People everywhere (including every candidate and the President) seem to be getting it wrong all the time WE DO NOT LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY -- As Franklin said when leaving the Constitutional Convention-- He replied, "......... we have given you a republic - if you can keep it."
Here are some definitions .. we are not a:
Democracy - that is a form of government in which the main power is retained by the people, but which is usually exercised indirectly through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed. (hint, you can't make democracy happen at the business end of a riffle).
We are a:
Republic - this is a government in which the people (me and you) elect agents (representatives) -- and those agents vote on our government - not "We the people" ourselves.
In Contrast ... let me present ... The Netherlands, you may refer to it as Holland if you must.
In contrast -- I am interested in the Netherlands, my husband's birth country (yes, he entered the US legally) - so I will use them as a sample of another form of government.
The Netherlands has a Constitutional Monarchy. They have a system that the queen and the people have a set of rules (their constitution) and the rules outline what are the queen's rights, duties, and responsibilities are.
The Dutch have a VERY representative government - they also have a very long history of this. They have only had a constitutional monarchy since the early 1800's, but long before that the people, and the kings, were tolerant separatists, and most importantly they were merchants and traders.
As merchant's formed cities and city states, and company's and corporations that did things - Big things, like founding the district we call New York (New Amsterdam) through one of those corporations. (This was not like the colonies formed by the Spanish, Portuguese or the English in the New World). They selected people to run these things and became very astute in managing people, money and large assets --- let's say they could have coined the term "Win-Win Situation".
Another thing they did that is still at work today is they built dikes and lived on reclaimed land that is below sea level. Trite saying, but true - "God may have built the world - but the Dutch made the Netherlands". With 25% of the country under sea level, and the North Sea always ready to reclaim itself - the Dutch have had to have a way to protect everyone living in the lowlands, almost all of the Netherlands is at sea level, and below.... The reclaimed lands are called "polders" -- polders have representatives that serve on a "waterboard".
This may seem unimportant to most of you - but while our country was living on isolated farms and homesteads, and even our Eastern cities were days away from our seat of government. (This is why the US needed to have a representative republic -- we were too big to wait for everyone to voice their opinion on every thing we needed done).
So, back to the Netherlands, the waterboards started out working to maintain the water, the dikes and things having to do with local government. These groups worked almost directly with every citizen in the community and provided an infrastructure that HAD to work or people would drown and things would be washed into the North Sea.
The Dutch have found a way to work with all the different opinions and cut through the crap to reach a consensus. A consensus to just get the job done. In the beginning to keep the whole North Sea at bay in the end it set an example for how to run country.
Because of their experience with world trade the Dutch became very tolerant of individuals right to pick their own lifestyle. The economy is very open and still relies on international trade.
Because of the polders and the waterboards the Dutch have learned to represent themselves in a way that they can all live and prosper with.
Because of their belief in consensus the Dutch have close to 20 political parties right now. About ten have some real clout (some of those are a couple of christian parties, Greenleft Party, Labor Party, Green Party, Democrats, an animal rights party --- and on and on).... No one can get a majority -- how do they get anything done? They do it by forming coalition governments and by compromise. Some of their parties are very extreme -- but people have learned to respect, listen and accept differences. They even have a word for acceptance (I can't remember it right now) - the word has no translation in English; it sort of means, 'They don't agree - who cares?"or "So, its illegal - it doesn't hurt anyone - who cares?"
Again I go on and on.......
Back to --- we are not a Democracy -- my point is we may not even be the best Republic --
Friday, May 16, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
From – Life Magazine – December 15, 1972
I read old magazines and love the historical perspective that comes from reading "primary" documents. Ironically I was reading this one, this week, on a day that John McCain and Pres. Bush spoke about opening up domestic oil fields. (errors or word omissions in text are probably because of OCR scanning article into word program).
Everything old is new again.
This lead me to read statistics at http://www.eia.doe.gov/ for what our real reserves are. Take some time and read through these - when you get into the numbers some of them go back to 1890's - many to 1973, and the rest seem to be back to at least 1982.
