Will the cost of the damage from/and the cost of the cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill be calculated into those glowing EROEI statistics we often see for oil? Want to take any bets? Has the cost of cleaning up any oil spill or the damage the spill did ever been calculated into the EROEI of oil?
We spent roughly $10B (actually the cost will/did fall on BP/Exxon shareholders) on the 2 spills over a 20 year period. (Valdez = 1989), 1 days total federal spending. Remember: Restrict oil = Restrict freedom.
***Will the cost of the damage from/and the cost of the cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill be calculated into those glowing EROEI statistics we often see for oil?*** rdan
Probably not, but that’s not as much of a problem as the impossibility of complete remediation. The total dollar cost will probably be about the cost of a month or two of a pointless war — modern America’s signature undertaking.
Oil really has some unique characteristics for applications like powering aircraft and as a feedstock for various materials. An economy the size of the US’s actually does need a good deal of oil. We surely don’t need as much as we use, but using less takes long lead time infrastructure changes. And even if we do that (not especially likely) there is little real chance of not pumping oil from the Gulf of Mexico because the priority should be cutting the 10mbpd that we import rather than curring back on domestic production.
Of course Carter is the only American president who ever tried to get us to think realistically about energy usage. He got laughed at for his trouble. As a result of electing the Great Prevaricator and occasionally turning the nations controls over to the lunatic right, we are in a heap of quite intractable energy trouble. IMHO that is exactly what we deserve for acting like idiots.
We could always try not acting like idiots, but I don’t see much sign that Americans are ready to do that. Maybe after another decade or three of pain …
Making a significant cut in our oil imports is a fantasy so we are stuck operating in and doing business with countries that we have cultural differences with. Jimmy Carter was a defeatists and that’s why he was not re-elected. Moreover, the new forerunners to the department of energy were established under president Ford.
The big victories in energy use in the 1970s was due to a combination of tightening efficiency regulations consumers and business searching to save energy to save money.
I think the chance is high that if the economy continues to recover along with the world economy we are going to see $4 gasoline prices again this summer. The response by the republicans has been to advocate the increase of supply of all sources of energy and with oil to increase the land available for drilling. Drilling of 5,000 ft. of water is vary difficult and as we see dangerous for those doing it and also to the environment. Yet we need to do it so the focus should be on figuring out how to do it more safely.
Not all democrats are crazy but the crazy wing of the democratic party see the energy shortage with its rising costs and respond by wanting to increase the prices even more with energy taxes. This strikes me as madness. I don’t think you can either produce more oil or plug leak with a carbon tax. For the remainder of this year while they are still in office the congressonal leadership should focus on expanding supply and enhancing environmental safeguards, while at the same time throwing anti global warming legislation in the trashcan.
Maybe in a trickle down or trickle over kind of a way. I certainly did not have my job saved by the federal government and I don’t see too many infrastructure projects. However, I do believe that a lot of the money was used to save jobs for city and state employees. Since these people have to spend their money its bound to trickle to the rest of us eventually.
you start out sounding reasonable and then you throw it all away.
okay, Carter did not have a good sales pitch. Nevertheless raising the price of oil, with a carbon tax, would have produced the market pressure for people to look for efficiencies all across the board.
the problem is that it’s the sort of forced efficiency that americans have been trained to respond to with howls of outrage and anti-government ideology.
it’s too late to gradually raise the price of oil and use the money for something useful. now we will see … if we are smart … steep rises in the price of oil… but no steeper than the market has given us… and a political establishment too stupid to use the money for anything but “shoring up” the financial system that has brought us to this.
this “madness” is not to produce more oil, but to save some of it for the future, and maybe give us time to figure out how to “plug the leaks” with something better than lies on paper.
freedom is not the ultimate value. your idea of freedom is the cowboys riding into town shooting their guns in the air, getting drunk, raping the women, and riding away while the sherrif sits in his office saying boys will be boys and counting the money the bar owners gave him to stay out of sight.
I think your trickle theory is not quite apt. Even the R trickle down from the rich theory misses the actual way money gets spent.
The gov buys a lot of stuff, not just “government jobs” so that government money enters the economy fairly directly, and hopefully in ways that are themselves useful, though it is hard to get a Republican to see the ways that “government” makes it possible for him to make money; he always imagines… without much detail… that the private market would do what the government does “if only” government would get out of the way.
Meanwhile trickle down from the top has never seemed to actually work. At some point the rich just buy more paper from each other. Or they buy estates in the south of france. Or expensive foreign cars. Whatever, it is pretty clear that it never trickles down very far or very fair. And I am a person who does not particularly object to “the rich.” It’s just that the economy needs a little more actual driving so that even the rich can make money.
Meanwhile, I think Greg is exactly right. It’s one of those accounting identity things.
***Making a significant cut in our oil imports is a fantasy***
Incorrect. It will almost certainly happen sooner or later because the world has a finite supply of oil and a comparatively infinite amount of demand. Eventually very high oil prices will cut US demand dramatically. Remember that US population is only 5% ot the planet even though we burn 20% or the oil production. Even if the other 95% of humanity settles for 100,000 btu per person per day from petroleum (vs the 400,000 btu the US currently consumes), they are going to need production around 110mbpd. That’s possible. Not certain, but possible. But no one seriously thinks it is sustainable decade after decade for all eternity.
So, we are eventually have to cut usage of oil. A lot. We can do that relatively painlessly over a few decades or we can do it the hard way. You seem to prefer the latter.
***I think the chance is high that if the economy continues to recover along with the world economy we are going to see $4 gasoline prices again this summer***
Perhaps-perhaps not. Saudi Arabia and some other Persian Gulf producers apparently want oil prices stable and about where they are now. It’s not clear that they have enough reserve production to engineer that. But they may be able to do it for a while.
What you should be worrying about isn’t $4 a gallon it’s $8 or 10 (real) dollar a gallon gasoline which might happen in a few years or maybe a couple of decades depending on the world economy and how much fiction is incorporated in “proven reserves”. It almost certainly will happen. And that might well not be the maximum. Want to guess what an airline ticket will cost if jet fuel is selling at $20 a gallon? Might want to mull that over for a while.
***I don’t think you can either produce more oil or plug leak with a carbon tax.***
Of course not. But what you gonna do when the oil runs out man?
Carbon taxes stretch oil supplies by encouraging people to use less petroleum and switch to other energy sources. They also encourage the use of comparatively clean Natural gas and discourage the use of comparatively dirty coal. (There is some hope that someday clean coal will be a reality. But it won’t be any time soon. If/when it becomes a reality, the carbon tax on coal decreases.)
I really think you need to do some research and some serious modelling. I think that if you actually do that, your views will change substantially.
***I don’t see too many infrastructure projects.***
I don’t either. But I think maybe there is a lead time on many infrastructure projects with much of the spending backloaded. Up front, the money goes to architects, various experts, and paper pushers. It takes a while to get to buying steel, concrete and paying construction workers?
true enough, but i am a little worried the big O does not even understand that the money needs to be put out there and not just given to the already rich in the form of tax cuts… or even the relatively poor. there isn’t much incentive to do a lot of spending when you aren’t sure you are going to have a job. and there isn’t much incentive to do a lot of investing when you aren’t sure anybody is going to buy what you make.
i don’t like to be paranoid, but i can’t escape the thought that O and all the other high end deciders are in the grip of “trickle down”, or in the pay of the Big Money. either way it does not look like good news for anybody except those who can afford private armies to guard private plantations and oversee the workers.
I think your conversation with Marshall Auerback a week or so ago gave you a slightly new perspective!
Did you see the transcript of the “Fiscal Sustainability Teach- in Counter Conference” that Marshall and some of his colleagues participated in on Wednesday?
The O man is far from a leftist, unless your looking at him from the Genghis Khan position (where too many of our American conservative friends reside). He like Rubin and Summers has been poisoned by Chicago school economics that thinks unemployment is the policy tool of choice to battle inflation. What they are saying is “The only way to preseve the value of my money is to keep 10-15% of the population from having ANY!” and then they turn around and call thos efolks they have intentionally cut off from the labor force LAZY!! It would be humorous if it werent so sick.
Among my group of live music fans in Austin I am known as “that ticket guy” – I usually end up getting tickets for whoever else might be interested in a show. It’s not altruism it’s paranoia – I just don’t trust anybody else to handle a critical task in what occupies most of my discretionary free time, not to mention income.
So this morning I go online to get tickets to an upcoming show for myself and 4 other friends. Select 5 tickets on the first screen then see on the second screen I’m required to enter the identities of all 5 ticket holders… Uh… okay… I look around to see if there is some alternate method since I don’t know how to spell what’s his name’s girlfriends last name… no luck. Then I get around to reading the new FAQ on the site’s terms.
1> Your print at home ticket has your identity encoded into the 2D barcode. 2> Tickets without the right identity encoded are invalid and will not be honored. 3> Transfers to third parties can only take place by going back to the promoters site using a pin code to generate a new bar code with that new person’s identity.
Now on the one hand I can understand this is probably an effective way to undermine scalping. I’m paid too well to rationalize stealing from artists so have never condoned or participated in scalping. But I can’t help thinking this is yet another way for the promoter to extract a “transfer fee” for the privilege of reselling a ticket (and okay certifying its authenticity to the buyer). Am I the only one who finds this creepy and a bit of an overreach by what is already a pretty sleazy business?
i keep wondering if the stock market isn’t a kind of anti-inflation device. where else to put money where it won’t raise the prices of anything useful. and then one day it crashes and all that “money” just disappears.
***but the big guys are bent on giving us an electric car which will do all the things a gas car will do. and that is going to be expensive. and stupid.***
I’ve got to telll you Dale. The vehicle you want doesn’t exist and no one anywhere has much idea how to build it. I think the reason that something different is being built is that about half the components of the $40,000 electirified sedans are stuff the engineers in Detroit and Kanagawa know how to do whereas the glorified golf cart has virtually nothing in common with current vehicles. (But I also have to say that “they” need to get the price down to Prius levels quickly if they expect their electric cars to succeed.
I think the vehicle you want will turn up in a decade or so. And I think it will come from East Asia or possibly India because China and India can build a totally new design every bit as well as we can. They have a lot of engineers, management with fewer preconceptions, a larger customer base, and a lot fewer persnickity laws about brakes working reliably and such. I suspect that the first of these vehicles will turn up on the US market in the not too distant future and that the adjectives that will best describe them will be “terrifying” and “unreliable”. They’ll probably be both. I expect that by the 2020s they’ll be fairly decent vehicles and widely available although tweaking them so they can safely share the road with SUVs driven by cretins with cell phones will be no small trick.
Just following the lead of the airlines, it used to be they did not care about the name on the ticket, the did start caring before 9/11. They could go a step further and provide that tickets are non transferable if they wanted to. Until recently there was no technological way to do this but now it is possible so it will come.
I recall you saying to him after his response to kharris something to the effect of ;I think Im starting to get what you are talking about. You said you wanted to learn a little more but it seemed he got you to consider something you hadnt considered before. In that post he was talking about sectoral balances and how “deificts” fit in to the balances.
He used the term accounting identity and that was the first time I’d seen you use that term.
Yes it could be. Problem is it seems that at the moment the buyers are the workers pension funds and 401 ks and the sellers are the CEOs and other insiders. Rats are leaving the ship and when it sinks Joe Blow is gonna be suckin’. Another psychopathic way to protect the value of their money. Thats why Im not within 100 miles of the stock market now.
Codger there is a guy down the street building these things. and i see a few driving around town with smiling drivers. on the other hand i havn’t bought one myself yet. it seems to me that a golf cart is a fairly well understood bit of technology. and brakes are brakes for god sakes. or they used to be before they got so fancy and electonified that they don’t stop cars when the computer has a cold.
i have no doubt the thing can be improved upon, and would be if they were being sold by the millions. but right now it’s the people stupid. they want something fast and sexy that will run all week without a charge that takes less time than pumping twenty gallons of gas. it’s not much fun getting on the road in something slow when everyone else is bigger than you.
i looked at the site. i think they are making a mistake talking about the deficit. in the first place there are not enough people who know enough to follow their argument, and most people “beliieve in” the huge horrible deficit and you are not going to change their mind.
but in the second place the deficit is only a smoke screen for killing Social Security. that is the Big Point. and the people want a reason to keep their social security. all they have to be told is the truth: SS has nothing to do with the deficit. SS is not going broke. and SS is not welfare. These guys, bless em, talk about SS as if it WAS welfare. that is a fatal mistake.
