The petition is gaining momentum.  Send the link to CNN, Foxnews, your local news, and anyone you know. We the American people must stand against the politicians who ride around in limousines, with gas we pay for.
High Oil prices are caused by government blocking exploration in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and Shale exploration and exploitation in Colorado and Utah.

The Drill for Oil Now! petition.

John McCain and Barak Obama will not drill for oil because oil wells are ugly. 
Poverty is ugly my fellow Americans.  We need politicians who understand basic supply and demand economics, and politicians who understand we the citizens of America are paying their salaries.

As soon as legislation is passed, the speculators will flee the markets, and prices will drop, when we are pumping 7 million barrels a day of domestic oil, prices will sink low enough to less the grip of OPEC, other nations, and the speculators.

The time is now. 

        

The price of a barrel of oil is going to crash, and hard.  The only question now is, when?  The new process to get oil from shale in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah will begin to pay dividends, as soon as Congress opens the area up for exploration.  The reserves are at a minimum triple what lies beneath Saudi Arabia. 

Add to that the large reserves yet to be tapped in Alaska, and The Gulf of Mexico, and a pattern begins to emerge.  We're much closer to energy independence than we thought just twenty years ago.

All of this oil won't stay  in the ground forever.  Eventually prices will rise so high that Congress will be forced to act, and the oil will be tapped.  The challenge this time around is to stay on track, and get the oil out.  As soon as exploration is even authorized, prices will go down.  If they go down enough, and new sources appear to be on a fast track to exploration, the oil exporting nations will increase production.  This will be done in an attempt to stall the progress, and keep control in the hands of OPEC. 

While many would like to stop this for environmental reasons (which are all but disappearing in Colorado with the new technology) the people will eventually demand lower prices.  While oil rigs in Alaska, and Colorado may be ugly, poverty is even uglier. 

How far will the price of oil fall?  Initially I think the crash will be speculative, much like the rise was.  So you should probably see a leveling off at sixty or seventy dollars per barrel.  If exploration and new technology are allowed to proceed, the end result will be prices below thirty, and possible twenty dollars per barrel.

But wait, there's more good news. 
When this happens, the biofuel subsidies will no longer be viable, and the price of food will fall.  While many are predicting the next Great Depression, we are likely to see a release of pent up demand, coupled with falling energy prices that should make the nineties look like bad times. The lower cost of oil trickles through every aspect of the economy. 

The last time consumer confidence was so low, was in the early 1980s. You may recall that we then enjoyed a huge and prolonged economic expansion.  Well hold on to your hats.  When Congress finally opens up the oil spigot, the world economy will grow faster than it ever has.  It may even be enough to offset the coming fiscal crunch caused by baby boomers collecting social security and health benefits in rapidly swelling numbers.


Nothing stops progress forever.

The only question left is, "How long will they make us wait?"

Now get to u4prez.com, start your virtual campaign for president, and start making it happen!

        

Gas prices are now at $4.00 per gallon.  The burden on the economy is becoming to great for many families and businesses to bear.  We are at the watershed event of the American economy. In the next twenty years nearly eighty million baby-boomers will become eligible for social security and Medicare.  And yet the politicians are allowing our economy to wallow in a mess that is easily fixed. This is the time when our economy needs to be growing, and growing rapidly, and yet disposable income, which drives the consumer economy is shrinking.

We have no alternative. The rise in oil prices is the result of two things, demand exceeding supply, and speculative purchasing of futures contracts. The speculation is a result of our congress and president, and all of the presidential candidates refusing to address the core issue.

While they argue, oil prices continue to rise.

We cannot let this happen, and we as American citizens, must solve the problem ourselves.  We must enact a fast track development program to get oil out of both of these locations in the shortest possible time frame.

To that end, I ask you to sign this petition.

Drill for Oil Now

It states that I will not vote for any politician, regardless of party, unless he or she supports the immediate opening of ANWR in Alaska, and the Gulf of Mexico for expedited oil exploration, and drilling.

