The battle over budget cuts has become, in its own way, the national Wisconsin. The administration and Congress have failed to reach an agreement over funding government spending over fundamental differences in budgetary policy. If the Democrat controlled Senate cannot accept the Republican-generated budget, it could lead to a government shutdown. The situation resembles a giant game of “chicken” in which two opposing players rush at each other at fatal speed. If neither side gives way, both crash into each other. If one side turns “chicken” and swerves from the road, the other gets the right of way.
The emphasis of media coverage has been on the shutdown. Democratic Senator Steny Hoyer says the root of the crisis is because the Republicans want to shut down the Government.
Hoyer said he was concerned of reports that a number of House Republicans applauded an announcement from party leadership that they were taking some initial steps to prepare for a potential shutdown. Such a response, Hoyer said, “is reflective of the sentiment of a large number of Republicans that they want to shut down the government.”
Republican House Speaker John Boehner also focuses on the shutdown aspect. He claims the Democrats are holding current government operations hostage in exchange for assurances that unaffordable spending will continue. But the emphasis is still on the tactical aspects. A meeting at the White House failed to produce a compromise agreement and Boehner was at pains to deflect the fallout from a failure to enact a budget.
“The Speaker told the president that the House will not be put in a box and forced to choose between two options that are bad for the country (accepting a bad deal that fails to make real spending cuts, or accepting a government shutdown due to Senate inaction),” according to the release from Boehner’s office.
The tactical situation is certainly important. Both sides are trying to avoid the political blame for any public inconvenience over the budget clash. The Republican tack has been to allow the Administration to spend money, but only in exchange for tax cuts in programs they believe have little support. Thus they can disavow the shutdown. The Democrats have responded by opting for a surrender-or-die approach: either the Republicans capitulate and accept a comprehensive offer or the shutdown looms.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday that the president would prefer a long-term deal, rather than a week-by-week “toll booth” approach to the budget.
“It is counterproductive, we think, to assume that we have to negotiate a short-term CR when we have an agreement on the table that can be reached for the full fiscal year,” Carney said.
The Democrats may believe a shutdown will be blamed on the Republicans because that approach served President Clinton well in his face-off against Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990s. But the times may have changed. With the country in troubled economic times and a widespread awareness of the dangers of the deficit, the threat of a government shutdown, especially when a short-term continuation is on the table for the taking, may no longer work to the Democrat advantage.
But while coverage has been all about the shutdown, the fight is about something far bigger. In the medium term, at potential political stake is the Senate, which Reuters reports the Democrats must struggle to hold. Twenty three of 33 Democrat seats are up for grabes in 2012. The Republicans only have to gain a net of four to control the upper house. At risk too are President Obama’s re-election chances. These prospects may be decisively determined by the budget battles of 2011.
But both the short and medium-term effects are secondary to the real clash. At issue is whether government will continue to expand or start to shrink. Fiscally, there is little doubt the deficit must be cut. The Congressional Budget Office painted an unequivocal picture of a deficit strangling the economy and literally delivering its assets to foreign creditors.
The rising debt would reduce the size of the domestic capital stock (businesses’ equipment and structures as well as housing) and decrease U.S. ownership of assets in other countries while increasing foreign ownership of assets in the United States. Those changes would slow the growth of gross national product (GNP) and, as the debt burden rose, could eventually lead to a decline in economic output. The effects would be most striking under the alternative fiscal scenario. In CBO’s estimation, the increase in debt under that scenario would reduce the capital stock by more than 20 percent and real GNP by 9 percent in 2035, compared with the levels that would occur if the debt remained roughly at its current size relative to the economy
The deficit would continue to rise, even if interest charges were suddenly to vanish by magic, principally because the government was spending more and more each year on Medicare and Medicaid. Obamacare would add $1.2 trillion to the deficit over 20 years. Everybody knows this, but taking on the real problem is so dangerous no one has seriously risked it until now.
Non-interest spending over time
The Republican budget proposal surprisingly takes the Medicare and Medicaid issues head on and transfers spending power to the states. It challenges the big-government basis of the Democratic Party and its emphasis on Federal government. That makes the budget fight not only about appropriations for this year but for the political and fiscal future of the country. That Ryan has tried this at all is testament to the desperation of the times. In previous decades the Congressman would have been struck down by electoral lightning and left shriveled on the ground. That he is still alive and talking is bad news for the Democrats, who according to the NYT, will fall on their swords rather than agree. To lose would be to abandon the very premise of Democrat ideology. Therefore they will fight. They have no choice.
Under the proposal, Medicaid would be transformed into a block grant, with a lump sum of federal money given to the states to care for low-income people. States would be given more discretion over use of the money than they have under the current federal-state partnership.
For future Medicare beneficiaries — people now under 55 — Mr. Ryan’s proposal calls for the federal government to contribute a specified amount of money toward the premium for private health coverage. Under the traditional Medicare program, the government reimburses doctors and hospitals directly….
Democrats signaled that they would fight the health proposals, and the clash could well become a defining issue for both parties in the 2012 elections. …
There is almost no chance the Democratic-controlled Senate would adopt a resolution along the lines Mr. Ryan is proposing, although his counterpart in the Senate, Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is working on a bipartisan plan to address entitlement spending as part of a broader package to reduce the budget deficit.
Paul Ryan’s gambit is a bold but reactive. The proximate cause of the meeting engagement was the huge political wager placed by Barack Obama himself in the form of Obamacare. The President’s proposal was so huge it bid fair to transform the country permanently. The Republicans either had to call the bet or leave the game. Ryan is banking on a growing public perception that Obama’s change was really a catastrophic one. Like the game of chicken there is now no room for both vehicles to pass side by side. Either one keeps the road or both collide head on. Now both sides have made a political commitment so large that defeat over the issue will be decisive for either side. If Ryan’s ploy succeeds, big government will be seriously wounded. If it fails, then deficit-funded government is the future of America.
The administation’s advantage lies in the slow-acting but nevertheless fatal effect of the deficit poison. A government shutdown would produce immediate pain to which a Republican surrender would produce palliative relief. On the other hand, a reduction in the deficit would bring instant discomfort which only be offset by a gradual and sustainable improvement. All the tactical advantages in the coming fight lie with the Democrats. There is therefore a political limit to which the Republicans can slash at the deficit without yielding. What they can achieve within those bounds is their chief problem.
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i agree. hopefully, the GOP will not back down.
i am sick of hearing excuses, after all, we have heard nothing but how broke we are, from both parties, and now we have rayan’s plan to fix it. stay focused GOP don’t give in.
i pray that we, as a nation, pull through this and get back on track.
a word to the democrats, get out of the way and let intelligent people do their job.
Wretchard said:
“Paul Ryan’s gambit is a bold one, but in a sense he has no choice. Ryan is mirroring the earlier wager placed by Barack Obama in the form of Obamacare, a proposal so huge that it bid fair to either create a permanent Democratic majority or ruin the country. Now both sides have made a political commitment so large that defeat over the issue will be decisive for either side. If Ryan’s ploy succeeds, big government will be seriously wounded. If it fails, then deficit-funded government is the future of America.”
Obviously, deficit-funded government represents a very **short** future for America. By some measures, the federal government is already insolvent. Currently, they’re keeping the system alive through money printing. That’s equivalent to a car with a shot engine coasting on inertia. Eventually the car’s kinetic energy turns into heat and it stops moving.
However, shutting down the government is a dangerous tactic. The economic system is currently very brittle. A government shutdown could trigger a stock market crash. I should add that a stock market crash might be a “good thing” because we need to clear out the bad debt and insolvent banks. However that pain of that process will be extreme. Also, having a stock market crash during a government shutdown might trigger a domino effect with unforeseen consequences.
I guess that our President was so bored by the results of the “conversation” that his bipartisan fiscal commission that he chose to ignore all of their recommendations. So let’s talk some more instead.