Jack supposedly identifies U.S. cost and military personnel casualty data for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on the following thread. The problem is that Jack doesn’t identify sources for his supposed “facts”. I find no government data to support either of his claims.
It appears that 40-50% error rates are fully acceptable in commentary here. It fits in with some of the other commentary that passes for supposed informed thinking at Angry Bear.
Jack – 2 days ago, 10:50:02 AM – “At an annual cost of some where between $700Billion and $One trillion, depending on how much of the collateral and future costs you include, it would seem like a full blown military adventure to most people.”
Where is he getting these figures?
Jack – 2 days ago, 10:50:02 AM – “Nearly ten thousand dead American soldiers is a good enough definition for me.”
As of 30 April 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense provided an update which indicates that 5,427 military personnel involved in the U.S. military OIF and OEF theater operations have lost their lives. Of the 5,427 military personnel deaths identified for OIF and OEF, 1192 military personnel were classified as non-hostile deaths.
Jack supposedly identifies U.S. cost and military personnel casualty data for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on the following thread. The problem is that Jack doesn’t identify sources for his supposed “facts”. I find no government data to support either of his claims.
Jack – 2 days ago, 10:50:02 AM – “At an annual cost of some where between $700Billion and $One trillion, depending on how much of the collateral and future costs you include, it would seem like a full blown military adventure to most people.”
Where is he getting these figures?
Jack – 2 days ago, 10:50:02 AM – “Nearly ten thousand dead American soldiers is a good enough definition for me.”
As of 30 April 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense provided an update which indicates that 5,427 military personnel involved in the U.S. military OIF and OEF theater operations have lost their lives. Of the 5,427 military personnel deaths identified for OIF and OEF, 1,192 military personnel were classified as non-hostile deaths.
Well, your needs are different than mine. I don’t need much more than 30-40 miles range, but I do need not to be too much of a traffic problem on rural roads with deep ditches and few turn outs. People around here are tolerant of following farm machinery for a mile or so, but they aren’t going to put up with routinely being slowed to golf cart speeds.
I also need to be able to license and insure the thing, and it’s far from clear that I could do either with a golf cart.
I can’t think of any American city where golf carts would be anything other than a huge traffic problem. What do you reckon the odds would be of making it alive across Manhattan in typical NYC traffic in a golf cart?
The cost of oil spills needs to be burdened on the oil consumer.
Similarly, the cost of US military presence to keep Persian oil flowing to China and Japan needs to be assessed to oil users not US SS recipients.
That would add from $100 to $200 a bbl according to how much US militarism is expended to keep cheal oil delivered to non US refineries, for sale in non US economies.
Actually, I think the folks complaining about Cape Cod wind mills should oay for the Gulf of Mexico clean up.
this “madness” is not to produce more oil, but to save some of it for the future, and maybe give us time to figure out how to “plug the leaks” with something better than lies on paper.
You produce whatever you can, this is the only sane course of action. The human race is on the ropes on this one. If we don’t come up with a plentiful energy source then in the future the planet won’t be able to support its current population. Next to this global warming is idiotic escapism.
Incorrect. It will almost certainly happen sooner or later because the world has a finite supply of oil and a comparatively infinite amount of demand. Eventually very high oil prices will cut US demand dramatically.
I’m correct and I think your point is trivial. As long as there is oil to import we will import it. It there is a natural limit to existing oil then a long time in the future were out of luck. If there is a man made shortage that serverly threatens our economic well being then we’ll go to war to secure our oil supplies. This is just the way it is.
So, we are eventually have to cut usage of oil. A lot. We can do that relatively painlessly over a few decades or we can do it the hard way. You seem to prefer the latter.
I don’t see the logical construction in your argument. You first claim that oil is finite but then say that we can “relatively painlessly” reduce our usage of oil. You have no basis to say this, it does not follow your argument that oil supply is finite. To make this statement you need to say something about a viable alternative.
Perhaps-perhaps not. Saudi Arabia and some other Persian Gulf producers apparently want oil prices stable and about where they are now. It’s not clear that they have enough reserve production to engineer that. But they may be able to do it for a while.
The Saudi’s were lying when they claimed in the face of the 07/08 run up in oil prices that there was adequate supply. They loved the extra money. Moreover, the crash in prices was short lived and not servere by historical standards. Oil touched briefly went into the $30 range but then quickly recovered to over $50, and now we are at around $85. In years gone by our friends the Saudis said they believe that oil should be around $35 a barrel. Add inflation and we’re at $45-$50. So one should not take to seriously what they say publicly. So oil will go up again in price because of global economic recovery, the politicans will blame Wall Street and the futures market, and the recovery will sputter out. That is unless our friends the Saudis save the world.
Carbon taxes stretch oil supplies by encouraging people to use less petroleum and switch to other energy sources.
Like what? Should I get a go cart with a sail to commute to work, grocery shop, or go to the beach on weekends?
I really think you need to do some research and some serious modelling.
I’ve done reading and other research on energy, and modelling is a waste of time since there is no data on the next unknow invention for a new source of energy.
1,192 military personnel were classified as non-hostile deaths.
It two soldiers are driving a Hum-V at 35 miles and hour down a dirt road at night with their lights off to avoid being a target, flip over and some are killed I think they make it into the 1,192 number. Also, if a helicopter crashes for reasons not caused by enemy fire they probably also enter the 1,192 number. A fair comparison might be to estimate the number of deaths per 100,000 soldiers for troops based in the U.S. and compare it with the rate in Iraq and the difference should be considered do to being deployed in a war zone.
On the cost I don’t have any data but I think $700B-$1Trillion seems reasonable and certainly not outlandish.
This assertion really ought to be amazing by this point:
If there is a man made shortage that serverly threatens our economic well being then we’ll go to war to secure our oil supplies. This is just the way it is.
Pray tell who do you think is going to lend us the next $1T to pay for this war we will use to “secure” our oil supplies? Maybe you could also spend tome time explaining why that war will be cheaper than say, not burning the oil?
I’m guessing you don’t have any kids that will be drafted to kill off our enemies to get this oil? Or maybe you think they will just sit in office complexes driving drones to get it. Incredible.
All spending is not equal. Else hiring 10 people to do nothing for $1M each per year is good. It’s got to be productive spending for it to benefit the economy. You are falling for “the broken window fallacy”:http://freedomkeys.com/window.htm
I think 700B-1T is the total cost of the wars in Iraw and Afghanistan, not the annual cost.
You’re correct that some of the 1192 non-hostile deaths probably should be credited to the war since we have several hundred thousand more people on active duty than we would in peacetime (didn’t bother to look up exactly how many). Still though, even if we credit a couple of hundred non-hostile deaths to the war and throw in some civilian deaths clearly attributable to the war (e.g. some news people) and 250 mercenaries (“contractors”) killed by hostile action, total US deaths fatalities are no where near 10000.
Still 5000 deaths in a pointless war is 5000 too many. And there is also the small matter of more than 100000 documented Iraqi deaths. If you ask me that’s 100000 counts of accessory to manslaughter that exPresident Bush and his associates should be called on to account for in a court of law.
I think you are wrong. We use half the oil we use driving back and forth to work every day. and heating and cooling homes that were built when “energy was cheap.”
We can conserve oil and raise the standard of living at the same time. It is nothing but lack of imagination, fueled by corporations that make money doing things the same way they always have, that makes people think we can’t support the populations without “plentiful energy sources.”
Do some serious research to prove me wrong. Show me that food depends on “plentiful energy sources.” But do it right. Don’t just read the oil company propaganda. After we know how to grow the food, the economy and the culture will adjust to the facts and your kids won’t even miss their sexmobiles.
what you are doing is imagining golf carts on the roads with other traffic used to high speeds and driving by intimidation. 25 m/h is as fast as you can go in the city anyhow. it’s not too bad for short distances just outside of town either. once we got used to it we’d enjoy it.
and of course licensing and insuring, and “other traffic” are the whole problem. nothing wrong with the “golf cart” as the solution to urban transportation needs. i’m even okay with keeping that old gas sexmobile for what it does best: longish trips on the highway, and impressing your neighbors in the driveway.
DoD information regarding military casualties in theater operations is not difficult to research.
DoD continuously provides casualty reports for ongoing theater operations. DoD provides summary breakdowns of casualty statistics for each major military theater operation. DoD also provides Death Rates per 100,000 Serving on a global basis; the statistics available on line cover the period 1980- Feb 2009.
Cardiff – “On the cost I don’t have any data but I think $700B-$1Trillion seems reasonable and certainly not outlandish.”
The Congressional Research Service issued a report on September 28, 2009 titled “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11” which does not support your assumption. Similarly, CBO research on this subject does not support such thinking.
The United States has not been spending $700 billion to $1 trillion per year on the OIF and OEF theater operations since both began, nor is the United States now spending $700 billion to $1 trillion during this fiscal year on the two war operations. Moreover, adding in projected costs going forward including service members (active and former) healthcare expenditures, equipment replacement above and beyond normal equipment cycle replacement rates, and all other known considerations related to these two war operations does not result in expenditures at the $700 billion to $1 trillion per fiscal year level.
Error rates of roughly 50 percent on the casualty rates for the OIF and OEF operations and erronous cost “analysis” of such operations such as that provided by Jack appear to be the new standard for commentary at Angry Bear.
Maybe what you want isn’t quite golf cart scale but something closer to a segway. It’s an interesting concept but not compatible with cities as currently defined – there is no room on crowded sidewalks for them and no obvious way to carve out smaller lanes out of the vehicle traffic.
But I can imagine scenarios where you adapt existing buses for longer hauls that accomodate ramps and segway type vehicle storage. Once you start architecting combinations of smaller lightweight vehicles that can be parked or shared with bus and van service a lot more trips don’t need cars even in relatively suburban areas.
And of course Bloomberg is continuing to carve out sections of manhattan that are only open to pedestrians and or buses.
Um. I never read it as 700B-1T per year but more as an estimate of the aggregate cost so far. As such it is probably quite conservative since I seriously doubt it includes the ongoing care for tens of thousands of vets who are permanently disabled and or maimed.
VtCodger – “***I don’t see too many infrastructure projects.***
I don’t either. But I think maybe there is a lead time on many infrastructure projects with much of the spending backloaded. Up front, the money goes to architects, various experts, and paper pushers. It takes a while to get to buying steel, concrete and paying construction workers?”
With enactment of the FY2009 Supplemental (H.R. 2346/P.L. 111-32) on June 24, 2009, Congress has approved a total of about $944 billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks: Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Afghanistan and other counter terror operations; Operation Noble Eagle (ONE), providing enhanced security at military bases; and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
The lead paragraph in the CRS report is stating a cumulative cost to date figure for three major military operations, not an annual cost figure for two operations (OIF and OEF) that Jack is stating.
i don’t mean to be insulting. just trying to help you see yourself as others see you.
Another low quality post by you. You do mean to be insulting so you are obviously lying. The fact that you casually include lies in your posts without a care in the world brings into question the worth of any other opinions you might express.
Jack probably just made an honest mistake by calling the cost annual rather than cumulative. On the number of U.S. deaths the 10,000 is like you point out 2 times too big. My only point on the non combat fatalities is that many of them were caused by the threat of enemy action even though they did not result from direct combat.
On the 100,000 Iraqi deaths I did not see that Jack attributed most of them to the insurgents conducting terrorist operations against the Iraqi public.
I suggest neither Afghanistan, since Oct 01 and Iraq since Apr 03 to be major military operations.
They resemble the Nazis occupation of Serbia in 1944- 45.
I do not suspect the Wehrmacht considered that in the same vein as operations in France or Ukraine at the time.
And under the ARFORGEN model these occupations are tying up brigades for reconstitution/recapitalization and train up time equal to twice their deployment, I suggest the entire US Army is tied up in these occupation escapades.
