Another possible reason for the Bush administration to favor high
prices for oil is that such prices increase the value of the assets
owned by certain Bush supporters.
This does not contradict the possibility that Bush himself fears that
a portion of his supporters would be put off by photographs of him at
some party before he was `born again'.
It does explain why people other than Bush support support Bush's
actions.
Indeed, just yesterday I read an article that said that high oil
prices benefit the United States. In short, high oil prices increase
the value of oil-based assets, such as banks with loans to oil
companies, more than they depress everything else. Moreover, the cost
of the resulting shift in the distribution of income is less than the
overall increase in asset values.
In addition, ignoring the future becomes less relevant if you presume
an interest rate based on the increase in value of oil-based assets
since Bush entered the presidency in 2001. The future is discounted.
This is especially true if your understanding of climate change is
that it may well lead to Europeans freezing and you are not European,
if it leads to Russians having trouble and you are not Russian, if it
leads to Latin American immigrants to Florida drowning and you are not
Latin American, but you and your children are asset-rich Texans.
However, you and your children can continue to be rich in oil-based
assets only by preventing oil from dropping in price as it did in the
1980s. This means US government action both in the US and abroad. It
means that Bush supporters who own oil-based assets find it crucial to
prevent inexpensive alternative sources of energy from becoming
common.
It means that Bush supporters who own oil-based assets must convince
others who do not own such assets to support them; hence the
importance of framing cuts in the investment in children or bridges as
the equivalent of relief from illness, as in the phrase `tax relief',
rather than as cuts in future smarts or future transport.
Favoring high oil prices means that Bush and his supporters are
neither stupid nor disloyal to their beliefs, but that their beliefs
are different from others.
Also, such a view means the destruction of the beliefs of the US
Founding Fathers as codified in the US Constitution since that form of
government requires that groups with differing interests work out how
to act united.
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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