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Guest Post: America's Childlike Desire to Avoid Making Trade-Offs
By Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
America's Childlike Desire to Avoid Making Trade-Offs
The U.S. is childlike: we refuse to make trade-offs, as these require analysis, judgment, sacrifice and maturity.
The key characteristic of adulthood is the ability to make trade-offs. The child and the adolescent want everything that they want, now, and they soon learn (at least in America) that whining, cajoling, bargaining and guilt-tripping will get them what they want without having to make difficult choices between less-than-perfect options.
America has not yet grown up because it refuses to make any adult trade-offs that require sacrificing one desire to bring another desire within reach, or matching reality with competing demands. Energy offers a cogent example.
When I posted a rather measured report on natural gas ( The (Relatively) Good News About Natural Gas), I was accused of being a "shill" for the natural gas industry, and many readers sent me links to the documentary Gasland.
I understand there are serious environmental issues in fraccing, which the report I published noted. (I wrote about these concerns for AOL Daily Finance over a year ago: Natural gas boom not all it's fracced up to be, and I was excoriated by industry insiders as a result.)
I am not an expert in fraccing, but it seems fairly evident that if the drilling is performed properly and carefully, then the water table could be protected from contamination.
Should fraccing be exempt from environmental laws? No. Clearly, any private enterprise which has the potential to damage or destroy "the commons" of our soil, air and water needs to be tightly regulated and inspected. That is the proper role of government--protecting the commons and the citizenry via common-sense regulation and rigorous inspections.
But let's follow the notion that the potential environmental hazards of fraccing mean it should be banned.
To be consistent, then we should also ban other energy extraction activities which are potentially hazardous/destructive to the environment:
1. no fraccing for natural gas.
2. no drilling for oil or natural gas offshore (see Gulf Disaster).
3. no nuclear plants (waste is only stored, remains a hazard for decades/centuries).
4. no hydroelectric dams (dams destroy the rivers and wildlife).
5. no wind turbines (visual pollution, kills birds).
6. no geothermal energy wells (they can trigger earthquakes).
7. no shipping via freighters which burn bunker fuel (trans-Pacific shipping creates 40% of the air pollution in the Pacific Basin).
8. no coal-mining or burning coal (massive degradation from open-pit mines, danger to miners in deep-tunnel mines, mountains of toxic tailings and waste, acid-rain and air pollution).
9. no tar sands or shale oil mining (massive stripping of the land, moonscapes, huge use of water, pollution of water and air from "dirty" oil produced).
10. no more subsidized solar energy plants (they don't pencil out without subsidies and make no sense in the northern half of the nation).
Each of these objections are based on valid points. Many residents and environmentalists don't approve of wind turbines, solar arrays currently don't make financial sense in most places unless they're subsidized by taxpayers ( a no-no to many), coal is an environmental disaster (I will believe in clean coal when coal executives are clamoring to live in the downwind plume from "clean" plants burning coal), nuclear power depends on hazardous mining of uranium, the waste from nukes has yet to be resolved, and so on.
Many environmentalists view dams as ecological catastrophes that should be torn down.
Ships burning bunker oil are creating an air-pollution calamity and should be banned.
Add all this up and the only acceptable sources of energy are existing hydroelectric dams, solar arrays and land-based oil wells which don't require pressurized water to extract the oil (as the pressurized water could pollute the water table, just like fraccing), and maybe existing nuclear power plants though many would choose to close these down.
That means the domestic energy supply would be 10% or less of demand/consumption. The rest would come from overseas or our North American neighbors, Canada and Mexico.
So it's OK for the fraccing to be done elsewhere, and for oil spills to ruin Nigeria, because we don't have to live with it. That's the classic definition of a colonial power: extract the resources from elsewhere, regardless of the damage to the local environment or people. The root assumption of this dependence on imports: Only the Imperial citizens matter.
Are we ready to face the consequences of closing down all environmentally damaging energy sources? That would require giving up 90% of our consumption. Are we ready to pay higher taxes or utility bills to subsidize solar power arrays? We still need backup capacity for nighttime consumption--where will that come from? Imported natural gas? From where?
If the present is any guide, we are happy to import that 90% of our energy from elsewhere, knowing full well there are few if any environmental restrictions in many of those exporting nations.
In other words, we want a perfect world: no potential "costs" to producing energy domestically, and also no significant reduction in our consumption of energy.
The "solution" we have chosen is to import the energy from elsewhere, leaving the damages and environmental costs to others, while leaving our own nation exquisitely vulnerable to distruption of energy supply chains and Peak Oil.
This is the same "solution" we've chosen for industry in general: close down the "dirty" domestic industries and import the goods from overseas. Even recycling plants are inherently "dirty"--there is no such thing as "clean" industry--there are trade-offs to be made at every step. So let's also stop recycling.
As a result of our childlike fantasies of "clean" living with no trade-offs, the states have fallen over themselves to offer film producers huge subsidies. Hollywood is a "clean" industry and everybody loves "clean" industries which fill office parks with white-collar workers and "information" businesses which pay lots of taxes.
Too bad the states didn't grasp that films are at best a $5 billion "industry" in a $14.7 trillion economy. The states improved the profitability of the film industry by offering dueling tax breaks, but they didn't really boost state revenues. It was all a foolish fantasy, attractive to adolescents who hoped to be seen with "movie stars."
Isn't this same desire for "clean" no-trade-off businesses one driver behind the financialization of the U.S. economy? It was all "clean" money-making: lower interest rates and jack up leverage and securitization, causing property values to skyrocket, which boosted consumer consumption of overseas-made imports (just unload on the dock and truck to Wal-Mart or the mall) and simultaneously increased the equity foundation for further financialized skimming and churn.
It was an adolescent fantasy: everyone could work shuffling electrons and paper in office parks and towers, making money by producing nothing. By speculating in housing, everyone could make money doing absolutely nothing but transferring pieces of paper and electronic entries.
But like any other adolescent fantasy, reality eventually intruded. The debts remained after the bubble, and even at 4.5%, a $500,000 mortgage requires hefty payments--as do the skyrocketing property taxes.
Corporations played the same game, too, of course: profits could be plumped up just by borrowing vast sums to buy competitors or to buy back stock, boosting the per-share earnings without having to actually produce more or work harder.
This is the fantasy world the U.S. continues to live in. Yes, fraccing is potentially hazardous; so are coal, oil, wind turbines, geothermal, hydroelectric and nuclear power. Those who are against each of these can make very strong cases, as can those who argue that subsidizing solar power at the expense of the taxpayers is misguided and a malinvestment made to benefit politically favored industries. (Needless to say, the fossil fuels industries have long had massive tax breaks and hidden subsidies paid for by other industries and taxpayers.)
Those of you who deal with children and teens probably know the "solution" to whiny demands: invite the kid/teen to solve the real issues and make the trade-offs themselves.
Nobody demands that of America as a nation. We want everything and we want it now, and we don't want to sacrifice anything to get it. Our solution is pathetically childlike: just borrow trillions of dollars every year to buy what we want, so no adult trade-offs are ever required. Just buy our energy from somewhere else so we don't have to make any sacrifices or balance competing demands.
We want to spend $700 billion on "defense," another $700 billion on Social Security, $600 billion on Medicare, $250 billion on interest on old debt, $350 billion for Medicaid, $567 billion on other entitlement transfers (pensions, Federal unemployment costs, etc.), etc., for a total of $3.7 trillion, while revenues may run about $2 trillion at best. The rest is borrowed.
States and local governments are borrowing billions more via bonds, and the shadow bailouts of the "too big to fail" banks are safely masked in the Federal Reserve balance sheet and accounting that's hidden "off budget." Those add up to trillions more that's being borrowed or printed.
We want abundant, cheap energy, and we want someone else to supply it to us so we don't have to make any difficult trade-offs. We want all our entitlements and we also don't want higher taxes. Isn't this the acme of childish fantasy?
When pressed about energy, we want to hide behind fantasies of fusion, or algae-based fuels, or some other technology which has been "10 years away" for the past 30 years or which is 20 years away from scaling up to industrial production, if ever. Our ignorance of the actual science is breathtaking, but we refuse to consider the possibility that breeder reactors and algae-based fuels may not pan out.
At some point, probably within the next 5-6 years, the oil exporters will stop shipping their hydrocarbons to us in sufficient quantities to meet our demands, and bond buyers will stop trading their capital for absurdly low rates of return on U.S. Treasury bonds.
Once it costs $1 trillion just to pay the interest on existing (and rapidly ballooning) debt, then we won't be able to borrow enough to fund the Empire and the Savior State and the interest. Trade-off time will finally be forced upon us.