“Major military operations.”
Who is securing Time Square?
Isn’t that why the US is wearing out its war machine?
That would be the NYPD and we would be well advised to keep it that way.
IMHO – Two places that the fedral government is, and probably shouldn’t be, are police work and education. AFAICS, they bring nothing to the party except additional overhead in the realm of education. Their roll in policing (with the notable and time honored exception of the Treasury Departments enforcing of counterfitting law) has too often been grandstanding, malicious prosecution and general stupidity. Think Waco or Ruby Ridge.
Here is the offending statement: “At an annual cost of some where between $700Billion and $One trillion, depending on how much of the collateral and future costs you include, it would seem like a full blown military adventure to most people.”
Let us accept MGs complaint that the number is more likely a total after eight years of warfare. I have no trouble with that. So is the average of approx. $125Billion per year more acceptable in the context of my original statement. How foes one define the cost of war? What is acceptable cost of wars of adventure rather than wars of defense? And what of the number killed or “just” maimed and wounded? What is acceptable? MG love numbers and references that may validate their accuracy. Is this a court of law? Is AB a professional journal wherein one attempts to provide proofs? What evidence is needed to support the contention that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have eclipsed any justification for their continuation n addition to their initiation.
When the issue is one of morality and the stakes are the lives of tens of thousands of people as well as the devastating effect on our economy I see no need to prove that a house is on fire when we can all clearly see the smoke and flames pouring out from its windows.
***On the 100,000 Iraqi deaths I did not see that Jack attributed most of them to the insurgents conducting terrorist operations against the Iraqi public.***
Cut the Bullshit. Most of those deaths are clearly the moral responsibility of GWB and those who supported him. You wouldn’t happen to be one of his supporters? If so, have you given any thought to acknowledging your culpability and supporting a formal apology to the Iraqi people for the disaster that we have visited upon them?
There is little reason to disbelieve the claim. The YouTube website was created on 4/30 apparently to announce the successful bombing and the announcement appeared to be pre-recorded.
And, Codger, these are the good enemy, not those poor Iraqis. Y’ano the ones who were helping and allied with Al Qaeda in that country where we are fighting the “good” war. Remind us again how many did Saddam kill before, well you know…?
I’ve just been through this with someone i like better than you. i am not lying. so if you think i am obviously lying, you have a thought disorder. which was actually fairly evident from the comment i didn’t finish reading. there really are options short of the go cart with the sail for your inevitible commutes. i do not know if it is even possible for you to think beyond the set of “obvious” “facts” that you have been given. but at some point trying to educate you gets tedious.
not sure if we are converging here or lost on our separate ideas of what constitutes convenience. i think a bicycle is nearly ideal transportation, except for trips longer than about three miles, or trips where you need to carry something large or heavy, or trips with dogs, or trips when it is raining, or trips with hills. so a little power assist and a closed cabin completes my needs. except that unless everyone else shares my idea, it won’t work. the big cars trying to go faster than what is sane in a a residential / business area just ruin it for everyone. i am enough of a socialist to be willing to force everyone to leave their big and or gas cars outside the city, and outside my neighborhood. i am fairly sure most people would like it when they got used to it. but most people resist any change from what they have already gotten used to. a bus or commuter train service would help. but for the most part i’d like to see commutes reduced to less than that three miles. though i thnk the electric cars could handle ten mile commutes without any trouble.
the problem i have with VT and you is that you see the electrics as a few of their kind lost in traffic of the kind we have today. that is what has to change. sure don’t want a segway. i can walk. and don’t need no damn high tech gadget that is less useful than a skateboard.
to be perfectly honest, being unemployed is no fun at all, but unemployment insurance might cause even me to try a few extra weeks to get a better job. i can’t see that that is a social evil, but the folks who want to push the price of labor down to where people will thank them for any damn job at subsistence wages and coolie conditions of course think that unemployment insurance encourages laziness and lack of moral fiber.
another way to make that point… what EXACTLY is the difference between 125 Billion dollars and One Trillion dollars? These are just big numbers, and they don’t mean a damn thing to anyone except possibly the persons actually doing the bookkeeping.
I hate to let that go unanswered, but i also hate to always be arguing with you.
If Saddam killing his own people was a reason to go to war, then why don’t we go to war in Sudan, Congo, .. hell why did we SUPPORT the killers in Guatemala and ElSalvador?
At this point, if the Taliban are trying to bomb us, well they could argue that we started it. If we say, no, it was Osama, then they say Osama who? it gets pretty stupid.
And what i said is what jack said, and what George Bush said… Osama is not really our priority. So what the hell exactly are we doing?
Try reading the comment policy that Dan posted for his blog. It’s self explanatory.
This isn’t the first time that your numbers have wildly missed the mark.
If you’re going to cite numbers, try backing them up or providing links instead of faking it and subsequently whinning that accuracy in numbers don’t matter.
You continue to miss the point. Hide behind your numbers if that makes you feel that you’ve hit upon some form of the truth. We have all been witness to the ease with which numbers are too often manipulated for the purpose of distorting an issue. The point at hand is the morality of these wars and the effect on our economy. As noted, I don’t see the great need to cite the Greenwich Observatory when telling you the time of day. I’m fully aware that if I err I will soon be corrected, but the point was not to establish the precise expenditures related to our middleeast follies, but to establish instead that it is a drain of our national resources. Call it poetic license. If you think that the money and lives have been well spent then reference to numerical precision would be the height of absurdity.
Just how serious a threat was this Taliban before Bush and Co. decided to bomb bejesus out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Certainly Saddam was a bad guy in Iraq and the Taliban were ass holes in Afghanistan. So what business was that of ours? We virtually created Saddam and backed his Bathist regime. We armed and funded the Taliban and Osama when Charlie Wilson thought what a good idea it would be to f–k up the Russians. Putin must be laughing his ass off. Our government is batting .ooo in the middle east. We need only wait for the next f–k up.
Dale said: “I hate to let that go unanswered, but i also hate to always be arguing with you. ” OK, then stop. You seldom provide anything other than your own personal opinion.
Jack, you’ve made your feelings known. The fact that you are mistaken in your numbers/impacts does not strengthen their validity past emotion. Emotions are personal and not truth.
To all the anti-war ABers here. There is a long history re: pacificism. It ebbs and flows in political strength, but seldom ends well. Until we can do away with human nature there will be attacks leading to wars. And, WAR is what we are fighting at the moment. The NYC attempt, and the many others that have been foiled since 9/11, are little different then the Predator Drone attacks we are using to fight. We are (have been) just more successful.
But, you go ahead with your emotional responses and your moral superiority. I pray you folks are never involved in a successful attack, but if you are remember, your pacificism will support your psyche right up till the moment that piece of shrapnel dissects you or your family’s bodies. Brutal? So is war! Pacificism does not stop it, and in some historical instances has actually exacerbated it.
CoRev: “Brutal? So is war! Pacificism does not stop it, and in some historical instances has actually exacerbated it.”
You have an uncanny knack for missing the main point of an argument. Yes there are brutal people all over the world. When our government goes out of its way to support the efforts of those brutes it ignores the potential and future blow back that is likely to occur. Give the brutes enough weapons and you can count on their finding good use for them. They have come to our shores with the weaponry and intentions that our government once encouraged and provided to them. We armed the Taliban and there allies when they were angry with the Russians. They then got the upper hand when time came to “govern” their countrymen. The Pakistanis gave them plenty of aide and comfort then. Years later we bomb the crap out of the p;lace and we’re surprised that they don’t feel good about our presence. That’s real logical thinking.
We don’t need a lot of numbers gathered in long columns to recognize the stupidity and duplicity of US actions in the middle east. And what good the numbers? Read Linda’s new post above. I’m sure that Alic Rivlin and her cohorts will come to there meetings with all the necessary columns of numbers to support their predetermined outcomes. Numbers tell a tale, but the tale need not be the truth. A good pacifist knows when to fight. A warrior simply enjoys the fight. Now build me an argument for the good fight in the middle east. And try not to forget that a bunch of Egyptians were on those airplanes on 9/11.
The inanity of arguing the cost of war without bothering to address the justification for it does boggle the mind. The people calling me and others anti-war without putting those two questions in the proper order really rankles. Speaking for myself the rationale comes first – if that one is good enough the cost doesn’t matter. But if the rationale is specious, dubious or illegal then no cost is justifiable.
Upthread I got my jaw dropped by Cardiff who essentially argued that any man made oil shortage that severely threatens our economic well being is justification for war. He concluded “This is just the way it is.”
If that is true then our country has essentially repudiated a key precedent of the Nuremberg trials. In the negotiations leading up to that trial which took months to resolve, US judge Robert H Jackson insisted that war waged for material gain amounts to a defacto crime against humanity. Without exception. The British, Soviet and French delegations resisted this line of argument preferring the older “spoils of war” standard. But judge Jackson prevailed in his intent to prosecute what he referred to as “plunder”.
Moreover I don’t have to reach back to Nuremberg to cite precedent. The same standard was applied by W’s father in Gulf War I when a true international military force prosecuted war against Saddam Hussein for his attempt to annex the oil wealth of Kuwait.
If the warmongers on this site really intend to repudiate Nuremberg and this international standard of justice they ought to own up and acknowledge that. It could at least put a bright boundary around our disagreements.
You might want to be cautions in your willingness to believe the Pakistani taliban at this point. The chances that this is another lunatic teabagger ala Mr. Stack here in Austin is not yet zero.
AS, lunatic “Tea Bagger”, Mr Stack???? He was a lunatic Govt, big Pharma, big finance, big oil, etc. hating lefty! Never a part of the Tea Party movement (Not sure of his sexual predilection, Tea Bagger.). Would fit in here at AB very well. But you keep believing the spin.
CoRev: “History was yersterday. What would you do today to make things better?”
What is that old line about those who ignore history? Something about “being doomed to repeat it.” A guy named Santyana. No, not the rocker who liked little girls. I’m afraid that it’s a bit late to ignore the history of US activities in the middle east. I’ll note that you have neatly side stepped my challange. “Now build me an argument for the good fight in the middle east. And try not to forget that a bunch of Egyptians were on those airplanes on 9/11.” And you label it foolishness and ignore the specificity of the policies that have led to such disasterous consequences.
It will likely take generations to correct the misguided and ruthless activities of the past half century. A good start would be for our elected representatives, that’s what some of you call the government, to begin representing the good of the vast majority rather than the wealthiest sectors of our nation. Government action flows from representation. History tells us a sorry tale in regards to the too wealthy and powerful being more than a little resistant to giving up their on power. There is no subsistute for good government when defined as “for the people and by the people” not just the wealthiest of the people.
My obligatory AGW/Energy post: “ FIVE MYTHS ABOUT GREEN ENERGY
“Green” energy has great emotional and political appeal. However, before we wrap all our hopes — and subsidies — in it, let us take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what “green” mean, says Robert Bryce, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute. Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all: Solar and wind technologies require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. The Nature Conservancy issued a report last year critical of “energy sprawl,” including tens of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines needed to carry electricity from wind and solar installations to distant cities.
Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes: The United States will be increasingly reliant on just one supplier, China, for elements known as lanthanides. Lanthanum, neodymium, dysprosium and other rare earth elements are used in products from high-capacity batteries and hybrid-electric vehicles to wind turbines and oil refinery catalysts; China controls between 95 and 100 percent of the global market in these elements.
A green American economy will create green American jobs: In a global market, American wind turbine manufacturers face the same problem as American shoe manufacturers: high domestic labor costs. If U.S. companies want to make turbines, they will have to compete with China, which not only controls the market for neodymium, a critical ingredient in turbine magnets, but also has access to very cheap employees.
Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil: Gasoline contains about 80 times as much energy, by weight, as the best lithium-ion battery.The Government Accountability Office reported that about 40 percent of consumers do not have access to an outlet near their vehicle at home.
The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green: According to data from the Energy Information Administration, average per capita energy consumption in the United States fell by 2.5 percent from 1980 through 2006. That reduction was greater than in any other developed country except Switzerland and Denmark; the United States achieved it without participating in the Kyoto Protocol or creating an emissions trading system like the one employed in Europe.
