Not Economic Crisis, Energy Crisis.

Economic Crisis or Energy Crisis

It is interesting that gas prices are inching up again but this time they are hidden by the "Newly Discovered" economic crisis. This problem is far from new. In fact the crisis started several years ago but suddenly we have been pushed over the tipping point.

Why did this occur so suddenly that every politician in the world is staring like deer caught in the headlights? Oil prices have sky rocketed in the past year. How in the world can sky rocketing oil prices cause a near global economic collapse? Lets take a few seconds to consider the following.

Wages have been stagnate for over 2 decades
Inflation has occurred but at low levels, but higher than wages increased.
The middle class has been squeezed due to this and have turned to credit to fund their life style.

These simple facts set the stage. Then gas prices jump over a over a buck in a mere 3 months. Many people who are on the edge slip off. There were risky lending practices, for sure, however, I would argue that this was manageable. That is until oil prices took off.

Why did this tip the scales? Because everything, everything in our culture is moved around by, made with oil or dependent in some way by oil. Everything. So when oil companies drive up the prices by speculation on the commodities market and cause the price of the basic building block of the global economy to skyrocket, the entire global system is sent reeling.

The answer to the problem is a simple one. Not one of Wall Street bailouts. Not one of government giveaways to corporate fat cats who have, for decades, have been playing fast and loose with the rules to line their silk pockets. Read your history, Hoover tried a bank bail out that lasted a mer 6 months. We need to fix the fundementals. We need to refocus our economy. We need very brave leaders who will take bold steps in this direction.

The 700 billion dollars ear marked for bank bailouts need to be turned inwards. We need to change our energy plan. The country need to switch to an electric economy. We have 2 excellent, complementary options just sitting in the wings, waiting to come on stage and lead us into this new economy. We have Jay Inslees' New Apollo Energy Act, (HB 2809) which will turn us inward to rebuild our energy infrastructure, foster growth and development of alternative energy projects and build the economy by fostering a new job model. That is one of green jobs. Jobs based on a sustainable energy and growth policy.

To fit in with that, we need to tap into the growing nonpartisan Pickens movement. Go to pickensplan.com, join, take the pledge and get your congress people to take. It fits perfectly with the goal of energy independence and it is already a growing movement.

The individuals involved in this grass roots movement are not simply focused on windmills and natural gas cars, but are looking at every option. Mr. Pickens has a base plan, one of getting us off oil and onto electricity, the people on the plan are working to push every option to the fore front. This will make our economy more secure.

He is working on building a energy movement. Inslee is working on building a energy policy. These 2 men are coming form different directions but the goal is the same, to save our country, our economy. Moving us into the future. Right now our politicians are focused on a giant pay off for the misdeeds of their fat cat greedy buddies who have taken the bank and broke it.

We need to stand up to their threats of collapse and call their bluff. We need reincarnations of the Roosevelt's. Teddy, to bust up these robber barons and their mega companies. And Franklin, who will take our treasure and pour it back into our infrastructure. Growing our economy by building a electric grid that can drive us forward. Build new electric rail systems like Europe and Asia. Build us new roads for the new electric cars. Help with R&D to allow us to have better batteries for powering all our equipment.

We need rapid charging batteries, to put in solar and wind farms. Geothermal systems. All of these systems could make hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs. Then we will rebuild the middle class that has been systematically dismantled over the last 40 years by every Administration and Legislature that has come into power.

Call your congress people, tell then NO to the bail out and insist they sign on to Pickens plan. Tell then they must sign onto the New Apollo Energy Act, (HB 2809). Tell them that we need real change, not just spare change. We need that 700 billion to go into the economy, not to bail out the greed of the past 30 years.

We can fix this economy but only by making a fundamental shift. Changing the energy policy and rebuilding the economy from the bottom up. It will be work. Everyone of us will have to roll up our sleeves and work our hearts out, we will have to change how we live but our children will have a future. A new strong economy. Go to congress tell them HB 2809 now. Go to the Pickensplan.com and join and push this part of the change. It is up to you.

Tags: apollo, bailout, economics, energy, greed, pickens

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Comment by Micah Lauer on October 6, 2008 at 3:07pm: Dan,

Great blog post!