There is no other way. Alternative fuels are a distant promise.  If we do not act by November of this year, congress will do what it does best, nothing.
This is our country, and these are our resources. They do not belong to John McCain, Charlie Crist, Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, or any member of congress.

It is time that we remind the politicians who pays the bills, and that we, the citizens of America are the boss.

        

The outrage over the Supreme court's ruling to allow states to require a photo ID raises some interesting questions.  Why would anyone disagree with this ruling?  Surely anyone with the mental capacity to vote, can arrange to get either a driver's license, or a state id.  With growing accusations from the right and the left about fraud, requiring an ID seems to be a great first step to to avoiding mischief at the ballot box.
The only logical explanation is that voter fraud is widespread, someone knows this, and is willing to pull out all the stops to see that it can continue.
If the fraud was minimal, it wouldn't be worth so much effort to fight the ruling.  Surely the opponents don't expect rational people to believe that it is to great a burden to go have a picture taken.  Almost all of the opposition seems to be coming from the left.  The only logical conclusion is that in some areas, there must be thousands and thousands of illegal votes cast, and these votes are tipping the results.  Those opposing the ruling have a vested interest in perpetuating the fraud. 

I just don't see any other logical reason for the fight.  The oddest and perhaps most disturbing argument is that, "People of color" will be disenfranchised.  Is it just me, or is this one of the most racist statements uttered so far this year?  What is the point of this statement?  Does someone really believe that black people are not capable of getting a drivers license?  Or worse, that black people can't find the BMV?  How could this possibly stop anyone from voting regardless of skin color? 

Those who read my blog regularly know that I'm a big fan of plain old fashioned logic and rational thought.  Well, in this case I think the logic is perfectly clear.  Someone wants to perpetuate the fraud.  There is no other rational answer. 

In a democracy, two things are vital to the survival of the nation, the rule of law, and the sanctity of the vote.  If either of these pillars falls, there are just one of two results possible.  The first is mob rule, overturning real justice. The second is rule by criminals, who have no problem stealing an election. Those on the left and the right would be well advised to study your history a bit.  Both of these scenarios ultimately lead to rule by tyrant.

A thorough and honest investigation in to the voting practices of The United States is long overdue. This should be a bi-partisan effort that spans several years, to cover national elections, at the local level. As a fiscal conservative, I would still be in favor of lofty spending to see that this happens, because as I've said, nothing is more important.   Elections should be monitored in hundreds of cities and towns, absentee voters checked, and comprehensive reports delivered after every election to determine if further action is needed.

The ruling allowing states to require a photo id for voting should have passed without much notice.  The ensuing hand wringing and outrage by some, demands that we look under the covers to see just exactly what they're trying to protect.

        

The housing crisis, as it is called, has a real hidden benefit for the economy over the next couple of years.  Housing prices were to high, and needed to come down.  This has wiped out some paper equity of course on the down side, but on the upside, more people are going to be able to afford a house. When they move out of mom and dads house, or the apartment, they trigger a whole serious of economically stimulating events.  The new homeowners need to buy lawn mowers, stoves, washer and dryer, paint to spruce up, and furniture.   These  purchases related to home ownership quickly trickle through the economy, and the flywheel is set in motion.

I've moved the economic depression (and activity indicator) to a small business resource site.
I occasionally contribute to this site and have a few articles some of you business types may enjoy.

1. How to become a CEO
2. Micromanagement
3. A 30 minute business education
4. Small business ideas

        

The political chatter is again drifting towards alternative fuels as the solution to high energy prices.  The immediate problem with alternative energy is that the free market cannot produce them in an efficient manner. The cost of the alternatives is not yet low enough to make a profit.  The attempt to subsidize the biofuel industry has so far resulted in higher food prices leading to food riots, and ultimately an increase in world hunger.  It's important to understand that this industry is entirely government related.  The free market economy researched biofuels for years and determined that without subsidy from governments there was no profit to be made. 

