Defiantone.com

It is quite hard to find humor in my life here but there are a few things that make me laugh - daily - in Iraq. I took a few photos today of some things that make you laugh or just say huh? So, without any further delay, here they are.

This is a random bumper sticker stuck on a random room - and it makes me laugh every day. Its a shame this isn’t a real trailer park because we’d have overweight slobs sitting in kiddie pools drinking PBR all day long.

This sign has always seemed a little odd - as if we didn’t pay quite enough to the contractor to get it right. I thought about it for a while and the angle of the walker makes it look like they are trying to sneak across the road. Caution - people sneaking across the road! BEWARE!

For reference - here is a normal crosswalk sign

I looked a little closer at the image and noticed why he was sneaking

Damn, that guy is some brand of mutant! Look! He’s got lobster claws for hands! It’s no wonder he’s trying to sneak across the road - I now know why we should exercise caution - you don’t want to piss of a guy with lobster claw hands!

Look! It’s an oxymoron. You’ll see a sign that says “high noise area - hearing protection required” within two feet of “Silent Power.” uhhh…. yeah…. This is one of the MANY diesel generators spread across the base. I’m sure that most of the middle east gets their power in the same fashion and I’ve got to wonder what happens to them when they run out of oil - solar power?

Here is a shot of the sun setting - finally! It can also be used as a metaphor for my trip finally coming to an end. I’ve got less than 2 days left here and then I start the long trip home - I can’t wait to get back.

I’m not in the mood to write a full post so I’m going to give you a file and a couple of links. First off is the best appeal to an Article 15 punishment that I’ve ever seen. Its well worth the read - I had a feeling that I wasn’t the only sarcastic ass in the Air Force.

Next up is an writer that looks at our nation and its productivity if we completely eliminated obesity. Its more editorial than fact but she does bring the work of a few economists into the mix. Its an interesting read thats worth checking out.

Last is an article about corn and how it is and isn’t impacting the cost of food and gasoline in our country. For some reason, as an Iowa native, I feel compelled to write about corn whenever I get a chance. My home state only stands in the spotlight once in a great while. Most Americans only hear about Iowa once every four years during the Caucus. It’s a shame that most of them are still unable to point it out on a map.

In an influential 1932 essay, Lionel Robbins defined economics as “the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” (from Wikipedia)

I read a fascinating article about our current economic “woes” and it turns out fear is more of a factor than short supply. Simply because we desire them more they become more “scarce” causing the price to rise exponentially.

Congress and the White House have tried to help out our economy by giving creating an economic stimulus package that should hit most of our bank accounts within the next week. This was hardly the correct solution as our problems were created, in part at least,.by an economy that went from a traditional supply and demand model to one of scarcity. There has been quite a bit of fighting between the parties and the branches in an attempt to play the blame game. This year is charged with politics and I can see both sides using any fodder available to put their party into a more favorable light.

Gas prices have risen greatly in the past year because we have placed an increasing amount of desire for the fuel to keep our lives normal. We have placed a priority on fuel and as such we’ve seen the prices rise through the roof. Supply has dropped by a small amount but speculation has lead to dramatic price increases. I wrote about somebody talking about the futures market a few months ago talking about the rising price of oil - he couldn’t see the logic in the market. I don’t think there was any logic - we’re seeing a market that is being driven by fear. Fear is anything but rational. It is a reactionary impulse that causes us to hoard and make quick judgments. We fail to completely think through the problem.

The media fails to help our situation as they feed us with line after line of diatribe causing us to grow increasingly more paranoid about the situation. Its a shame that there little wrong to begin with. A state news organization is not the correct direction to head but we should ask more from the media. Sure, they’re in a business and they’re going to try and drive a profitable and addictive story that will keep readers and listeners coming back, but, they’ve got to show a little more responsibility.

Yes, there are more factors involved than a scarcity economy and yes - this is part socialism and economics but its probably the root of current ill. It’s a shame there isn’t much we can do about it.

read more | digg story

I found another interesting article on high gas prices written by a PhD candidate in Economics saying that gas prices are right where they should be. The falling dollar surely doesn’t help but he may be right - then again - I don’t trust much of anything found on the internet without seeing raw figures. Here’s an excerpt

But taxes have not stayed the same. The tax per gallon of gas in 1950 was roughly 1.5% of the price. Today, federal, state, and local taxes account for approximately 20% of gas’s posted price. Taking inflation and the increase in taxes into account (assuming no change in supply or demand) the same gallon of gas that cost 30 cents in 1950 should today cost about $3.13.