Sigh!!!! Jack and AS have not been able to make a cogent argument for any change. Hating America or prior actions of it and its allies, and making claims that so much in the past was our error is not a solution. Nor does it give us a path forward.
So I repeat. What would you do today to make things better?
I am not whining. what exactly is the difference between a hundred billion and a Trillion?
I made my living with numbers. I can tell you that any numbers much larger than three might as well be replaced in the human mind with “big” and “really big.” All those numbers mean is that a big country divided by a small dollar is a ‘really big’ number.
Jack was trying to make a point about “a really big number”. You seem to think you have defeated his point by “proving” that another “really big” number is the one he should have used.
Try to think. If he had used your number, would it have made a damn bit of difference to his argument?
Jack, you repeat my question, then go off on even another personal opinion piece without any answer. OK!
But this comment fascinates me: “It will likely take generations to correct the misguided and ruthless activities of the past half century. ” Activities done by which party? To which party? And, which party(ies) was there to help alleviate or correct?
After we go through your list of mankind generated activites, we can start on those that were nature originated. Questions on those would be to which party, and which party was there to help/alleviate?
A little walk down that historical trail might be interesting if not eye opening.
i will grant you this, with the exception of Social Security, which I KNOW about, my opinions are not ontologically better than yours. Nevertheless, this is a blog, not a social engineering think tank, so I am willing to be a little loose, and willing to accept your being a little loose, but think it perfectly appropriate for me to argue with you.
So, let me offer this not-opinion about my opinion. I am not now and never have been a pacifist. I do have better resistance to the propaganda that “leaders” use to get the people willing to die for them. And my sober opinion is that we were safer from “islamic terrorism” before we invaded Iraq, or even Afghanistan, than we are now.
So, if you are going to give me your opinion that my “only opinion” is both worthless and dangerous, could you please address my actual opinion, and not the opinion you projtct on to me because that is the bogeyman of your nightmares.
there are two ways to fail to make a cogent argument. one way is to… fail to make a cogent argument. The other is to make a perfectly cogent argument that the person addressed cannot, or does not want to, understand.
and oh, “hating America” is not how I, or as far as I can tell, Jack and AS feel. Calling your opponent a traitor is about the lowest level of argument known to politics. It is very sad. You have been listening to the Rush-likes and the Ann Coulter types call us traitors for so long you can’t help making the connection and seeing red whenever we disagree with you.
But I can tell you we wouldn’t waste our time arguing with you if we did not love our country and want to save it from the Very Bad People who have your number.
most of what you say is true. the fallacy is that in order for green energy to work it must have no problems to overcome.
It happens that I am not much of a fan of “green energy.” I think people need to learn how to enjoy life and use about 10% as much energy as they do today. I know it can be done.
Oh, and the comparison of “gasoline contains 80 times as much energy as… a battery” is simply brain damaged. It’s one of those completely incommensurate comparisons that the circus barker uses to wow the rubes.
it is not an adequate, or honest, answer to “reduce dependence on unsavory regimes” to cite some areas of “increased dependence. what you would have to show is that “overall dependence” was not reduced.
this is something that never enters your mind because you fall in love with the “answer” and never think to question it.
don’t take this personally. it is a rule of human “intelligence.” we all do it.
Dale, I can not counter your opinion as it is almost the only thing you provide. My reference? Your comment! Read it, and tell us which is supported points of fact?
AS, your responses are getting less and less cogent. If you wish to limit the historical look at (natural/man made) activities to which Jack was referring be my guest. But, saying this: “But only where CoRev wants. pitiful…” adds no value what’ so ever. That was a pretty wide/long trail with NO CoRev restrictions.
But, keep on! If you can’t take the point take the body. That strategy seems to make my point.
So when are you going to organize and get back risking sun-burn on the mall? You do remember that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have been unwaveringly bi-partisanly supported by both the R’s and D’s since the start? The Dems have been in charge for the past 17 months and we are still going strong.
So when are you going to protest Obama? Oh, that’s right, he’s a D President, it’s all ok then.
And yes the hypocrasy from the anti-war left is staggering.
I agree we were much safer on Sept 10, 2001 than we are today from Islamic terrorism. I know Poland was a great place to be a Jew and safe too, during August 1939….
thanks on the SS. it’s the only thing around here that i know for sure. as to the rest.. my “only opinions” are every bit as good as your “facts,” in my opinion.
facts are almost never conclusive. too easy to pick and choose and ignore relationships between them, not to mention relative improtance, and, of course, whether or not they are actually facts.
no. no. we were safer AFTER 9/11 than we are today. after 9/11 the world was pretty much horrified and disgusted with AlQuaeda, as they were after the Africa bombings. then we had to go and give them somthing else to be disgusted about.
actually Poland was never as great a place to be a jew before the war as germany was before hitler.
CoRev, So where is your answer to my challange? “Now build me an argument for the good fight in the middle east. And try not to forget that a bunch of Egyptians were on those airplanes on 9/11.” You avoid what you can’t support and you through out all manner of diversionary questions of your own. You don’t know how to support your own position, but you’re making strides to obfuscate the issue. And now that you’ve backed yourself into a corner with no defense you’re off to another topic completely. You’re a phoney. You have no good argument other than to argue without substance. You offer diversions rather than answers. You’re a fraud. You argue without substantiation and then accuse others of not having support for their contradictions to your arguments. Your response to kharris, above, is a perfect example.
As far as providing substantialtion, from this comment: “You argue without substantiation and then accuse others of not having support for their contradictions to your arguments.” Then you go on and ask me to make some supportive argument for that very same already made decision. A decision that neither you nor I were part of.
Jack, for heaven’s sake get over yourself. Why would I provide an argument for an already made decision? It’s done. It is already history. That was my point!
you know how i feel about arguments that are half-facts.
that “gasoline contains 80 times as much energy, per weight, as a battery” seems to ignore the fact that when the battery runs out of energy, you can fill it up again with no gain in weight. and you can do this over and over again. at what point does the “weight” of the battery contain and deliver more energy than the same weight of gasoline?
or are you saying it takes 80 batteries to power an electric car?
or is the point to “contain the same energy”? i thought we were trying to reduce energy consumption. if that electric car can go more than twice as far, at the same speed/ weight as the gas car on the same total energy… are we to lament that it “contains” less energy than the gas car?
and if it does it with less pollution and less cost and less reliance on unstable foreign sources, does that really count less than the fact that the battery weighs more than a gallon of gas?
and i really wonder about those consumers who don’t have access to an electrical outlet. amazing. in america today. well, i never!
and nothing can be done about it? really amazing.
you see, facts are one thing. making sense is another.
Jack, you are also not too accurate with your references. Saying this: “Your response to kharris, above, is a perfect example. ” I had to go back through the comments on this article to see if KH had even played. NOPE!!!
If you are going to make claims provide some cites. It’s easier on all of us, and keeps us out of these kinds of endless, circular discussions.
The perfect answer when you’ve nothing of substance to add, “Been there, done that.” It’s on going and every passing day makes for an ever bleaker history. So just excuse the entire mess. Disregard the squandering of the Treasury. ignore the killing of thousands of American military personnel and the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis. No big deal. Just another day in the lust for empire. How about pulling out now and declaring victory in the middle east? It worked well enough in Viet Nam. Or have you some good excuse for staying and continuing the killiing and the sacrafice. It’s certainly easy enough to sacrafice the lives of others.
Jack, finally makes a proposal: “How about pulling out now and declaring victory in the middle east? Or have you some good excuse for staying and continuing the killiing and the sacrafice. ”
and you think it is based upon ?successful? history. “It worked well enough in Viet Nam.”
Jack, my reason for staying is also based upon history. When we do peace, usually long term, ensues. Want examples? Germany, Japan, Italy, S. Korea, Kosovo, etc. All recent history since WWII. Want examples of opposite results in the same time frame? China, nearly all of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, etc, want more?
Then saying VietNam was a successful withdrawal, well is just a total misstatement or complete misunderstanding of the many 100Ks killed after we left. But if you are proud of that history then, rationalize it to yourself, but don’t make an argument to me. That was my era and I have enough friends and family impacted/lost because of it. BTW, my son is about to deploy in the near future, again. But he is a scientist and not a direct war fighter.
You’re the one who brought up the histoircal apprach, and you are the one who proposed withdrawal. The two are not positively convergent.
Cut the Bullshit. Most of those deaths are clearly the moral responsibility of GWB and those who supported him.
The deaths are the moral responsibility of the terrorists that did them.The terrorists are blameworthy. I think you need to do some research on moral responsibility.
AS, Uh Oh! The Prez has admitted that the NYC attempt was terrorism, and that it looks like it was perpetrated by several. Those several appear to be foreign or foreign affiliated.
All this while the Talies are claiming responsibility. Dunno if it’s a slam dunk, yet, but it does not look good for it being another group.
Cutting off our oil imports would kill our economy and result is the slow death of million of Americans. That’s why we would go to war to prevent it. Cutting off our oil would be an act of war against the United States. I don’t see a possible scenario where this would happen given our national character.
And I didn’t see you acknowledge that you reject judge’s Jackson’s argument that wars of plunder are crimes against humanity. Nor the obvious reverse analogy with gulf war I.
You can keep the national character you’re citing that allows My USA to kill people to protect your economy. People who never did anything to us but just happen to be unfortunate enough to have our oil under their feet.
Does it even occur to you that attacking a country that doesn’t want to sell us oil at a price that you deem acceptable for protecting “the economy” is contrary to your hallowed free market? Hello?
Well since unemployment benefits are not available to the voluntarily unemployed but only to those who are laid off and since benefits are well below what people made working I really dont see much impetus to go collect unemployment.
Will the cost of the damage from/and the cost of the cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill be calculated into those glowing EROEI statistics we often see for oil? Want to take any bets? Has the cost of cleaning up any oil spill or the damage the spill did ever been calculated into the EROEI of oil?
rdan,
A little perspective please.
Estimates of cost of Gulf oil spill = $8B http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Eco/oil-spill-gulf-mexico-severe-estimated-bp-confirms/story?id=10506409
(Exxon Valdez = $2.5B)
The Federal Government spends about $10B per day.
We spent roughly $10B (actually the cost will/did fall on BP/Exxon shareholders) on the 2 spills over a 20 year period. (Valdez = 1989), 1 days total federal spending.
Remember: Restrict oil = Restrict freedom.
***Will the cost of the damage from/and the cost of the cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill be calculated into those glowing EROEI statistics we often see for oil?*** rdan
Probably not, but that’s not as much of a problem as the impossibility of complete remediation. The total dollar cost will probably be about the cost of a month or two of a pointless war — modern America’s signature undertaking.
Oil really has some unique characteristics for applications like powering aircraft and as a feedstock for various materials. An economy the size of the US’s actually does need a good deal of oil. We surely don’t need as much as we use, but using less takes long lead time infrastructure changes. And even if we do that (not especially likely) there is little real chance of not pumping oil from the Gulf of Mexico because the priority should be cutting the 10mbpd that we import rather than curring back on domestic production.
Of course Carter is the only American president who ever tried to get us to think realistically about energy usage. He got laughed at for his trouble. As a result of electing the Great Prevaricator and occasionally turning the nations controls over to the lunatic right, we are in a heap of quite intractable energy trouble. IMHO that is exactly what we deserve for acting like idiots.
We could always try not acting like idiots, but I don’t see much sign that Americans are ready to do that. Maybe after another decade or three of pain …
This comment reminds me of a recent advertising slogan: “It’s not just your car, It’s your Freedom!“
I don’t think it worked out too well for that organization either.
VtCodger,
Making a significant cut in our oil imports is a fantasy so we are stuck operating in and doing business with countries that we have cultural differences with. Jimmy Carter was a defeatists and that’s why he was not re-elected. Moreover, the new forerunners to the department of energy were established under president Ford.
The big victories in energy use in the 1970s was due to a combination of tightening efficiency regulations consumers and business searching to save energy to save money.