Th GOP has to go into full campaign mode with a narrative on the budget issues. Their biggest problem is going to be dealing with the reflexive reaction of a likely majority of Americans to what they will perceive — at first blush — as a “threat” to entitlements they have become used to.
Republicans need to find effective ways to defuse those concerns, and they need to do so quickly.
I don’t have much confidence in their ability to pull off a successful narrative on the entitlements. Too many Americans want someone else’s budget priorities cut
I am having a very irritating problem with the edit feature (maybe another browser will do the trick).
Americans are terrible at budget math, as are Democrats. They have no idea what budget allocations are, and they want magic. This is very unfortunate, because even with the obvious worries by enough Americans to put the House back in GOP hands, they still don’t get what it takes to cut the budget effectively.
One efective GOP narrative could be to remind Americans of how a Democrat, Clinton, working with the GOP, was able to trim and balance the budget.
We need to stop using carbon-based energy sources and launch ourselves back into the stone age because adding more CO2 to the atmosphere might cause us to all fry up like Venus.
I don’t see this as the last, final chance to avoid social destruction. If the GOP fails this season, the problems will just get worst and the pain sharper. This issue will NOT go away.
Eventually, the voters will have to decide.
As my recent fortune cookie read, “Let reality be reality.”
This is our acid test, to see what kind of government we really have. I suspect cuts will be made, but only to services to the middle class, leaving government employees and whatever slush funds are maintained for the Democratic base untouched.
Pay me now, or pay me later.
Or both.
Shutdown, Meltdown, Smackdown or more Shakedown?
Fasten your seat belts and hold tight, it will continue to be a bumpy ride…
A MEETING ENGAGEMENT
We have had meeting engagements before, and the result was decisive. In July of 1863, near the little Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg, two armies met head-on with the sound of boulders colliding, and when it was over one held the high ground and the other retreated, not to rise again. And so it is with the coming budget battle. On one side is the fight for slavery to the government, with deficits and economic destruction the immediate consequence of victory. On the other side is freedom.
The artist has captured the fury and sound
On canvas with strokes of his brush
The butternut line and the long stretch of ground
The stone wall they’d take with a rush
The names still ring loud, Pickett, Longstreet and Meade
Jeb Stuart and Reynolds and Hill
Marse Robert so calm on his gray painted steed
Convinced ‘twas a matter of will
And yes so it was, and yes so it is still
The names will ring down ever more
Will we have the false dawn of a Chancellorsville
Or will Gettysburg freedom ensure
If the GOP compromise on the budget they are toast. I fail to understand why compromise is considered a good thing. Is it OK to spend us into poverty if we do it just a little? Would compromise with Hitler would have been OK? I can see it in my mind( OK you can kill 3 million Jews not 7 million, you can have Poland but not France. What then do you come home and declare victory?) Compromise in Congress is the act of a coward. Programs like the new health care bill are not within the Federal Government’s Constitutional enumerated powers. If we compromise we will loose out Constitutional protections from an overbearing government.
Over there in the shadows, watching the show, leering, is . . . The Bond Market.
The key asset is the podium.
It is essential that the absolute insanity of the Resident’s budget dream gets more air time.
Further, the Money Trust ™ and its influence needs to be exposed.
The Democrat Party has out corrupted the GOP.
13. Capn Rusty
“We are the chorus and we agree.”
In my location in North Dallas, TX, the anecdotal tales are full of anger about the price of everything and what is called under employment. If you speak of low inflation people growl at you. If it comes to it, it looks like the grief of a shut down now will be acceptable, if it will stop and drop the “actual” inflation.
If the combined polling data is an accurate indicator the Republicans have more to gain from a shut down than the Democrats do. As Chris Christie said, “I cut spending and my popularity increased.”
I hope that the cuts go through and that Soros takes it in his “shorts.”
“It is essential that the absolute insanity of the Resident’s budget dream gets more air time”
Hey no kidding. It seems like only a few months ago we were being bombarded with daily lectures from ma Pelosi. Is Boehner taking his case to the American people or should we all sit down and relax because the “experts” are doing what it takes?
I rather go down in flames trying to do the right thing than slowly starve to death leaving my hope that Uncle Joe is going to save us. Set the way back machine to “too big to fail” and fo-get about it.
Shutdown, Meltdown, Smackdown, back down, or more Shakedown?
Shutdown is exactly what we want (even if it comes in the form of the Perjorative, fear inducing, “Shutdown!”), and is in fact, exactly what we are aiming for, especially when you consider what fact is always left out. Mainly, that essential services will continue to be funded.
So what if it’s the payroll department that goes out on strike, and takes the checkbook with them this time?
Let’s see what dems, particularly in senate think when they get a taste of their own tactics, and must go on record.
0bama and his administration know they’ve lost the election they are jockeying for, because they’ve lost the ‘independents’ and ‘moderates’ (the suckers) they picked up last time.
More importantly, 0bama has left the senate out twisting in the wind, and, if/when we’ve called their bluff, forced to fight 0bama’s battles for him.
It’s 24 dems in senate who face re-election next year, and they do not want this thing to go further; they need this to be over, and “compromised” as soon as possible so as to get them off the hook.
They’ve opened the borders wider with new rules not to detain illegals. They need these bodies, quickly,quickly–for the voting roles, for the entitlement lists, for decisive help in this battle.
That the USG would not be willing to take a 10% haircut is hopey, changy greed and malice aforethought. This would fix everything and everyone knows it.
NYT: “Mr. Ryan’s proposal calls for the federal government to contribute a specified amount of money toward the premium for private health coverage.”
Dammit, it’s not a federal government “contribution”! It’s a payroll deduction from my paycheck! How many ways do I hate the NYT? Let me count the ways.
Forgotten Man: “If the GOP compromise on the budget they are toast. I fail to understand why compromise is considered a good thing.”
On the other hand, the GOP can strategically retreat and say to the electorate that in order to do the real work, i.e., Ryan’s budget, they need to elect a GOP Senate and president. No need for a Gettysburg at this time. Shutdown is ugly, with delayed checks, etc., whereas a Ryan budget is a plan to implement according to a schedule.
btw, Steny Hoyer: representative, not senator.
I think Dick Morris ( before he dicks you) had it correct. Go thru and defund agencies that you don’t like and are not very popular. Agencies that have overstayed their welcome. That will force the Senate to get off the pot. Either they agree to defund certain agencies or THEY shut down the gobermint.
You cannot eliminate enough agencies to save America, but like a B-17 with two engines shot out and half the crew wounded, every pound thrown out of the plane means a little closer to base. Getting the Senate to admit there is a problem and spending HAS to be cut is another pound overboard. Another few feet closer to base.
Obomination doesn’t sign the bill and he is toast. Burnt, crumbly, bottom of the toaster for months toast.
If that is true Mel, and I thinnk it is, isn’t gov abrogating its prime repsonsibility? and if so, does that not mean that our gov, populated as it is now, illegal and illigitimate? You don’t get to pick and choose your laws and favorite passages of the constitution do you? It is either whole or it does not exist. Troubling times.
“Go thru and defund agencies that you don’t like”
My vote is for the rural electrification administration. Enacted through executive order by FDR in 1935 to provide the necessary electrical wiring and infrastructure to rural communities and farms, it was amended to include provisions of NAFTA in 1993. At some point it was swept under the US Department of Agriculture.
I can’t find anything that show that it was sunseted. It shows, rather obliquely that once enacted no law or agency will ever complete its purpose. It will just morph into a new one.
Here’s another one: peanut farming restrictions.
With NAFTA they’re redundant. Skippy is getting top quality peanuts from Canada these days. Now you know why.
If you polled all Government workers they would be overwhelming in favor of a shutdown.
Reason: In the past they always get paid for the days they didn’t “work”.