Wind power and solar power are in the same situation.
Without massive subsidies from governments across the world, these sources are also at present not profitable.  So should governments subsidize these industries?  The argument is that this would allow energy companies to build the infrastructure, and in time, the companies would become profitable and we would have our magic potion.

The more exotic fuels are no where near ready.  Energy sources such as ocean waves, and fusion are at this point decades away from viability.

This won't work either.  At some point there will be enough alternative energy sources to lower the demand for oil and coal.  This lower demand will of course drastically lower the price of oil.   One can already clearly see that the rise in oil prices is not related to demand alone, but to a speculative attack as well.   So the fall becomes even more dramatic. When the fall in prices occurs, the efficiency of the alternative fuels shifts the market back to oil.

This Catch-22 is obvious to even the casual student of economics.  It is strange that the world has evolved to a point where only the politicians lack the mental horsepower to understand this conundrum.  John McCain has admitted freely he has no idea how to lower the price of a barrel of oil.  (Here's a hint, supply and demand).  The only way to stop this cycle is to let the advancement of technology play out. When we find an energy as efficient as oil, the problem is solved.

This is not an easy issue.  Some day technology will either increase the efficiency of these alternatives to make them competitive, or the permanent price of oil will reach a point where the existing efficiency is sufficient to foster free investment.  But we're just not there yet.   The logical conclusion is that the "safe" alternative fuels are either not very safe, or not efficient.

Nuclear power is only an option if the entire body of U.S. law surrounding the construction of nuclear power plants is re-vamped.  Currently the legal red tape takes this option off of the table.  Sadly most of this legislation was created in response to anti-nuclear activists who had no real knowledge of the issue.  The children of this group is entirely responsible for the biofuels fiasco as well.

So what's the solution?
This is where things get even more complicated. The cost of oil today is completely the result of government intervention.  On this point there can be no debate.  There is plenty of oil around the world that can be brought out of the ground, and oil and gas prices would tumble quickly.  The United States Congress is stopping the drilling in Alaska and further exploitation of vast oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.  This same group is responsible for the legislation that stops nuclear power plants.  Given the two, I would suggest that the chances of drilling for oil are much better than the chances for fast track legislation to encourage investment in nuclear power.

"But there isn't enough oil in Alaska to change lower the price."
Rubbish.  As I've mentioned earlier, the increase in the price of oil is not just a supply/demand issue, ithere is also a speculative component.  Drilling in Alaska will drive out many of the speculators.  Drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico should completely drive them from the picture.

Environmental concerns.
Alas we must appeal to man's ability to reason.  There are environmental consequences.  But global warming may or may not be one of them.  The hysteria surrounding the global warming issue is indeed something to behold.  I don't consider myself a global warming denier but a healthy skepticism at this point is long over due.  Recent data on ocean temperatures and upper atmospheric temperatures would seem to indicate that global warming is clearly not progressing at previously "certain" levels.  This is fact.  Even the most impassioned global warming believers must keep facts and logic at the fore of their argument, else they have no argument.  In my mind there is a bigger issue, which I have never heard addressed by even the skeptics.

Shouldn't global warming be an exponential problem? Or at least linear?
We know that increasing temperatures increase the rate of organic decay, which thus release more carbon dioxide.  So if CO2 is the cause of increasing global temperature, how could it ever be stopped?  This is not a complex equation. If G=global temperature, and C is carbon dioxide then an increase in C (X+C) causes and increase in G.  This is the core of the global warming argument.  It is solid logic if we can find a direct relationship.
But further, and increase in G causes and increase in C, because as mentioned warmer temperature increases the rate of decay and subsequent release in C.
So G+C=C+X, X being the resultant increase in C, caused by the increase in G.
What factor stops the increase in C?

And now we must address the question that has plagued man since he stood erect, or for the divine interventionists among us, since he received his soul and logic.  What is the risk benefit relationship?

