Bubble-Heads in Print
Myron gets his words printed more and more in the lunatic fringe.
In a recent free-market puff piece, ("The best evidence for an oil bubble comes from the lessons of America's last six energy crises, dating back to the late 19th century"), Myron bubbled:
"[T]he constraints on our ability to find and extract new oil... are created by government [not geologic or scientific]. Myron Ebell... notes that roughly 90% of the oil on the planet rests under government-owned land and these resources are abysmally managed."
Myron doesn't actually care that most of this "abysmal management" can be traced directly to the unvarnished advice of the oil industry, and even the appointment their executives into positions of high office where they practice their abysmal management. Like any private industry, the oil business has a habit of routinely lying about the costs and future production availability, for political gain. Myron, being an employee of this industry, is part of the lying machine. Even if the US oil fields were optimally managed, perhaps even closed down for climactic reasons and to save them for the benefit of future generations, Myron would holler blue murder for the fact that not every dollar was being squeezed out for Exxon this quarter. Not one other thing else matters to him.
I get tired of reading this unadulterated horseshit from the business press. It's like theology:
"Higher prices for gas and fuel for home heating have cost the average U.S. family about $1,500 to $2,000 a year. (Thankfully the Bush tax cuts have given back about precisely that amount in lower tax payments to the IRS.)" -- to the rich, who are not the same people as those who are burdened by these costs.
"But for today it is sufficient to note that the free market will deliver oil, electricity and other forms of energy at declining prices in the future, if only the government will let the market's benign and productive forces work their magic." -- as it has done with health care.
And this drilling for oil in Alaska thing. What is the plan supposed to be? The market didn't invent Alaska. It came about as a natural set of geological processes over millions of years. What, say, if it was attached to and still owned by Russia? Could the free market have performed its "magic" with regards to the oil supply in this alternative reality?
The only plan seems to be a phase issue. If this wasn't the last freaking untapped reservoir in mainland North America, they could get their oil from all the reserves they tell us are there for the taking. They think we should burn it now, and in five years time we will be in exactly the situation we are today, but with no oil, no Arctic wildlife (who needs it; the place is going to melt anyway), still no replacement technology, and Myron a bit older, but having finished putting his four kids through university so they can set out on their life's journey into a ruined world.
In a recent free-market puff piece, ("The best evidence for an oil bubble comes from the lessons of America's last six energy crises, dating back to the late 19th century"), Myron bubbled:
"[T]he constraints on our ability to find and extract new oil... are created by government [not geologic or scientific]. Myron Ebell... notes that roughly 90% of the oil on the planet rests under government-owned land and these resources are abysmally managed."
Myron doesn't actually care that most of this "abysmal management" can be traced directly to the unvarnished advice of the oil industry, and even the appointment their executives into positions of high office where they practice their abysmal management. Like any private industry, the oil business has a habit of routinely lying about the costs and future production availability, for political gain. Myron, being an employee of this industry, is part of the lying machine. Even if the US oil fields were optimally managed, perhaps even closed down for climactic reasons and to save them for the benefit of future generations, Myron would holler blue murder for the fact that not every dollar was being squeezed out for Exxon this quarter. Not one other thing else matters to him.
I get tired of reading this unadulterated horseshit from the business press. It's like theology:
"Higher prices for gas and fuel for home heating have cost the average U.S. family about $1,500 to $2,000 a year. (Thankfully the Bush tax cuts have given back about precisely that amount in lower tax payments to the IRS.)" -- to the rich, who are not the same people as those who are burdened by these costs.
"But for today it is sufficient to note that the free market will deliver oil, electricity and other forms of energy at declining prices in the future, if only the government will let the market's benign and productive forces work their magic." -- as it has done with health care.
And this drilling for oil in Alaska thing. What is the plan supposed to be? The market didn't invent Alaska. It came about as a natural set of geological processes over millions of years. What, say, if it was attached to and still owned by Russia? Could the free market have performed its "magic" with regards to the oil supply in this alternative reality?
The only plan seems to be a phase issue. If this wasn't the last freaking untapped reservoir in mainland North America, they could get their oil from all the reserves they tell us are there for the taking. They think we should burn it now, and in five years time we will be in exactly the situation we are today, but with no oil, no Arctic wildlife (who needs it; the place is going to melt anyway), still no replacement technology, and Myron a bit older, but having finished putting his four kids through university so they can set out on their life's journey into a ruined world.
posted by goatchurch Perma-link
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