Entries from July 27, 2008 - August 2, 2008
Election 2008: The problem of energy
Saturday, August 2, 2008 at 03:11PM The 2008 presidential election is only a few months away and this election is one of the most interesting and important elections in recent memory. I maintain that our energy problem is THE most important issue on which to concentrate. The next twenty years can be affected by the choices we make in the next year or so regarding energy policy.
If we had a candidate who was using the bully pulpit to clearly define the challenge of resolving the energy crisis, this candidate would capture the majority of the votes and go easily into the White House as a visionary and a true leader. The reason for this is that the energy problem touches upon just about every major problem we have facing us this election year.
Terrorism? Resolving the energy problem and becoming self-sufficient for our energy needs would go a long way toward resolving the problem and threat of terrorism. Once the news gets out that the US is devoting all it's efforts to become energy self-sufficient, using all means necessary, the whole country challenged to do so within 10 years, it would change the game overnight. By creating a campaign and unleashing the power of free enterprise to utilize every viable means of energy production, including drilling for oil in every location that would not endanger the safety and comfort of others, and by having government backing the effort by lowering tax rates, or eliminating some taxes all together, and by dropping irrational regulations, our whole nation would become focused on solving the energy problem -- then, the calls to conserve as part of the effort would be met with more enthusiam and a double-barreled approach of proactively solving the problem of energy production and conserving energy would combine to inspire the people of this country to accomplish something great.
The oil-rich countries who are anti-American would be dealt what they deserve (truthfully and without anger) -- our withdrawal from their affairs and lack of dependence on any of their business. It's perfectly acceptable that they hate us and our way of life -- we are not everyone's cup of tea, so separation and non-involvement would be a perfect solution. This would then force those countries to live off the sales of oil to other nations or begin investing their money in a diverse infrastructure of enterprises to survive in the future, making them too busy to worry about destroying the capitalist pigs.
Countries run by dictators will destroy themselves -- there's no way for these archaic systems to survive in today's world. If we insure the basic defense against desperate terrorist acts, the rest will be taken care of by natural deterioration of closed, controlled, anti-growth societies. It's allright for a society to choose anti-growth, but it is futile for such a society to attempt to drag the rest of the world down to their choices. Also, we'll see how anti-growth policies work when oil can no longer subsidize their choices.
This initiative in the US would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, strengthening employment and infusing the economy with real growth, not just growth in the service industry and government employment.
It woud also end the game of speculation and bust a bubble that is crying out for a sharp pin. The cost of energy would drop significantly over the years and at the end of ten years this country would be booming again with vitality. The key is to begin using all sources of viable energy and freeing up money in the private sector for research of new energy sources. Pickens has started the movement toward wind energy, but believes all means of energy production should be used, with wind maybe accounting for 20%. What will happen is that ideas will begin developing at a high rate and alternative means of energy will be discovered. To challenge a talent-rich country like the US is to open up possibilites of discovery on a grand scale.
The growth in the economy would create greater tax revenue for the government through consumption so that income and capital gains can be cut even further. The answer to terrorism is to grow our economy to heights of self-sufficiency that obviates our involvement in terrorist countries. Lowering the costs of manufacturing goods will place us in a competitive position in world trade so that we can continue the process of peaceful trade with friendly countries and begin the process of slow withdrawal of police forces from overseas. Our role in the future should be grounded in our free enterprise system peacefully trading on a global scale.
If other countries follow suit, rouge nations will be isolated and forced to change. Although there are hotspots of violence and turmoil in the world, for the most part the movement toward peaceful trade has been developing for decades -- away from world wars toward world competition in the markets. This global movement toward innovation in technology gets pushed to the side as small countries grab attention through the more interesting spectre of violence and upheaval, but stop to think about all the countries that are not at war, that are producing and growing.
Peaceful trade is the way of the future despite the media's focus on devastation in isolated areas. The US needs to get back to its business, which is business. The small terrorist countries can't withstand the onslaught of innovation and prosperity -- that is what won the cold war and caused the Soviet Union's militaristic house of cards to collapse.
Our government can play a major role, as leaders and by removing all obstacles to achievement.
