 1950 known reserves, and known reserves could sustain current consumption for 177 years. Potential U.S. gas resources have doubled in the past six years. And so on.
The modelers missed something -- human ingenuity in discovering, extracting and innovating. Which did not just appear after 1972.
Forty years after "The Limits to Growth" imparted momentum to environmentalism, that impulse now is often reduced to children indoctrinated to "reduce, reuse, and recycle." Lomborg calls recycling "a feel-good gesture that provides little environmental benefit at a significant cost." He says that "we pay tribute to the pagan god of token environmentalism by spending countless hours sorting, storing and collecting used paper, which, when combined with government subsidies, yields slightly lower-quality paper in order to secure a resource" -- forests -- "that was never threatened in the first place." I was surprised to find making old newspapers into cereal-box cardboard in Dallas, Texas started in 1897. Now do you know why it is gray?
In 1980, economist Julian Simon made a wager in the form of a complex futures contract. He bet Paul Ehrlich (whose 1968 book "The Population Bomb" predicted that "hundreds of millions of people" would starve to death in the 1970s as population growth swamped agricultural production) that by 1990 the price of any five commodities Ehrlich and his advisers picked would be lower than in 1980.
Ehrlich's group picked five metals. All were cheaper in 1990. Whadda maroon! But wait, there's more!
The bet cost Ehrlich $576.07. But that year he was awarded a $345,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant and half of the $240,000 Crafoord Prize for ecological virtue. One of Ehrlich's advisers, John Holdren, is Barack Obama's science adviser.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/19/2012 07:43 ||
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Yes, but we're so modern, hip, and sophisticated, that simple homilies that address well known human behavior are only for the unwashed, fly over, bible thumping, gun toting rubes.
The Malthusians are ever with us. My sister as a late teen went on a great rant to my father about all the typical '60s crap how the middle class suburbia was so terrible.
He simply quoted some of the same type of thing from the '20s and said how people always wanted to a) be scared and b) think themselves the saviors of man kind. SSDD.
#4
we're so modern, hip, and sophisticated, that simple homilies that address well known human behavior are only for the unwashed, fly over, bible thumping, gun toting rubes.
#6
re No 5; Yes, leftist politics has a long history of fatal results for non-believers (and some believers). And they have taken over the environmental doom thing as well.
#7
The modelers missed something -- human ingenuity...
An important factor, but it was more than that. Being interested in apocalypses and computer modeling, I actually read the Club of Rome report. One intriguing bit was that after predicting doom, they ran the models with different parameters looking for a way to save humanity. No dice. Everything they tried ran to the same outcome. This suggested either our fate was sealed (apparently not!) OR that the model was in an attractor basin and basically 'stuck' on a particular outcome.
The map is not the territory, the model is not the thing.
Also, I'd like to nominate Paul Erlich for the Nobel Prize for Being Wrong About Everything. He has sold a lot of books, though.
#8
So well put P2K, dismissing the wisdom of the past because they didn't have our technology is foolish. Most core insights into human behavior and organization are not new....and dismissing the wisdom of the past is often a huge mistake, witness the education debacle for example.
#9
Conceptually the left cannot believe capitalism can solve the environmental issues; while trying to leverage the environmental issue as reasons to destroy capitalism.
Their goals and facts get in the way of their agenda.
#10
I too read the CoR report. As a computer geek with a Poli Sci degree I agree with Steve S.
That model was as bogus as the models relied upon by the gerbil worming fanatics. Aside from the logical fallacies modeling always obeys the first law of computers...garbage in, garbage out.
It's very easy to play with the data to get the results you want.
These people don't care about the environment or the population, they only care about power; how to get it and how to keep it. Doomsaying is just one of their tools.
Also, I'd like to nominate Paul Erlich for the Nobel Prize for Being Wrong About Everything. He has sold a lot of books, though.
To my way of seeing things, someone like Ehrlich should be tried and hanged for treason.
Of course, I'm just a neanderthal, according to the beautiful people.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/19/2012 13:18 Comments ||
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#12
For all the people who believe that the problem with the world is there are too many people: Why are you still alive? If you truly believe that there are too many people, why haven't you committed suicide to help the problem?
The real problem for people who believe that there are too many people is that there are too many OTHER people. They of course think that they will be among the few survivors.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/19/2012 13:42 Comments ||
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#13
RiV, why haven't you committed suicide to help the problem?
Now wait a minute here. First they should all become mass murderers, after all, why kill the one when you can kill the many?
#15
if a certain predictor class has been wrong every single time in the last 40 years and their current predictions are based on models that don't even predict the present with any accuracy given data of the past then rationality would reject them out of hand. seriously folks, chicken poop bingo gives a better probability of accuracy than these 'experts' have.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
08/19/2012 16:25 Comments ||
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#16
Without doom and death the Aasvoëls (vultures) have no meat.