At that point, the trade-offs will be much harsher than they would be now. But we don't want to make adult trade-offs; that makes us testy and pouty. Fortunately, Uncle Sam is indulgent; he can borrow trillions every year to give us everything we want--at least for now.
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Her' what we want:
Cheap gas (don't give me no shit as to where we get it, they gettin outa line then fuck-in bomb em to king-dum cum)
Low taxes (nuff said)
Fuck the environment (unless it is directly hittin me in the face with that smoke or whatever).
Cheap smokes (nuff said)
Food ? Taste all the same. Keep it cheap, too (and bomb em too)
Being a real American, I embrace greed as a cultural norm.
Being greedy, I'd like to add one more axiom. "... the childlike belief that anarchy and freedom are positively correlated."
Please believe me when I say that most folks need protection from predators in order to have any semblance of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
All good points. Now who's nuts get run through the cuisineart and by what process do we make these decisions?
I'm guessing we'll have to play out extend and pretend another 10 years to get to where someone literally no longer eats...
hopefully the hippies will save us all
http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/
You are an idiot.
It is and was a perfectly viable fuel...and doesn't need to be corn based.
Did you miss this?
From the website--
>>>Alcohol has a proud history. Gasoline is a refinery’s toxic waste; alcohol fuel is liquid sunshine. Henry Ford’s early cars were all flex-fuel. It wasn’t until gasoline magnate John D. Rockefeller funded Prohibition that alcohol fuel companies were driven out of business.<<<
My family fueled their farm-use Fords with homemade hooch...even after Prohibition.
And fueled the familiy's financial fortunes with the drinkable kind.
agree...now let's scale it up so every acre of arable land is growing food that we can burn!
Great idea...or wait, no. Even mighty Brasil is having growing pains with the cane crops because as their demand for fuel grows, proportionately, SO MUST the amount of land and effort devoted to growing cane! So, they will have the choice between using the rainforest or having a production gap.
Oil is not only energy-dense, but conveniently located in places we don't have any other use for.
Still don't get it, do you?
Alcohol fuel can be made from among other things vegetable based garbage and other waste...indcluding this--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol
Why don't you use that middle finger to type a simple google search.
No wait. Don't bother.
Let's use oil...an energy dense, highly polluting fuel which is 'located in places we don't have any use for yet seem to cause us to fight war after war.
Just f'ing brilliant.
Cellulosic ethanol is another boondoggle. Enzymes are too expensive to fabricate because they are not "natural". They have to break a chemical bond that nature has made sacrosant, Check out
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7214
and follow the links,
Robert Rapier know his shit, after he only actually works in the alternative energy industry.
Cellulosic is a among one, just one source for this fuel.
There's plenty of commentary on that oilodurm thread regarding the use of waste.
And of course when determining the cost per gallon as a replacement for oil, I doubt anyone is accounting for the lives lost, tax dollars pissed-away and the waste of time an oil war costs.
When you come up with a source for 85 million barrels a day of any sourced alcohol, get back to us....
Yes, Rapier does know his shit and he seems to think methanol will play a role.
Robert Rapier on December 8, 2010 - 2:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top
I expect that we will still be using mostly hydrocarbons, but in lower volumes than today. I expect some to be satisfied with with gasification; a combination of coal, natural gas, and biomass converted to syngas and then reacted by Fischer-Tropsch to synthetic hydrocarbons. I haven't given up on the idea that mixed alcohols could play an important role either, and we can certainly produce methanol cheaply as long as we have natural gas. That is produced, subsidy-free, for a cheaper per BTU cost than subsidized corn ethanol is produce today.
No argument, but your quote only highlights that there is no one-size-fits-all for liquids and that there is a high degree of fragmentation. We could have a regionalization of liquid fuel supplies unlike now.
Yep. Regionalization. The smart solution.
I never claimed a one size fits all approach.
Oil is in fact a one size fits all approach and that's why we'll soon be in deep trouble.
perhaps there is a mega gene we will come up with that just shits alcohol like there's no tomorrow. And maybe cold fusion will be real and world peace will break out. Anything is possible.
To do fischer-tropsch we will need abundant energy. And we still haven't solved the growth problem.
ROTFL.
Look, man, it's best you don't attempt to try to get into any kind of argument with me over energy, ok? Just ask around a little. I know ALL ABOUT cellulosic ethanol and have for something like 4 years, when some coworkers of mine were speculating on GLXI or some other cellulosic tech startup.
It's still a pipe dream. What is amazing is that people like you come into forums like this with actual experts and attempt to pass off pipe dreams as real, scalable solutions! And then declare everything fine!
Do your goddamned homework.
What is amazing is that people like you are so willing to bend over and get f()cked because you want a one solution approach that works everywhere all the time for everybody regardless of true cost which you can't even begin to calculate since you have only one finger to count with.
Hey, don't knock hippies; they had free love. I mean, hot, sleek college age girls who would be offended if you offered to pay for it; now that was social progress.
Where is our protection from the bankers? They are THE predator
talk about whiney....
CHS,
This is rich. Claim the greenies are against geo-thermal because of this assertion.
>>>
6. no geothermal energy wells (they can trigger earthquakes).<<<
There is of course another kind of geo-thermal. Simple in-ground loop systems. No need to drill deep.
You failed to note that.
No new commercial enterprise with a parking lot should ever be allowed to build without geo-thermal (with rare exception for sub-par substrata.)
I lived in an apartment complex that used in-ground loops rather than outdoor compressor/condenser units to provide air conditioning. The problem was the water in the lines grew all sorts of nasty stuff that created clogs and required frequent servicing.
I have two friend who have newly built homes (within the past five years) with geo-thermal. Neither have experienced the servicing issues that you described.
Can you tell me more about when the system was installed? and when the nasty growth first appeared?
My only complaint has been that the damn AC is so good in one of the homes that I freeze my ass off after about two hours even though it's 90+ degrees outside. It seems about all they can do is turn down/off the blower. It is super insulated with partial earth contact.
Hopefully Charles High Smith will cc Antoney Watts at wattsupwiththat.com
Good stuff.
"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel.” – Homer Simpson
COMMUNISM FOLKS....WE ARE COMMUNISTIC STATE ACTING LIKE WE ARE FREE....PERIOD.
nice use of labels.... pity you wouldn't know a communist if they came up and pissed on you....
The author is apparently confusing breeder reactors with fusion (which calls into question his competence to be commenting on energy solutions - in a big way).
Unlike fusion, breeder reactors are proven technology - France has them for power production, and the US has built them for weapons production, and for research. Now whether one WANTS plutonium-fueled, liquid sodium-cooled devices around is a another question. But breeders themselves are old technology.
Yep. Good catch. Saw it too and wondered WTF is he talking about?
people should review RBMK reactors as well as breeders, to acquaint themselves with the peak uranium problem. We need to be prepared to swallow less than optimal solutions going forward.
RBMKs were designed specifically to burn very LEU, with non-fissile isotopes concentrations far above what these CANDUs and other lightwater reactors will consume. However, as we saw there's a distinct downside to accidents...the upside is that far more uranium is "fissile" than with other technologies. Breeders create lots of waste and reprocessing is highly toxic.
We need to utilize all of our energy resources without delay.
The Americans acting like children are the ones soon to be out of power. They are the bitter clingers of Utopian Mysticism.
Manufacturing a Global Warming fraud to create global tax revenue for an unelected world government and prop up world socialism was supposed to be their masterpiece. That's all they got, and it's gone.
Milton Friedman said in 1970's that free markets and individual freedom was under pressure and be greatly threatened in the future because of the dynamic of the narrow moneyed special interests and the "Do-gooders". The Do-gooders are the well intentioned true believers. The Do-gooders are the people in the streets used as tools by the special interest corporatists who provide the money and access to media to whip up popular support for the special interests. Global warming is the mother of all examples of this.
Corporations like GE, and governments who stand to benefit, hooked up and created the "Children of the Global Warming Corn" out of environmentalists and even average people.
We have to use our cheap available energy because if we don't people will suffer and starve by the millions. If enviro-nazis don't care about that, why should anybody care about they think?
.
That's absolutely correct; but, it's very difficult for people to admit that they have absolutely no knowledge of physics and chemistry whatsoever, and that they were brainwashed by the technobabble in the propaganda broadcasts; this is a problem.
Taking it to another level; "I'm from the UN and I'm here to help you".
CHS is largely correct.
I have phrased this idiocy for years as "they love electricity but they hate power plants."
It's so cognitively dissonant as to be maddening. But, when you have had an apparently consequenceless free lunch for so long, many assume that the laws of physics have been suspended.
There was some paki scum on some TV show I saw who was speaking into a mic recorded by a camera, to be broadcast, via a television, internet, and phone infrastructure, and he said "what good does the United States do at all?" It didn't occur to him that his ability to even ARTICULATE his stupid and worthless opinion was facilitated 100% by things invented in the USA or the collaterally satanic western europe.