I think the chance is high that if the economy continues to recover along with the world economy we are going to see $4 gasoline prices again this summer. The response by the republicans has been to advocate the increase of supply of all sources of energy and with oil to increase the land available for drilling. Drilling of 5,000 ft. of water is vary difficult and as we see dangerous for those doing it and also to the environment. Yet we need to do it so the focus should be on figuring out how to do it more safely.
Not all democrats are crazy but the crazy wing of the democratic party see the energy shortage with its rising costs and respond by wanting to increase the prices even more with energy taxes. This strikes me as madness. I don’t think you can either produce more oil or plug leak with a carbon tax. For the remainder of this year while they are still in office the congressonal leadership should focus on expanding supply and enhancing environmental safeguards, while at the same time throwing anti global warming legislation in the trashcan.
“The Federal Government spends about $10B per day. “
SWEEEEEETTT!!!! That means each American is recieving about $30 a day.
If they are spending we are receiving.
Greg,
If they are spending we are receiving.
Maybe in a trickle down or trickle over kind of a way. I certainly did not have my job saved by the federal government and I don’t see too many infrastructure projects. However, I do believe that a lot of the money was used to save jobs for city and state employees. Since these people have to spend their money its bound to trickle to the rest of us eventually.
Codger
thanks. i’ll have to try to remember that you really are quite sensible after all.
me. i think using “golf carts” to get around town would make a huge dent in the oil consumption / global warming problems.
but the big guys are bent on giving us an electric car which will do all the things a gas car will do. and that is going to be expensive. and stupid.
Cardiff
you start out sounding reasonable and then you throw it all away.
okay, Carter did not have a good sales pitch. Nevertheless raising the price of oil, with a carbon tax, would have produced the market pressure for people to look for efficiencies all across the board.
the problem is that it’s the sort of forced efficiency that americans have been trained to respond to with howls of outrage and anti-government ideology.
it’s too late to gradually raise the price of oil and use the money for something useful. now we will see … if we are smart … steep rises in the price of oil… but no steeper than the market has given us… and a political establishment too stupid to use the money for anything but “shoring up” the financial system that has brought us to this.
this “madness” is not to produce more oil, but to save some of it for the future, and maybe give us time to figure out how to “plug the leaks” with something better than lies on paper.
oh, sammy
freedom is not the ultimate value. your idea of freedom is the cowboys riding into town shooting their guns in the air, getting drunk, raping the women, and riding away while the sherrif sits in his office saying boys will be boys and counting the money the bar owners gave him to stay out of sight.
Cardiff
I think your trickle theory is not quite apt. Even the R trickle down from the rich theory misses the actual way money gets spent.
The gov buys a lot of stuff, not just “government jobs” so that government money enters the economy fairly directly, and hopefully in ways that are themselves useful, though it is hard to get a Republican to see the ways that “government” makes it possible for him to make money; he always imagines… without much detail… that the private market would do what the government does “if only” government would get out of the way.
Meanwhile trickle down from the top has never seemed to actually work. At some point the rich just buy more paper from each other. Or they buy estates in the south of france. Or expensive foreign cars. Whatever, it is pretty clear that it never trickles down very far or very fair. And I am a person who does not particularly object to “the rich.” It’s just that the economy needs a little more actual driving so that even the rich can make money.
Meanwhile, I think Greg is exactly right. It’s one of those accounting identity things.
***Making a significant cut in our oil imports is a fantasy***
Incorrect. It will almost certainly happen sooner or later because the world has a finite supply of oil and a comparatively infinite amount of demand. Eventually very high oil prices will cut US demand dramatically. Remember that US population is only 5% ot the planet even though we burn 20% or the oil production. Even if the other 95% of humanity settles for 100,000 btu per person per day from petroleum (vs the 400,000 btu the US currently consumes), they are going to need production around 110mbpd. That’s possible. Not certain, but possible. But no one seriously thinks it is sustainable decade after decade for all eternity.
Wikipedia has a very good discussion of peak oil with a gazillion links at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
The EIA analysis of future oil supplies is worth reading. http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/2004/worldoilsupply/oilsupply04.html It makes it pretty obvious that current US petroleum usage is not sustainable. A lot of people think it is wildly optimistic BTW.
So, we are eventually have to cut usage of oil. A lot. We can do that relatively painlessly over a few decades or we can do it the hard way. You seem to prefer the latter.
***I think the chance is high that if the economy continues to recover along with the world economy we are going to see $4 gasoline prices again this summer***
Perhaps-perhaps not. Saudi Arabia and some other Persian Gulf producers apparently want oil prices stable and about where they are now. It’s not clear that they have enough reserve production to engineer that. But they may be able to do it for a while.
What you should be worrying about isn’t $4 a gallon it’s $8 or 10 (real) dollar a gallon gasoline which might happen in a few years or maybe a couple of decades depending on the world economy and how much fiction is incorporated in “proven reserves”. It almost certainly will happen. And that might well not be the maximum. Want to guess what an airline ticket will cost if jet fuel is selling at $20 a gallon? Might want to mull that over for a while.
***I don’t think you can either produce more oil or plug leak with a carbon tax.***
Of course not. But what you gonna do when the oil runs out man?
Carbon taxes stretch oil supplies by encouraging people to use less petroleum and switch to other energy sources. They also encourage the use of comparatively clean Natural gas and discourage the use of comparatively dirty coal. (There is some hope that someday clean coal will be a reality. But it won’t be any time soon. If/when it becomes a reality, the carbon tax on coal decreases.)
I really think you need to do some research and some serious modelling. I think that if you actually do that, your views will change substantially.
***I don’t see too many infrastructure projects.***
I don’t either. But I think maybe there is a lead time on many infrastructure projects with much of the spending backloaded. Up front, the money goes to architects, various experts, and paper pushers. It takes a while to get to buying steel, concrete and paying construction workers?
Codger
re infrastructure’s infrastructure.
true enough, but i am a little worried the big O does not even understand that the money needs to be put out there and not just given to the already rich in the form of tax cuts… or even the relatively poor. there isn’t much incentive to do a lot of spending when you aren’t sure you are going to have a job. and there isn’t much incentive to do a lot of investing when you aren’t sure anybody is going to buy what you make.
i don’t like to be paranoid, but i can’t escape the thought that O and all the other high end deciders are in the grip of “trickle down”, or in the pay of the Big Money. either way it does not look like good news for anybody except those who can afford private armies to guard private plantations and oversee the workers.
Coberly
I think your conversation with Marshall Auerback a week or so ago gave you a slightly new perspective!
Did you see the transcript of the “Fiscal Sustainability Teach- in Counter Conference” that Marshall and some of his colleagues participated in on Wednesday?
http://www.correntewire.com/fiscal_sustainability_teach_in_counter_conference_1
Check it out……. good stuff
The O man is far from a leftist, unless your looking at him from the Genghis Khan position (where too many of our American conservative friends reside). He like Rubin and Summers has been poisoned by Chicago school economics that thinks unemployment is the policy tool of choice to battle inflation.
What they are saying is “The only way to preseve the value of my money is to keep 10-15% of the population from having ANY!” and then they turn around and call thos efolks they have intentionally cut off from the labor force LAZY!! It would be humorous if it werent so sick.
Rent seeking behavior, concert promoter version:
Among my group of live music fans in Austin I am known as “that ticket guy” – I usually end up getting tickets for whoever else might be interested in a show. It’s not altruism it’s paranoia – I just don’t trust anybody else to handle a critical task in what occupies most of my discretionary free time, not to mention income.
So this morning I go online to get tickets to an upcoming show for myself and 4 other friends. Select 5 tickets on the first screen then see on the second screen I’m required to enter the identities of all 5 ticket holders… Uh… okay… I look around to see if there is some alternate method since I don’t know how to spell what’s his name’s girlfriends last name… no luck. Then I get around to reading the new FAQ on the site’s terms.
1> Your print at home ticket has your identity encoded into the 2D barcode.
2> Tickets without the right identity encoded are invalid and will not be honored.
3> Transfers to third parties can only take place by going back to the promoters site using a pin code to generate a new bar code with that new person’s identity.
Now on the one hand I can understand this is probably an effective way to undermine scalping. I’m paid too well to rationalize stealing from artists so have never condoned or participated in scalping. But I can’t help thinking this is yet another way for the promoter to extract a “transfer fee” for the privilege of reselling a ticket (and okay certifying its authenticity to the buyer). Am I the only one who finds this creepy and a bit of an overreach by what is already a pretty sleazy business?
greg
i’ll try to look at it. but don’t tease. what did i learn from Auerback?
Greg
i keep wondering if the stock market isn’t a kind of anti-inflation device. where else to put money where it won’t raise the prices of anything useful. and then one day it crashes and all that “money” just disappears.
***but the big guys are bent on giving us an electric car which will do all the things a gas car will do. and that is going to be expensive. and stupid.***
I’ve got to telll you Dale. The vehicle you want doesn’t exist and no one anywhere has much idea how to build it. I think the reason that something different is being built is that about half the components of the $40,000 electirified sedans are stuff the engineers in Detroit and Kanagawa know how to do whereas the glorified golf cart has virtually nothing in common with current vehicles. (But I also have to say that “they” need to get the price down to Prius levels quickly if they expect their electric cars to succeed.
I think the vehicle you want will turn up in a decade or so. And I think it will come from East Asia or possibly India because China and India can build a totally new design every bit as well as we can. They have a lot of engineers, management with fewer preconceptions, a larger customer base, and a lot fewer persnickity laws about brakes working reliably and such. I suspect that the first of these vehicles will turn up on the US market in the not too distant future and that the adjectives that will best describe them will be “terrifying” and “unreliable”. They’ll probably be both. I expect that by the 2020s they’ll be fairly decent vehicles and widely available although tweaking them so they can safely share the road with SUVs driven by cretins with cell phones will be no small trick.
Could be wrong about any or all of that.
Just following the lead of the airlines, it used to be they did not care about the name on the ticket, the did start caring before 9/11. They could go a step further and provide that tickets are non transferable if they wanted to. Until recently there was no technological way to do this but now it is possible so it will come.
I recall you saying to him after his response to kharris something to the effect of ;I think Im starting to get what you are talking about. You said you wanted to learn a little more but it seemed he got you to consider something you hadnt considered before. In that post he was talking about sectoral balances and how “deificts” fit in to the balances.
He used the term accounting identity and that was the first time I’d seen you use that term.
Yes it could be. Problem is it seems that at the moment the buyers are the workers pension funds and 401 ks and the sellers are the CEOs and other insiders. Rats are leaving the ship and when it sinks Joe Blow is gonna be suckin’. Another psychopathic way to protect the value of their money. Thats why Im not within 100 miles of the stock market now.
Codger
there is a guy down the street building these things. and i see a few driving around town with smiling drivers. on the other hand i havn’t bought one myself yet. it seems to me that a golf cart is a fairly well understood bit of technology. and brakes are brakes for god sakes. or they used to be before they got so fancy and electonified that they don’t stop cars when the computer has a cold.
i have no doubt the thing can be improved upon, and would be if they were being sold by the millions. but right now it’s the people stupid. they want something fast and sexy that will run all week without a charge that takes less time than pumping twenty gallons of gas. it’s not much fun getting on the road in something slow when everyone else is bigger than you.
greg
i looked at the site. i think they are making a mistake talking about the deficit. in the first place there are not enough people who know enough to follow their argument, and most people “beliieve in” the huge horrible deficit and you are not going to change their mind.
but in the second place the deficit is only a smoke screen for killing Social Security. that is the Big Point. and the people want a reason to keep their social security. all they have to be told is the truth: SS has nothing to do with the deficit. SS is not going broke. and SS is not welfare. These guys, bless em, talk about SS as if it WAS welfare. that is a fatal mistake.
greg
excellent point. about the Nairu and the lazy workers. of course the Nairu was explained … by a famous economist … as Caused by lazy greedy workers.
Jack’s “Facts”
Jack supposedly identifies U.S. cost and military personnel casualty data for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on the following thread. The problem is that Jack doesn’t identify sources for his supposed “facts”. I find no government data to support either of his claims.
It appears that 40-50% error rates are fully acceptable in commentary here. It fits in with some of the other commentary that passes for supposed informed thinking at Angry Bear.