How about annual shutdown of the Federal Government every March (Spring Break) without pay? This along with a policy of no new hires for the next five years might bring this beast under control.
FDR is still at it:
Flash forward: how are rural communities doing today? We’re back where we started. “Just as it was then, the rural economy is weak and more volatile than the urban economy,” she notes. “Again we have the forgotten Americans.” The answer? A modern-day WPA to put people to work and bring rural areas what they need: broadband, better roads, better schools, better drinking water, access to child care and family planning. She concludes: “History shows that the time to act is now.”
They forgot to mention reparations for homosexual farmers, but it is a start.
Link
Shamless dirt bags. All in the name of the children and dirt farmers. BTW – My uncle farms corn in Iowa. Let me tell you, ethanol has been berry-berry good to him.
Its a long way down the rabbit hole. God knows what parasitic entities inhabit the wonderland of government spending. I bet it gets curiouser and curiouser.
http://www.peanutbureau.ca/canada/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.page&pid=43
General Petraeus is headed for the CIA. That means Afghanistan is going to be one more piece of unfinished business, like Pakistan and Egypt and Libya and Syria and Iran and Iraq and the deficit. There’s no closure anywhere. It’s just keep kicking the can down the road.
The only thing the President appears to be interested in re-election. He’s declared early. So the stage is set. If the face-off with Congress gets really intractable or worse, if Ryan looks set to win, then the President will probably employ the equivalent of the Wisconsin tactics to get his way by any means necessary.
The stakes are just too high not to. The inner logic of Obama politics is the same as Daley politics. Sacrifice everything, ruin the city if necessary, sell the proceeds of parking meters into the next century, if need be, to get one more term.
What Daley had going for him was that Chicago could get energy from the outside to subsidize its failures. Obama operates on so global a scale that there’s nothing that can bail him out. Federal bankruptcy has no appeal to anything. Even printing money won’t help in the end. The bond markets will see to that.
So unlike Daley, Obama is heading for a crisis from which there is no escape. His style of governance, which is to manage the message while leaving the actual problem to fester, is storing up a reservoir of negative energy which sooner or later has to be released.
The safe bet then is that a crisis, or series of crises, will take place between now and 2012, both domestically and internationally from which there will be no remission. Even if Ryan’s efforts fail, or he is, as is certainly possible, demonized by the media, the problem will be back redoubled in force. Because there’s no real “give” in the politics of Obama (the budget is an example: his way or nothing) the collapse when it comes will be sharp and sudden.
This is actually in nobody’s interest. The whole idea of democracy is to make transitions continuous but gradual.
One place where the system may start to unravel is fuel prices. Nearly 80% of respondents of a recent poll said that rising gasoline costs are forcing them to cut back on other expenses. What if prices keep rising? Along with other forms of inflation the progressive shrinking of the paycheck eventually reaches some kind of tipping point. That’s how Egypt, Tunisia and Libyan unrest got going.
Ultimately economic mismanagement becomes a real political issue when you can’t drive to work any more; when it becomes too expensive to even car-pool. At that point, real desperation sets in, when you can’t afford to work. That point has probably been reached by some low down on the totem. Then it climbs and climbs …
Unlike Chicago, no one can bail Obama out of that kind of hole. And then all the consequences of his foreign and domestic fiascos will come back to haunt him.
stuck – on stupid — is no way to go through evolution, be it biological or political
if the Central Committee – Communist – idea – what we are moving back towards now – and – as it is the Historical Norm – and almost, if not all, Nations follow some form of this Central Planing – top -down control -socialist – welfare politic – continues – we will never get out of this — stuck in decadal – generational Ground-hog day — we will just keep repeating the same error over and over and over again -
The budget showdown will be similar to a national election campaign, and to win in such campaigns, the Republicans always have to prevail over the Mainstream Media first, and the Democrats second. One of the most effective ways to achieve that is to strike at the credibility of the MSM which arises out of the increasingly thin veil of “objectivity”. In a sense, we need a ‘swift boat’ type campaign that identifies the media’s glaring hypocracy. For instance, Steeple correctly notes above that the President has ignored his own ‘bipartisan’ fiscal commission. We should be repeatedly point that out while simultaneously asking why the MSM has given Mr. Obama a “pass” on that issue – along with the “pass” they’re giving him on not even offering a budget for the past two years. Undermine the credibility of the MSM and their value as an arm of the Left dissappears.
“Paul Ryan’s gambit is a bold but reactive. The proximate cause of the meeting engagement was the huge political wager placed by Barack Obama himself in the form of Obamacare.”
As they just pointed out on Fox News, the White House response to Ryan’s budget was incredibly mild, basically saying “We agree with what he is doing but not his methods.”
That is like Hitler saying he had no problem with the Allied invasion of Normandy but that Calais would have been a better spot. Not believeable in the first place, but an indication that Hitler was beginning to notice all those USAAF bombers and fighters overhead everyday. “Maybe we do have a problem here, Goring.”
What no one mentions is that Obamacare was about saving the vast welfare program of Medicare/Medicaid. It was costing more and more and yet politicans and special interest groups demanded more and more special privilages and extras every year. It was going to go broke and yet the rate of spending was accelerating, with an inexorable series of Leftist plans in work to keep it accelerating. The answer they came up with was to co-opt even more people into it and then require everyone, especially those who did not need it, to pay greatly increased taxes to support it. It is as simple as that. Increase the number of dependents and then sit back and watch them scream for the heads of the people not absorbed by the collective. It was Oborgacare.
If there is a government shutdown, just like in 1995 we will hear about all the hardship placed on people who sell hayrides through the National Parks. And I predict no one will give a damn this time. There is plenty of unemployment and very few will care about the people who depend on nonessential government services to a make a buck.
27…
Then it’s Skippy is circumventing USDA restrictions by bottling in Canada.
BTW, not just any peanut can go into peanut butter. Only certain grades are permitted — established by the USDA.
This is another example of industry capture because the player that wanted the restriction was Corn Products.
Similar restrictions exist for anything labeled mayonnaise. Hellman’s / Best Foods Mayonnaise is mayonnaise… Way back when their rivals would try to under-cut them with ‘alternate materials’ — so the company got the government USDA/ FDA to rule that only this and that can go into a food spread labeled ‘mayonnaise.’
( Corn Products has been stripped of their ‘retail’ brands — selling out to Unilever which then cast off the original core company. Corn Products suffers from monopoly restraints because its patent wall and market clout are too much to otherwise hold back. For years and years it was the number one railroad client in the Chicago area (!) consuming 100+ carloads of corn, eggs and whatnot every day of the year. It’s output would also leave by train.)
And this is but one of the Fortune 500.
GE makes Corn Products look like a piker. The National Electrical Code + other captured government agencies are manipulated to drive the market straight towards GE’s door. For example, the industry is getting big government to phase out the incandescent light bulb. But there are many, many situations whereby incandescent is the way to go.
There was an attempt to outlaw radiant heating! That’s crazy talk. Such heating is the only back-up possible for heat-pumps. What about bathroom floor heat? De-icers? The attempt was shot down only at the last moment.
——–
As I look over the edifice that Homeland Security has become all I can see is that we’re aping the Nazis and the Soviets with a cancerous police state.
I believe that the fief impulse is so strong that given an excuse government will permit an absolutely endless metastasizing bloat of budget. Then you’re left with stories like the following.
Five top-grade union electricians employed by the City of San Francisco managed to establish their own private whorehouse on Terminal Island. But their real screwing was of the city’s taxpayers. They were billing for overtime even as they were nailing the whores! The tricks were re-billed to the city under one ruse or another.
When audited for work performed for the city it turned out that while on-call for ‘emergencies’ in fact the boyz but rarely had to actually perform any work! Of course, their Local had bargained well. Their pay was huge — over 200,000 per man between benefits, OT and base pay. They topped it up by having the city pay for their strippers and whores.