Some numbers were surprising to me -- for instance, we get oil and natural gas from the US Virgin Islands; we get 6,693,000,000 barrels more per day now from imports than we did in 1973. And, of course, we go no oil from Iraq in Jan 1973 - we got 10,000,000 per day barrels from Iraq in Mar 2008, we spiked to 1,126,000,000 per day in December 2001(we did not invade until Spring 2003) (?). (history is going to tell us that there is more to this than we know).
Just interesting -
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ENERGY & AMERICA
By John G. McLean, chairman and chief executive officer of Continental Oil Company, is also chairman of the National Petroleum Council’s Committee on US Energy Outlook. The committee’s initial appraisal provides the statistical basis for the following. The conclusions are Mr. McLean’s.
LET’S FACE THE FACTS ABOUT OUR ENERGY OUTLOOK
The nation’s requirements for energy, will about double between now and 1985. In this period, we shall have to rely upon oil, gas, coal and nuclear power for at least 95% of our needs. If present trends continue, our indigenous resources of these materials will not be developed fast enough to meet our growing requirements.
NATURAL GAS IS SCARCE.
Shortages already confronting us will increase. Domestic production is projected to decline about 1/3 during the next 15 years. With more imports of natural and liquefied gas and synthetic gas from naphtha and coal, we may hold gas availability at about its present level. This will be sufficient to satisfy less than half of our potential gas requirements by 1985.
CRUDE OIL IMPORTS WILE HAVE TO QUADRUPLE.
Domestic production of crude oil is projected to show little net change. To meet rising demand, imports will about quadruple reaching 10 to 15 million barrels a day in 1985. Even larger imports will be needed lf we fail to meet our goals with respect to nuclear power and coal.
NUCLEAR POWER – WHERE IS IT?
We should launch a major new effort to construct the equivalent of at least 280 nuclear energy plants of 1,000 megawatts each during the next 15 years. Today, we have the equivalent of only ten such size plants operation and only 46 actually under construction. Progress is being retarded by technical difficulties and environmental restraints.
COAL-WE PRODUCE NO MORE NOW THAN 50 YEARS AGO.
Production of coal should be approximately doubled during the next 15 years. We have adequate reserves. Limiting factors are the availability of manpower, environmental considerations, and health and safety precautions.
INVESTMENT - WE'LL HAVE TO DOUBLE IT.
Enormous capital inputs will be necessary to provide for our energy requirements. Between now and 1985 the United States energy industry will have to invest between $400 and $500 billion in new productive and distribution facilities, an annual average of about $30 billion, compared to present outlays of about $16 billion.
NEAR TERM SHORTAGES - WE CAN T ESCAPE THEM.
We may be able to relieve our near term energy problems through appropriate government and industry action, but there is no realistic probability of a complete escape from them. This is true because of the long lead times - often five to eight years - required for the development of major new energy supplies. The critical "balance wheel'' will be the volume of foreign oil imports; this will be the element which will adjust for our failures or successes in other energy areas.
WHAT DO THE FACTS FORESHADOW?
We shall become increasingly dependant upon foreign countries, primarily in the Middle East, for a vital portion of our energy supplies. At the present time we obtain about 26% of our crude oil an 12% of our total energy requirements from foreign sources. By 1985, we will probably draw about 40% to 55% of our oil and 23% to 32% of our total oil from abroad.
CONCENTRATED DEPENDENCE.
Most of the oil will have to come from the eleven OPEC counties (particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran), which today have 85% of the Free World crude oil reserves outside the United States an Canada and account for 90% of the oil exports moving into world markets. Dependence upon a small number of distant foreign countries for a vital portion of our energy supplies will be a new fact of life in the history of this nation. We shall need to take a new look at our foreign policies with respect to the Middle East and attach to them a much higher priority than they have thus far been accorded.
