One obvious solution for the energy woes of the USA
The United States used to be a heck of a country. We used to provide for ourselves in most of the important areas of life, and our forebears were both brave and plucky. But that was a long time ago, it seems. The US is still the third largest country in the world (both in population and area), the third largest oil producer, and number one by far in world GDP with our $14 trillion economy; but somehow it doesn’t feel that way.
Many industries have innovated and grown in the last decades, but a number of the rough and tumble elements of American industry have declined or stagnated in recent times. For example, steel production peaked in the US way back in 1959. Oil inventories (U.S. Total Crude Oil and Petroleum Products Ending Stocks Including SPR) are unchanged in the last twenty years, despite the US population’s increasing over 20% and GDP more than doubling since then. Our infrastructure has been leaned out and has not kept up, in part due to the NIMBY’s among us. Don’t get us wrong. We think that things like freer global trade and better supply chain management are good things — they are just not unadulterated good things. Each in its way has contributed to our problems today. Prosperity and technological progress are mixed blessings, apparently exacting a price paid in vitality and risk-taking.
If Victor Davis Hanson is correct, and America has become the Can’t-Do, society, then here’s a simple solution to America’s energy woes: sell Alaska back to Russia, and the Outer Continental Shelf to Saudi Arabia. Americans seem to have no problem with oil drilling by these countries — indeed, Congress seems intent on suing OPEC to get them to drill more. So if we’ve turned wimpy, why not just face reality and sell our resources to the go-getters who are not afraid of a little dirt under their fingernails.
Of course, we’d really prefer that a more vital Can-Do America would awaken out of its slumber and rouse itself to capitalize on the great opportunities that lie over the horizon. But that America seems to be long gone and forgotten; at a minimum it is largely unportrayed in our media culture today, which has its own, destructive agenda. As it ever was, poetry lies nearer to vital truth than history, and the myth makers of our culture — with our consent — have betrayed the promise that America still holds. Question: what will it take to turn this situation around?
June 29th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
The complete and utter lack of leadership in this country simply astounds me. With the vast wealth of this country, you’d think that tackling many of these problems would not prove too challenging. Unfortunately, as you correctly point out, we’ve become a victim of our own success: spoiled and lazy. We have not known hard times, and our government makes no call to sacrifice whatsoever. One hopes that we will reach a tipping point in the near future when concerned, thoughtful, and patriotic citizens take control and simply tell the government to get out of the way and let us do our thing.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Too many lawyers. I simply cannot believe we don’t have five Supreme Court justices swinging from ropes. Your property is no longer yours if a government can get more money by taking it for somebody else and the sheep meekly submit.