Stupidity is legion and self-replicating.
The author is a dumbass. Charles Hugh Smith, (Charles Huge Dipshit), but hey who's counting sophistry? Well obviously this dipshit no-nothing is. Let's all use sophistry as a way of not solving any problem. Let's bitch about 'not being realistic', with my 'not being realistic Chales Hugh Smith' Sophistry. This author is one of the biggest retards ever.
Fantasies of fusion.
THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE JACKASS
But let's use sophistry to say it can't be done, or it's a fantasy. This author would've been one of the dipshits saying Apollo couldn't be done or had no reason to. Probably would've said man never of flied. Because these were, fantasies. No the only fantasy is Charles Hugh Smith thinking he's even a hair above an Ape. He isn't. He's a disphit, so stupid, he knows nothing about reality, just his monetarist reality. Hey dipshit, when you realize monetarism is just something you live under, not an actual bonafide anything, maybe you might realize the rest of your sohpistry bullshit never meant anything to anyone.
It's all about avoiding tradeoffs??? So how about we make the tradeoff that Charles Hugh Smith is a fucking retarded fool, and we don't listen to him. What we get is an actual way out, by not listening to a damn fool talk about things like the Catholic Religion used to scare people into. Oh you have to compromise, you have to have trade offs. Why? Because I'm Charles Hugh Smith and I say that's the only way things are. Because I'm a fucking monetarist fool.
"The U.S. is childlike: we refuse to make trade-offs, as these require analysis, judgment, sacrifice and maturity."
No, it requires the absence of analysis, Wall Street faux judgment, needless sacrifice, and all under the guise that doing this is the right thing, and mature. Nope, you're a fucking sophistry dumbass Charles. If Mark Twain was still alive, he'd write a book about a dumbass like you.
The key characteristic of adulthood is the ability to make trade-offs.
Umm no. It's the ability to know when trade-offs are needed, when they aren't, and what do you need to do get around your 'difficulties' or you 'problems'. Let's all listen to dumbass Charles Hugh Smith, who thinks the only way to get around your problems is to say they are impossible, make a trade off, that it isn't possible, and thus you are acting mature. More like immature. I'd posit Charles, that what you define isn't maturity, but IMMATURITY. Fucking idiot.
"The child and the adolescent want everything that they want, now, and they soon learn (at least in America) that whining, cajoling, bargaining and guilt-tripping will get them what they want without having to make difficult choices between less-than-perfect options."
It's not about that dumbass. It's about doing what's RIGHT, because for 40-100 years, we've been doing it the MONETARIST way. So yeah, wanting it now is not only human, it's past due. WAAAYY past due. But everyone KNOWS Rome wasn't built in a day, nor destroyed. But why the viewpoint of this has any bearing on what reality could be is a retarded vision only in Charles' monetarist retardo world.
Why must we accept between two less than acceptable options? Because YOU present TWO BULLSHIT OPTIONS? As then CLAIM that they are the only ones? How about like JFK, finding ANOTHER OPTION. Fucking retard. Only idiots believe bullshit, and then make a bad decision. We call them fuckups. You are one of those Charles, as well as most people around you. The best potential CEO's, aren't CEO's, because they don't want to play your bullshit monetary game. What you represent charles is all the dullard non-thinking, head in the sand, take any path given to you by those destroying you that goes on in todays Fasicst Imperialism. Note I didn't say capitalism. Well at 32, I've realistically never seen capitalism, no one under 50 has. It's been fascist my whole life. Yours too, but you made the compromise that you wouldn't see it, so you haven't, and thus a fucking big idiot trying to use sohpistry to get us to behave like an idiot...like YOU.
"America has not yet grown up because it refuses to make any adult trade-offs that require sacrificing one desire to bring another desire within reach, or matching reality with competing demands. Energy offers a cogent example."
We haven't grown up because we refuse to destroy ourselves. Great insight Charles, a really dumbass insight. Did that comes straight from the wellspring of knowledge that allowed Palin to see Putin rearing his head when he flies into Alaskan airspace? Because only Palin sounds stupider than you. But not by much.
When will idiots like this Charles Hugh Smith, understand just because your head says there's only 3 options, doesn't mean, there's only 3 options. You see Charles, you try to look at things in a real dipshit way. You think you have solutions when you don't. You forget how hard progress is, and how easily human beings can overcome that 'hard' thing preventing progress. Right now that 'hard' thing is your head, telling you that clean energy is available and the way to go.
Gas won't last forever. Solar/Wind is bullshit. So you need to find a way to provide energy without fossil fuels, without solar, and without wind. Without ethanol, without biodeisel, and without any of the other low energy return methods of providing energy. Nope, it's fusion or bust. Only big time idiots like Charles Hugh Smith, PRETEND like there is ANY OTHER OPTION. There isn't. Not only that, it's quite clear THERE IS NO OTHER LEGITIMATE OPTION. But being that Charles is as about as sharp as Palin on a good day, we can see that the whole construct of his argument, is like telling a kid there's something more important than hitting the baseball, it's running around the bases, and scoring. You see Charles is acting like a person who sees the only way to succeed is by drawing four walks and walking in a run. The only way is tradeoffs, and wind/solar/natural gas.
No, silly chilidish idiot. The only way is fusion. We're wasting time NOT DOING IT. Because people somehow lend you power in shaping the debate, and you're no different than Palin trying to tell the Supreme Court how to rule. You're an idiot, who doesn't know it, AND you have the power of sway behind you. Yet you muddle around in the sand like a toddler. The answer is FUSION. Until then, nuclear power.
NOTHING ELSE WILL DO. Not because I want that to be the case. Not because I have a vested interest in anything else. No, because that's what IS. The compromise you speak of is YOU, backing down from the Queen's bullshit green ideology nothings, like wind/solar/biomass etc that aren't any better, and in many cases WORSE than what we currently are using up, fossil fuels. The compromise is Nuclear and Fusion. If you want to somehow go through the compromise thing, and need some sort of compromise, then compromise in having nuclear power plants built. But really that is no compromise, as it's our only option until fusion becomes reality.
"Should fraccing be exempt from environmental laws? No. Clearly, any private enterprise which has the potential to damage or destroy "the commons" of our soil, air and water needs to be tightly regulated and inspected. That is the proper role of government--protecting the commons and the citizenry via common-sense regulation and rigorous inspections."
Yes they should be regulated. But again, that doesn't mean much. Things can still get out of hand. Anyone live in a TCE plume? I have. You don't want it. So before we go about relying on regulations (which we need but are never perfect) to suck every last bit of T. Boone Pickens idiot plan, is to realize that it IS an idiot plan, and that nuclear and fusion are better. Plus you don't need to worry about putting the plants where the gas is. Meaning you won't have radiation coming out of your tap, like natural gas could. Or like that big explosion in cali a few weeks ago.
"But let's follow the notion that the potential environmental hazards of fraccing mean it should be banned."
We will Charles, and first off, let's clearly identify this as sophistry. Not needed to make any point, but you use it as a crutch to make a bullshit statement. If we do this for this, we must do it for everywhere and everything else. Who is acting chlidish Charles? Hmmmm. And these are your major points? Wow. What a fucking idiot you are.
"To be consistent, then we should also ban other energy extraction activities which are potentially hazardous/destructive to the environment:"
Again why be consistent. Do you give the same penalty for murder as jaywalking. I mean, you want to be consistent. We're only talking about many different industries. It's just they happen to be about energy.
"1. no fraccing for natural gas."
ummm, around people's mcmansions, people aren't worried about other places, but again, this is going away. Until then, yes, keep drilling where people aren't. Stop drilling where people ARE.
"2. no drilling for oil or natural gas offshore (see Gulf Disaster)."
Well yeah, or at least the very deep ones. Then again, seeing this great disaster, you'd think it would mean we look for alternatives a little harder. Thus nuclear and fusion. With nuclear and fusion you need less oil, need less oil, are you going to drill deep underwater? Probably not.
3. no nuclear plants (waste is only stored, remains a hazard for decades/centuries).
Again, Charles when I started laying into you for being the dumbass you are, I stated that what you see as the world, is merely a small part of what is reality. This viewpoint you have on #3 is flat out wrong. Ever heard of breeder plants? Have you. Nope, because you're a fucking dumbass with an article that needs you to be a dumbass in order for it to 'work'.
You see charless with nuclear breeder plants, the waste, is really, not waste. It's fuel for another nuclear plant. Well 98 percent of it is. The other 2 percent, well it goes into medical isotopes. So really when we talk about waste, that lasts for centuries or more, you are really doing nothing but spouting propoganda. Because it isn't true. Even if it was, we could make one spot in this world off limits, and store it there. If it really was life or death for civilization, I think we could do that. But again, why? We can use our waste for more plants and medical uses for this short period of time until fusion.