Read the rest here

If you’ve been paying attention - we’re paying more for many of the things that we use daily. The rising cost of oil impacts the cost of transportation, consumer goods, and food. Companies are trying to cut costs wherever possible while trying to retain the most talented and hardworking individuals. Some would blame the war for our economy that is in a downturn. Everything is linked - I read a few articles and found myself hitting CTRL-B five times and I thought it was worth sharing. Each is tied to the other; lets hope that I can explain what I mean.

According to recent polls many Americans have stated that they have felt that it has been much harder to “get ahead.” Our standards of “ahead” have changed since the days when my father was growing up in the 60’s. I’m going to guess that getting an education, having shelter, a good family life, and something (anything except mustard greens) to eat. Times were tough but if you were to persevere you could make a better life for the next generation and hopefully yourself in the process. Now we demand consumer goods as a measure of how well we are doing. Measures of American success include an car (or two), a house, high speed internet, and cable TV. Without these things many believe that they are failing in the race to get ahead. We’re demanding more than ever while overlooking the basics. I’m going to go out on a limb but maybe we should be looking for a little less - check out the full text at the Washington Post.

Some who claim they are having trouble would point the finger at the ever rising costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the increasing price of gasoline. While the cost of the war far exceeds most if not all of the original estimates we’ve paid for most of it with credit. Its been added to our national debt and will probably remain for years to come - the price of oil is increasing rapidly due to increased consumption in America and in south east Asia in places like China and India. Companies outside of OPEC control have made few if any significant discoveries in recent years. It takes a considerable amount of time to find a sizable cache of carbon deposits, negotiate drilling rights, and remove them for refining and delivery. Simply put, even if there are reserves available we may not find them before demand outstrips supply. We have plenty of oil to last for the next 20 years but there has been rampant speculation of what will happen if consumption continues to increase at the current rates. If we cannot find additional reserves we might have a problem - we might find ourselves in a global energy crisis. (I hate the word crisis because I feel as if I am on a cable news network where EVERYTHING is a crisis). The futures market has seen this and that is why we are experiencing the recent increase in oil prices - sure - they could have seen this years ago but its happening now. I wonder if they took off their rose colored glasses at some point in the last two years and saw the error of their ways - the end result of their revelation is that we’re paying for it.

We can do our part to consume less but its going to take a concentrated effort. If we were to determine car insurance premiums based upon the number of miles that we drive we could leverage our savings against those who drive everywhere. They would be forced to consume less simply because they would be unable to afford all of the driving. Enacting immediate changes in MPG requirements and subsidizing companies that reduce consumption while taxing those that use heavily could help. The economic impact of such a decision can hardly be measured by me, but, it’s on the table.

Everything is tied together - change is going to impact our ability to “get by” and may impact our quality of life. We cannot continue to increase consumption at current rates or we are going to see a bubble - a big bubble - and only the those with the most resources in the end will be able to survive.

I wrote about ethanol a few days ago - and today I wrote about oil on How I loathe thee. Feel free to check it out - I think I’m on to something.

The American dream is to consume and we do it better than almost any other nation. Lately, prices have risen sharply on an item we all use - oil. We are consuming oil at an alarming rate and despite legislation to increase the gas mileage on cars we are pushing record levels of consumption. As a result of the spike and the lack of new refinery construction we have seen prices at the pump rise to record highs. We have sought ways to make ourselves more energy dependent and one of those ways is through biofuels. The most popular biofuel is ethanol - a product that is grown and produced in my alma mater, Iowa.

So - you’re probably wondering - what the heck is my problem with energy independence? Nothing. I believe that if we reduce our dependence on foreign oil our economic and political decisions will be based more on our needs than those of an other nation. Its a good thing for national security and stability to control our energy prices.

