economic nationalism

Here's one I can't figure out, Mr President. Perhaps you can help:

If we're gonna spend $800B more to stimulate the American economy, perhaps there should be a bit of "containment" enacted to make sure that money doesn't just rush out of the coffers of the US treasury through the hands of grab-happy American consumers and into the pockets of Chinese gadget manufacturers and Saudi oil gluttons. Because even though global economics is fiercely complex, one simple fact is easy to convey and hard to dispute: the longer the cash sloshes around in the US economy and avoids slipping out past the borders, the more any benefits of a stimulus will be amplified.

And there are creative ways of making this happen too. Infrastructure and technology projects can be restricted from using foreign contractors (even though they are so much cheaper), money can be doled out in large, targeted dollops (rather than pissed away in millions of meaningless dribbles to undisciplined individuals), disbursements can be focused toward areas where the US economy has the tools and talent to do the work itself.

But see, this is where I get confused. Because if a strategy like this were to work - if the government actually did the due diligence to find effective ways to keep the dollars here rather than sending them abroad, then the rest of the exporting world - that outside world feeding itself on America's hemorrhaging treasury - would grow angry and antagonistic. Economic nationalism would divide the world, elevate tensions and threaten peace, even while it made us locally richer in the short term.

Thus, an ugly impasse. We can't possibly elevate the overall global living standard with exported American affluence. Certainly not now. Even though most of the world thinks we can. But if we act responsibly in our own local interest we'll infuriate our neighbors and end up cultivating enemies.

It's a tough one all right. But the idea of spending all this money to just vaguely hope that good things are going to happen on a grand scale - wow - that's embarrassing. I hope you're not thinking along those lines, Sir.

the assassination of barack obama

As his symbolic potency increases, so does his potential utility as a target. "We can throw the whole house into chaos. All we've got to do is knock over this tower." This is what the vandals say.

(that we don't care what madness motivates the vandals doesn't diminish their danger)

Barack Obama, already, has shown strong heroic stuff. He knows the creeping, mediocre beasts are watching him grow and he persists, thrives, in spite of this. But the risk is real and he can't leave his legacy to chance. He must not make the terrible mistake of dying without a will.

He must, in fact, acknowledge and embrace his affinity with the great martyrs who have come before him. He must be buoyed and inflated by this association. And he must be explicit, must tell his potential successors how to behave if the terrible thing happens (as his spiritual progenitors have passed it down to him):

mccain, obama + the great healing

Slate talks about the curious similarity of these two guys, how they are both anti-politicians focused on addressing partisan flaws in the American political process, how they are more authentic than their rivals.

Behold my electoral fantasy: Democrats nominate Obama without a running mate on August 28. Republicans nominate McCain without a running mate on September 4. On September 11, 2008 the RNC and DNC simultaneously announce their tickets. Republican: McCain and Obama; Democrat: Obama and McCain.

Over the next two months, America fights hard to determine who sits in which chair, but regardless of outcome, bipartisianship is internalized into the White House and we can all breathe a sigh of relief as a composite agenda begins moving forward at respectable speed.

I know, this is so far beyond the realm of the imaginable that it hardly rates a chuckle. Because in America it's more fun to be about the ride than the destination. And easier to define ourselves against the other guy rather than against the sharp claws of the real enemy.

But a lot of us could be inspired by a government that went all the way to the bottom of the well to find its center, to weave its opposite ends together, to capture the collective national sentiment and slingshot America into its destined role. Pity that this concept sounds so foreign and foolish.

energy myopia

For your consideration, a simple graph...


...depicting global, commercial energy production since 1800. Despite a few small hiccups, all of the lines, and especially all of them taken together, move in only one direction. Up.

And it's pretty easy to interpret the big story from this little picture: the entire viability of the Developed World, since industrialization's first meek stirrings in the 1840's, has been premised on an ever increasing consumption of energy.

What with oil over $100 a barrel now and all the talk about clean and sustainable energy development, you'd hope this picture was familiar to the people who stand to do most with it (like maybe the head of government of the world's largest economy). Let's see what America's presidential candidates would do about our looming energy predicament.

First, the Democrats:

Clinton would: decrease US foreign oil consumption by 50% by 2025; develop 20% renewable energy standard for power companies; make federal buildings carbon neutral;

Edwards would: reduce fossil fuel dependence through $13B "New Energy Economic Fund"; develop 25% renewable energy standard for power companies; allocate $1B for automakers to apply latest technology; raise fuel economy standard to 40 mpg by 2016; promote ethanol use

Obama would: decrease US foreign oil consumption 50% by 2025; support ethanol and blended fuel initiatives; support coal to liquid fuel legislation

Richardson would: "make the US the Saudi Arabia of wind, solar and biomass"; move vehicles toward 100 mpg; push for 20% improvement in US energy productivity; reduce foreign oil to 10% of total

Hmm. Richardson actually seems to have a sense of the magnitude and urgency of the situation (though you'd hope so since he used to be the Energy Secretary). Too bad he's not sufficiently "presidential" (read: slightly chubby) to have any shot at the nomination.

And the Republicans:

Giuliani would: support increased use of nuclear power and probably lean heavily on the advice of the fossil fuel-oriented energy companies he's consulted for or represented legally

Huckabee would: support increased use of nuclear power, drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and "promote alternative fuel technologies"

McCain would: promote a system of greenhouse gas tradeable allowances and greatly increase the use of nuclear power

Romney would support drilling in the ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf, increase energy efficiency in government buildings and vehicles, promote biofuel development, increase the use of nuclear power and "work to make the US energy self-sufficient in the next couple of decades"

The collective dedication to nuclear by the Republicans should raise a red flag. I'll be the first to agree that fission has its role to play, but blurting this out to the exclusion of a truly considered policy suggests magical thinking of the "salvation by technology" variety.

Yes, the Democrats come off as somewhat more enlightened, but that's not the point here. My point (which none of these good folks cares to address) is that for 200 years the core assumption of our stability and affluence is sustained growth through ever greater energy gulps. Yet all anyone wants to talk about is use reduction and source swapping. Which makes no sense, since if you're basing forecasts on current use you're bucking every trend of the last two centuries, so what you should be talking about is how we're going to manage the seismic consequences of bucking every trend of the past two centuries.

There's such an opportunity here to frame this energy/environment/growth plateau issue and make a stand. Real hinge of history stuff. Yet no one even hints at it.

And I wish someone would get this issue, this do we really think we're gonna grow forever issue, out in public. Because the time is coming when the climate vs. comfort question has to get answered - when some combination of economic and political pressures forces a decision about whether we backslide to dirty energy or suck it up and do the hard work it takes to transcend the carbon lifestyle for real. And when that day comes it would be nice to have a president with the backbone to make the hard choice.