This question is real, tangible and must be answered.
How many poor people are we willing to kill in pursuit of the fight against global warming?  I am not attacking anyone with this question.  The answer is, we don't know.  If we see an acceleration (a real measured acceleration empiraclly attributed to CO2 increases) in global warming, we will have to resort to cleaner fuels.  If biofuels are the answer, more people will go hungry and starve to death. If wind and solar and the answer, it will take decades to build the infrastructure.  The radicals and the politicians will of course scream and yell that this is not the case, the rich will just have to sacrifice a little more.  But this is a lie.  Bill Gates doesn't grow any corn, and he can't build solar and wind power plants quicker if you take all of his money.  It is a logical, logistics issue. There are only so many people with the intelligence and experience to do these things.  There are only so many bulldozers available, only so much metal can be allocated. 

So we are clearly and logically left with a risk benefit analysis.  The question is not how much more can we take from the rich, it is how many poor lives will we sacrifice. 

Once again we are at that historical oddity where logic and reason must fight with politics and emotion.  There is no easy answer.  We can't get the oil out of Alaska without building and oil rig, and a road to the rig.  We can't get oil out of the Gulf of Mexico without risking the lives of some fish.  In a better world (notice I didn't say perfect) the politicians would realize that we must be honest with ourselves and sacrifice the pristine frozen tundra in Alaska, in order to save lives.  If we are to embrace alternative cleaner energy sources, we must increase drastically the gas tax to pay for it.  Gas taxes fall hardest on the working poor.  By the logic of the left this is a good thing. Cigarette taxes also fall most heavily on the poor, but the left contends that this modifies their behaviour and we force them to live healthier lives.  Well, a gas tax will give incentive to the poor to get better educated, and become wealthy so that they can afford to drive their automobiles to work. 

If I were king (President).
I would veto every piece of legislation until Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico were opened for drilling. This would immediately lower the price of a barrel of oil, and thus spur growth in the economy.  I would continue to spend taxpayer money to study global warming and the environment, but I wouldn't buy the first draft.  I would immediately sign legislation killing the biofuel subsidy, before it becomes so entangled in the economy that it can't be killed.  Whey would I do this?  Because there is no logical alternative.

And now I'll address the concerns that we've all heard before.

It doesn't matter if we drill in Alaska, because it will take five years to get the oil out.
You said that five years ago and now oil is over $100 per barrel.  Further we could award the contract to the company that can get the oil out in three years.  (This is still America right?)

Biofuels may be more expensive, but it saves the environment.
Maybe, we don't know yet.  But if so we are still starving poor people.  Make a decision, but be honest about it.

Global warming is real and will kill us all.
That's not true.  The evidence is simply no there at this point.  Could it become real? Sure, but an asteroid could hit us as well, so I wouldn't sweat the global warming risk until we're a little more sure.

The rich will have to pay more.
I thought you wanted the rich to pay more for health care?  Also the rich got rich by producing the goods and services (including health care) that you so desire. What if they weary of producing only to have governments loot what they earned?  Who will produce, Barack, Hillary and McCain?  I think not. Honest people realize that what we have, we have because someone scratched the earth to plant a crop.  Or dug in the earth to pull out the rich minerals provided so that we can make steel for your car, or girders for your hospital. 


And finally the last resort of the desperate.
If we didn't have this war, we would have money to invest in alternative fuels.
Again, I thought you wanted that money for health care?  But I'll let that pass.  The oil we get now comes from the Middle East.  Sadaam was killing and torturing his own people, and invaded his neighbors twice.  So are you OK with the killing and maiming?  If we killed him and left, there would have been a tip in the balance of power in the region.  Are you confidant that Iran would act in our best interests?  What would oil be right now, if Sadaam were still in Iraq, and Iran was developing nuclear weapons?  Sadaam would not have been as accommodating as George Bush.

        

In an interview with Greta Vansustern on Fox News John McCain said,"If someone can tell me how to get the price of a barrel of oil down, I'm willing to listen."