#1
As times before, the GWOT is as much an INTER-MUSLIM, etc. IDEO + MILPOL/GEOPOL STRUGGLE AS IT IS US-VS-RADICAL-ISLAM for 9-11.
IMO the Saudis recognize that their control of the Islamic "holy places" + dogmatic interpretationism , now also as per desired OWG "Caliphate", is being challenged from within Islam itself, + NOT JUST BY SHIA ISLAM I.E. IRAN.
IT BEHOOVES THE SAUDIS TO MAKE RAPPROCHEMENT + PEACE WID AMBITIOUS IRAN, ETAL, AMAP ALAP AS THE FORMER MUST PREPARE TO DEFEND ITS HISTORICAL POSITION + AUTHORITY IN THE ARAB-MUSLIM UNIVERSE.
Vice-presidential picks are always judged by their effect on the coming election. They rarely have any. They havent had a decisive influence since Lyndon Johnson carried Texas for John Kennedy in 1960.
If Mitt Romney and Ryan can successfully counterattack Mediscare, the Ryan effect becomes a major plus. Because:
(a) Ryan nationalizes the election and makes it ideological, reprising the 2010 dynamic that delivered a shellacking to the Democrats.
(b) If the conversation is about big issues, Obama cannot hide from his dismal economic record and complete failure of vision. In Obamas own on-camera commercial the choice . . . couldnt be bigger whats his big idea? A 4.6-point increase in the marginal tax rate of 2 percent of the population.
For a country with stagnant growth, ruinous debt and structural problems crying out for major entitlement and tax reform? Its a joke.
(c) Image. Ryan, fresh and 42, brings youth, energy and vitality the very qualities Obama projected in 2008 and has by now depleted. From transcendence to the political gutter in under four years. A new Olympic record.
And while Romney is the present, Ryan is the future. Romneys fate will be determined on Nov. 6. Ryans presence, assuming he acquits himself well in the campaign, will extend for decades. If Ryan does it well, win or lose in 2012, he becomes a dominant national force. Mild and moderate Mitt Romney will have shaped the conservative future for years to come.
The cunning of history. Or if you prefer, its sheer capriciousness. Krauthammer - RTWT
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/19/2012 08:52 ||
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#1
Vice-presidential picks are always judged by their effect on the coming election.They rarely have any
Try telling that to the SCAM (state controlled American media) according to them Palin trashed McCains chances. She was the only reason to vote for him given his complete ineptness.
#2
I'm hoping for a slam bam a$$-kicking this November by the pubs. I will enjoy the MSM running around with their long faces down around their jockey shorts. I will enjoy seeing how the state controlled media try to spin it.
#5
If the conversation is about big issues, Obama cannot hide from his dismal economic record and complete failure of vision. (Emphasis mine - RbR)
That's a point on which I have to respectfully disagree with The Hammer. Ogabe's vision isn't a failure at all - his intention all along was to weaken and Balkanize the country to the maximum degree possible.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
08/19/2012 14:00 Comments ||
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#6
URGENT: NEWSWEEK COVER THIS WEEK, JUST RELEASED TODAY, TELLS OBAMA TO GET LOST. MSM IS TURNING ON OBAMA.
I posted a link for tomorrow Rantburg edition. If MSM turns on Obama, the Democratic Convention will be the decision point for the Dems.
Or, the other way around, as the WaPo puts it...
Are taxes a form of charitable donation?
Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney seemed to suggest that he might think so last week, when he responded to questions about how much he pays in taxes by suggesting that people should take into account his total contributions to the government and charities.
The comment was a quick one -- a by-golly insistence that despite paying a relatively low tax rate on his vast income, the millions he has given to charity show that he's not a greedy guy. What's wrong with greedy? There are, after all, just two kinds of people - greedy ones and liars.
But experts who research public attitudes on philanthropy on both sides of the political spectrum said it was an inadvertently revealing moment, a brief window into the deep philosophical differences between how liberals and conservatives view government and society. Which is why I interrupt your Sunday morning.
"Taxes are a form a of charity," said Michael Tanner, a scholar at the Cato Institute who has studied philanthropy, explaining the conservative viewpoint. "If we think of the point of taxes, it's not to be punitive. We tax people because there's some use, some public good, for which they're needed."
He added that one reason a conservative such as Romney aims to push tax rates down is a fundamental belief that individuals make better choices about what society needs than government does: "A conservative might say, 'I know of something in my local community where my dollars might serve a better purpose.' " My taxes don't seem to filter down to my local church, which offers on-the-spot assistance to local needy families.
