"Why didn't someone tell us?"
This entry was posted on 5/15/2008 11:16 AM and is filed under Tax Shifting,Energy Policy,Economy,Action,Costs of INACTION.
Even with oil at well over $120 per barrel, we still need a phased-in, federal tax shift from income to non-renewable energy. We need to create a sustainable energy future.
It was inevitable that the price of oil and gas would increase. It wasn't inevitable that Americans would, for example, be driving vehicles that cost $60-$100 to fill up (much more in some cases). What are we going to learn and APPLY from the situation we're in now?
A week ago Amitai Etzioni penned this article on The Huffington Post - Economic Suicide. I think his "time machine" perspective won't be far from reality if we don't make significant energy policy changes now. The flow of wealth....... Excerpts:
- "By allowing the price of oil to skyrocket and doing extremely little to curb its import--by paying through the nose for millions of barrels of foreign oil--the United States transferred huge amounts of its wealth to its adversaries. Among the top beneficiaries were Iran, Russia, Venezuela and an assortment of authoritarian countries from Saudi Arabia to Kazakhstan.
- As of the end of 2008, the historian noted, payment for oil was no longer accepted in U.S. dollars (because of its sharply declining value) but mainly in gold bars. The amounts of gold the US had to pay foreigners were so huge that several ports were clogged as ship after ship lined up to pick up the payments.
- ...that is, they began to own American companies.
- As long as foreigners continued to ship to the United States their precious oil, it seemed that no one noted that, in effect, Americans were paying them to buy an ever growing share of American assets.
- None of their elected officials dared tell them that a major tax on imported oil was the only way to stop the greatest wealth transfer in human history, from the United States to a score of other nations. Foreigners financed American deficits for so long--allowing Americans to maintain a standard of living much higher than they were able to pay for by their labor--that Americans were conditioned to assume that they will never have to pay the piper. Hence, they faced a particularly rude and contentious awaking toward the end of decade, when the dollar turned into a junk currency, and Americans had to work overtime just to pay for the trip home from work. Their main outcry was: Why didn't someone tell us?"
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The biggest problems we face are our MINDSET regarding energy and the INERTIA of our energy use. The bottom line: our energy use needs to be sustainable. Not the 'airy-fairy', tree-hugging notion of sustainable, but the 'how are you going to meet future energy needs' and the 'reduce economic uncertainty of your energy use or you're going to be at a huge risk."