Clarification of purpose for Bonzai
Saturday, August 2, 2008 at 09:26AM When I first decided to create a blog, I had a vague purpose in mind to write about the real estate industry from a broader perspective, including politics and economics. I want to return to that purpose with an even broader perspective. There are plenty of blogs that report the leading technology and marketing trends in real estate, and I don't believe my addition to these efforts is needed -- plus it's not what I want to write about. There are blogs that create a social environment where agents can interact and learn the skills of the profession, and this is good -- it's just not what I want Bonzai to be.
What I will be creating here is a wall of words. A "wall of words" is seen negatively by some who hold the position that pictures, videos and MTV micro bits are the best way to reach the new fast-moving, savvy internet user; however, I love words, especially words that are combined to fully develop ideas. I will be going against the grain and presenting broad themes that I think are important. I may drop "real estate" from the title because the content will only be indirectly related to real estate, in that private property is the foundation of our freedoms and rights.
This will not be a political, partisan site. There are enough of those, too. What I write will be presented as what I see as logical and true, disconnected from a Republican or a Democrat partisan viewpoint. I am not a Republican, a Democrat or a Libertarian, although I am driven by a traditional (little el) libertarian spirit. No doubt there will be disagreement, and no doubt I will be wrong about some things, but I will always be true to openness and objective search. My bias will be towards what has made the most sense to me and other writers who have influenced me. Trying to place the thoughts expressed here in a neat category so that they are reduced and dismissed will be to miss the purpose. Competition among ideas has been stunted by the media's false choices of left and right. I have decided to use my time and energy in a small, bonzai-like way to help fill a gap in the Big Conversation the internet has created -- the gap is where non-partisan thought related to individualism, free market principles and limited government should be.
For those who think these issues are Republican issues, you haven't paid attention to the Republican Party. Both political parties have adopted statism and grown our government out of control (or into control) -- they simply want big government for different reasons. One might want welfare for businesses and the other for individuals, but both are creating a monstrous system that is not conducive to the welfare of either .
To understand what is happening, it's necessary to understand concepts of economics, politics and governance, capitalism and socialism, mixed economies and free markets, freedom and control, individualism and statism and all the variations of combinations that make up how we interact as a society.
The internet has created a platform for voices to speak up. I like the social direction the internet is taking for people to develop friendships and pleasantly interact around common interests, or to bolster each others ideas on partisan sites, but it would be a shame if this is all that the internet produces. I hope to be a small part of objective thought that addresses major concerns, but not all in dry seriousness -- humor and satire are powerful means of communicating and questioning authority, so, of course, I'll be using these means often.
I don't propose to be in possession of the Truth, but I have studied these issues and will rely on the vast thought that has gone before which logically and passionately fought for freedom, creativty and the ability to choose and pursue happiness -- and to own the results of our efforts. No one has the right to enslave another, nor the right to take what they have earned, nor the right to prevent them from pursuing their version of happiness as long as it doesn't violate the rights of others. To me this is self-evident and falls outside party lines.
This is my mind's love and this is what I'll be using my voice and space for. You will either be convinced by the objectivity of the arguments or you won't. My goal is not to convert anyone, merely to write what I think is logical and the best, free means of human interaction..
A test of capitalist principles
Friday, August 1, 2008 at 08:40PM Many people who claim to be for a free market will agree with Obama's plan to take the oil companie's profits and give it to the people. This is what is wrong with our nation, too many no longer understand principles and they practice them situationally.
There is no difference in Obama's plan and a group of thugs coming to your house and taking everything you own. It's the same as if the government forced all plumbers to give their profits to electricians. It's legalized theft by physical coercion, pure and simple.
If Obama wants to give money to the people, then he should take the profits that governement steals to begin with through taxes on oil and give it to the people -- the amount is triple what the oil companies make. So, in essence, the government takes in the form of taxes when gas is sold, then it wants to take the profit so it can buy votes and establish an even greater power base.
Thousands upon thousands of people are cheering this idea.
Definitely have baby pictures tomorrow, but first..
Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 11:15PM my crazy brother from somewhere near Seattle
(warning, he is crazy, in a wonderful way, and this has nothing to do with real estate)
p.s. I'll tell the story one day