The flip side of the argument, the liberal side, is that the point of government is to provide a way for citizens to decide together what society needs and to get those things done. Like interstate highways, the Post Office, and - dare I say - national defense.
"This is really the fundamental disagreement," said Garrett Gruener, the founder of Ask.com, who advocates higher taxes for himself and other ultra-wealthy individuals as part of the group Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength. Nothing is stopping him from writing a check to the Feds...
"Democracy is not a charity. It's an enterprise of all Americans to accomplish things that we democratically decide are important," he said. "Charity is something I do on my own, and I don't expect others to have the same priorities I do." Precisely. That does not equate to more taxes being a good thing.
Romney is one of the wealthiest Americans ever to represent a major party in a presidential race, and his personal finances have been under a political microscope. Democrats argue that his effective tax rate -- 13.9 percent in 2010 -- is an illustration of federal policies that favor the wealthy, making breaks available to those who can pay accountants to find them and taxing investment income at a lower rate than wages. Yeah! Just who makes those tax breaks anyways? Congress? Really?
"I'm proud of the taxes I pay. My taxes, plus my charitable contributions, this year, 2011, will be about 40 percent," he said in January during a debate among Republican presidential candidates in Florida.
On their 2010 tax return, Romney and his wife, Ann, reported giving nearly $3 million to charity, 13.8 percent of their total $21.7 million income. According to the Romney campaign, the couple gave more than $7 million in 2010 and 2011.
That level of giving is far beyond the contributions of most Americans. According to research by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and the Giving USA Foundation, Americans gave about 1.9 percent of disposable personal income to charity in each of the past three years.
It is also more than given by many leading political figures.
According to their 2011 tax return, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama paid an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent and gave to charity 22 percent of their adjusted gross income of $789,674. But their rate of giving has varied significantly, as has their income. Their 2005 return, for instance, showed them giving 4.6 percent of $1.66 million. In 2003, they gave 1.4 percent of $238,00; in 2004, they contributed 1.2 percent of $207,000. The closer to the election, the more generous they become.
Vice President Plugs Biden and his wife, Jill, gave 1.4 percent of their adjusted income to charity in 2010 and 1.5 percent in 2011. According to tax returns released Friday, the newly chosen Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his wife, Janna, gave 1.2 percent of their gross adjusted income to charity in 2010, a figure that jumped to 4 percent in 2011.
According to a calculator developed by Peter Singer, a professor at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, ...and a thorough rabble-rouser who is frequently cited for having all the right opinions...
Romney should have given at least $6 million of his income in 2010. Singer -- who says Americans at all income levels other than himself should forgo more luxuries to help the global poor -- termed Romney's contributions "not all that impressive, given how much he has." I wonder if this guy is a democrat? He seems to like telling other people what they should do.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/19/2012 07:19 ||
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#1
Charity is different from paying taxes.
But regardless of how you look at it, conservatives are likelier to tithe and to donate to charities than liberals.
Posted by: American Delight ||
08/19/2012 8:19 Comments ||
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#2
It used to be that charities usually don't have the coercive power of government and punishment to directly extract resources from others. However, now days, too many charities use their 'special interest' standing to employ agents within government to get a resource funding stream.
#7
Charity is often more effective than the bureaucrats results with the extorted wealth.
Even more effective for society is just spending it on what you need.
I love when statists get into this territory and cite Christian charity as some sort of related concept in order to somehow shame fiscal conservatives. I don't think Jesus would want folks coerced into giving charity at the point of a Roman spear.
#9
Romney is one of the wealthiest Americans ever to represent a major party in a presidential race, and his personal finances have been under a political microscope.
Kerry and his wife are wealthier but for some strange reason this never came up when he was running .....
#10
Romney is one of the wealthiest Americans ever to represent a major party in a presidential race, and his personal finances have been under a political microscope.
How wealthy were the Roosevelt boys in today's dollars? Or that incorrigible tomcat John F. Kennedy? Presumably that major party bracket was meant to discount Ross Perot and Donald Trump...
#11
tw, remember that the Republicans are the party of the rich. So when a rich Republican (but I repeat myself) runs for office, his finances are a legitimate source of news information. However, when a rich Democrat (warning, oxymoron alert) runs for office, he/she obviously got rich through legitimate means (like Harry Reid?), so the press has no interest.
/sarcasm, as if you couldn't tell
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/19/2012 22:21 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
And while Romney is the present, Ryan is the future. Romneys fate will be determined on Nov. 6. Ryans presence, assuming he acquits himself well in the campaign, will extend for decades. If Ryan does it well, win or lose in 2012, he becomes a dominant national force. Mild and moderate Mitt Romney will have shaped the conservative future for years to come.
