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The slick, black truth
“Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.” -- West African saying
By W.T. Lewis
This won’t be another diatribe against high fuel prices. Rather, an explanation of sorts. I know, you are all looking for a bogey man to blame for your $60 fill-ups, that extra 50 cents for a box of Fruit Loops, and… well, the price of everything for that matter. Sadly, for the uneducated masses, there is none to be found here. Sorry. Exxon, George Bush, Halliburton and the rest are not to blame for the cost of oil. Other travesties of policy and plunder perhaps, but not the cost of black gold.
The culprit here is you. Yes, you – along with your friends and family are to blame for the policies and way of life in this country which have lead to the inescapable reality that we will soon be paying $5 for a gallon of gas and much worse. We are just now starting to see the domino effect (see Cover Story) of high energy prices. There are two specific reasons this has come to be and neither are problems created under George Bush.
For decades, you have allowed our policy makers and representatives to be bullied and hogtied by the all-powerful, ever-righteous environmental lobby. You have allowed groups such as the Canadian-founded Greenpeace to dictate our energy policy for decades. As a result, America has not built a new oil refinery in over 30 years. This fuels gas prices as much as the cost per barrel of oil.
We have been denied access to our very own oil in Alaska. For point of reference, this oil (the exact amount available is up for debate) could completely replace imported Saudi oil for 5-15 years or at the very least lower the price of oil by increasing global supply. This story does not end at Alaska’s borders. There are other, readily available oil deposits within U.S. territorial waters there for the taking. Yet, we allow the environmental lobby to use our over-reaching federal court system to block progress at every turn.
Let us not forget their effective “nuking” of our nuclear energy program. Alternative energy sources, indeed. These policies are not in America’s best interest yet we have allowed it to happen. As long as you continue to vote for spineless, lobbyist-owned politicians this will continue to be.
The second causal factor is an even more bitter pill to swallow. It should come as no shock to you that America has become a credit card society. Our insatiable appetite for the latest iPod, $250 pair of jeans, new cars and trips to Vegas has created a virtually bankrupt society. Not morally bankrupt mind you – financially. Thought the former could be debated as well. Collectively, Americans have over $950 Billion in credit card debt. To pay our growing debts, we tapped the equity in our homes. Americans treated their one real asset like an ATM machine and once the economy cooled, the real estate market plummeted. The government was faced with the impending collapse of the financial markets which forced their hand to flood the market with cheap money (via low short-term interest rates). We now have the weakest U.S. dollar... well, perhaps ever. This makes imports -- can you see where I’m headed with this – more expensive and Voila… you have record fuel prices!
While this complex web of cause and effect is impacted by other factors such as the U.S debt and such, the system and society which permits this is perpetuated by you. And me. If you are reading this expecting some grand call to action, a treatise on how to extricate ourselves from… ourselves, you won’t find it here. You don’t need me to tell you the solutions for this particular predicament. It is staring you in the face – at least when you are before a mirror.
What I will end with is a prediction. Rather, a prelude to what lies in America’s path. It is a simple equation of supply and demand – something we capitalist Americans should be intimately familiar with. The people occupying this planet are growing. Fast. Yet two of our major commodities are dwindling – food and modern energy supplies. As we pay our own farmers to strip their fields of food in favor of ethanol, we hasten our own destiny. As we continue to procrastinate building self-sufficient energy platforms and extract that which lies beneath our feet, we accelerate our fate.
During our lifetimes, great wars will be fought over food and oil. Yet all we, as Americans, can seem to muster is a dutiful grumble as we insert the $4.05/gal. liquid into our SUVs. We nod in unison as we share in each other’s economic frustrations in the grocery checkout line. We day dream how we will spend that debt-fueled, tax “rebate” check due that will hit our mailbox any day. Predictions and bets about the future are fairly easy to make when the variables are consistent and rarely change. This is how gamblers make a living. Problem for us is that the entire world is currently betting against us. And you. And me.
Originally Published: June 18, 2008