At least their joint had perfect, code compliant wiring!
“All the tactical advantages in the coming fight lie with the Democrats.”
Perhaps so, but, the Democrats are clearly ignoring one of the most important lessons of warfare: one can seemingly utilize all the “correct tactics”…and still lose the war.
The Donks are apparently only thinking tactically while Paul Ryan, in particular, is thinking strategically. IMHO, Ryan’s plan now effectively forces the Democrats to collectively fight a defensive multi-front war in fixed positions from which there can be “not a step backward.” He’s attacking from everywhere and the Democrats are full frantic “fire brigade” mode.
I’d reckon the Democrats are furthermore in a major quandry: can’t agree with Ryan, but can’t refute him either. They know something has to be done about the big entitlement programs…and PDQ. Yet their “solution” will be mostly just to pound the table, mutter “Ooooooh look, what’s that shiny thing behind you?”, and hope to hell the American public is slow-witted enough to fall for their act.
Not bloody likely this time, mate.
I got some car repairs done today, and I didn’t pay my city’s atrocious 9.4% sales tax. The vendor had me make the check out to his person, not his company. With a wink a signature and smile I saved myself almost $70, and the city majors lost their share.
Dumb f_cks!
This sort of tax avoidance is the natural outcome of government bloat. I’m just one customer in one state in one sparsely inhabited region of the country. How many millions of transactions are being conducted this way every day in the USA’s economy of 300 million strong?
Short of hiring 20 million new “tax-cops” to hassle every American vendor, something’s got to give.
And I predict it’ll be the Democrats that swerve first.
wretchard@28:
“Because there’s no real “give” in the politics of Obama (the budget is an example: his way or nothing) the collapse when it comes will be sharp and sudden.”
That is absolutely correct and is another example of why Obama’s essence is incompetence embedded inside malice. Of the problems that he has created and/or left festering, hopefully one will burst first and spread pus all over the body politic. With luck this will give a heads up and help a transition to reality.
It’s strange to think that could be rated as one of the more optimistic scenarios.
“Beware the Jubjub bird*”.
“Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression.”
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections
*H/T Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky
#24
Here’s another one: peanut farming restrictions.
Paging Jimmah. . .
Back in the 1990′s when Bill Clinton tried to play some games with financing by playing with the short term bond market…
“The power of the bond trader to influence governments once prompted James Carville, Mr. Clinton’s political strategist at the time, to say that he wished to be reincarnated as one because “you can intimidate everybody.”
Mr. Clinton may not have been intimidated, but he did heed the advice of Robert Rubin, who joined the administration from his post at the top of Goldman Sachs, that a policy of budgetary restraint would keep the bond market happy and interest rates on United States government bonds low.”
The apparent fact that Obama and his advisers are not heeding this bit of historical wisdom show that it is going to take a major slap on the face or perhaps a kick in their gonads to get their attention.
The system as it stands is unsustainable. Eggplant at #2 brings up the danger of knock-on effects, and it is a reasonable concern. I will say from an entirely selfish perspective that when we have the system crash, I hope it happens sooner rather than later, while I’m still young and strong.
Having said that, I’m left to wonder what a crash would look like in the modern day. Would the leadership (the elites in charge of business, bureaucracy, the media, the education- all with disturbingly similar attitudes and mindsets) be able to manage it any better than the muddled mess they’ve made so far when things were hardly as bad? Perhaps it would just be a slow slide and long lineups for basic staples doled out via ration cards. Perhaps it would be mass riots of the dependent classes and the attendant violent repression.
Or maybe it could be like the crash in 1920-21 in the USA, where sound policy righted both the ship of state and the economy in short order.
- The Great McGinty
Annoy Mouse #19:
Algore and one of his ivory tower professor friends came up with the Reinventing Government Act, which mandated a 30% reduction in government civilian employees. There were many problems with this legislation but the worst is that they avoided making any real decisions in DC.
Instead they just handed down a 30% cut to all agencies, who handed them on down to the lower levels. No one in DC had to make any decisions such as how many people the Agriculture Dept really needed or what the Commerce Dept was really for or if NASA needed a large downsizing such as the DoD was already going through or so forth. This made the “Reinvention” not only unrealistic but impossible to implement in many respects. For example, you close multiple large USAF bases and consolidate their operations at other bases and THEN cut the civilian workforce at the remaining bases by 30%? Or eliminate the workforce at closed bases that no longer had a mission by 100% and then cut the workforce at the bases where their missions did NOT decrease by 30%?
So the problem with the across-the-board cut approach is that DC uses it to avoid making the really needed decisions and the field ends up with an impossible situation.
the real battle begins in may when the debt ceiling must be raised.
the real shutdown is in may.
i am preparing for default.
we have less than no money.
philosophy is no match for reality.
we are broke and in debt and the bill is due.
pay up.
The real battle today was in Wisconsin. The votes are being counted now.
Prosser versus Kloppenburg may turn out to be the most significant election of the century, or not.
Game on?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576244830956034042.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_opinion
For our arguments to be taken seriously, with all due respect, I think that we have to rid default from our vocabulary. At least default in terms of repayment of Federal debt as that is in no one’s interest and is extremely unlikely over the next few months/years.
What is likely is the probability of default/renegotiation/changing the rules on entitlement holders is going way up. If there were a futures market for Medicare benefits in 20 years, I suspect that the market would discount that obligation more heavily than Portugese debt.
The default is going to, at least first, impact those with the least amount of leverage. That would be entitlement holders, not bond holders. If we can’t address the first correctly, then we need to start worrying about the second.
Steeple @45:
I think you may be forgetting some very recent history where the bond holders ended up with enormous haircuts while the “entitlement holders” got the bond holders value and a bailout at taxpayer expense. The old rules have changed, and rule of law is not the proposition it once was.
I wonder that anyone has the faith to invest in any non tangible anymore…
ARex, good point but my view is that the GM bondholders were tossed aside and weren’t needed again. Not so easy to treat the Federal bondholders the same way given the magnitude of the impact. But I grant you that it’s certainly possible.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2011/by_county/WI_Supreme_Court_0405.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS
BFtP; so far Prosser is up 2% with about 1/2 the vote counted. That shows there is a chance AND normal folks came out to vote, which means they understand how important it is. Now if it just survives the recount(s). Prosser is getting hammered in the Urban counties, where the Unions lair.
Bond traders and bond holders of US treasury bond and GM bonds are two different animals. Holders of US treasuries have options that GM bond holders didn’t. A lot of them are overseas governments or organizations and they will not take a haircut if they see it coming. Some of the larger hedge funds have already dumped US bonds. They will sell out and convert to some other currency or even gold. Oh gee! that is already happening. If the US wants to sell bonds they either have to convince bond buyers they are going to stop spending and printing money or they will have to pay enormous “risk” dividends. Of course doing the just the later will just bring the doom on faster.
The Fedsury is hyperinflating the currency already.
When the breakout/ breakdown occurs the entitled will not be able to receive a rapid enough adjustment to avoid a haircut.
Only the Money Trust ™ will be able to stay ahead.
All insurance companies will flat-line, every variation of the breed.
Electric power companies and telecommunications companies will survive intact. Their debts will vanish. The persistence of need will permit them to make it ‘across the valley.’
Critical crafts/ professions will make it — even if their financial assets will flat-line: doctors, plumbers, et. al.
Real Estate gets crushed in hyperinflation. You can’t get a mortgage from anybody so prices fall until until trades occur with quick money/ hard assets. In contrast, such visible wealth causes the government — especially the local government — to hound the owners for revenues.
The economic disruption destroys rental property values. Renters typically stand too far away from freshly spewed Federal largesse and end up in Obamavilles. This last phenomena is metastasizing at this time — but the MSM now refuses to broadcast it.