We will be vitally dependent upon peace in that trouble area for continuity in oil supplies; our friends In Western Europe and Japan will be in a similar position; and Russia will be the only major world power In the coming decade that will be self-sufficient in energy resources. The diplomatic and nations security aspects of this situation demand a great deal more attention than they have yet been given.
BALANCE OF PAYMENTS PROBLEMS.
Growing oil and gas imports will provoke a large growing deficit in the U S balance of trade in fuels. By the early 1980’s, this deficit could be in the $20 to $30 billion range, compared to a current deficit of less than $3 billion. Today, our total exports of goods and services are only about $66 billion. To pay for our imports of fuel, we will need to seek additional exports of other goods and services.
What will we sell and to whom? We cannot look to the industrialized countries of Western Europe and Japan, because they will be struggling to increase their own net exports to pay for growing fuel imports. Ultimately, the situation can come to equilibrium worldwide only when the oil exporting countries are able to absorb greatly increased imports from us and other oil importing countries. But they do not have the populations, markets, and economic infrastructures to accept large imports from us. This problem will be a critical national issue in the decade ahead.
NEW FINANCIAL CENTERS
Our growing purchases of oil and gas coupled with those of Western Europe and Japan, will create major new centers of financial power. By 1985, the oils producing counties of Africa and the Middle East could be collecting oil revenues at an annual rate of almost $50 billion. Most of these countries are not yet ready to use internally new funds of this magnitude. A large portion of the oil tax revenues will thus move into the short – and long-term money of the Free World in ways, and with impacts, which are difficult to predict. One clear possibility is that these countries could become large equity holders in the financial institutions and industrial companies of the United States, Western Europe and Japan.
ENERGY COSTS ARE BOUND TO RISE.
We have exhausted a large share of our cheapest and most accessible energy materials. New indigenous supplies will come at higher prices. Coal mines will be further underground; oil and gas wells will be drilled to greater depths and in deeper waters offshore, the development of oil shale and other synthetics will require expensive new technology.
At present the composite wellhead or minemouth cost of energy produced in the United States is about 35 cents per million BTU'S. By 1985, it could easily be 50% to 100% higher.
These increases are significant, but they can be absorbed in our economy without serious disruptive effects. For the past decade, the real cost of energy in the United States has been declining. Today, we spend only about 5% of our national income for fuels. We are in a favorable position vis-a-vis the other world powers with respect to basic energy costs and will probably continue to be so even after the increases I have suggested. Our most urgent problem is one of adequacy and continuity of energy supplies - not one of energy costs.
WHAT CAN WE DO TO IMPROVE OUR SITUATION?
We should take prompt action to establish a single, high - level agency in our government to develop a national energy policy and to coordinate our efforts relating to energy matters. I do not mean that our federal government should play a larger role m the discovery and development of natural resources. This task should be left to private enterprise. The chief mission of the central government agency should be to establish priorities and guidelines and to eliminate delays, conflicts, and confusion.
WE CAN INCREASE DOMESTIC ENERGY PAODUCTION.
We should take prompt action to stimulate the development of our indigenous energy resources. We have an adequate resources base, our problem is to get new supplies at a faster rate. We need some practical trade-offs in the ecological area. The production and consumption of energy inevitably involves some ecological impairment. We cannot achieve our environmental goals overnight and still give the U S economy all the energy it requires and the pubic demands. Some pragmatic, graduated approaches to our ecological goals are urgently needed. Here the federal government should take decisive action and very promptly.
We need to decontrol natural gas prices and to establish that the price of synthetic gas manufactured from coal and naphtha will not be subject to federal restraints. Our present preoccupations with imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia and Algeria are a national absurdity in the face of continued control of indigenous gas prices at much lower levels.
We need to accelerate the leasing of federal lands on reasonable terms for resource development, particularly the Outer Continental Shelf which contains some of our most promising potentials for new oil and gas discoveries.
WE CAN CONSERVE ENERGY
We should reduce waste in the consumption of energy. I am not suggesting curtailments which would have a negative impact on the growth of our economy. On the contrary, I believe the consumption of energy should be encouraged because it increases the efficiency of our economy - providing the energy used for socially desirable ends.