OK, start drilling for oil in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.  This raises the supply of oil on the world market. Higher supply levels lead to lower costs.

This is one of those things about politicians that makes you wonder who is running the country.  Surely he knows the basic economic law of supply and demand.  So why would he say such a thing?  If he doesn't know how to lower the cost of oil, how can he be our next president?

        

Before reading this I ask you one simple favor.  Please e-mail the link, or the text to everyone  you can. Paste it on your own blogs or websites.  I don't care if you put my name on it, put your own name on it if you desire, but before it is too late, let's fix this country.

It becomes more obvious every day that we are in the midst of an economic convulsion. The end result of this convulsion is not yet clear, but so far, the signs are not reassuring.  While the Democrats continue bickering about who is going to change more, Obama or Hillary, the real question is what kind of change is needed.  On the other end of the spectrum we have John McCain who professes not to know much about the economy.  He is a foreign policy "expert" apparently, which will do you a world of good standing in the unemployment lines in the coming years.  It will also greatly help you baby boomers when your social security payments are slashed by forty percent or more.

Let us state the problem in its simplest form:  The economy is bordering on becoming an absolute mess.  Oh we can weather the sub-prime storm, and the housing prices storm.  But we cannot weather an unemployment storm.  That is  the key.  If the other shoe falls (high unemployment) the entire house of cards will collapse.
I just have a few observations and questions.

Over the last fifteen years or so, many of you have said, "Oh I'll never get a dime of that social security."  Well, you were right, but why didn't you do something about it?  Why did you continue to let the media tell you things were going great, when a sixth grade mathematician could have told you the numbers weren't adding up.  Why do you continue to support people for president who don't even acknowledge the long term problem?  Have  you heard Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or John McCain even once mention that we need to come up with about forty trillion dollars pretty quickly to cover the baby boomers' golden years?

We've doled out money for everything from atomic clocks, to extravagant prisons, to welfare for generations.  We've fought wars, regulated business to death and back, and mortgaged ourselves and our country to the brink of disaster.

You voted for the fools, you embraced the silly programs, and now the bill has come due.  Save for a few short years in the mid to late nineties there hasn't been even a glance from Washington D.C. towards fiscal responsibility .  Ross Perot told us about this in 1992, and you let the media tell you he was crazy. He wasn't, he is simply intelligent and honest.  But we didn't want to hear it.

The time is short.  We have made this mess, and we must fix it.  Write your congressmen today and tell him to stop looking to Ben Bernanke to fix the economy and start de-regulating business.  Tell them to start drilling for oil in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.  Tell them to cut the budget by ten percent.  Tell them, no demand that they cut social security payments by 2.5% this year and 2.5% next year.  This is especially important if you are on social security. Otherwise, the politicians will cut it much much more.  Anyone who tells you he won't is nothing but a vulgar liar trying to get your vote.  Any politicians who tells you we needn't cut social security is the worst kind of bastard.  The kind who will sell  his own mother and his own soul to get elected. We've had enough of these politicians haven't we?  There are some fundamental strengths in the economy that cannot be over looked.  We can build on these and turn this economy around. But it will take real, honest leadership.

We need to find a third party candidate and we need to do it now.  A real leader who will say it like it is, and who will never compromise with either party because he owes them something.  We need a leader who will veto every single bill until the congress gets it right.    We can fix this, if we act now. Next year is too late one of the ship of fools will already have the power for four years.  The Democrats are fighting over turf right now, and we cannot find Republican leadership with a search warrant.  These people work for us, and it is time for no more Mr. Nice Guy. 

If we as a nation don't act now, we have no one to blame but ourselves.   America used to be a nation where , "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Where are all the tough guys?