But again, who cares if it lasts for centuries. You think your grandchildren will be too stupid to venture into a Yucca mountain style facility somewhere in the world, if needed? I mean it wouldn't even get to this. But if it did, civilization and 1 spot off limits with radiation, or no civilization with 0 spots off limits. What is the sane approach? Not Charles Hugh Smith's I'll tell you that.
4. no hydroelectric dams (dams destroy the rivers and wildlife).
There's that eco-Queen of England propoganda bullshit again. Can it sometimes, sure, to some select species. But again, humans or other. Which has the right to survive. We do. Period. But, that isn't to mean damn up everything. That doesn't mean airlift some badgers to a new area. Each cases is different. What is the benefit. Are we talking about NAWAPA? If we are, sure some habitats might get destroyed. But think of how many NEW ones would be created. Destroy a few thousand, generate a few tens of millions of habitats. It depends on whether we treat life as idiotic as Charles Hugh Smith made his Al Bundy argument. We can't build any, or do any of this stuff because Charles Hugh Smith thinks every action that may hurt an ecosystem is equal to any other action, and that action is entirely devastating in exactly the same way, and wholly and forever kills off all life that once existed there, with no fallback or redundant habitat available for those species. I mean that's one helluva assumption Charles Hugh Smith.
5. no wind turbines (visual pollution, kills birds).
Wind turbines are a fucking waste. Waste of materials, waste of money, produces little energy. Our descendants will trash them because they don't provide any energy. Sorry. Wind won't power the 2100 Intel 1 million core beast. Sorry. As a human species we need every high orders of magnitude of energy. Turbines is static. Static at a level that wouldn't even produce enough energy for the population of the world in 1900, let alone 2100 and all our gizmos (needed or for play). When you understand the problem as I do, and as Charles Hugh Smith is too much of a dumbass to understand is that what humans use for energy now, is less than 10 years from now, 100 years from now, 1000 years from now. 1000 years from now your descendants might use as much energy in a day as you use in your lifetime. Wind turbines won't do that. It won't even provide for today's needs, let alone any of tomorrow's. THAT'S why we don't want them. Not visual pollution. (and they don't look bad, I've driven past the cali desert ones dozens of times). They're just ineffectual. A dead end technology. A waste of time, resources, and focus. Too bad Charles Hugh Smith is too stupid to realize that, thus he must fall back on the propoganda that it kills birds or some shit.
"6. no geothermal energy wells (they can trigger earthquakes)."
The science on that is iffy. But the Pompei'ans (sp) did that too, and it didn't work out too well for them. Disasters happen around magma. Plus you can't do this everywhere, so it's really a bit of bullshit answer. We aren't going to power the future from geothermal.
"7. no shipping via freighters which burn bunker fuel (trans-Pacific shipping creates 40% of the air pollution in the Pacific Basin)."
Well we do have nuclear submarines. Why not nuclear powered cargo ships to transport all the
Or if we reduce the amount of goods we outsourced to China to manufacture there, and instead make it here, alot of THAT specific pollution *via transporting those goods* you talk about wouldn't occurr.
But again also with nuclear powered cargo ships. Which shouldn't be laughed at since we've had nuclear power naval vessels on much smaller submarines for ~50 years. Either way, there's TWO solutions to your faux problem.
8. no coal-mining or burning coal (massive degradation from open-pit mines, danger to miners in deep-tunnel mines, mountains of toxic tailings and waste, acid-rain and air pollution).
Well coal isn't very good. We do need to get off of it. But frozen people or air pollution. Air pollution needs to happen. But again, fusion and nuclear power will in time, allow us to stop using most of this stuff. People will always want to barbeque but for most uses coal is outdated. It should be. But until we FINISH the transition, coal will be a big part of sustaining ourselves.
9. no tar sands or shale oil mining (massive stripping of the land, moonscapes, huge use of water, pollution of water and air from "dirty" oil produced).
It does use all that water and pollute it. It takes alot of energy to get to it. Now if we need it, we need it. But that's the point. Instead of investing in new oil sand technologies, we should be investing in new nuclear and fusion technologies.
"10. no more subsidized solar energy plants (they don't pencil out without subsidies and make no sense in the northern half of the nation).
They don't make sense period. You also forget what it does to insects. But whatever. Solar panels use lots of resources, cost lots of money, and produce very little. They can't even sustain us now, what about when our human race needs 10x as much energy. Nope. Not enough sun coming down or space to put them, or materials to build them easily accessible.
Each of these objections are based on valid points. Many residents and environmentalists don't approve of wind turbines, solar arrays currently don't make financial sense in most places unless they're subsidized by taxpayers ( a no-no to many), coal is an environmental disaster (I will believe in clean coal when coal executives are clamoring to live in the downwind plume from "clean" plants burning coal), nuclear power depends on hazardous mining of uranium, the waste from nukes has yet to be resolved, and so on."
Valid points, or reality? I mean anyone could make a valid argument that keynesiam or even austrian schools of thought were good based on valid points. But would it be reality? Nope. Just like how you approach this whole article. You make bullshit, shortsighted, monetarist, black/white decisions about a complicated problem which is obviously way beyond your pedigree to discuss. I addressed all you concerns, how they fit in, and how none of what you lay out is a true alternative. ONLY nuclear until fusion. Even then you say nukes, issue. You do realize that that is ALREADY mined uranium sitting there. Right? Each nuke has material that can be used in power plants. Also, just because it's mined doesn't mean anything. We need it, we'll mine it. We just have to use our heads so we get beyond the point we have to strip mountains. Monetarism will keep you from that. Eco-fascism will prevent you from that. So if like this author you only believe black/white that the only issues are pro fossil fuels or pro ecology, you've already lost the debate, because you're an idiot who constructed a box of reality far different from what reality really is.
"Many environmentalists view dams as ecological catastrophes that should be torn down."
Most environmentalists are bullshit. They are good natured people who the queen of england is using for her eco-fascism. Even then, if someone want to do NAWAPA, that CREATES ecosystems. Might destroy a few habitats, might kick some dust up, but a real person who isn't a eco-fascist, but also wants to protect the environment reasonably, understands that it isn't about what the fascists are duped to believe it's all about what benefits and costs to the environment a specific action will bring. If it brings in energy, water, jobs, growth, AND greens deserts....and lets the human race have a chance to survive, then that is a good tradeoff for perhaps a few species that need to be relocated. That's reality. But Charles Hugh Smith is too stupid to see it.
Add all this up and the only acceptable sources of energy are existing hydroelectric dams, solar arrays and land-based oil wells which don't require pressurized water to extract the oil (as the pressurized water could pollute the water table, just like fraccing), and maybe existing nuclearpower plants though many would choose to close these down.
No. It's only acceptable to you in your whacked out version of reality. What the fossil fuels people say is BULLSHIT. What the eco fascists say is BULLSHIT. So what you say is inexorably, BULLSHIT. It's acceptable for man to live. You may remember Native Americans killed Buffalo, and took from the land as well. They just didn't waste it. They weren't Queen of England Eco-fascists and said, we can't eat buffalo. They weren't like U.S. fur traders and slaughtered thousands of buffalo just for their hide. No, they took what they needed, thanked the land for providing it, and went about doing things smartly in order to survive.
We need to do the same here. Realize what's bullshit, what needs to be used until the solution can be developed, and point to the only solutions we really have; nuclear power and fusion. Thus your way of analyzing what's out there is bullshit, because you believe and incorporate the bullshit into your analysis. Here's a hint charles. You ACTUALLY NEED TO HAVE A HANDLE ON THE ENERGY SITUATION IN ORDER TO ACTUALLY TACKLE IT. Sorry, but you've been pulled in all directions but the right one and try to make sense out of the mumblings of idiots whether they be eco-fascists or pro fossil fuels. They're BOTH wrong. So if you want an actual answer to your energy question, you have to get around the bullshit propoganda that you let wholly determine your viewpoint.
"That means the domestic energy supply would be 10% or less of demand/consumption. The rest would come from overseas or our North American neighbors, Canada and Mexico."
Yes in your way of not thinking things through, now you've in pure sohpistry fashion, have a reason why we'd only have 10 percent of our current supplies. Are you really thinking your audience is this stupid?
"So it's OK for the fraccing to be done elsewhere, and for oil spills to ruin Nigeria, because we don't have to live with it. That's the classic definition of a colonial power: extract the resources from elsewhere, regardless of the damage to the local environment or people. The root assumption of this dependence on imports: Only the Imperial citizens matter."
