Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Economic Climate Change

This article discusses the dramatic rise in oil and gas prices. It proposes that we've reached a tipping point, where rising oil/gas costs are destabilizing the rest of the (already depressed) economy. I think it neatly parallels the problem of global warming: species can adapt to slow steady changes, but sudden changes can cause serious problems. The price of petroleum products has doubled in the last year; that's more than most individuals and businesses can absorb.

For me, it means we've gone from visiting the post office daily, to three times a week, to twice a week. That impacts my work, because wordsmithing involves a lot of mailing manuscripts and contracts back and forth. I'm leaning more towards markets that use electronic exchanges instead. We used to visit my parents, who live two hours away, every weekend barring schedule conflicts ... then every other weekend ... and now it's once every month or two. I know what this is costing me: time, the one truly finite and irreplacable resource. There lives in me a deep and growling anger towards the people in power, both political and economic power, who have managed the world so shabbily that it's having a profound negative impact on people who are generally doing things right.
Tags: economics, personal
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  • 5 comments
wyrmwwd

wyrmwwd

May 24 2008, 21:50:50 UTC 13 years ago

Let me give my inner Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist voice right now and say that I am not entirely sure that this gas price thing was caused by "mismanagement". Unfortunately, in 2000, after Bush/Cheney got elected, I predicted a series of events that would follow (no, I can't prove this, but proving my predictive powers isn't the point). I said that I was sure, then, that over the course of the administration, a war would start that couldn't be ended, unemployment would skyrocket, and so would gas prices and oil company profits. I said all of this based on who Bush, Cheney, and all their cronies were and still are. Things I didn't predict were 9/11 (although, looking back, it was only logical) and the disaster in New Orleans with Katrina.

Why do I say all of this? U.S. corporations would like to have dirt cheap labor in this country because it is cheaper to have it here than in India or China, but these measures are the only way to get there from where we were. And, of course, Bush and Cheney's buddies are all in oil or military industry, so they had to improve the "business climate" for them.

Sometimes I really hate being right all the time.
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

May 24 2008, 22:02:44 UTC 13 years ago

It's not really a conspiracy. It's just a long matted web of bad choices...

Frex, the oil spike of the 1970s should have spurred America to put hard work into developing other options for fuel, and a more sensible organization of people:services:space. Instead we continued our dependence on fossil fuels and sprawled ever farther. Those trends were encouraged, and in some cases actively subsidized, by political and economic powers.

Mass transportation has dwindled. Railroads have been torn up. Waterways -- once the primary shipping means for human exchanges -- have been used less and are managed less sensibly. Public transportation like bus lines and subways are not well designed and thus unpopular. Governments and companies make decisions that affect those trends too.

Politicians are selected more often for their camera skills and likability than their skills at running a state or country. Executive are selected for one skill only: profit maximization. The result is that we have a lot of people in power who are good at those things, don't care who or what gets hurt in pursuit of their goals, and are grossly lacking in such vital capacities as participatory decision-making, fact-checking, and a basic understanding of environmental principles.

Never attribute to conspiracy what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
wyrmwwd

wyrmwwd

May 24 2008, 22:30:17 UTC 13 years ago

I agree with every single thing that you just said. Your points are placing the responsibility squarely on the American people that have agreed to these things in one way or another. And, in this, you are totally correct.

My thinking in saying this was in thinking of Bush and Cheney as the President and CEO of a corporation. One thing that corporate executives sometimes do (if they are good at their job) is have a grand plan to improve profitability of the corporation, and then execute it. This looks like a well executed plan to me. Of course, the voters signed onto the plan when they elected them not once, but twice!

Do you know about the "Project for the New American Century"? The website was apparently taken down just 4 days ago. It was published in 1998. Here is the wikipedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#Background_and_history

I downloaded a pdf copy of it, but it is in my fried hard drive. I can make it available, eventually.