War reporting and discussion
Posted by Rdan | 4/28/2010 02:13:00 PM
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2010/04/war-reporting-and-discussion.html
Jack – 2 days ago, 10:50:02 AM – “At an annual cost of some where between $700Billion and $One trillion, depending on how much of the collateral and future costs you include, it would seem like a full blown military adventure to most people.”
Where is he getting these figures?
Jack – 2 days ago, 10:50:02 AM – “Nearly ten thousand dead American soldiers is a good enough definition for me.”
As of 30 April 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense provided an update which indicates that 5,427 military personnel involved in the U.S. military OIF and OEF theater operations have lost their lives. Of the 5,427 military personnel deaths identified for OIF and OEF, 1192 military personnel were classified as non-hostile deaths.
My source? DoD. http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf
.
Jack’s “Facts”
Jack supposedly identifies U.S. cost and military personnel casualty data for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on the following thread. The problem is that Jack doesn’t identify sources for his supposed “facts”. I find no government data to support either of his claims.
War reporting and discussion
Posted by Rdan | 4/28/2010 02:13:00 PM
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2010/04/war-reporting-and-discussion.html
Jack – 2 days ago, 10:50:02 AM – “At an annual cost of some where between $700Billion and $One trillion, depending on how much of the collateral and future costs you include, it would seem like a full blown military adventure to most people.”
Where is he getting these figures?
Jack – 2 days ago, 10:50:02 AM – “Nearly ten thousand dead American soldiers is a good enough definition for me.”
As of 30 April 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense provided an update which indicates that 5,427 military personnel involved in the U.S. military OIF and OEF theater operations have lost their lives. Of the 5,427 military personnel deaths identified for OIF and OEF, 1,192 military personnel were classified as non-hostile deaths.
My source? DoD. http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf
.
Well, your needs are different than mine. I don’t need much more than 30-40 miles range, but I do need not to be too much of a traffic problem on rural roads with deep ditches and few turn outs. People around here are tolerant of following farm machinery for a mile or so, but they aren’t going to put up with routinely being slowed to golf cart speeds.
I also need to be able to license and insure the thing, and it’s far from clear that I could do either with a golf cart.
I can’t think of any American city where golf carts would be anything other than a huge traffic problem. What do you reckon the odds would be of making it alive across Manhattan in typical NYC traffic in a golf cart?
The cost of oil spills needs to be burdened on the oil consumer.
Similarly, the cost of US military presence to keep Persian oil flowing to China and Japan needs to be assessed to oil users not US SS recipients.
That would add from $100 to $200 a bbl according to how much US militarism is expended to keep cheal oil delivered to non US refineries, for sale in non US economies.
Actually, I think the folks complaining about Cape Cod wind mills should oay for the Gulf of Mexico clean up.
Coberly,
this “madness” is not to produce more oil, but to save some of it for the future, and maybe give us time to figure out how to “plug the leaks” with something better than lies on paper.
You produce whatever you can, this is the only sane course of action. The human race is on the ropes on this one. If we don’t come up with a plentiful energy source then in the future the planet won’t be able to support its current population. Next to this global warming is idiotic escapism.
Incorrect. It will almost certainly happen sooner or later because the world has a finite supply of oil and a comparatively infinite amount of demand. Eventually very high oil prices will cut US demand dramatically.
I’m correct and I think your point is trivial. As long as there is oil to import we will import it. It there is a natural limit to existing oil then a long time in the future were out of luck. If there is a man made shortage that serverly threatens our economic well being then we’ll go to war to secure our oil supplies. This is just the way it is.
So, we are eventually have to cut usage of oil. A lot. We can do that relatively painlessly over a few decades or we can do it the hard way. You seem to prefer the latter.
I don’t see the logical construction in your argument. You first claim that oil is finite but then say that we can “relatively painlessly” reduce our usage of oil. You have no basis to say this, it does not follow your argument that oil supply is finite. To make this statement you need to say something about a viable alternative.
Perhaps-perhaps not. Saudi Arabia and some other Persian Gulf producers apparently want oil prices stable and about where they are now. It’s not clear that they have enough reserve production to engineer that. But they may be able to do it for a while.
The Saudi’s were lying when they claimed in the face of the 07/08 run up in oil prices that there was adequate supply. They loved the extra money. Moreover, the crash in prices was short lived and not servere by historical standards. Oil touched briefly went into the $30 range but then quickly recovered to over $50, and now we are at around $85. In years gone by our friends the Saudis said they believe that oil should be around $35 a barrel. Add inflation and we’re at $45-$50. So one should not take to seriously what they say publicly. So oil will go up again in price because of global economic recovery, the politicans will blame Wall Street and the futures market, and the recovery will sputter out. That is unless our friends the Saudis save the world.
Carbon taxes stretch oil supplies by encouraging people to use less petroleum and switch to other energy sources.
Like what? Should I get a go cart with a sail to commute to work, grocery shop, or go to the beach on weekends?
I really think you need to do some research and some serious modelling.
I’ve done reading and other research on energy, and modelling is a waste of time since there is no data on the next unknow invention for a new source of energy.
MG,
1,192 military personnel were classified as non-hostile deaths.
It two soldiers are driving a Hum-V at 35 miles and hour down a dirt road at night with their lights off to avoid being a target, flip over and some are killed I think they make it into the 1,192 number. Also, if a helicopter crashes for reasons not caused by enemy fire they probably also enter the 1,192 number. A fair comparison might be to estimate the number of deaths per 100,000 soldiers for troops based in the U.S. and compare it with the rate in Iraq and the difference should be considered do to being deployed in a war zone.
On the cost I don’t have any data but I think $700B-$1Trillion seems reasonable and certainly not outlandish.
This assertion really ought to be amazing by this point:
If there is a man made shortage that serverly threatens our economic well being then we’ll go to war to secure our oil supplies. This is just the way it is.
Pray tell who do you think is going to lend us the next $1T to pay for this war we will use to “secure” our oil supplies? Maybe you could also spend tome time explaining why that war will be cheaper than say, not burning the oil?
I’m guessing you don’t have any kids that will be drafted to kill off our enemies to get this oil? Or maybe you think they will just sit in office complexes driving drones to get it. Incredible.
Greg,
If they are spending we are receiving.
So the oil spill is good too?
All spending is not equal. Else hiring 10 people to do nothing for $1M each per year is good. It’s got to be productive spending for it to benefit the economy. You are falling for “the broken window fallacy”: http://freedomkeys.com/window.htm
I think 700B-1T is the total cost of the wars in Iraw and Afghanistan, not the annual cost.
You’re correct that some of the 1192 non-hostile deaths probably should be credited to the war since we have several hundred thousand more people on active duty than we would in peacetime (didn’t bother to look up exactly how many). Still though, even if we credit a couple of hundred non-hostile deaths to the war and throw in some civilian deaths clearly attributable to the war (e.g. some news people) and 250 mercenaries (“contractors”) killed by hostile action, total US deaths fatalities are no where near 10000.
Still 5000 deaths in a pointless war is 5000 too many. And there is also the small matter of more than 100000 documented Iraqi deaths. If you ask me that’s 100000 counts of accessory to manslaughter that exPresident Bush and his associates should be called on to account for in a court of law.
Cardiff
I think you are wrong. We use half the oil we use driving back and forth to work every day. and heating and cooling homes that were built when “energy was cheap.”
We can conserve oil and raise the standard of living at the same time. It is nothing but lack of imagination, fueled by corporations that make money doing things the same way they always have, that makes people think we can’t support the populations without “plentiful energy sources.”
Do some serious research to prove me wrong. Show me that food depends on “plentiful energy sources.” But do it right. Don’t just read the oil company propaganda. After we know how to grow the food, the economy and the culture will adjust to the facts and your kids won’t even miss their sexmobiles.
Cardiff
sorry, i did not finish your comment. you have a religious belief, not anything that represents actual knowledge or thought.
i don’t mean to be insulting. just trying to help you see yourself as others see you.
Codger
what you are doing is imagining golf carts on the roads with other traffic used to high speeds and driving by intimidation. 25 m/h is as fast as you can go in the city anyhow. it’s not too bad for short distances just outside of town either. once we got used to it we’d enjoy it.
and of course licensing and insuring, and “other traffic” are the whole problem. nothing wrong with the “golf cart” as the solution to urban transportation needs. i’m even okay with keeping that old gas sexmobile for what it does best: longish trips on the highway, and impressing your neighbors in the driveway.
Cardiff,
DoD information regarding military casualties in theater operations is not difficult to research.
DoD continuously provides casualty reports for ongoing theater operations. DoD provides summary breakdowns of casualty statistics for each major military theater operation. DoD also provides Death Rates per 100,000 Serving on a global basis; the statistics available on line cover the period 1980- Feb 2009.
Here’s a good starting point for researching the info:
http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/castop.htm
.
Sammy
reductio ad absurdam is not a good logical strategy if the absurd conclusion is not “necessary.”
i can think of a few ways to spend 10 million that would be more useful than buying hedge funds.
Cardiff – “On the cost I don’t have any data but I think $700B-$1Trillion seems reasonable and certainly not outlandish.”
The Congressional Research Service issued a report on September 28, 2009 titled “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11” which does not support your assumption. Similarly, CBO research on this subject does not support such thinking.
The United States has not been spending $700 billion to $1 trillion per year on the OIF and OEF theater operations since both began, nor is the United States now spending $700 billion to $1 trillion during this fiscal year on the two war operations. Moreover, adding in projected costs going forward including service members (active and former) healthcare expenditures, equipment replacement above and beyond normal equipment cycle replacement rates, and all other known considerations related to these two war operations does not result in expenditures at the $700 billion to $1 trillion per fiscal year level.
Error rates of roughly 50 percent on the casualty rates for the OIF and OEF operations and erronous cost “analysis” of such operations such as that provided by Jack appear to be the new standard for commentary at Angry Bear.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
http://www.cbo.gov/search/sitesearch.cfm?criteria=Iraq+and+Afghanistan+war+costs
.
Codger
and it also gives the “insurgents” a reason to think they are the good guys.
Maybe what you want isn’t quite golf cart scale but something closer to a segway. It’s an interesting concept but not compatible with cities as currently defined – there is no room on crowded sidewalks for them and no obvious way to carve out smaller lanes out of the vehicle traffic.
But I can imagine scenarios where you adapt existing buses for longer hauls that accomodate ramps and segway type vehicle storage. Once you start architecting combinations of smaller lightweight vehicles that can be parked or shared with bus and van service a lot more trips don’t need cars even in relatively suburban areas.
And of course Bloomberg is continuing to carve out sections of manhattan that are only open to pedestrians and or buses.
Um. I never read it as 700B-1T per year but more as an estimate of the aggregate cost so far. As such it is probably quite conservative since I seriously doubt it includes the ongoing care for tens of thousands of vets who are permanently disabled and or maimed.
Try another straw man mg
Amateur,
You apparently haven’t read the CRO report nor the CBO analyses.
No surprise…
VtCodger – “***I don’t see too many infrastructure projects.***
I don’t either. But I think maybe there is a lead time on many infrastructure projects with much of the spending backloaded. Up front, the money goes to architects, various experts, and paper pushers. It takes a while to get to buying steel, concrete and paying construction workers?”
This government web site lays out the details: http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx
There’s not any mystery as to where the funding has been flowing, including the issuance of contracts.
First sentence of first page of CRO report:
With enactment of the FY2009 Supplemental (H.R. 2346/P.L. 111-32) on June 24, 2009, Congress has approved a total of about $944 billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks: Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Afghanistan and other counter terror operations; Operation Noble Eagle (ONE), providing enhanced security at military bases; and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
amateur socialist,
The lead paragraph in the CRS report is stating a cumulative cost to date figure for three major military operations, not an annual cost figure for two operations (OIF and OEF) that Jack is stating.
Coberly,
i don’t mean to be insulting. just trying to help you see yourself as others see you.
Another low quality post by you. You do mean to be insulting so you are obviously lying. The fact that you casually include lies in your posts without a care in the world brings into question the worth of any other opinions you might express.