No, the imperialism gets you to base your metrics of industry on bullshit. You see nuclear and fusion gets around this problem. But since imperialism doesn't want fusion, as they lose their power when it happens, they would rather rape and pillage 3rd world nations and not us. But eventually since we are averag Americans, or europeans, we are really all but 3rd world refugees, as when the imperialism breaks from not finding an alternative (nuclear and fusion), us in the 1st world, will be treated like the 3rd world Nigeria you mentioned. Oh yes, American's are the new slave. The western democracies people's are the new slaves. Oh yes. It has been deterined by imperial decree, or as such from lack of a decree about Fusion and Nuclear power for the past few decades, and seemingly the next few. When we run out somewhere, the monetarists will drill near you, and if they find it, they'll use it. So instead of coming to that, we should focus on real solutions. Nuclear, and fusion.
"Are we ready to face the consequences of closing down all environmentally damaging energy sources? That would require giving up 90% of our consumption. Are we ready to pay higher taxes or utility bills to subsidize solar power arrays? We still need backup capacity for nighttime consumption--where will that come from? Imported natural gas? From where?"
As if sophistry was real. No the answer isn't ending 90 percent of our energy sources because they were environmentally damaging. The answer is to go to Nuclear power, until fusion. Once at fusion, will you be saying that our power comes from 90 percent environmentally damaging sources? Or 0? It will be 0. (at least from Earth's perspective). So we either go down the path of nuclear towards fusion and use fossil fuels as we need them until then. It's ok to use fossil fuels. But we MUST be looking forward to our future. We can really only thank the Earth for what it gives us in terms of energy, by finding a way not to need the Earth for energy. Once we get to fusion, we've done that. We must do it. It's our only way. It will be a REAL solution.
"If the present is any guide, we are happy to import that 90% of our energy from elsewhere, knowing full well there are few if any environmental restrictions in many of those exporting nations."
Well that's imperialism, that's globalization. That's what we utilize in our monetary crap game. I say Glass-Steagall, New Bretton Woods, American (hamiltonian) Credit System, NAWAPA, Nuclear ---> Fusion, and Space. Knowing those are the way forward, you see that if we do this, the entire apparatus around us making dumbasses like Charles think we have fewer options than we do thus take a bullshit position like, importing 90 percent of fuel, bitching at it, but not understanding the root cause. We don't import 90 percent because we need it. We import what we import because we haven't spent any time finding a true alternative, let decades go past, and now we're in a shitty position where everyone's addicted to oil, and are fighting over it. Would we be importing this much oil if we didn't stop funding nuclear plants in the 70's? Or changing the amitorization to make it unprofitable? Or didn't subsidize the insurance? All those reasons, plus no actual fusion program creates a situation where you use what's around. Oil is around. Not forever. But since imperialism is a way of hording wealth in the hands of a few, it does not make the appropriate allocation in the (never been there invisible hand) energy sector. In other words, imperialism will never give you an alternative. Not even a market based alternative, as that alternative will be bullshit, at a rate too expensive to sustain an economy. The only way out is nuclear and fusion. Nothing else can replace it. Thank imperialism.
"In other words, we want a perfect world: no potential "costs" to producing energy domestically, and also no significant reduction in our consumption of energy."
No that's not what I want. But I'll tell you what YOU want. Or what your mythical personl would believe. That somehow the way you describe our situation as reality, is reality. It ISN'T reality. It's not about the environment. It's not about bullshit wind/solar. It's about using MORE energy, not less. It's not about how imperialism goes about acquiring energy. You somehow think you're better because somehow you see that we're fucked and there's no way out. Or you see this as a reason to give fossil fuel people whatever they want. Either way you're just plain wrong. The energy situation you describe isn't real. Your black/white cutoffs aren't accurate or legitimate. I do find it amazing that you ask a bunch of monetarist to want to continue in a monetarist way of thinking and ability to gather energy. You're REALLY bitching about monetarism and don't even know it. That's how stupid you are charles.
You're bitching about the effects of monetarism. Well monetarism did effect the quality of our schools, but that's a different topic. As for this, the reason people think in a crazy fashion that you can't seem to wrap your head around other than say people want unrealistic things, is gasp, because the monetary system forces people to believe unrealistic things. Thus in our unrealistic monetary bizarro world, we have a situation, where our energy needs are unrealistic, not in per capita use, but our ability to provide for it logistically. That's not humans being unrealistic, that's our facsist imperialist monetary system that's allowing it's sophistry to blind us in hopes of magic invisible hands and such will bring us the energy we need. It won't. Only scientific breathroughs, by developing an initiative and funding it, will allow this to occur, over time. Monetarism won't do it....and Idiots like Charles Hugh Smith will not understand why...because they never did...and continue not to understand the problem.
They see the world as monetarist. Because of that, they don't know shit, and will probably end up pulling us two steps back rather than pushing us a step forward. All because he is a dumbass who falls for sophistry, and uses an idiot black/white version of it to make a dumbass, unrealistic argument, with no tangible solutions.
Good job DUMBASS!!!!!!!
"The "solution" we have chosen is to import the energy from elsewhere, leaving the damages and environmental costs to others, while leaving our own nation exquisitely vulnerable to distruption of energy supply chains and Peak Oil."
I think I answered this above. You know, imperialism not allocating things correctly, and a dumbass author who can't see it. They just with one brain cell see something wrong. But are clueless as the how and why.
"This is the same "solution" we've chosen for industry in general: close down the "dirty" domestic industries and import the goods from overseas. Even recycling plants are inherently "dirty"--there is no such thing as "clean" industry--there are trade-offs to be made at every step. So let's also stop recycling."
NO SHIT SHERLOCK. I bet if you dig up your ass a little more you might find Watson. Imperialism, not capitalism, is what we run. With imperialism, your right, that's what happens. Which is why I hate imperialism and I understand it's differences from capitalism, which my teachers told me isn't the best form of gov't in the world, it's just the best one man has ever come up with. But we're not capitalists, we're imperialist monetarists. Not Credit System Capitalism. Imperialist Monetarism.
What the hell do you think happens other than that? It's the shotty Fascist British system we use in America and export to the world as 'americanism'..even though it isn't,, that your subconscious is realizing is fucked up. It is. It isn't allocating things right, and you got to get to the core.
It's imperialism, it's monetarism. It's fascism. It's British. It sure ain't American.
"As a result of our childlike fantasies of "clean" living with no trade-offs, the states have fallen over themselves to offer film producers huge subsidies. Hollywood is a "clean" industry and everybody loves "clean" industries which fill office parks with white-collar workers and "information" businesses which pay lots of taxes."
You're right it is childish to believe in clean living, well until fusion, which of course isn't possible according to you, and yet somehow suriving in your bizarro world is? If you ask me the only thing impossible is surviving dwindling resources in a monetary system, rather than break from that and developing nuclear and fusion. Your way, death. The way I espouse, life, in a much better form than currently. Think about it. What's greener than fusion? What's greener than greening deserts? So the first thing you have to realize about 'clean living' is that what you describe as that, is a eco-fascist farce brought to you by the same monetarists that have fucked everything else up. Why is it, that the Queen of England not only rules the world with her fascist, imperialist, debt-based, energy-based monetary system...would also espoused the 'green alternative'. Whether you are all fossil fuels or all green you're really just on the politburo's two propoganda channels. That's all.
"Too bad the states didn't grasp that films are at best a $5 billion "industry" in a $14.7 trillion economy. The states improved the profitability of the film industry by offering dueling tax breaks, but they didn't really boost state revenues. It was all a foolish fantasy, attractive to adolescents who hoped to be seen with "movie stars.""
Yes, you are pointing out monetarist folly. Yet still don't see it as such. You see a piece of the puzzle and say woman, when it's clearly obvious it's face of the mona lisa you're talking about. Do you really need to see the whole thing?
"Isn't this same desire for "clean" no-trade-off businesses one driver behind the financialization of the U.S. economy? It was all "clean" money-making: lower interest rates and jack up leverage and securitization, causing property values to skyrocket, which boosted consumer consumption of overseas-made imports (just unload on the dock and truck to Wal-Mart or the mall) and simultaneously increased the equity foundation for further financialized skimming and churn."
No you see, monetarism is dependant on the people being as dumb as doorknob, like you. People think it's possible so they try it. Everyone thinks they can be the big homerun hitter or td scorer. It's monetarism that deludes you into thinking it's not only possible but probable that it will happen. Until that facade is shattered. That's what monetarism brings. Dumbassness. Like you. But you see a bit through it. But since you haven't come far enough, you still bases all your judgements on the bullshit world you still think is real. It isn't. Thus again a case of monetarism acting like how monetarism does, creates a situation that isn't real but pretends to others that it is. In this case, I think for once you got something partially right. You can say that all this bullshit, leads others to believe bullshit is real, and thus making it easier for these imbalances to occurr, and in this case you note the financialization of stuff. You're right, monetarism is based off bullshit. If it makes you think the wrong thing about energy, work, hell even basic human rights, then yes, it can make you think incorrectly and go too far at other stuff like derivatives, and bogus securitizaiton of mortgages. But why you still can't see it as the imperialist monetarism it is, is beyond me.