Micah

Comment by Lawrence Murray on September 29, 2008 at 3:53pm: Welcome! We are now almost one trillion dollars richer. How do you plan to spend your money? I'll keep going on energy conservation, solar and wind. Wish all of you the best. But like David said above, we have to get it right. Now is the time to fix our energy problem to grow our economy,
Have Fun

Comment by EYES WIDE OPEN INTERNATIONAL on September 29, 2008 at 1:19pm: Thank you Dan, great post!!

Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.

No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:

"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."

Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.

The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.

And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Falling for whom? NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.

Health insurance? Why are you bringing this up? What's this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?

It has everything to do with it. This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it's because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Here's the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened.

This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!

I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something -- NOW! Here's what you can do immediately:

1. Call or e-mail your Representative. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they've made. Tell him/her we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what's the best route to take. Tell them the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.

2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).

Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!

Thank you for your concern!!

Comment by David Starkey on September 29, 2008 at 8:33am: Great blog Dan. One thing a lot of people don't consider is how money is created. Fractional Reserve banking operates on a 13:1 margin. That means that when you deposit $10,000 in savings or a CD, the bank can loan out $130,000 dollars. In other words a profit of 1300% on your money which they give you 4% interest on. The bank never had $130,000 they issued a cashiers check, a piece of paper not a sack of money. So when you read about a 700 million dollar loss remember there was never any actual money lent it was all bad checks and bad loans. The bankers know most people are ignorant about this Ponzi scheme. There is a good video on google video called "The Money Masters", watch it if you get the chance. You'll look at the world a lot differently.

Comment by Richard Wickberg on September 29, 2008 at 8:11am: BTW,
I think we should chave a congressional hearing, find out who the culperates are, try them for treason and if found guilty employ the Chinese method of punishment; strip them of their wealth,bind them, make them kneel, shoot them in the back if the head and bill the family for the cost of the bullet. Very simple.

Comment by Richard Wickberg on September 29, 2008 at 8:04am: Great post as usual,Dan!

In the PP , The Turbine Highway, windt North Dakota is considering lining it's interstates with wind turbines and use them to power a mass transet system to ring rhe state so that residentsand others could drop off their cars and ride to any N.D. desiination in speed and comfort. They want to jump on the PP bandwagin and generate their own electricityin this manniras they've dammed the Missouri River to it's limits and need new scources if power. The railroad doeant go to the capitol, Bismarm oe most other key cities! Yhis olan would end that. They are looking at Minnesota who allows wind farms to be built on farm land, thus making it twice as productive. I've seen them and can attest to it. N.D. is a beautiful state for those who've never been there - It's also bitterly cold in da vinter (dats how day speak, vith a Scando-Germanic accent) and I look foreard to my trip yhere mid October.

Comment by Lawrence Murray on September 29, 2008 at 6:18am: Here is more. We owe 700 billion to Russia (100B), China (250B) and Sudies (350B) for MBS. The Gov should be helping them out of there homes and into ones that are owned by our banks that have been forclosed. For the first time in my life we have a big advantage and looks like Congress is going to let them off the HOOK.

Comment by Sonne DeVries on September 29, 2008 at 5:09am: I agree whole heartedly. Pouring money into a bail out only encourages more bad behavior. The "If we get big enough it doesn't matter - the government will rescue us" attitude needs to be squashed. I've watched many small companies line their pockets, cheat their stock-holders and employees, and generally act irresponsibly with no consequence. The answer isn't regulation or bail-out, it is accountability and law enforcement. Rewarding those irresponsible companies doesn't solve anything, but it does waste our current and future monies.

Real change requires first accountability, and second investment in those who truly behave responsibly. Building the grids and infrastructure will only work if it is done without the typical big-money behavior, and with real work ethics and guidelines. Still, given a choice, throw the money at the crooked big business that created the problem, or re-invest, even with the risks, in America, the choice seems obvious.

New jobs, energy independence, and a greener world win.

Comment by Mike Anthony Fernald Sr. on September 29, 2008 at 3:35am: See Dan you say it very well here in your Blog,We are on the same page :o}

Most people would invest in Green Jobs, Therefore putting the money back into the economy. I say give the bail out money back to the People.

Comment by Eric Lykins on September 28, 2008 at 9:32pm: I added this to the newly created OPB (Other People's Blogs) at East TN for Sustainable Infrastrucure

I hope someone prints your editorial. I wrote a small article that is about to be published in one of our local bi-weeklies called BLANK Magazine. It is circulated mostly in bars, but I guess you've got to start somewhere, and what better venue is there for riling up the populace?