Our unemployment rate, nationally, is worse than the Great Depression — already. The government responds by lying to us with fantastically gamed statistics.
Bunk like there’s no inflation. Food prices are FLYING upward.
Yet still, the Democrats are protecting the smelt not the poor.
Obama put my BIL out of a job/ career. Yet he is still of the faith. (!)
—–
The latest Fedsury auctions clearly show that buying interest has dried up. What few bidders, genuine buyers, are mandated buyers. FYI, there are a lot of situations where pledge money is required — and the only substitute for raw cash is Treasury bills or perhaps Treasury Notes. One example out of many: commodity trading requires such collateral.
When you back out such accounts you’re left with essentially no purchases at all. The world has stopped buying Treasuries.
PIMCO has unloaded their entire Treasury position.
The Bernanke has killed the T bond market.
He’s also destroying the retiree class and gutting the animal spirits of capitalism. All of the liquidity is flowing to the Money Trust ™ to the detriment of the rest of the world.
—-
I mentioned quite some time ago that China and Russia have moved away from dollarizing their economies.
That is now complete.
Such permits China and Russia to unwind their Treasuries. It is obviously already underway. We may have only months before a raging crisis in all of the fiat currencies — a perfect storm of fear.
Shun debt-assets. Purchase silver, gold and their miners.
Shun real estate in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Too bubblized.
Wait and watch as Red China blows up when her own real estate bubble pops. ( The last to go, of course. )
The talk is that she’s got 64,000,000 brand new — never occupied condos. They could house 20% of her population.
America has so rigged the game that millions of homes are held in limbo by the Money Trust ™ MERS scam. The con is blowing up in court. Step-wise the judges are figuring out that the MERS con is the biggest in all history.
The Money Trust ™ is in bust-out mode. And, yes, it will all burn. Even the staggering failure to enforce the laws against control fraud will not avert defeated liens for the institution. Eventually it will run out of other people’s money.
Get all of your own funds out of the Money Trust ™ institutions.
Shun municipal bonds, corporate bonds and preferred stocks.
Canadian silver miners and such is where you’d want to be.
BTW, silver is just under $40/ ounce (troy) and is destined to be re-monetized. That’s how Weimar Germany re-booted after her hyperinflation. Expect it.
b @ 50: Real Estate gets crushed in hyperinflation. You can’t get a mortgage from anybody so prices fall until until trades occur with quick money/ hard assets.
excellent point.
In 2 years time a $1 trillion dollars will buy a cup of coffee at starbucks. $2 trillion will buy a dozen doughnuts at Dunkin Donuts. Any one will be able to pay today’s national debt using tip money.
We need a president who is an American.
Let’s lighten this up a bit
ON DRUDGE
Man is arrested for barking at policeman’s K9 dog. Man says, “Well, he started it.”
walt sometimes uses poetic dog license
50. Blert:
I’ve been trying to be more optimistic than your position but watching the whole Japan thing is starting to give me the Ooops! feeling. I have no desire go through the US version of the Argentine fiasco, but then who does.
Locally junk silver dimes going, up getting scarce. Pre 1965 half dollars are starting to get thin, Even the 65 to 67 40% silver half dollars have gotten scarce.
My land lord says they are between a rock and a hard place, prices are going up but every time they raise the rent they get more turnover and a lower cash flow. They are raising the rent but are offering discounts for 14 month leases.
re 50 / 53
humor futures? – i wonder if there is an exchange for them –
might be all that we will have – get in early
Well inn ye olde days the hanging of villains was a festival of amusement.
Who dost thou trust?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576244560197467054.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
“Shun real estate in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Too bubblized.”
50. blert
Da bubble:
“Canada G7 pack leader”
“Canada is set to lead all Group of Seven countries in economic growth in the first half of 2011, said the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Tuesday in an interim economic outlook.
The OECD said it is now more confident the global recovery is becoming entrenched, with data exceeding its previous expectations from just a few months ago. Business investment and exports are driving the recovery, the Paris-based group added.
In an analysis of G7 countries, Canada leads the pack -as it expects annualized first-quarter GDP growth of 5.2 per cent and 3.8 per cent in the Aprilto-June period, exceeding projections from its peers.
In its last full economic forecast in November, the OECD had expected Canada to record annualized growth of 2.4 per cent in the first quarter and 2.6 per cent in the second.
Economists say Canada is on track for first-quarter growth in the four per cent-plus range after a strong January report.
Excluding Japan, the OECD said it anticipates the G7 to post 3.2 per cent annualized first-quarter growth and 2.9 per cent in the following threemonth period.
Risks to its outlook include any further production slowdowns as a result of the Japanese earthquake, persistent unrest in the Middle East, and sovereign debt woes in Europe.”
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Canada+pack+leader/4566720/story.html
We’re talking about the government budget that was supposed to have been approved and in place on 1 Oct 2010 when the Obama-Reid-Pelosi trivium owned and operated the executive and legislative branches. If someone is to ‘blame’ for that not being in place and in operation, its clear to anyone except the Koolaid drinkers. The Republicans are arriving on the scene of the wreck after it occurred trying to deal with it.
Gas prices are killing the average Taxpayer. Yet, 0bama keeps spending like there is no tomorrow and his dinosaur sized ego continues to sit on the chests of the Taxpayers crushing the breath out of them.
0bama is the poster child of spending without any negative consequences… at least to himself. His actions draw more copy cat spenders.
No more lavish vacations and golf games! This gross misuse of public funds must stop. 0bamacare and the associated “waivers” is a prime example. It should be scrapped and the perpetrators of this scam punished.
These fat cat pols need to have their personal pay checks cut by 40% and their travel reduced to normal economy class airlines. If they are forced to take a Greyhound bus so be it. Hit them where it hurts – in the wallet.
I am surprise that the grand jury has not been put into action regarding 0bama and his cronies plundering of the public treasury. There must be hundreds (if not thousands) of cases of fraud, kick-backs and malfeasance that lead to 0bama and his cronies. Some smart conservative lawyer must bring the 0bama and his Crime Cronies to justice.
With gas prices sky high and April 15th right around the corner I would not be surprised to see half of all Taxpayers refusing to pay another dime to these political idiots. The money just goes down the toilet.
Further, most Taxpayer could careless if there was a “government shutdown” (that is Net-Taxpayers – not government employees who get a check from the Treasury and a slight reduction for their “taxes”).
If the IRS is shut it down – see if the Taxpayers care. If 0bama’s paycheck stops who cares? Not many Taxpayers. If taxes on paychecks and gasoline stop who cares? Not the Average Joe.
One could argue that reducing the tax gasoline would ease the bond market and lower inflation. In fact, halting sale of Treasury bonds could cause the bond market to rise. The old supply and demand rule kicking in.
Maybe one way of getting 0bama out of his plush office is to shut down the government and cut off his paycheck. The headlines read “0bama’s Paycheck stopped. 0bama Plans to Leave Office.” Wouldn’t that be something.
All is not lost YET! We are down to the last ditch, the last hand grenade, The last clip. We have our Zeds, the USA has always managed to produce the men and women they needed, when they were needed. This time it look like his name is Prosser.
I think they are in automatic recount range, so hold the balloons and confetti for now. The Donks have been very successful a stealing the close elections in the past.
WE all owe a tip o’ the hat to the good people of Wisconsin. That mother lode of weak knee’d progressives has found it’s spine, stood on their hind legs and told the world they have had enough. Everybody buy cheese today.
“A government shutdown would produce immediate pain”
Only political pain as the media pins it on the intransigent Republicans.
On a practical level, very few actual people would have any pain.
Contrary to perception, the checks will keep coming. Once a person is getting Social Security for instance, the check or credit is automatic. People who have just reached retirement age may have their check delayed, but will be paid retroactively. No one will lose a penny of any entitlement.
