by Winston Bennett
Oil at $148 a barrel, oil at $113 a barrel and what has changed, very little. Reports indicate that Americans drove some 3% less and on that news oil dropped 20%. In truth I think it was all a game of musical chairs and no one wanted to be the speculative last one standing when the music stopped.
I have developed a grassy knoll theory about supply spikes. Putin of Russia (who is an oil billionaire), Chavez of Venezuela (who is an oil billionaire) and Amadamawhatever the putz from
Putin: “Is everybody on?”
Chavez: “I’m on.”
Mahmoud: “I’m here but we need to make this quick, I’ve got a flogging I need to get to.”
Putin: “Ok, I’ll start. I just ordered a new Bentley and a complete new Kevlar Fly Fishing kit and oil takes a nose dive, my new presidential puppet Dmitry is all like ‘Dude, you screwed me, I took this job because you said it was easy.’ What do you guys have, we gotta start scaring people.”
Chavez: “Listen what can I do; I have already threatened to nationalize everything, put through new laws that will make me president for life, threatened to invade Columbia, I got nothing left I’m done.”
Mahmoud: “Well don’t look at me, I’m firing missiles, enriching uranium, aiding Iraqi terrorists and people are starting to giggle when I threaten Israel. I got nothing.”
Putin: “Well this is going to be awkward because I just saw George at the Olympics and told him everything was copasetic but I guess I could invade something, maybe
Mahmoud: “Georgia? Why not Florida? At least they have Disney World.”
Putin: “Not that
Mahmoud: “My bad.”
Maybe it doesn’t go exactly like that, I think Iran just shoots people now.
If we really want to reduce the energy consumption in the United States we have to get the government out of it. Government always takes the ‘I will hit you with a stick’ approach to motivation, fines, taxes, regulations and for the most part they see it all as a revenue opportunity for themselves and another way to exert control. It is human nature and easier to penalize bad behavior rather than promote good behavior, results are always easier to identify than potential. You can see it now on Capital Hill, Congress is all up in arms about Oil Company profits and wants to tax them punitively, I don’t recall an outpouring of concern for the losses suffered just a few years back when the price of oil collapsed…..because there was no money in it for them to attach themselves to.
So in my opinion if you want to drive down energy consumption and make people aware make it a contest and a lottery. Let’s say we take everyone’s previous 12 months of utility bills and tell them if they lower their consumption by 15% over the previous year they will be entered into a lottery for 100 mil or so. The problem is that it would work and in doing so, lower the taxes collected on utilities and gasoline, gubment hates less revenue.
The marketplace is already changing to meet our new interest in energy consumption; people are bragging about mileage and holding candlelight vigils for people that own SUV’s. Some trends are true changes and I would be shocked to see again pick-ups and SMCV’s (soccer mom command vehicles) to ever be the cool choice again. People like what’s new and hip and what is new and hip is saving money and being smart. What is not new and hip is the global warming hype and preaching from a private jet.
The Canadians are now pointing to the lack of sunspot activity and the drop in world temperature of .7 degrees Celsius in the preceding 12 months ending January 08. There is now increasing talk of a mini-ice age and the need to bulldoze Siberian and Canadian snow to “dirty” it up so it does not reflect sunlight and holds more warmth. Regardless of whether things move a bit up or a bit down it will never be the statistician’s metaphor of a person having his feet in a freezer, his head in an oven and when asked about the temperature replies, average over all.
In the end it comes down to “do for you” on waste and energy conservation because it is in your own best self-interest and the cumulative effect helps all. However, the next time someone offers their unsolicited opinion on how you should conduct your life you have my impression to hit them across the face with a small trout.
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