MG,
Jack probably just made an honest mistake by calling the cost annual rather than cumulative. On the number of U.S. deaths the 10,000 is like you point out 2 times too big. My only point on the non combat fatalities is that many of them were caused by the threat of enemy action even though they did not result from direct combat.
On the 100,000 Iraqi deaths I did not see that Jack attributed most of them to the insurgents conducting terrorist operations against the Iraqi public.
“Major military operations.”
I suggest neither Afghanistan, since Oct 01 and Iraq since Apr 03 to be major military operations.
They resemble the Nazis occupation of Serbia in 1944- 45.
I do not suspect the Wehrmacht considered that in the same vein as operations in France or Ukraine at the time.
And under the ARFORGEN model these occupations are tying up brigades for reconstitution/recapitalization and train up time equal to twice their deployment, I suggest the entire US Army is tied up in these occupation escapades.
“Major military operations.”
Who is securing Time Square?
Isn’t that why the US is wearing out its war machine?
Other than war profiteering.
***Who is securing Time Square?*** ilsm
That would be the NYPD and we would be well advised to keep it that way.
IMHO – Two places that the fedral government is, and probably shouldn’t be, are police work and education. AFAICS, they bring nothing to the party except additional overhead in the realm of education. Their roll in policing (with the notable and time honored exception of the Treasury Departments enforcing of counterfitting law) has too often been grandstanding, malicious prosecution and general stupidity. Think Waco or Ruby Ridge.
Here is the offending statement: “At an annual cost of some where between $700Billion and $One trillion, depending on how much of the collateral and future costs you include, it would seem like a full blown military adventure to most people.”
Let us accept MGs complaint that the number is more likely a total after eight years of warfare. I have no trouble with that. So is the average of approx. $125Billion per year more acceptable in the context of my original statement. How foes one define the cost of war? What is acceptable cost of wars of adventure rather than wars of defense? And what of the number killed or “just” maimed and wounded? What is acceptable? MG love numbers and references that may validate their accuracy. Is this a court of law? Is AB a professional journal wherein one attempts to provide proofs? What evidence is needed to support the contention that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have eclipsed any justification for their continuation n addition to their initiation.
When the issue is one of morality and the stakes are the lives of tens of thousands of people as well as the devastating effect on our economy I see no need to prove that a house is on fire when we can all clearly see the smoke and flames pouring out from its windows.
***On the 100,000 Iraqi deaths I did not see that Jack attributed most of them to the insurgents conducting terrorist operations against the Iraqi public.***
Cut the Bullshit. Most of those deaths are clearly the moral responsibility of GWB and those who supported him. You wouldn’t happen to be one of his supporters? If so, have you given any thought to acknowledging your culpability and supporting a formal apology to the Iraqi people for the disaster that we have visited upon them?
Of course, just like unemployment insurance leads to people wanting to be unemployed.
Well, the Taliban are taking credit for the failed NYC bombing attempt. See here: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/05/pakistani_taliban_cl.php
There is little reason to disbelieve the claim. The YouTube website was created on 4/30 apparently to announce the successful bombing and the announcement appeared to be pre-recorded.
And, Codger, these are the good enemy, not those poor Iraqis. Y’ano the ones who were helping and allied with Al Qaeda in that country where we are fighting the “good” war. Remind us again how many did Saddam kill before, well you know…?
Cardiff
I’ve just been through this with someone i like better than you. i am not lying. so if you think i am obviously lying, you have a thought disorder. which was actually fairly evident from the comment i didn’t finish reading. there really are options short of the go cart with the sail for your inevitible commutes. i do not know if it is even possible for you to think beyond the set of “obvious” “facts” that you have been given. but at some point trying to educate you gets tedious.
amateur
not sure if we are converging here or lost on our separate ideas of what constitutes convenience. i think a bicycle is nearly ideal transportation, except for trips longer than about three miles, or trips where you need to carry something large or heavy, or trips with dogs, or trips when it is raining, or trips with hills. so a little power assist and a closed cabin completes my needs. except that unless everyone else shares my idea, it won’t work. the big cars trying to go faster than what is sane in a a residential / business area just ruin it for everyone. i am enough of a socialist to be willing to force everyone to leave their big and or gas cars outside the city, and outside my neighborhood. i am fairly sure most people would like it when they got used to it. but most people resist any change from what they have already gotten used to. a bus or commuter train service would help. but for the most part i’d like to see commutes reduced to less than that three miles. though i thnk the electric cars could handle ten mile commutes without any trouble.
the problem i have with VT and you is that you see the electrics as a few of their kind lost in traffic of the kind we have today. that is what has to change. sure don’t want a segway. i can walk. and don’t need no damn high tech gadget that is less useful than a skateboard.
greg
to be perfectly honest, being unemployed is no fun at all, but unemployment insurance might cause even me to try a few extra weeks to get a better job. i can’t see that that is a social evil, but the folks who want to push the price of labor down to where people will thank them for any damn job at subsistence wages and coolie conditions of course think that unemployment insurance encourages laziness and lack of moral fiber.
Jack
another way to make that point… what EXACTLY is the difference between 125 Billion dollars and One Trillion dollars? These are just big numbers, and they don’t mean a damn thing to anyone except possibly the persons actually doing the bookkeeping.
Co Rev
I hate to let that go unanswered, but i also hate to always be arguing with you.
If Saddam killing his own people was a reason to go to war, then why don’t we go to war in Sudan, Congo, .. hell why did we SUPPORT the killers in Guatemala and ElSalvador?
At this point, if the Taliban are trying to bomb us, well they could argue that we started it. If we say, no, it was Osama, then they say Osama who? it gets pretty stupid.
And what i said is what jack said, and what George Bush said… Osama is not really our priority. So what the hell exactly are we doing?
Jack,
Try reading the comment policy that Dan posted for his blog. It’s self explanatory.
This isn’t the first time that your numbers have wildly missed the mark.
If you’re going to cite numbers, try backing them up or providing links instead of faking it and subsequently whinning that accuracy in numbers don’t matter.
You continue to miss the point. Hide behind your numbers if that makes you feel that you’ve hit upon some form of the truth. We have all been witness to the ease with which numbers are too often manipulated for the purpose of distorting an issue. The point at hand is the morality of these wars and the effect on our economy. As noted, I don’t see the great need to cite the Greenwich Observatory when telling you the time of day. I’m fully aware that if I err I will soon be corrected, but the point was not to establish the precise expenditures related to our middleeast follies, but to establish instead that it is a drain of our national resources. Call it poetic license. If you think that the money and lives have been well spent then reference to numerical precision would be the height of absurdity.
Just how serious a threat was this Taliban before Bush and Co. decided to bomb bejesus out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Certainly Saddam was a bad guy in Iraq and the Taliban were ass holes in Afghanistan. So what business was that of ours? We virtually created Saddam and backed his Bathist regime. We armed and funded the Taliban and Osama when Charlie Wilson thought what a good idea it would be to f–k up the Russians. Putin must be laughing his ass off. Our government is batting .ooo in the middle east. We need only wait for the next f–k up.
Dale said: “I hate to let that go unanswered, but i also hate to always be arguing with you. ” OK, then stop. You seldom provide anything other than your own personal opinion.
Jack, you’ve made your feelings known. The fact that you are mistaken in your numbers/impacts does not strengthen their validity past emotion. Emotions are personal and not truth.
To all the anti-war ABers here. There is a long history re: pacificism. It ebbs and flows in political strength, but seldom ends well. Until we can do away with human nature there will be attacks leading to wars. And, WAR is what we are fighting at the moment. The NYC attempt, and the many others that have been foiled since 9/11, are little different then the Predator Drone attacks we are using to fight. We are (have been) just more successful.
But, you go ahead with your emotional responses and your moral superiority. I pray you folks are never involved in a successful attack, but if you are remember, your pacificism will support your psyche right up till the moment that piece of shrapnel dissects you or your family’s bodies. Brutal? So is war! Pacificism does not stop it, and in some historical instances has actually exacerbated it.
Yup! There’s emotion on both sides.
CoRev: “Brutal? So is war! Pacificism does not stop it, and in some historical instances has actually exacerbated it.”
You have an uncanny knack for missing the main point of an argument. Yes there are brutal people all over the world. When our government goes out of its way to support the efforts of those brutes it ignores the potential and future blow back that is likely to occur. Give the brutes enough weapons and you can count on their finding good use for them. They have come to our shores with the weaponry and intentions that our government once encouraged and provided to them. We armed the Taliban and there allies when they were angry with the Russians. They then got the upper hand when time came to “govern” their countrymen. The Pakistanis gave them plenty of aide and comfort then. Years later we bomb the crap out of the p;lace and we’re surprised that they don’t feel good about our presence. That’s real logical thinking.
We don’t need a lot of numbers gathered in long columns to recognize the stupidity and duplicity of US actions in the middle east. And what good the numbers? Read Linda’s new post above. I’m sure that Alic Rivlin and her cohorts will come to there meetings with all the necessary columns of numbers to support their predetermined outcomes. Numbers tell a tale, but the tale need not be the truth. A good pacifist knows when to fight. A warrior simply enjoys the fight. Now build me an argument for the good fight in the middle east. And try not to forget that a bunch of Egyptians were on those airplanes on 9/11.
The inanity of arguing the cost of war without bothering to address the justification for it does boggle the mind. The people calling me and others anti-war without putting those two questions in the proper order really rankles. Speaking for myself the rationale comes first – if that one is good enough the cost doesn’t matter. But if the rationale is specious, dubious or illegal then no cost is justifiable.
Upthread I got my jaw dropped by Cardiff who essentially argued that any man made oil shortage that severely threatens our economic well being is justification for war. He concluded “This is just the way it is.”
If that is true then our country has essentially repudiated a key precedent of the Nuremberg trials. In the negotiations leading up to that trial which took months to resolve, US judge Robert H Jackson insisted that war waged for material gain amounts to a defacto crime against humanity. Without exception. The British, Soviet and French delegations resisted this line of argument preferring the older “spoils of war” standard. But judge Jackson prevailed in his intent to prosecute what he referred to as “plunder”.
Moreover I don’t have to reach back to Nuremberg to cite precedent. The same standard was applied by W’s father in Gulf War I when a true international military force prosecuted war against Saddam Hussein for his attempt to annex the oil wealth of Kuwait.
If the warmongers on this site really intend to repudiate Nuremberg and this international standard of justice they ought to own up and acknowledge that. It could at least put a bright boundary around our disagreements.
Jack, I confirm your main point: Policies have consequences.” Which is what I was saying. Thanks for the Duhhhh moment!
So let’s stop the foolishness. History was yersterday. What would you do today to make things better?
You might want to be cautions in your willingness to believe the Pakistani taliban at this point. The chances that this is another lunatic teabagger ala Mr. Stack here in Austin is not yet zero.
AS, lunatic “Tea Bagger”, Mr Stack???? He was a lunatic Govt, big Pharma, big finance, big oil, etc. hating lefty! Never a part of the Tea Party movement (Not sure of his sexual predilection, Tea Bagger.). Would fit in here at AB very well. But you keep believing the spin.
You say potato.
Hilarious. History doesn’t support my ridiculous claims so “look forward!”
Well it would be hilarious except it appears to be a large part of the the current administration’s strategy wrt war crimes by the previous one.
CoRev: “History was yersterday. What would you do today to make things better?”
What is that old line about those who ignore history? Something about “being doomed to repeat it.” A guy named Santyana. No, not the rocker who liked little girls. I’m afraid that it’s a bit late to ignore the history of US activities in the middle east. I’ll note that you have neatly side stepped my challange. “Now build me an argument for the good fight in the middle east. And try not to forget that a bunch of Egyptians were on those airplanes on 9/11.” And you label it foolishness and ignore the specificity of the policies that have led to such disasterous consequences.
It will likely take generations to correct the misguided and ruthless activities of the past half century. A good start would be for our elected representatives, that’s what some of you call the government, to begin representing the good of the vast majority rather than the wealthiest sectors of our nation. Government action flows from representation. History tells us a sorry tale in regards to the too wealthy and powerful being more than a little resistant to giving up their on power. There is no subsistute for good government when defined as “for the people and by the people” not just the wealthiest of the people.