Also, since the shutdowns in the 1990s, Federal agencies have classified many, many jobs as Essential, and these essential workers still report for duty during a “shutdown”. It would be very interesting to see the public reaction when millions of Fed employees are still working during a “shutdown”. It could lead to a massive call for a permanent “shutdown” – the elimination of all non-essential workers and programs. A “shutdown” might actually jolt the public awareness in ways the democrats will not like.
#50 blert
What do recommend in terms of investment in Canuck mining companies?
Can a regular Joe do online buying in the Canadian stock market?
I would think drilling and energy concerns would be a buy also?
Beautiful b&w! A keeper.
…-
“Some Rare World War II Photographs…
Reaganite Republican ^ | April 6, 2011 | Reaganite Republican
Where have these been hiding for the past 65 years…?”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2700363/posts
Energy Department sees vast international shale gas resources
Posted on April 6, 2011 at 6:27 am by Brett Clanton in Drilling, Natural Gas, North America, Shale, Social
Oil companies have had tremendous success unlocking big quantities of natural gas from dense shale rock formations in North America. But questions remain about how easily the technology can be exported to other countries thought to be rich in shale gas.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Energy Department released a report assessing 48 shale gas basins in 32 countries outside the U.S.
Verdict: Not only is there a lot of gas out there, a huge amount is within reach.
The initial estimate of technically recoverable shale gas resources from the countries is 5,760 trillion cubic feet, more than six times the U.S.’ 862 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas resources, the report found.
To put that in context, global proven reserves of natural gas stood at 6,609 at the outset of 2010. An additional 16,000 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas had also been estimated, though recent shale discoveries were largely excluded in that figure.
But with the addition of U.S. and foreign supplies, the world’s technically recoverable gas resources could jump by 40 percent to 22,600 trillion cubic feet, the report said.
“Although the shale gas resource estimates will likely change over time as additional information becomes available, the report shows that the international shale gas resource base is vast,” the report said.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2011/04/06/energy-dept-sees-vast-international-shale-gas-resources/
Why is no one making more of this item per the CBO Long Term Budget Letter to Paul Ryan.
“under an assumption that raising marginal tax rates was the only mechanism used to balance the budget, tax rates would have to more than double. The tax rate for the lowest tax bracket would have to be increased from 10 percent to 25 percent; the tax rate on incomes in the current 25 percent bracket would have to be increased to 63 percent; and the tax rate of the
highest bracket would have to be raised from 35 percent to 88 percent. The top corporate income tax rate would also increase from 35 percent to 88 percent. Such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion.”
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/92xx/doc9216/05-19-LongtermBudget_Letter-to-Ryan.pdf
This is the fundimental question.
If you want the current spending to remain untouched we must have tax rates of 25, 63 and 88 percent. If you don’t want tax rate to go this high we must cut spending.
A suggested talking point to be distributed far and wide.
“Democrats want to increase your tax rate to 88%”
Kurtz’ new piece is a must read:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/263872/samantha-power-s-power-stanley-kurtz
There is a grand unifying redistributive theme tying together this administration’s foreign and domestic programs.
“God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.”
Attributed to Otto Von Bismark. I hope it is true.
In the communication (propaganda) war, Republicans are out-gunned by the Dems because the Make-Believe-Media are solidly in the latter camp. That won’t change, so one tactic would be to “blame the media” for our problems.
This is actually well-founded, since the MBM have been the main organ pushing for more “freebies” for the poor, for illegal immigrants and so on. And demonizing businesses–the engine of job creation–at every turn.
The media deserve a huge share of the blame–and Repubs need to lean on that.
C@65: Nat gas
It’s hard to mentally assess the numbers without normalizing to some common benchmark, which is a consistent weakness in energy reporting. For example how does trillions of cubic ft in recoverable reserves translate into bbl/day production rates.
The other issue with nat gas is the water required to extract – and run the generating facilities. Given the pending population pressures on food and water resources, (ethanol for food?) how does that play out?
Three money quotes from the Samantha Power profile linked above:
1. The End of American Exceptionalism: Power makes it clear that she largely shares Chomsky’s policy goals, above all the curbing of American power via the building up of international law and related doctrines of “human rights.” In other words, Power sees herself as the clever sort of radical who works from within established institutions, without ever really sacrificing her rebellious ideals.
2. Using Another Tool: In Hayden’s assessment, Power’s originality was “to see war as an instrument to achieving her liberal, even radical, values.” Hayden was right. The important thing about Power is not that she favors humanitarian intervention, but that she seeks to use such military actions to transform America by undoing its sovereignty and immobilizing it, Gulliver-style, in an unfriendly international system.
3. And Yet Another: As the U.N.’s most charismatic and effective diplomat (said to be “a cross between James Bond and Bobby Kennedy”), Vieira de Mello is the hero around whom Power attempts to build a following for her ideals of global governance.
Two “tells” that I watch – military corruption and the emergence – and traction – of charismatic leaders.
The game is too deep.
Even though some in the 52 percenters realized what a fraud Obama is and his leftist ideology is doomed to failure, there is no going back for them. And that is exactly the strategy Cloward and Piven laid out decades ago.
Given each state more discretion as outlined by Ryan’s plan gave us California, Illinois, New York, and now it seems Wisconsin is also heading that way. After all, politicians only delivered what voters ‘wanted’. In the end, “Too Big to Fail” dooms us all.
We are heading towards a true conflict, the scenes you saw on the Madison, Wisconsin Capitol steps are but a mere picnic.
Wisconsin:
As I write this, (conservative) Prosser is down by 206 votes out of 1.4 million cast. There will be a recount and numerous legal maneuvers a la Al Franken in Minnesota.
If I had to bet, the odds are with the Lefty. However, it is truly a crapshoot – too many unknowns out there.
If the Lefty comes out on top, that is bad news for Wisc.
But the bigger news is positive for the nation. I won’t go into the details here, but this election had EVERYTHING stacked in favor of the Dems. Yet the result was a 50-50 tie. This was the best they could do in perhaps the bluest of the purple states in an election when the sun, moon and stars were lined up in their favor.
It is worth noting that what I call the “Virtual Tea Party” played a huge under-the-radar role in getting out the conservative vote. I consider BC to be a part of this “VTP”. Let’s all of us keep swarming.
The Perfidy of democrat party is already well known to us. It’s their stock and trade. So therefore, they have no interest in lowering or cutting spending at “federal” level (read: national level), when otherwise, why were they on such a last ditch spending spree during the extended lame duck session last december? Spending money in new programs not budgeted because they purposely didn’t pass a budget bill (in September 2010) back when they held the majority in congress, during an election year, and when they specifically didn’t want those budget numbers in play for public consumption during a congressional election year.
So, they maneuvered for all this during the entirety of last year, and since they didn’t pass a budget in a timely fashion (by September 2010, at the latest) when they had the majority, they’ve held it back, to smelt it into an axe (Shutdown!!) with which to behead us with.
What they have done, in fact, was cede the onus of deciding what the budget (2011) will be to a new republican party majority in the House for the following year, this year 2011.
They had the chance, the opportunity, to “fund” the budget as high as they wanted to, in Sept. 2010, and avoid any looming shutdowns for year 2011, by passing a budget bill then (Sept. 2010).
They engineered this shutdown potential back when they had the perfidious opportunity to do so, by virtue of not passing that budget back in Sept. 2010, and we lacked the ability to compel them to pass a budget bill.
So all the things we are to be blamed for, were set in inexorable motion, by democrat majority, during 2010.
And as #62 Jay beltway points out, the minimum of national government function will be funded, regardless, which, as I see it, is what we want, as soon as possible.
So let us operate on a “Shutdown!!”, shoestring budget from now on. Suits me. Just fine.
Especially when notice comes that IRS audits will be “Shutdown!!” or suspended during the impasse. Just how unpopular would THAT make us, if we are the one’s engineered to be the one’s held responsible by the buck passers in democrat party?