So - you’re probably still wondering - whats my problem with biofuels? That answer is slightly more involved. In order to offset the carbon needed to produce ethanol we are actually polluting more than we are saving by growing the fuel and converting it. Growing cellulose based fuel isn’t as efficient as other types of ethanol (ethyl-alcohol). If we had the appropriate climate, we should be growing as much sugar cane as we possibly can - and I say this with a caveat - we don’t want to do this and negatively impact the environment or food prices as we are currently seeing with traditional ethanol production. Why sugar cane? - it provides larger quantities of fuel while using fewer acres of land and resources to grow. I read an interesting piece at Time magazine and found the following excerpt.

Why is so much money still being poured into such a misguided enterprise? Like the scientists and environmentalists, many politicians genuinely believe biofuels can help decrease global warming. It makes intuitive sense: cars emit carbon no matter what fuel they burn, but the process of growing plants for fuel sucks some of that carbon out of the atmosphere. For years, the big question was whether those reductions from carbon sequestration outweighed the “life cycle” of carbon emissions from farming, converting the crops to fuel and transporting the fuel to market. Researchers eventually concluded that yes, biofuels were greener than gasoline. The improvements were only about 20% for corn ethanol because tractors, petroleum-based fertilizers and distilleries emitted lots of carbon. But the gains approached 90% for more efficient fuels, and advocates were confident that technology would progressively increase benefits.

What should we do with ethanol production in the future - spend more money on research. Food prices have risen sharply and we have seen the start of a global food shortage. Many countries, that depend on our surplus food, have seen prices rise sharply as more of our output was diverted to fuel production. Hopefully, these countries will quickly increase their agriculture production and avert a crisis. They might do as some farmers in Brazil have done and grow food for fuel - thus compounding the problem. You can read a further detailed explanation of the issues at Time magazine.

Ok, I had some free time on my hands after watching the Drake Bulldogs getting beat at the buzzer - by a three pointer no less - so I let my imagination run wild for a few minutes. Eventually, I needed to call in reinforcements to reel it back in but I had traveled down an interesting bunny trail. Oil prices are high and gas prices are the highest I’ve ever seen them. What can we do to lower oil prices in the short term while looking for a long term energy solution?

If you’ve read Atlas Shrugged you’ll know that you can’t always win when trying to do something for the “public good.” In the book, the government decided to nationalize D’Anconia Copper and found, much to their dismay, that it had already been dismantled and that nothing was left. They got too greedy for their own good and took everything away from those who worked for it in pursuit of a socialist state. A few revolted and set up a unique society where each earned his own - and charity was never given. We could find that if we take over the oil industry that there may be nothing left - we could have already reached Hubbert’s Peak - the point in which oil production will only decrease because we have used 50% of the available reserves.

My thought was what would happen if we nationalized the US oil industry? There isn’t much precedent for the nationalization of an industry in the United States and through my research I only found two examples. During WWI we nationalized the rail industry but promptly privatized it following the end of the war. The other example is of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Following the 9-11 attacks in NY City, the private run airport security industry was transferred to government control. Both were done in due to a national interest and only one of the two returned to private control. Venezuela recently privatized Exxon and took control of the production facilities within its border. While they only control a fraction of the market for oil they have leveraged it to create more strain on the system - thus raising prices.

Can we nationalize an industry in America by force? No - we’ve got to provide adequate compensation for the industry in accordance with UN Laws

In 1962, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1803, “Permanent Sovereignty over National Resources,” which states that in the event of nationalization, the owner “shall be paid appropriate compensation in accordance with international law.” In doing so, the UN rejected both the traditional Calvo-doctrinist view and the Communist view. The term “appropriate compensation” represents a compromise between the traditional views, taking into account the need of developing countries to pursue reform even without the ability to pay full compensation, and the Western concern for protection of private property.

Occasionally, the nationalization of an industry does not work to the advantage of the public as it can lead to corruption and the downfall of the industry. Mexico nationalized Pemex and it has been a failure ever since. Since the government took over they have not explored for more sites or increased production on existing sites. In fact, the company is now 42 billion dollars in debt in an age of ever increasing oil prices. Bad management? Possibly - but there is much more to the equation - and I’m not going to dig into it.

