Hi Carole, all I can suggest is to get a copy of Fareed Zakaria's new book, "The Post American World." Since he's an overly optomistic reporter, from Newsweek fame, he may cheer you up, with his view about "The Rise of The Rest." Take it with a grain of salt, and remember, never bet against America. Many have, and they've been wrong, and lost millions/billions. And to answer your questions, I'm still in Mexico Beach, FL, and I don't see too many cheery pictures, here, although driving across country, I saw many good signs of America turning in to solve some of her energy problems. Texas and Luisiana have expanded existing oil refineries extensively. Texas is building wind farms faster than we're baking new loaves of bread. The military is going to build new coal gassification/liquifaction plants. So, there are signs of change, as I met many, many trucks across the country, carrying new wind farm blades and generators. California and many other western states are vastly expanding their wind farms, that are already massive. Florida is already selling commercial solar power, a first in the nation, as far as I know. So some are realizing our problems, but they are truly massive, especially if terrorists keep hitting oil pipelines, around the world. Just imagine, if they hit major Mid-East ports, before we are ready, which is a considerable distance away, and they supply 43% of the world's oil, while the warring states of Africa supply another 30%___pretty bad odds, for not running into trouble, with all the sentiments and passions, in those areas. And, btw, in Texas, they are drilling new wells everywhere. I met many new computerized directional drill rigs, heading to new drill sites, and these were brand new, two and three hundred million dollar rigs___portable rigs___the new style. Midland Texas is booming, and housing is expanding and still increasing in prices, yet Maine is being decimated___housing wise___fuel cost wise___and food price increase wise. It's not a pretty picture, but there are glimers of hope.
The number one problem America faces, is admitting she's truly got a serious energy problem, imo. Secondly, she's got a terribly blind academic and political elite cardre of communities, still worshipping worn and dated ancestral ideologies, the rest of the present global world has found inadequate, yet America still sleeps, under the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/McCain spell, of blind ideological ignorance. When and if the academic and political blind elites awaken is a good question, that I can't answer, but I sure know they're sound asleep, even the one's most think are awake. The sad truth is, I hear no-one in America truly awake___yet. I like Obama, but for the reason he's possibly open to new ideas, but at the same time, his are quite weak, to the true needs of the present state of America's real problems. As an example, Obama offers a mere $150 billion dollar expenditure for green technologies and energy projects, over the next ten years, while America, at present, exports one trillion dollars of her hard earned wealth, each year, and needs, at the least, that same one trillion dollars per year, spent right here, on energy survival projects, such as a trillion dollars each, possibly over 5 to 10 years, spent on ocean, sugar and coal refineries, practically immediately, to truly solve our energy independence problems. By ocean, sugar and coal, I mean water desalination plants, for the west and south, to grow the sugar cane needed for emergency fuel___now, or the coal to gas refineries, as alternative energy sources, to tide us over, until greener technologies, catch up.
I just wanted to expand on what I meant by America's ancestral worship of defunct ideologies. Of course you know me, always searching for the deeper links of fundamental ideas. Well, it was just this morning I put this idea together, with ideas I've recently been working on. I'd always asked my-self why so many falsely believed in these defunct ideologies, yet didn't see the clear reason until this morning. First, let me pose my premise as a question; Do you think America will follow her defunct ideologies, of left or right, free-trade mythology, into a self-suicide, and apocalyptic death? Or, will she awake, from this possible nightmare scenario? (Now, I'm not criticizing free-trade capitalism, but only trying to show, free-trade can never solve the world's oil depletion problem.) Getting back to ideologies, and how they become the dominant factor of the public mind, is the fact that all belief systems have fundamental mis-conceptions___at base. Take religion for instance; most likely no more than a word, "god", that may have meant no more than the concept for what our early ancestors didn't know or understand, i.e., incompleteness of understanding, yet through years of repeating, took on a meaning all its own, of deep felt mythology, far beyond the original concept, that most likely bared meaning close to the real world, and the happenings around early beings, yet has been exaggerated into an omniscient being of absolute power, even beyond the real world. My point being, that a concept of mis-understanding, can take on a life all its own. Now, as to our present ideologies, of capitalism, politics, government, etc, on and on, we have a similar story, yet with far greater consequences, to the very nation's, and entire world's survival. Just as "What does "god" mean?"; "What does "capitalism" mean?" I think you may see where I'm going with this. But anyway, it's another concept that people have assigned meaning to, without truly knowing its meaning, or many meanings, just the same as the conceptually true meaning of "god." The trouble is one does far less harm than the other___maybe... IMO, not knowing the meanings of the many forms of capitalism, is at the heart of conceptual mis-understandings of all related ideologies, thus rendering them true mythologies.
Probably few realize Hyman Minsky gave the ultimate re-definition of the word capitalism, somewhere in the `50's to `70's, I'd have to check the exact date, but anyway, he stated it as "The Heinz #57 Capitalisms". He gave five or six different specific names, but there are many more. The point is that all ideologies, without most knowing, are completely dependent on the type of capitalism in play, in the nation discussed, at the time of history discussed, and most nations use many forms of capitalism, over the course of their histories. This is the fundamental fact, that makes ideologies true, or false, at any given time___Even that old venerable Free-Trade Capitalism of Adam Smith, and Comparative Advantage Capitalism of David Ricardo. BTW, Minsky died in 1997. He was a true genius, and his work clearly shows the errors of modern economic, political and ideological thought. Just let me give you a few examples; the right rails against FDR New Deal Capitalism, yet three countries___at present___practice FDR New Deal Capitalism, in part or whole___Brazil, Thailand and China, just to name three, while the left also rails against, at least China___and these nations are the most successful, to date. I could go on citing the many variations of capitalism, presently and past used, but my main point is, that all forms of capitalism are required, at different times in history, for all nations' survival. Just take a further example of extreme; if just 25% of the world's oil supply pool is disrupted, all nations will have to resort to FDR-IXC of T, Capitalism(Franklin Delano Roosevelt-Internal Exchange Clearing of Transactions.) We will be forced by natural resource depletion laws, to resort to extreme emergency public works and major capital controls, to survive such a scenario. Free-trade will be traded for controlled trade and markets, but probably not until after we exaust all our reserve energy supplies, through extreme rationing conditions. This is the world I see, if we don't see through our religious worship of our already defunct ideologies, and under-lying fundamental words and false concepts.
I didn't mention IXC above lightly, as the Japanese have already used both FDR New Deal Capitalism and IXC, what our Paul Krugman suggested they do in the late nineties___His name for the same internal capital and exchange controls is "ZIRP", and we are fast approaching the point of having to use "ZIRP"___zero interest rate policy. I've re-nick-named it "ZIPPO", as it's already ignited the global bubbles of real-estate and excessive capital speculations, all around the world___the true problem, we now face. Japan instituted the zero interest rates, that speculators over-borrowed, since the late nineties. If Japan caused this much trouble for the world of speculation, (like who isn't going to borrow at zero interest, short other markets with it for high profits,) and destroy the system, yet just think how much bigger the problem will be if America reaches "ZIRPO-ZIPPO"___Can you imagine the size of that global speculative bubble? And that's just where present ideology is suggesting America go___and it looks like Bernanke and Paulson agree... I pitty us if this path is chosen, especially when there are better alternatives, offered, since Plato, also by Benjamin Franklin, Paul Einzig, J.M.Keyne's, Paul Davidson, and Jane D'Arista...
Carole, the world must awaken to the fundamental facts, wouldn't you say?
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