There are, however, many areas in which we - could conserve energy without impairing economic growth. For example, 20% of our energy is used for commercial and residential heating, savings can be made through better insulation. About 25% of our energy is used for transportation, savings can be made through the development of mass transportation and smaller and more effluent automotive engines. Another 25% of our energy is used for the generation of electric power in processes which waste about 70% of the energy input, savings can be made through the development of more efficient conversion systems.
WE CAN COOPERATE WITH OTHER NATIONS.
Most of the major industrial nations of the Free World will be facing the same energy problems as we do. Clearly, the situation provides opportunities for cooperative research and engineering in the development of new energy sources. And clearly, there is a need for collaboration in the development of a sound framework of political relationships with the countries of the Middle East to promote stability and peace in that area.
WHAT ABOUT OUR LONG TERM ENERGY POSITION?
While our medium-term problems, (through about 1985), are acute, our long-term energy position is reasonably sound. Our country is liberally endowed with energy materials. To meet our long-term requirements, we have:
o Potentially recoverable oil reserves sufficient to meet present demands for over 65 years,
o Potentially recoverable gas reserves sufficient to meet present demands for over 50 years,
o Measured and indicated coal reserves, commercially accessible with current mining methods, equivalent to nearly 300 years' supply,
o Uranium reserves sufficient meet our present total electric power needs for 25 years, and
o Recoverable shale oil reserves sufficient to meet our oil needs at present demand levels, for about 35 years after our natural oil reserves are exhausted.
Taken in the aggregate, our potential energy resources have an energy content sufficient to meet our needs for at least 200 years, at present consumption rates. Long before the end of that period, advances in technology should bring us new energy sources, such as nuclear fusion and solar power, which will greatly diminish the drain upon our natural energy materials.
It is our medium - term energy outlook that is of serious concern. We can and will solve these problems. But the task will not be easy, and it will require a greater sense of urgency and commitment on the part of both industry and government than presently exists.
Signed by: John G. McLean, Continental Oil Company
This statement comprises excerpts of an address by Mr. McLean. For full text in booklet for form write Continental Oil Company, Dept LF, High Ridge Park, Stamford, Conn. 06904
We need a leader -- not just a talker....
Some quality leadership could motivate the population to do the things we need to do to start healing this country.
As much as own my family may soon be qualified to queue up with the rest for some kind of aid, I would prefer to me able to hold my head up and earn a living through my own good work.
We need more governmental help for the middle class, (middle class, a club for which I thought I was a lifetime member – but sadly, we have really slipped to the hard working poor.) and more help for the small business; family farms, and more help for USA based businesses that produce more than 75% of their goods in the USA -- This would produce more equity in on our shores - that would stay on our shores. That means more production, more work, more money, more independence, and a reclaiming of reliance on our Countries ability to provide for its own citizens.
The money we have in the USA will only go so far, and in spite of the fact that this may seem counter intuitive, if we only have a limited amount of money (and we do), then I think that the budget for direct aid to people and families should be cut in half. I think that the tax incentives in place and proposed for individuals should be cut back to the bare bones (except for health care – see below).
I also think we have to end aid to developing countries’ too – we can not afford it, and it seems to be putting a band aid on a mortal wound … And we have to face the fact that we have to get our of our occupied countries. Our shot at imperialism missed, and we should just not try to do that any more --- charity, as everything else, starts at home.
Our money spent on aid in the USA should instead be spent on private small sector businesses, farms and individuals who are doing Research and Development, and hiring people who will make more jobs for the USA. Doing this would help to re-vitalize and re-develop a stronger middle class which would then be able re-build our economy and hold government leaders accountable.
Our national, local and family economies will only improve when we have broken our addiction to choices of only bankruptcy or social aid, in the form of some handout.
We have models our country has used before in times of crisis:
Historical Reference:
During the Great Depression of the 1930’s the “Relief” programs started by Herbert Hoover and the U.S. Congress gave handouts to poor and needy. Most people who received this help were humiliated and had only short term help.