Arguments for the corruption of the oil industry run rampant. I found an interesting take on rising oil prices at Seeking Alpha

- the author is talking about how the futures market creates some interesting questions - here is an excerpt

So what did happen? Well the traitors cancelled 117,558,000 barrels of oil, that’s 29M barrels A WEEK from October delivery in order for the weather girl on CNBC to be able to tell you every Wednesday at 10:30 how tight supplies are. And what did they do with those barrels? The same thing they do every month, they “roll” the contracts into the forward months, creating a false demand there for oil they never intend to accept delivery of and they have done it EVERY SINGLE MONTH FOR THE PAST 2 YEARS!
But, they are not done…

Were the traitors traders to accept delivery of the 171,442,000 barrels of oil that are still open today, BARRELS THAT THEY HAVE ALREADY BILLED YOU FOR, it would create the biggest glut of oil in US history and crash the oil markets. So these traitors traders will, in the next 4 days, CANCEL ANOTHER 130M BARRELS OF CRUDE and slip the majority of them into the next 3 months in order to create the perception that there is, simultaneously, a record demand and a tight current supply

Responses were varied but few agreed with him

The author, who seems to be totally unfamiliar with the workings of futures markets, is welcome to his misconceptions, but does not deserve space in this forum.

Wow - what’s next? Black helicopters?

Hillary has either made a flub or a direct statement that she supports the nationalization of the oil industry - your interpretation will determine your opinion. I’ve highlighted and italicized the important tidbit

The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will actually begin to move us in the direction of independence

Obviously your interpretation of her “taking those profits” means quite a bit in this situation. I don’t really agree with her thought of directly taking the profits but profiteering is killing us all. Taking over an US owned industry would be monumental and could have epic repercussions.

I found a few links to others making arguments for the nationalization of the oil industry - you can check out the arguments at the Huffington Post and at Pww.org

Ok - the bottom line - should we? No - we couldn’t afford to give them adequate compensation. What we should do is to stop all tax subsidies for the oil industry despite the fact that it could cause a short term increase in the price we pay at the pump. We should make a concentrated effort to expand research into alternative energy as we made a national effort to get to the moon in the mid-twentieth century.

As I am sure you are all well aware, The Baker Commission finally released its report on the state of Iraq and potential strategies for resolving the conflict we find ourselves embroiled in. Two of the main ideas from the plan include using diplomacy to request help from Iran and Syria and to start pulling our troops out within the next fifteen months.

The president, who is only one man, decided to ignore what a panel of highly educated individuals had to say. I watched part of the CSPAN news feed and he said (roughly quoted) “These are some very good ideas”. He might as well have reached down beneath his chair and grabbed some feces to throw at those who came up with the recommendations. His sarcasm was all too apparent throughout the press conference. It seems to me that when GW hears something that he wishes not to, he ignores it outright.

I’m relatively uneducated in foreign affairs and all of the ins and outs with some of the nations that we refuse to deal with. What if we reversed direction and began to deal with these nations. How quickly would that begin to improve the international opinion of our country if we conceded to being stalwarts against them and tried to unify our efforts with theirs. Lets face it, everybody wants something different but I think that we all want peace so we can stop the bloodshed. If we came out and said lets stop the fighting and I will except your organization we might come out of this fine in the end. If we continue to be defiant to the wishes of the community in the mid-east and the international community as a whole we are bound to further isolate ourselves as a nation and as a people.

Yesterday it was released that America is now one of the more undesirable places to visit because of our tough visa and travel restrictions. We should be doing all that we can to streamline the process to let people visit our great nation. We should be doing everything we can to ensure that we have a positive image in the international community.

Before you think that I’m a bleeding heart liberal that thinks that everything can be resolved by giving each other hugs you would be incorrect. This situation requires a lot of caution, analysis, and forethought before we do anything. We must do something and it must be a change from the current course to effect any positive outcome.

Read more on the situation at the NY Times

From the NY Times I found something that made me smile… you guessed it, I’m hanging out in left field. Lets see if they can make good on their goals

In the Capitol, Ms. Pelosi vowed to use the first 100 hours of the new Congress to push through what Democrats dubbed their “Six for ’06” agenda.

That program includes calls to raise the minimum wage, repeal subsidies for oil companies and incentives for companies to send jobs overseas, cut interest rates on student loans, give the government the authority to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices, and expand opportunities for embryonic stem cell research. On one of those issues, the minimum wage, Mr. Bush signaled there was room for a deal, as he also did on immigration.”