More importantly, we need to make these stands, and fight these fights NOW, and endure these rough patches, and not be thinking about our status in an election that won’t be held for another 21 months from now.
If, or when we “compromise”, the fight is over, and cannot be re-started. We blinked. We lose, they win. If we stand firm, against the slings and arrows, It’s just a question of whether democrat party miscalculated on this one or not.
ybr/70, one mcf of natty will drive you as far and as fast as seven gallons of diesel fuel (gasoline and diesel mileage ratios vary so widely with cars, as you know, duh, but you can still readily see the economics as you can compare gasoline and diesel on any given model). 5 bucks gets you where and when 25 bucks gets you, natty vs diesel in an 18 wheeeeeler.
…but, double-check my hazy memory here:
(1st page offers you a chance to sign a petition, if you’d rather not, a prominent button clicks thru to the technical stuff)
http://www.pickensplan.com/act/
Daniel Yergin must be a Belmont Club lurker, for he has written up notions propounded on this blog all those months ago: Natural gas can eliminate our dependence on trans-oceanic oil imports.
Just another reason why I regard the news media as old-news.
#42 jerry
We have a rendezvous with gravity.
73. Radag
“There will be a recount and numerous legal maneuvers a la Al Franken in Minnesota.”
Well hopefully this will be a test case to see how many illegal aliens are voting in Wisconsin. I have friends who live south of Green Bay and the trailer behind their property is a place where a dozen or more iternant farm workers from Mexico live. There are at lease 206 of them voting across the state. ACORN would see to it and the fascists would enable it. I can guarantee it. Maybe we can poll illegals and back out the percentage of illegals voting in the state for whichever candidate might benefit. You ‘spose they vote for Repubs?
75. buddy larsen
And 7 gallons of diesel takes up how much space?
pinched
“Mcf – Thousand Cubic Feet
Mcf stands for one thousand cubic feet. It’s a unit of measure that is more commonly used in the low volume sectors of the gas industry, such as stripper well production. See also Btu, Bcf, Tcf, Quad.”
Lets see, is that 10x100x1 or 10x10x10?
meanwhile;
http://www.thecybertruckstop.com/DS/diesel-fuel-temp.html
pinched
“At 60 degrees the volume of one gallon of diesel fuel is 231 cubic inches and diesel fuel pumps are metered to deliver a gallon of fuel equal to the 231 cubic inch standard.”
Now If I remember correctly, 144 Cubic Inches is a Cubic foot. So a gallon of diesel takes up about 1.75 cubic feet. Am I right so far? This isn’t worth the trouble of digging out a calculator, so I’m using my tired old, full of holes from all the strokes brain.So your 7 gallons of diesel takes up about 13 cubic feet? Or so. That means the same volumn that holds your natty will hold about 80 gallons of diesel. Or 8 times the range per volumn. Plus all that diesel won’t explode if some 16 year old with the IQ of a Yo-YO but fine hooters runs her Pirus in the fuel tank of your truck. Your natty will. That will leave a hole about the size of a city block. If you’re in Houston and the road is bumper to bumper with Natty trucks A chain of explosions marching across the city will lead to your And Pickens lynching. Remember Texans are like roaches in that you can kill them, but you can’t kill all of them.
bl@75: one mcf of natty will drive you as far and as fast as seven gallons of diesel fuel
Well, now. I used to be pretty good with numbers, but my mind read “million cubic feet” (kcf being 1000 cu ft for me) and I decided not to pursue it. My hands start to shake when I get near a calculator. (I’m not sure I could approach a spreadsheet anymore without therapeutic assistance.)
(I half ways suspect Brother Larsen set a trap.)
I might no longer be in the game, but I’m still chillin’ in the ballpark.
RE: outsourcing foreign policy to the international community
US ambassador to the UN – Susan Rice – should start throwing down some performance and accountability gauntlets – challenges that shift the focus away from institutional objectives (and their 5% solutions) towards institutional performance. No forward movement – for anybody – until standards of performance and accountability are adopted.
Call it Responsibility to Perform.
S/80–cubic foot? 144 would be a square foot, no? 12X12X12 (ie 12 inches cubed) is 1728 cubic inches in my universe.
Back to the budget front, How bout telling the American People that over 80% of Treasuries since the start of QE2 have been bought by the FED.
The pubs need to hammer home how we have become the Superpower Zimbabwe Bananna Republic and that we need to print around $1.5 Ttillion in funny money to fund all our goodies for our wunnerful welfare state for just this year .
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/how-fed-sourced-834-treasury-cash-needs-start-qe2
ybr, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCF –1000 cu ft, maybe the nomenclature is idiosyncratic but the ‘mcf’ is how the stuff is measured and traded.
stoi, 1 gallon = .134 cu ft. whether diesel or gasoline or wa-wa with ice koobz or las cucarachas debajo de la refrigadore.
As far as explosiveness, there’s all sorts of test results out there. Take a look –
or, here, this is google, search terms [ is natural gas as fuel explosive? ]
***
Pickens should not have fronted his own organization. He’s too associated with that image Stoi referred to. i happen to know the guy –the Texas oil patch post WWII wasn’t all that big, as far as prospectors were concerned, somehow dad ended up working for Mesa in the 70s -80s. Boone was this titan, and i was just a peon, son of an employee –but whenever i happened to bump into him, usually at a rig christening or somesuch down on the coast, the guy would ask about all four of my kids, by name, and in birth order. He did that with all his employees’ extended families. Sure, he was showing off a savant memory –but it made us feel great. Sure he makes a lot of money too. but he’s honest as the day is long –and a real old timey patriot to boot.
He wants to put new, replacement 18 wheelers on natty, working toward a fleet that as sized today would eliminate half our today imports –and all of our OPEC imports. just the 18 wheelers.
bl: RE: mcf
I see that mmcf is million cu ft in oil & gas industry. KCF (K=kilo) is obviously (mixed) metric. I don’t suppose there is a handy explanation for mcf?
Anyway, I’m not sure that reaches the level of idiosyncratic.
ybr, i said that becuz i thought you said ‘mcf’ stood for ‘million cu ft’ –and, as always, i believed you. but here’s the handy explanation — [also i'm afraid we be thread-jackin']
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCF
PS, maybe the not-used-with-gas-so-missing-from-nomenclature ‘volume’ metric is corn-foozin’ y’all. here’s the explan: ‘noble’ gases expand to fill available volume –and are also incredibly compressible (water by contrast is not compressible at all).
bl: I *thought* that was what it meant (just from intuition, not knowing oil & gas) – I wasn’t stating such as fact (just that my intuitive assumption led to strange ‘out of the ball park’ conclusions.) It IS an unusual abbreviation for a unit of volume.
But you’re right.
ybr/88, LOL –touche (again) ok, now i’m done –
In Latin mille = 1000. Like the letter M in the old film titles: MCMDCDLXVI (1966). In Greek, kilioi (kilo) = 1000.
The metric system chose to use mille to denote divisions of 1000, and kilo to denote multiplication of 1000. So, millimeter = 1/1000th of a meter. kilometer = 1000 meters.
The mcf designation, however, is not part of the metric system. It describes 1000 cubic _feet_, not 1000 cubic _meters_. Its use, in fact, predates the metric system.
The metric system’s nomenclature for 1000 cubic meters is 1 dam^3 (cubic decameter), or (what’s really messed up) 1 tcm, or (t)housand (c)ubic (m)eters.
Anyway, natural gas powered vehicles usually use compressed natural gas, typically at 3600 psi. The mcf measurement is a tricky one, because how much gas you can fit into a cubic foot varies with pressure and with temperature. So the mcf unit makes some standard assumptions, none of which apply in a gas tank.