My obligatory AGW/Energy post: “
FIVE MYTHS ABOUT GREEN ENERGY
“Green” energy has great emotional and political appeal. However, before we wrap all our hopes — and subsidies — in it, let us take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what “green” mean, says Robert Bryce, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute.
Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all:
Solar and wind technologies require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. The Nature Conservancy issued a report last year critical of “energy sprawl,” including tens of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines needed to carry electricity from wind and solar installations to distant cities.
Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes:
The United States will be increasingly reliant on just one supplier, China, for elements known as lanthanides. Lanthanum, neodymium, dysprosium and other rare earth elements are used in products from high-capacity batteries and hybrid-electric vehicles to wind turbines and oil refinery catalysts; China controls between 95 and 100 percent of the global market in these elements.
A green American economy will create green American jobs:
In a global market, American wind turbine manufacturers face the same problem as American shoe manufacturers: high domestic labor costs. If U.S. companies want to make turbines, they will have to compete with China, which not only controls the market for neodymium, a critical ingredient in turbine magnets, but also has access to very cheap employees.
Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil:
Gasoline contains about 80 times as much energy, by weight, as the best lithium-ion battery.The Government Accountability Office reported that about 40 percent of consumers do not have access to an outlet near their vehicle at home.
The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green:
According to data from the Energy Information Administration, average per capita energy consumption in the United States fell by 2.5 percent from 1980 through 2006. That reduction was greater than in any other developed country except Switzerland and Denmark; the United States achieved it without participating in the Kyoto Protocol or creating an emissions trading system like the one employed in Europe.
Source: Robert Bryce, “Five myths about green energy,” Washington Post, April 25, 2010.
For text:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042302220.html
“
Sigh!!!! Jack and AS have not been able to make a cogent argument for any change. Hating America or prior actions of it and its allies, and making claims that so much in the past was our error is not a solution. Nor does it give us a path forward.
So I repeat. What would you do today to make things better?
First rule of removing oneself from a hole: Stop Digging.
But I’m just a dumb hick from Kansas what do I know?
MG
I am not whining. what exactly is the difference between a hundred billion and a Trillion?
I made my living with numbers. I can tell you that any numbers much larger than three might as well be replaced in the human mind with “big” and “really big.” All those numbers mean is that a big country divided by a small dollar is a ‘really big’ number.
Jack was trying to make a point about “a really big number”. You seem to think you have defeated his point by “proving” that another “really big” number is the one he should have used.
Try to think. If he had used your number, would it have made a damn bit of difference to his argument?
Jack, you repeat my question, then go off on even another personal opinion piece without any answer. OK!
But this comment fascinates me: “It will likely take generations to correct the misguided and ruthless activities of the past half century. ” Activities done by which party? To which party? And, which party(ies) was there to help alleviate or correct?
After we go through your list of mankind generated activites, we can start on those that were nature originated. Questions on those would be to which party, and which party was there to help/alleviate?
A little walk down that historical trail might be interesting if not eye opening.
CoRev
in what way is my “opinon” different from yours?
i will grant you this, with the exception of Social Security, which I KNOW about, my opinions are not ontologically better than yours. Nevertheless, this is a blog, not a social engineering think tank, so I am willing to be a little loose, and willing to accept your being a little loose, but think it perfectly appropriate for me to argue with you.
So, let me offer this not-opinion about my opinion. I am not now and never have been a pacifist. I do have better resistance to the propaganda that “leaders” use to get the people willing to die for them. And my sober opinion is that we were safer from “islamic terrorism” before we invaded Iraq, or even Afghanistan, than we are now.
So, if you are going to give me your opinion that my “only opinion” is both worthless and dangerous, could you please address my actual opinion, and not the opinion you projtct on to me because that is the bogeyman of your nightmares.
Jack
I am with you and then some. But don’t put your faith in “the people.” The people are easily misled.
CoRev
there are two ways to fail to make a cogent argument. one way is to… fail to make a cogent argument.
The other is to make a perfectly cogent argument that the person addressed cannot, or does not want to, understand.
ah yes we will walk down the historical trail. But only where CoRev wants. pitiful…
CoRev
and oh, “hating America” is not how I, or as far as I can tell, Jack and AS feel. Calling your opponent a traitor is about the lowest level of argument known to politics. It is very sad. You have been listening to the Rush-likes and the Ann Coulter types call us traitors for so long you can’t help making the connection and seeing red whenever we disagree with you.
But I can tell you we wouldn’t waste our time arguing with you if we did not love our country and want to save it from the Very Bad People who have your number.
CoRev
most of what you say is true. the fallacy is that in order for green energy to work it must have no problems to overcome.
It happens that I am not much of a fan of “green energy.” I think people need to learn how to enjoy life and use about 10% as much energy as they do today. I know it can be done.
Oh, and the comparison of “gasoline contains 80 times as much energy as… a battery” is simply brain damaged. It’s one of those completely incommensurate comparisons that the circus barker uses to wow the rubes.
speaking of incommensurate comparisons
it is not an adequate, or honest, answer to “reduce dependence on unsavory regimes” to cite some areas of “increased dependence. what you would have to show is that “overall dependence” was not reduced.
this is something that never enters your mind because you fall in love with the “answer” and never think to question it.
don’t take this personally. it is a rule of human “intelligence.” we all do it.
Dale, I can not counter your opinion as it is almost the only thing you provide. My reference? Your comment! Read it, and tell us which is supported points of fact?
BTW, I’ll concede your knowledge on SS.
AS, your responses are getting less and less cogent. If you wish to limit the historical look at (natural/man made) activities to which Jack was referring be my guest. But, saying this: “But only where CoRev wants. pitiful…” adds no value what’ so ever. That was a pretty wide/long trail with NO CoRev restrictions.
But, keep on! If you can’t take the point take the body. That strategy seems to make my point.
Jack,
So when are you going to organize and get back risking sun-burn on the mall? You do remember that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have been unwaveringly bi-partisanly supported by both the R’s and D’s since the start? The Dems have been in charge for the past 17 months and we are still going strong.
So when are you going to protest Obama? Oh, that’s right, he’s a D President, it’s all ok then.
And yes the hypocrasy from the anti-war left is staggering.
Islam will change
Coberly,
I agree we were much safer on Sept 10, 2001 than we are today from Islamic terrorism. I know Poland was a great place to be a Jew and safe too, during August 1939….
Islam will change
It’s no secret which one of us is applying the lessons of history selectively. I still think you’re pathetic.
AS of course you think I’m pathetic. I challenge your locked-in, preconceived notions.
CoRev
thanks on the SS. it’s the only thing around here that i know for sure.
as to the rest.. my “only opinions” are every bit as good as your “facts,” in my opinion.
facts are almost never conclusive. too easy to pick and choose and ignore relationships between them, not to mention relative improtance, and, of course, whether or not they are actually facts.
buff
no. no. we were safer AFTER 9/11 than we are today. after 9/11 the world was pretty much horrified and disgusted with AlQuaeda, as they were after the Africa bombings. then we had to go and give them somthing else to be disgusted about.
actually Poland was never as great a place to be a jew before the war as germany was before hitler.
CoRev,
So where is your answer to my challange? “Now build me an argument for the good fight in the middle east. And try not to forget that a bunch of Egyptians were on those airplanes on 9/11.” You avoid what you can’t support and you through out all manner of diversionary questions of your own. You don’t know how to support your own position, but you’re making strides to obfuscate the issue. And now that you’ve backed yourself into a corner with no defense you’re off to another topic completely. You’re a phoney. You have no good argument other than to argue without substance. You offer diversions rather than answers. You’re a fraud. You argue without substantiation and then accuse others of not having support for their contradictions to your arguments. Your response to kharris, above, is a perfect example.
CoRev
i didn’t notice that jack referred to ANY parties. or was he hitting a nerve?
As far as providing substantialtion, from this comment: “You argue without substantiation and then accuse others of not having support for their contradictions to your arguments.” Then you go on and ask me to make some supportive argument for that very same already made decision. A decision that neither you nor I were part of.
Jack, for heaven’s sake get over yourself. Why would I provide an argument for an already made decision? It’s done. It is already history. That was my point!
co rev
you know how i feel about arguments that are half-facts.
that “gasoline contains 80 times as much energy, per weight, as a battery” seems to ignore the fact that when the battery runs out of energy, you can fill it up again with no gain in weight. and you can do this over and over again. at what point does the “weight” of the battery contain and deliver more energy than the same weight of gasoline?
or are you saying it takes 80 batteries to power an electric car?
or is the point to “contain the same energy”? i thought we were trying to reduce energy consumption. if that electric car can go more than twice as far, at the same speed/ weight as the gas car on the same total energy… are we to lament that it “contains” less energy than the gas car?
and if it does it with less pollution and less cost and less reliance on unstable foreign sources, does that really count less than the fact that the battery weighs more than a gallon of gas?
and i really wonder about those consumers who don’t have access to an electrical outlet. amazing. in america today. well, i never!
and nothing can be done about it? really amazing.
you see, facts are one thing. making sense is another.
Jack, you are also not too accurate with your references. Saying this: “Your response to kharris, above, is a perfect example. ” I had to go back through the comments on this article to see if KH had even played. NOPE!!!
If you are going to make claims provide some cites. It’s easier on all of us, and keeps us out of these kinds of endless, circular discussions.
The perfect answer when you’ve nothing of substance to add, “Been there, done that.” It’s on going and every passing day makes for an ever bleaker history. So just excuse the entire mess. Disregard the squandering of the Treasury. ignore the killing of thousands of American military personnel and the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis. No big deal. Just another day in the lust for empire. How about pulling out now and declaring victory in the middle east? It worked well enough in Viet Nam. Or have you some good excuse for staying and continuing the killiing and the sacrafice. It’s certainly easy enough to sacrafice the lives of others.
Jack, finally makes a proposal: “How about pulling out now and declaring victory in the middle east? Or have you some good excuse for staying and continuing the killiing and the sacrafice. ”
and you think it is based upon ?successful? history. “It worked well enough in Viet Nam.”
Jack, my reason for staying is also based upon history. When we do peace, usually long term, ensues. Want examples? Germany, Japan, Italy, S. Korea, Kosovo, etc. All recent history since WWII. Want examples of opposite results in the same time frame? China, nearly all of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, etc, want more?
Then saying VietNam was a successful withdrawal, well is just a total misstatement or complete misunderstanding of the many 100Ks killed after we left. But if you are proud of that history then, rationalize it to yourself, but don’t make an argument to me. That was my era and I have enough friends and family impacted/lost because of it. BTW, my son is about to deploy in the near future, again. But he is a scientist and not a direct war fighter.
You’re the one who brought up the histoircal apprach, and you are the one who proposed withdrawal. The two are not positively convergent.
VtCodger,
Cut the Bullshit. Most of those deaths are clearly the moral responsibility of GWB and those who supported him.
The deaths are the moral responsibility of the terrorists that did them.The terrorists are blameworthy. I think you need to do some research on moral responsibility.
AS, Uh Oh! The Prez has admitted that the NYC attempt was terrorism, and that it looks like it was perpetrated by several. Those several appear to be foreign or foreign affiliated.
All this while the Talies are claiming responsibility. Dunno if it’s a slam dunk, yet, but it does not look good for it being another group.
amateur socialist,
Cutting off our oil imports would kill our economy and result is the slow death of million of Americans. That’s why we would go to war to prevent it. Cutting off our oil would be an act of war against the United States. I don’t see a possible scenario where this would happen given our national character.
And I didn’t see you acknowledge that you reject judge’s Jackson’s argument that wars of plunder are crimes against humanity. Nor the obvious reverse analogy with gulf war I.
You can keep the national character you’re citing that allows My USA to kill people to protect your economy. People who never did anything to us but just happen to be unfortunate enough to have our oil under their feet.
Does it even occur to you that attacking a country that doesn’t want to sell us oil at a price that you deem acceptable for protecting “the economy” is contrary to your hallowed free market? Hello?
Well since unemployment benefits are not available to the voluntarily unemployed but only to those who are laid off and since benefits are well below what people made working I really dont see much impetus to go collect unemployment.