"It was an adolescent fantasy: everyone could work shuffling electrons and paper in office parks and towers, making money by producing nothing. By speculating in housing, everyone could make money doing absolutely nothing but transferring pieces of paper and electronic entries."
Don't you understand the first rule of monetarism, is that reality is what we make it. Not in the motivational sense (which is mostly true). But in the 'what's real' game, the first thing you need to understand is it's all about PERCEPTION. It's all about Aristottle. About legal bullshit. Being able to sway someones mind not with reality, but SOPHISTRY. There's that word again. Sophistry. Using bullshit as evidence of something. That was aristottles curse to this world for the monetarists. Come up with a way with making the bullshit real, via the way something is described or put. For thousands of years that has been how the monetarists controlled the lemmings. Using sophistry to make their argument that the bullshit they wanted to be real to their subjects, was indeed reality, even though it wasn't. Thus flash forward to Charles Hugh Smith, in his sophistric idiot realization of what was wrong...except he didn't come up with that, because his sophistry is so far ingrained in him, that while he's screaming at what he sees is wrong, he cannot identify the larger issue, he gets stuck on the sophistric argument, that while really doesn't mean shit, confuses people into making the wrong argument. Thus why Charles Hugh Smith has no clue on how to solve these problems. Because to him fusion is a fantasy, and nuclear power is against the greens. Somehow this makes him go back to the good old bussom of monetarism, and how we try to bullshit ourselves into thinking something is true when it isn't (wind/solar/biomass/biodeisel, etc). Yet then acquiese to the debate that the greens are onto something. They aren't, and you aren't. It's fusion motherfucker...and don't your pathetic dumbass forget it. As pathetic as you are, somehow since you're right at the surface of the bullshit, you're closer to a REALization than others, but until then, still a bonafide dumbshit.
"But like any other adolescent fantasy, reality eventually intruded. The debts remained after the bubble, and even at 4.5%, a $500,000 mortgage requires hefty payments--as do the skyrocketing property taxes.'
Well while it's reality that we have all this bogus debt, is this reality legitimate? Nope. Wipe it away. Glass-Steagall. Then you create a new reality. A legitimate one. Without illigitimate debts incurred in the U.S. and throughout the world as a direct result of the British Queen's Inter Alpha group of banks decision to try to strangle the world through monetarism after the ending of Bretton Woods, BOTH in 1971. I say call their bullshit, instead of talking about 'reality' and these debts somehow being together legitimately, talk about the reality that they are bullshit and cancel them through implementation of Glass-Stegall. Otherwise the sad reality, is that an unreal, illegitimate reality becomes our real reality, with real pain, even if it's because of Aristotlean bullshit sophistry. But that's where we live. We live in bullshit, and thus the bullshit might crush us. That's all Charles Hugh Smith is saying. Becuse yes, bullshit is bullshit. Doesn't mean we have to live through this bullshit, we can cast it aside and go a completely new direction, but first unlke Charles hugh Smith, you have to be smart enough to realize that FACT.
"Corporations played the same game, too, of course: profits could be plumped up just by borrowing vast sums to buy competitors or to buy back stock, boosting the per-share earnings without having to actually produce more or work harder."
No, really? You mean when we treat the world as a corporation, somehow we might figure out that corporations played the same game? No, we got the world to play the CORPORATIONS game. Idiot.
"This is the fantasy world the U.S. continues to live in. Yes, fraccing is potentially hazardous; so are coal, oil, wind turbines, geothermal, hydroelectric and nuclear power. Those who are against each of these can make very strong cases, as can those who argue that subsidizing solar power at the expense of the taxpayers is misguided and a malinvestment made to benefit politically favored industries. (Needless to say, the fossil fuels industries have long had massive tax breaks and hidden subsidies paid for by other industries and taxpayers.)"
Yes we continue to live in our British Fascist Corporate States of Amerika. Your point? You're whole outlook of who can make a good argument (hint: neither side can) is bullshit, because neither of your sides is reality. So when the two sides of the equation are both bullshit, what reality are we supposed to draw from it? We can't. Because it's BULLSHIT. Who cares about the dynamics of what's right about rocks that give us free energy and who will fund the developement of them...when there is no such thing as a free energy rock. So when you talk about subsudies, you might want to first realize there is absolutely no fucking reason to give subsudies to ANY of these energy technologies, unless it's nuclear, fusion, or some other HIGH ENERGY FLUX DENSITY technology. So far there isn't any other. Just fusion as the sole high energy flux density tech. With nuclear as our highest non-fusion form of potential flux density of energy.
"Those of you who deal with children and teens probably know the "solution" to whiny demands: invite the kid/teen to solve the real issues and make the trade-offs themselves."
One size fits all sohpistry bullshit again Charles. No the solution to the problem is the solution to the problem. A good sohpistric solution to the problem of being mad at ones low scholastic achievements is to not care about achieving anything. But is that really an answer? Hell no. All Charles Hugh Smith is doing is telling you to use sophistry to solve your problems. Make trade-offs? Why fusion energy require none. Oh you have to get them to fund it, which has tradeoffs, but there are none inherently with Fusion. So we should make a trade off because your sohpistric head filled with nothing tells us we need to? Talk about the opposite of Best Practices. Let's just do everything because our whole energy situation can be solved by teaching our children how to compromise. WTF? Are you an idiot? Or just the pefect nutsweat on Aristottle's sohpistric nutsack?
Quit using sophistry at every turn to find something out. Because guess what, if you use sophistry, you don't find out shit, and you continue spouting bullshit like Charles Hugh Smith, and somehow THINK you are actualy saying something that isn't completely bullshit. Hey Charles, why don't you see reality for what it is actually once, THEN re-write this. Our energy situation, is our energy situation. We must fund nuclear power plant construction, as well as a serious fusion program. Talking about children behaving like children won't get us anywhere. Unless we talk about when the mind of a child, like Charles Hugh Smith, takes the people above him as knowing far more than they do, trusts their sophistric bullshit, and makes an asinine decision on how we will solve our problem (somehow we'll do this even though this process itself doesn't solve the problem).
"Nobody demands that of America as a nation. We want everything and we want it now, and we don't want to sacrifice anything to get it. Our solution is pathetically childlike: just borrow trillions of dollars every year to buy what we want, so no adult trade-offs are ever required. Just buy our energy from somewhere else so we don't have to make any sacrifices or balance competing demands."
We act like monetarists. That's what Amerika is. It sure ain't what was given to us, or what we taught. That America, died before I was born in 1978. Who are the idiots that don't see it? You? The answer isn't treating us like Children, it's the people realizing YOU are the child, and are not offering ANY SOLUTION. ALL YOU OFFER IS BULLSHIT SOPHISTRY, NO SOLUTIONS WHATSOEVER. NO INSIGHT WHATSOEVER. Just fucking it all up by looking at a real problem, and trying to solve it using Aristottle's BULLSHIT approach. Let me give you a hint dumbass. You're barking up the wrong tree.
"We want to spend $700 billion on "defense," another $700 billion on Social Security, $600 billion on Medicare, $250 billion on interest on old debt, $350 billion for Medicaid, $567 billion on other entitlement transfers (pensions, Federal unemployment costs, etc.), etc., for a total of $3.7 trillion, while revenues may run about $2 trillion at best. The rest is borrowed."
Again sophistry. Social Security is separate from the Budget. Even if you account the surpluses being takeng away, or us drawing down the fund, that isn't anything to do with our budget. The reason it gives so much? Silly monetarist...because of monetary inflation. Which has been at least 12 percent every year the last 15 years in REALITY. What's really going to get you is that we should double or triple our expenditures on social security, because we've allowed the hidden inflation to constrict the ability that social security provided which was it's original purpose to provide. So the real question is why do people look at it like they do when they should realize 2/3 of what it provides has been taken away over the years. Whoops. Also entitlements? C'mon. Anyone that uses the word entitlements is playing into the hands of the monetarists in allowing them the wiggle room to officially stand behind positions that would otherwise in a very fascist way bring harm to Americans. We don't say these things are needed extensions of what gov't must provide for a civilized race (or thoughts of being one). No, we say they are entitlements, and how you remember the old fable of 'nobody is entitled to anything', and thus if these are 'entitlements', then it's something we shouldn't be getting. Sorry, I understand words better than a kindergartener. Maybe not you. But I DO. These 'entitlements' are a word play designed to destroy them illegitimately. Every time I hear the word entitlement, another angel gets his wings, I mean another dumbass has fallen for a load of sohpistry.