But later, the WPA, employed millions of people and helped almost most every part of the United States --it did a lot for the whole country. These programs, started in 1935, and have been credited to the leadership of FDR.
Until the economic war boom in 1943, the WPA was the largest employer in the United States. People who needed jobs – got jobs. People could work up to 30 hours a week, some jobs required people to travel and eat and sleep on the job. The people got training, and got jobs and the country got infrastructure it needed.
The records show that most people who participated were responsible for the support for one to five additional people at home. By 1938 there were 3.8 million people employed. The majority were employed laborers who built thousands of schools, hospitals, playgrounds, libraries, roads, building construction, reforestation, rural rehabilitation, local and National Parks.
But the WPA did the unlikely thing of really supporting the arts too. Public art was created and paid for because it was that important to the well being of the United States. These are some of those projects – the Federal Art Project, the Federal Music Project, the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Writers Project and the Historical Records Survey. (Think Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and playwright Odette).
They also provided educational training of the unemployed to make them available for factory jobs.
Some of the infrastructure expenditures were as follows in 1941:
- $4 billion was spent on highway, road, and street projects;
- $1.7 billion on public buildings;
- $1.4 billion on publicly owned or operated utilities
- $1.8 billion on welfare projects including sewing projects for women, the distribution of surplus commodities and school lunch projects
There were criticisms about people not being motivated to finish jobs – actually the in some cases the opposite situation occurred, where people were accused of stretching jobs unnecessarily - jokes about laziness and leaning on shovels – and 5 foremen and 2 workers – no one doing anything, etc. But for the most part, people agreed and supported the creation of jobs. And history appears to support that success – although there are many that believe that it would have failed or petered out if the United States had not entered the war.
Another model the US could follow would be the War Effort of World War II
Since the current President has declared at war on Terrorism and has redirected much of our military machine, finances and resources to the Middle East, toppling and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq after September 11th, 2001 – we have the opportunity, missed by Bush - for a real leader to ask the citizens to participate in more ways than financially bankrupting the populous.
I am sure that others, besides me, were waiting for the President to ask us to ration some resources, make sacrifices (besides our sons and daughters) and maybe buy War Bonds to voluntarily defray some expense.
Historical Model 
At the start of World War II FDR called for the citizens to apply themselves to the war effort in a coordinated mobilization of our country’s resources— agricultural, industrial and human—towards the support of our country at war.
After Pearl Harbor, the military was sent off to fight, men enlisted or were drafted to serve; and at home, citizens contributed to the war effort by rationing consumer goods, recycling materials, purchasing war bonds, and working in war industries.
The government encouraged Americans sacrifice to conserve for the war and recycle materials such as metal, cloth, oils, paper, and rubber --factories then used these for war production. People at home were told that everyday household trash had value: kitchen fats, metals, rags and paper.
Many people grew victory gardens others even kept chickens, rabbits and goats in cities and the country.
War is obviously not a solution to our social /economic problems - especially the devastating economic problems we face today. But here are some of the things that Americans benefited from as a result of that war effort:
- Full employment and a higher overall standard of living.
- Labor grew from 10 million before the war to 15 million after the war.
- Farm incomes reached new highs.
- Wartime investment created an economic boom that lasted for almost two decades after the end of the war.
War Bonds:
War Bonds provided a source of revenue for the war effort. The federal government used War Bonds to sell the war to the Americans as well as a way to raise money. There is something to putting your money where your mouth is.
Summary:
I do not support this war – but we are stuck with it for a while. We need a great leader to face the problems of a country with a deteriorating infrastructure, unemployment, a lack of social endorsement of the federal government -- a great leader can call us to action to rely on ourselves and create jobs, wealth and confidence again.
And as far as I am concerned, health insurance is as much of our infrastructure as the road in front of my house and the bridge over the river. The moment for debating whether or not to have it is past -- we need it to keep our country strong, period.
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