Eric Gurr
egurr@intralinkinc.com

Christian colleges

        

I keep seeing these stories pop up.  Initially they were from bloggeres, but now even Time magazine has expressed that this may be the best way for the Democrats to "come together". 
There have been quite a few bad ideas floated around lately, but this has got to be one of the worst.
The Democratic party leadership is not going to turn the election over to a man who didn't campaign, and apparently didn't think he had a good shot at the nomination in the first place. 
Franklin Roosevelt struggling with the diverse nature of the party seventy years ago.  And it hasn't gotten much better.  Gore is a single issue candidate who would only make things worse. 
When you factor in the latest information on global warming, even that may not be such a "hot" issue if you'll pardon the pun. 
Here are just a few of the latest articles.
Global Warming's missing heat. from NPR.
Former Global warming activist, now skeptic. in this article
But maybe even Gore is finally seeing the light.

I'm not a complete global warming skeptic, but I'm starting to lean towards the need for much more research on this, as I think many others are. 
So what would Gore bring to the party?  Well he is probably slightly to the right of Hillary, so he could salvage a few moderates perhaps, but surely that would be offset by the disgruntled Obama and Clinton supporters who would vote for McCain. 

In all fairness, this is still a fringe idea (Gore getting the nomination) but the fact that it is picking up some steam has got to have the Dem party leadership in even more of a quandary.

The bottom line is Barack Obama has to get the nomination.  Even if Hillary Clinton pulls close in elected delegates, the party leadership and super-delegates can't let her win.  Blacks have as a group supported the Democratic party by more than 80%. If they go, the party goes.  They are the core group that holds the party together. 

If the fracture between Obama and Clinton threatens to shred the party, the only logical alternative is another black candidate.  Harold Ford could step in and probably actually save the party from itself, Al Gore would just make the schism deeper than it already is.

        

The end of the Neocons.
The presidential campaigns of 2008 have, so far, focused foreign policy more on the war with Iraq, than anything else.  What is the overall foreign policy vision of the candidates? 

Thus far, John McCain appears to be a classic neo-conservative, almost defining the term itself.  McCain was in favor of some level of amnesty for illegal immigrants, opposed to drilling for oil in Alaska, and in favor of an active U.S. role in foreign affairs, to say the least.  While not a social liberal, he is certainly more towards the left on more than a few social and economic issues.  His rhetoric on Iraq, the Middle East, and Russia leaves no other conclusion than that the United States must exert her will via the military and power diplomacy as the worlds only super power.

Barack Obama on the other hand, focuses his foreign policy on specific issues.  While at first glance this may appear prudent, the end result is in reality a return to the neocon philosophy.  We've already seen this played out on some level with his comments regarding Pakistan.  When Obama expresses a desire to open the doors of communication with North Korea, Iran and Cuba, he leaves the obvious question unanswered.  What if he doesn't like what he hears?  When Jimmy Carter tried this approach in the 1970's with Iran (abandoning the balance of power) the world was met with the rise of the first Islamic fundamentalist government, and Hezbollah. 

Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is also almost entirely focused on the Middle East, and according to her website, she would embrace a non-interference policy relying on the United Nations, and mediation. She suffers the same shortcomings as Obama on this front.  Every politician begins the diplomatic effort with mediation.  But what happens when that doesn't work?

Foreign policy decisions, much like economic policy, must stem from an overall vision.  Until Obama and Clinton articulate that vision, we are just left to wonder.

One thing is certain, the way of the Neocon is over.

The cold hard fact is that any comprehensive foreign policy is subject to the times and conditions of the nation.  The sentiment has often been expressed that intervention in the opening phases of World War II would have stopped the war.  But this is just a guess.  Hitler may have just accelerated his killing of Jews, and bypassed his invasion of The Soviet Union.  Stalin by all indications would have been happy to sit this one out, and watch the Western Powers destroy themselves, and so World War II would have been perhaps even worse.

Another cold hard fact is that the United States is going to enter a long period of contraction in government spending.  Despite the wishes of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, the aging dynamic of the baby boomer generation render new government spending programs as simply a fantasy.   The cost of retirement benefits for this group is already estimated at upwards of 40 trillion dollars.  Factor in the changes in spending habits and it's clear that government spending at all levels is going to be greatly restrained.  For more on this you can read my article "The Pillars of the economy are crumbling".