"States and local governments are borrowing billions more via bonds, and the shadow bailouts of the "too big to fail" banks are safely masked in the Federal Reserve balance sheet and accounting that's hidden "off budget." Those add up to trillions more that's being borrowed or printed."
Hey The Bernank, you do realize you're talking about MONETARISM right? So if you can't see WHY state and local gov't are borrowing billions, then you're about as stupid as a love child between Palin and Bush. You see, govt, state and local, have a duty to provide for it's citizens. General Welfare clause. The problem is, when the federal reserve, and TBTF banksters using derivatives create a world where they are hyperinflating their accounts rather than let bad debts go bad, then yes, gov't is pushed into spending on these needs what it takes, and thus in these times, that's MORE, MORE, and MORE FAUX FIAT MONEY. Or should we just let the monetarists keep playing the games, and let the gov'ts fail? Is that what it is? Or you buy the bullshit that somehow if all gov't spending stopped, our problem would go away? Seriously gov't spending isn't the problem, it's the effect of the LARGER problem. But idiots like you like ranting about entitlements and shit, when really it has NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM. FUCKING IDIOT. You belong with retards in special ed if you don't get this by now. When TPTB hyperinflate, so must gov't or else in the process its people are crushed. You just sort of forget that part, or don't think it through, fucking idiot.
"We want abundant, cheap energy, and we want someone else to supply it to us so we don't have to make any difficult trade-offs. We want all our entitlements and we also don't want higher taxes. Isn't this the acme of childish fantasy?"
Yes, fusion is abundant, will be cheap, and you won't have to make tradeoffs. In fact you'll be able to do much more wonderous things with much more energy around you able to be tapped. We want entitlements..again idiots...they aren't entitlements. Only fucking twisted minded fools view them as ENTITLEMENTS. If you believe that, you've already lost, dumbshit. Taxes depend on the economic system you are in. I can see some things as lower, some as much lower, others as much, much higher. In either case, the amount needs to be enough to cover the costs of treating your fellow human, as a human being. Sorry, there's no monetarist, cheapskate, republican bullshit way of thinking about it. You've been lied to, and believed pure sweaty dick has smelled good your entire life. Higher taxes are a given for some things. Lower for others, but if you're a republican, probably not you, unless you are one of those of those trailer trash hicks that votes against your interests because you are smart as dogshit. No the childish fantasy is you thinking the situation in reality plays out like the sophistry you write.
"When pressed about energy, we want to hide behind fantasies of fusion, or algae-based fuels, or some other technology which has been "10 years away" for the past 30 years or which is 20 years away from scaling up to industrial production, if ever. Our ignorance of the actual science is breathtaking, but we refuse to consider the possibility that breeder reactors and algae-based fuels may not pan out."
ROFL, idiot. Fantasies about fusion. Fusion will work out. Look up into the sky, and please keep staring for about 10 minutes. What is that burning sensation? FUSION. Have we seen hiroshima and nagasaki? What was that...uncontrolled fusion. So the idiots saying fusion is a fantasy is akin to someone in the 1800's saying that writing on a piece of paper was fantasy. No, we've been fully aware and seen fusion since we first test exploded that first nuclear bomb in New Mexico. We had ideas even before that, but we knew THEN, it would work. So what's your fantasy based off of. Aristottlean sophstric bullshit that serves no purpose but push us in the wrong direction, all because you're a fucking idiot with no forward thinking ability other than where to shoot your load of cum on your thai prostitute?
You know how anyone with a brain realizes the Charles Hugh Smith is a dipshit? He compared algae based energy on the same level as fusion. Are you fucking nuts? I swear the dumbest kid at my old high school made more sense than you. Algae based fuel won't power the world, but fusion can. In fact it's our ONLY way out.
So besides the fact that you're a dumbshit saying it's a fantasy. The other way you're a dumbshit is that you don't realize it's our ONLY way out. Idiot.
I love your sohpistric answer that it's been '10 years away for 20-30 years' . You know what else has been? Funding.
Wow instead of seeing it as a funding issue, you just go full bore into sophistry as the reason. We haven't done it yet, and thus because it's been 10 years away for 20 years, it may not ever happen. Well does a match get burned? Well if you strike it.
So you're right maybe we never get to fusion. But that will ONLY be, because dumbasses like you don't put the funding and reasearch behind it. You're right if we don't do that, we won't get fusion. But if we do, I guaratnee you we WILL. Are you going to let a retard using wordplay convince you that the only thing that will save us energy wise is impossible and thus we shouldn't try? Wow Charles Hugh Smith, a reason the human race doesn't continue to exist. Well you're not THAT important. But you will be a reason we don't exist, if we don't go down this road, and the shit hits the fan, not because it needed to, but because we had a bunch of idiot sohpistric in 'their areas' Charles Hugh Smiths running around using nothing but bullshit to convince us that we need to abandon all hope and just compromise ourselves into oblivion. Yeah, great.
Oh you have heard of breeder reactors, good. So you don't have the ignorance excuse. The fact of the matter is Nuclear power is only needed UNTIL fusion. Breeder plants, thorium plants, all sort of different fuels can be developed beyond breeders, and we only need this for a few decades, while an massive Apollo/Manhattan project style for fusion gets underway.
I mean we're talking about controlled fusion, in 2010, as a world comes together to take a few decades to develop it.
Sure seems a lot more easier than a nation in 1940's fighting two world wars, and creating uncontrolled fusion in complete secrecy.
Which sounds like more the fantasy? Huh. I'll give you Charles Hugh Smith's idea is the fantasy, a bad fantasy.
Algae based fuels won't work out. Not like how we expect them. Hey maybe there is one niche place for them. But powering the world, nope.
But again Algae based fuel is bullshit
Fusion is REAL
Breeder reactors are REAL
So quit using something that WON'T WORK, and saying the same will be true with what we've seen is REAL. Nuclear Blasts and the Sun are all you need to know that FUSION is REAL and achievable. We just haven't funded it, so 'it's still 10-20 years away'. So let's fund it for the next 30-50 years, which is what it'll take most likely. We have enough energy to meet our needs for that timeperiod, but we need to move off of them and onto fusion ASAP.
"At some point, probably within the next 5-6 years, the oil exporters will stop shipping their hydrocarbons to us in sufficient quantities to meet our demands, and bond buyers will stop trading their capital for absurdly low rates of return on U.S. Treasury bonds."
Yep, so Nuclear Power plants need to be built in a hurry. Better start on fusion now, not 10 years from now, or like a monetarist or Charles Hugh Smith, NEVER. Plus there is a lot of bullshit that can be squeezed through. How much energy to we really need to survive? Alot less than what is consumed. So we'll just be put into a quandry...ipod or food? Hmmm. Tough choice there. Now in a better run world, we do these switches to nuclear and fusion ASAP, and can continue to 'waste' some on Ipad's or kindles. But if we want those to continue, better start a serious switchover NOW.
Again, bond rates, as controlled by our MONETARIST built energy supplies. So the bonds will do what, when our monetarist system dictates to us what? Oh yeah, I know unlike Charles Hugh Smith, that you get AROUND THE QUESTION. That's right. Nuclear and Fusion, and then what do those bonds do? NOT THE SAME THING. So it is important for us to realize that Nuclear and Fusion are needed ASAP. Otherwise all the stupid monetarist things that happen in a monetary system under such condidtions is not needed, and a suboptimal approach of going forward. But then again, we have our Aristottlean derived bullshit from Charles Hugh Smith to make us worry about Bonds, instead of realizing that our choices to allow the monetarism to keep our current energy status quo going would then lead the bond market to behave like it would then behave. Not because it's reality, but it's the reality through the choices we've made. The bad choices. The bad choices that we continue to make, that haven't sealed our fate yet, but some year or decade down the line it will, and it will be thanks to monetarism, not reality that caused this. That future is a monetarist future reality, not one of an American or even Human spirit. Fusion is real, just like manned flight is. Just because humans couldn't fly (besides balloons IDIOTS) before 1906 and scientists came out and said man would never fly obviously didn't mean man couldn't fly. He just couldn't YET until 1906. There was wind before 1906, there was wood. There was all the things necessary for flying was around before then, yet it hadn't 'panned out' yet. Well fusion is just another one of those, and Charles Hugh Smith is just the sort of dumbass who in 1905 said man couldn't fly. Yes man can't do fusion....today. But it IS possible. It can be done, we just need to fund it and actually give it for ONCE the good ol college try...that we never gave it. Fusion is our only chance. So pucker up buttercup. This is one dance we have to dance.
