Dear Jay,
One of your quotes captured my interest. It follows:
In 1983, the Treasury Department did a secret study that the
optimum oil price for the US economy was about $20 a barrel.
[p. 141]
One of the problems with economic numbers is that $20 in 1983, does not
represent the same value as $20 in 1997. I don't want to spend the time
looking up the difference, but assuming an inflation rate of 2% a year for
the last 15 years, then a barrel of oil should definitely be higher than
the current $19 plus figure quoted in the financial news.
Now, in part, the American miracle of the only economy in the world to have
full employment has to have some relationship to the fact that the price of
their domestic fuel is considerably lower than anyone else's except for the
actual countries producing the oil. This has been one of the perks of
power which has allowed the US to buy cheap oil and not use the tax system
to increase it's retail price which most other governments have done for
revenue and disincentive. I recently was talking with a person from
Botswana and he informed me that they pay $5.50 per litre Canadian. At
that rate, it would cost about $400 to fill up a pickup. It is somewhat
obvious that costs such as these against American costs of approx. .40 per
litre give a mighty big comparative advantage.
Quote from same post:
Obviously, once oil production peaks in a couple of years, the
public will throw their total support behind an invasion of Iraq.
There is simply no other way we can guarantee access to the oil
patch.
I'm impressed, this scheme is really quite clever. I wouldn't
have thought they were that smart. <G>
I suppose one of the naive assumptions that a Canadian makes is that
Americans are not this devious and that there is still enough marginal
integrity in the system to prevent a conspiracy of this size. I agree,
with your oft stated comment, that Americans have the best politicians that
money can buy, but are they bad enough to think they can get away with this
kind of mega planning. After all, this is not secret if I can read it on a
list. Surely other governments would not be party to this degree of self
interest on the part of America? I would also like to differentiate
between "smartness" and "cunning". There is no doubt that cunning
individuals can be led into this kind of planning but it is not smart.
Having reread my post, I think this type of cunning was also present in the
NAFTA Agreement negotiated between our two countries and I would like to
think that the possibility of Canada giving notice and or calling for a
renegotiation is still a strong possibility - however we have to worry
about our "elite" who feel quite comfortable with your manipulators.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