This lack of funding for  "discretionary spending"  will first spill over in to military spending.  And without the money, the Neocon philosophy is simply not sustainable.   While many on the left will cheer at the news, the alternative is probably even less to their liking.  The neoconservative philosophy was never one of world domination.  The actual diplomatic approach was quite sound in its logic. The use of power diplomacy, and then the military not just to impose our will, but to foster democracy and free market economies in troublesome nations, thus keeping the peace for a much longer period of time. 

To fill the foreign policy void the best option is a return to balance of power diplomacy.

The end result of this is that we as a nation will be forced to support less than desirable leaders in order to maintain the peace in specific regions,and around the world.  The balance of power approach doesn't work without its ugly step-sister, dollar diplomacy. 

So how do I reconcile cutting military spending and increasing foreign aid?
The same way you reconcile eating at home, when you'd rather spend the night at a five star restaurant.  You need food, so you'll incur some expense, but you really can't afford to eat at the best restaurants every night.
We need an active foreign policy, but we can't afford to spend more than half a trillion dollars every year supporting the policy.  If we are to cut military spending by twenty percent, we save one hundred billion dollars every year.  As much as thirty billion may need to be sprinkled around the globe to maintain the balance of power.

But there is more to it.
Just about every foreign policy, short of isolationism, runs the risk of devolving into a chase for dragons to slay. This is one of those oddities of the modern politician and is nothing more than a result of narrow focused thinking.  When we wish to engender a balance of power, or impose our will on a region of the world, we first need to answer the question, "Why?".

The answer in the Middle East is obvious. Our economy is dependent on cheap oil.  Most of our oil comes from the Middle East, and we can't afford to have the entire region erupting in to war every five or ten years.  So is the only answer to spend billions every year to maintain a military presence?  Of course not.  Now the retort often heard from the left is we need to invest in alternative fuels.  Well, that sounds great, but investing doesn't always equal production, and it never immediately translates in to production.  So we need to have an interim plan.   Oil and nuclear power are the only fuels available to meet our energy demands at this time. But as a nation, we are reluctant to increase our drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.  We have also regulated nuclear power to the point that its cost far outweighs the benefit.  In short, something has got to give. We are going to have to make a decision to either drill for oil in Anwar and the Gulf of Mexico, or we are going to have to streamline the process for building nuclear power plants.  If we don't take one of these approaches, we need to send more American soldiers to the Middle East, until we can stabilize the region and return to a balance of power.

What of Africa?
During the cold war The United States and The Soviet Union poured money in to emerging nations to keep a balance of power, that benefited each countries sphere of influence.  When the cold war ended, both nations were content to let the African continent devolve in to genocide and despotic rule.  While our economic interests may be small in the area, we are still Americans, and we generally like to do the right thing. Stabilization is preferable to genocide, so we'll be forced to prop up regimes we may not completely agree with. 


We as Americans are an optimistic people.  That is of course one of our great strengths.  But it can also be our biggest weakness.  Our nation is going to change dramatically over the next thirty to forty years, and that change began in 2008.  The dynamic of the baby boomer generation is like nothing we've ever seen. The largest and most productive segment of our country is rapidly going to become the most dependent on government services.  This sea change affects every aspect of government and we must meet the challenge with honesty, and intelligent policy.

If we further entangle ourselves in issues involving other nations, we will quickly bankrupt the nation. This is a unique time in the history of The United States when our options and resources are limited.  It will not last forever, but it is here for the next twenty to thirty years.  The Neocons helped to end the cold war and free millions of people from the bondage of totalitarian regimes.  They expelled Sadaam Hussein from Kuwait, and ultimately removed the brutal dictator from Iraq.  In a nation flush with cash, they were probably right, and at least a logical alternative.  That time has passed.