"Once it costs $1 trillion just to pay the interest on existing (and rapidly ballooning) debt, then we won't be able to borrow enough to fund the Empire and the Savior State and the interest. Trade-off time will finally be forced upon us."
Oh see, you're really just a fascist, who thinks of us as whiny kids who can't make a decision. Instead of the realization that people are acting how the monetary system lays the path before us. Charles Hugh Smith, dear, dumb, blind, and stupid about just everything because he doens't realize the interconnectedness bewteen what we do everyday as a species, and our fascist british imperialist monetarism the world practices. The answer is not for monetarism to use our resources, and print money for bogus thing, while at the same time saying we can't afford one of these great things, and thus must cut off your entitlements.
Charles Hugh Smith, you are a fascist tool, who's ideas, is our path into bondage, because you don't know your ass from your elbow about anything, and every word you spouted above was completely wrong, execept for some parts that you got to a surface of A SINGLE problem or two, but completely botched the interpretation.
So let's listen to the fascist about how we should interpret this monetary world. We have to act like Hitler, in order to survive. Or maybe it's the monetary system and it's invisible hand that need to dissapear.
Oh but he's not hitler, because he would've found a way to cut entitlements, spending, capital investment, all while paying off our righteious debt. Yeah right. The reason this world descends into fascism, is because dipshit like Charles Hugh Smith are idiots who convince you through sophistry there isn't any other way. Well there is, and it's not your intellectual bankrupt non-ideas that will get us there. Our first step out of fascism, getting rid of your idiot ideas and fascist interpretation of things. Get your head out of your ass, fucktard.
But of course he won't. He bitches about people living in bizarro world, and then at the end of the day, resides there too *I think I've shown that 100 times in this post BTW*. No wonder his solution is fascism. He thinks he's on the outside, but really he's still in Wonderland believing all the same bullshit, and making decisions based on that bullshit, and whatever TPTB tell him. Because I don't know what route it took to get to you Charles Hugh Smith, but I guaran-fucking-tee it's exactly what TPTB want. Exactly. Get asshole fucktards like you to make an argument for cutting things based on monetarism and sophistry. Sorry I won't use national debt as a reason to change, because I know it's fraudulent. I'll use THAT realizatio of FRAUD to CHANGE systems, and thus get out of the bullshit debt. Idiot. Fusion is real, we haven't researched it (yes we haven't...I know the fake money and fake projects that put into it what amounts to billions of dollars). No one has done a real fusion program, NO ONE. No bullshit monetarist statistic will convince me otherwise, because it hasn't happened yet.
"At that point, the trade-offs will be much harsher than they would be now. But we don't want to make adult trade-offs; that makes us testy and pouty. Fortunately, Uncle Sam is indulgent; he can borrow trillions every year to give us everything we want--at least for now."
Oh you see, since we don't cave into austerity and bending over for the banksters earlier, it will be much harsher later. yeah, on the banksters. Not on the people. You see, free people, know that the bankster adds nothing, and could go extinct like the dinosaur, and nothing would stop. The banksters need us more than we need them. So screw 'em. Apparently Charles Hugh Smith agrees with them, and that it will be harsher later. Fuck off idiot. Yes we don't want to make childish sophistry trade-offs that idiot fucktard monetarist CLAIM, MERELY CLAIM, is adult-compromise. Yeah, we'll all be acting big by letting the scammers scam us, and being so nice to pay them off. FUCK YOU IDIOT.
POUTY? You really are a fucktard aren't you? Just because we don't agree with your complete and utter bullshit and mangling of the truth of human reality, doesn't mean we're pouty. It just means we're a) smarter, b) more human, and c)
Go ahead and think like this fucktard, I'm sure it won't destroy you and your life. Ha ha...of course that dumb shit will. I hope you can't wait for it, because it's coming. Especially to you fucktards that think ass backwards like fascist fucktard Charles Hugh Smith that it's all our fault, we can't have everything in monetarism, but we need monetarism, and cutting our 'entitlements' (propoganda word that twists the truth) now will be better for later.
Nope.
Glass-Steagall
NAWAPA
Nuclear Power
Fusion
Fusion Arc (because fascist Charles Hugh Smith forgot about the other resource depleation but NOT ME)
Space Program
American (Alexander Hamilton's) Credit System (not the Queen of England's Keynes OR AUstrian economic schools of thought)
Fixed exchange rates
End of imperialism = MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH...did I say MUCH higher tariffs. Hell we've even forgotten about Quotas haven't we.
No more monetarism. No more aristottlean based bullshit to distract us like Charles Hugh Smith so aptly demonstrates to us by showing us NOT TO EMULATE THIS FASCIST FUCKTARD.
It's not our fault, we're human. We behave how we behave under the conditions that we live, which happen to be, imperialist, monetarist, and fascist. Either listen to Prince Charles-Hugh Smith...well he is toeing Prince Charles' dual lines of monetarism and eco-fascism and trying to do so in the thousands of year old persuading factor known as sophistry. Why not throw prince in front? Take your anti-american ideals and go crush yourself with them. They are not the future for the United States, and my guess is, any other sane country (probably at some point all of them) will join this side, not your fascist fucktard one.
Um, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fission bombs (H-Bombs use fusion and are a lot bigger in terms of blast).
Other than that and the debating points deducted for calling him stupid and other things, good job and carry on.
Fusion is also a false end. The energy weighted neutron flux is 1000 times higher that fission. You have a problem of neutron activation far beyond that in fission. It is dirtier, 10 times the radioactive waste that you have currently.
You can use muon-catalyzed fusion to produce an intense neutron source to breed Plutonium out of non-fissile U-234... It'll work, but what is the likelyhood of it happening.
which fusion pathway? Ideal fusion reagents produce no excess neutrons. The oft-bandied He3 obviously does.
D-T, 14 MeV, D-D 3 MeV neutron, IIRC. Most of the energy released in a fusion reaction is the kinetic energy of the neutrons which you must thermalize. The chains that have low neutronicity have 1/1000 of the cross-section, in otherwords, orders of magnitude more difficult to initiate.
It's late, I'll check the details in the morning....
Look everyone, brainwashing really works great. This guy is really soaking up the knowledge at larouchepub.com.
I wonder how many $600/yr dimwit subscribers like our buddy JMC8888 Lyndon Larouche manages to scrounge up?
Holy Fuck!
Two questions:
Nobody on this planet enjoys a good rant more than me, but you're not on this planet. It's quite clear you didn't understand the article, even a little.
That said, there are shreds of sanity in what you wrote (I read a little of it, and if you think anybody's ever gonna read the whole thing, you jack-off way too much). You might want to build on that and mold it into something coherent. CHS didn't deserve that attack. You owe him an apology.
The other option for somebody like you is to see if Ted Kaczynski's old shack is available.
+1
jeezus christ dude, did ANYONE read that novel????
Nonstop rambling nonsense and poorly-worded
Fracturing wells is not harmful to the environment. In the past, Pennsylvania State law required that all oil and gas wells have surface casing set through all fresh water zones. The casing would have to be cemented to the surface. A state inspector would be in site to see if the cement circulated to the surface. If the cement didn't circulate, you had to run a cement bond log and then cement the remainder of the casing. The production casing also had to be cemented. If a well is completed in this method, the chance of contaminating fresh water zones is nil.
Today, Pennsylvania law no longer requires that surface casing be set through all fresh water zones. And production casing doesn't need to be cemented at all. It can just be set on a packer.
State law has to be reverted back to the old laws to increase the safety of fracturing.
CEO of the Sofa
Writing from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
I loved this piece, Charles. Nowhere is our inability to make necessary choices more evident than in our energy policies. It seems like we don't want to solve the problems. We promote the weakest options and ignore the best, all the while borrowing more and more, and I can think of no policy worse than spending money without deciding how and by whom it will be repaid. You did a masterful job connecting the bad thinking that allows these conditions to exist.
Acheiving enviormentally-responsible energy independence should be a primary objective of anyone who values freedom. We really need to direct more effort at this immediately. Thanks for doing such a good job of promoting adult discussion.
All good points Charles. DOE loan guarantee program for "clean" energy alternatives has benefited the connected private equity firms with startups, while it is still negligible compared to the energy wasted by subsidizing grain ethanol.
In 2005, electric power generation was 40% of the average daily 110 Trillion BTU's in total energy consumed by the US. An energy efficient reconstruction after a war and a world depression would surely be a sobering solution.
BlueGen ceramic fuel cell converts town gas to electricity.. at 65% efficiency plus heats water in addition... so total 85% efficiency. Unit is size of a bar fridge for residential or larger for business etc use... gives huge savings on emissions compared with normal electrical production from fossil fuels. Bulk buying and you are all laughing. All you need is agas connection and a hotwater service..