Stoich is right, you’re going to need a bigger tank of natural gas of ~3600 psi to hold the the equivalent energy of a given tank of diesel fuel. But, since compression wasn’t factored in, his math is off. You’re going to need a somewhere between 2 and 3 times bigger tank. A cng tank equivalent at 3600psi to a 5 gallon gas tank would be about a foot in diameter and about a yard long.
Thanks Cowboy.
File under Why I Distrust Climate Models.
Nother factor: there are 144 square inches in a square foot; one more multy for cubic: 1728 cubic inches in a cubic foot.
…and the compensation for the bigger tank and/or more frequent stops or some combo thereof, is, at today’s prices, a three-quarters reduction in fuel cost. The dollar you spent today on diesel, will tomorrow after conversion be 25 cents. Or, at the same outlay of dollars, you travel four times as far. Burning a cleaner-burning fuel that comes from the vast reserves located here in this country –sending zero dollars overseas and into our trade deficit, where it will require deficit financing –and interest costs atop the commodity cost.
And we have hundreds of years worth of it.
(re ‘clean-burning’ –surely the politics of the characteristic are inviting –there’s an EZ to remember comparative table in comment 12 that offers: if electric vehicle emission is 1 (must be the juice generating plant?), CNG is 2, gasoline (petrol) is 3, and diesel is 5. Dunno the other axis, probably ‘work’ -distance per weight, huh?)
Last axis is engine noise, I thought, so I paid no attention to it. Yeah the economy savings on the CNG is tremendous. That’s gasoline gallon equivalent of cents per gallon. This makes too much economic sense to argue with, really.
Those guys bring up engine wear concerns, but I’m confident that can be dealt with. They also bemoan the lack of high performance thrills vs. the gasoline engines. I think a lots and lots of people are willing to trade those for an 85 cents-per-gallon kind of economy.
What’s maddening is all this CNG tech is pretty mature. All the buses around here are CNG, and have been for years. We don’t have to put up huge development efforts, like sinking billions in dreaming up a $40,000 Chevy Volt. Even GM knew this was insane. But now, that’s the one that was chosen for them. That was the sanctioned paradigm. By our betters, again.
cowboy, the same week obama started publicizing the $7,500 tax credit you will contribute to for Volt buyers, Energy Sec’y Chu was promising to use new regs to shutter three quarters of the coal mines and plants in the country. Could be they don’t know that those plants make the electricity for the Volt?
Nah, they’re not stupid. I just wonder, what would we have done if after Pearl Harbor, on Dec 08 1941, FDR had started sending the Marines straight from California to “take Tokyo”, one company on one troopship at a time, sending the next whenever the previous got sunk? Would anybody’ve ever, y’know, said anything?
…and FDR had added that due to pollution, no IJN ships would be attacked in California waters, and the entire IJN sub fleet had hove to on the surface just off San Diego, shooting every solo troopship to the bottom no sooner than it cleared the Dago breakwaters.
Would anybody’ve ever, y’know, said anything? Anything besides, “Oh, I don’t care, FDR is awesome !
…anyhoo, some basic volume/weight/energy factuals, averaged and then rounded of course, rough searching the blurbs, as correct as can be, stated with such brevity without atmospheres and temps gradients and all the other Rules of Thumb-destroying detailiamentia:
fuel______volume_______________________________weight____energy
cng:_____ 1 GGE (gasoline gallon equivalent) = 5.7 lbs = 114K BTU
gasoline: 1 gallon __________________________= 6.0 lbs = 125K BTU
diesel:__ 1 gallon __________________________= 7.0 lbs = 147K BTU
83. Zealot Good catch. I warned my math skills really sucked nowadays.
Back in the day, when I still had hair and real teeth, I used to win beers by doing math in my head faster then my opponent could punch it into his calculator. Up till about the 4th beer.
“but he’s honest as the day is long –and a real old timey patriot to boot.”
I don’t see it that way. I worked for Phillips (Sub-contracting) for a couple of years and his rep there in Houston was count your fingers after shaking his hand.
MY opinion on LNG as a FRAM comes from getting my pass to HRC. The safety courses emphasized How bloody dangerous the stuff is. It might have been propaganda, then again a search on Natural Gas explosion produces a loooong list of villages, and towns destroyed;
http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=pensacolanewsjournal&sParam=43548120.story
Increase the use of LNG and you increase the risk of major disasters. MY math skills have declined but I still know that the more you roll the die, the better your chance of hitting snake eyes.
There is plenty of OIL. What is running short is easy to get at CHEAP OIL, the kind the creates huge profits for OIL companies. Like any group of rational men, the OIL executives want large profits for small effort.
Those days are gone. The old guys won’t face that fact.
Pickens needs to elope to Cuba with Soros.
Well, it’s all Latin to me, but at least I can pronounce biofuels.
It might have been propaganda but it’s High Noon in Deadwood and Dodge.
I doubt that anyone could have sold natural gas better than Pickens. He’s a slick and persuasive speaker. For all you Palin fans out there, just the right amount of sexy old dawg growl. Pitch Perfect.
And with that I think it’s obvious I have little more to add.
Stoi, your apprehension of ‘something different’ about oil companies –exploration and production (“E&P”) companies –is grounded, i think, in the fact that other industries produce goods and services using reserves that do not measurably and visibly deplete, and do not require replacement via high-risk gambling –prospecting that drills a dozen hugely-expensive “P&A” (“plug and abandon”) ‘dry holes’ –on average (‘development’ wells in proven fields strike reliably, ‘wildcats’ in unproven formations strike lower) –for every ‘strike’.
E&P stocks that do not replace depleted reserves fare poorly in the capital-raising market (their equity values fall –stocks diminish the company capitalization and corporate bond issuances cost more in interest payments).
So, a company will drill (gamble hard after-tax balance-sheet assets either directly or pledged against shortterm operating loans) or be self-liquidating, and the fact that they DO boom and bust on oil-finding skill plus oil price vagaries IS a simple fact of nature not unlike the law of gravity or the law of supply and demand.
If the uncertainty (geological and increasingly more critical, political) could be defeated the risk premium would collapse –the industry would just trade on peripherals such as transport costs to market, and if it could not offer (as it does, middling, see links) at least a middle of the industrial-sector road ROE then it would not exist, and if Stoi wanted something with oil in it, goods or service, Stoi would have to buy into a drilling rig, locate a prospect, lease it, and gin up a private E&P operation –or buy it from someone who had such, if they would sell it to you, and at the price unameliorated by any economy of scale.
Scale economy, which the size of ‘the majors’ (the large oil companies), and thus in forced-play the smaller and even tiniest too, pass along to you.
Not because they love you but because there is competition among them –for customers, and for relief from the govt sledgehammers.
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Here’s a ‘should we drill?’ tutorial.
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Here’s good quickie on margin analysis.
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Here’s ROE (return on investment) per the industrial sectors (oil industry is in ‘Basic Materials’).
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so, there’s lots of data available –no need for speculation as to what is actually in fact going on. Believe me, NOTHING is as heavily scrutinized, and by the most slobbering of the Reds in DC (search: youtube maxine waters socialize oil companies ) as the USA-chartered oil companies –despite the fact that they operate in an environment where 75% of the world’s oil in produced and marketed by foreign governments immune to the risks inherent in being shareholder owned and market capitalized in a world of populist-pandering hostile but also tax-hungry governments, most difficultly including one’s own.
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The ‘industrial sectors’ as compiled info via USG, can of course be subdivided to specific more narrow categories, here’s one of those compilations, check out #80, please, before sending Pickens to Cuba with Soros.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/8/13/saupload_profits.png
PS, also, see #23, for the service industry end.
What ya want to jump on, is them sody-pop manufactureers.
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niJAkR_6tKQ"at the end of it, watch her little commie bureaucrat staffers giggle and shuffle at her accidental spill of THAT word, ‘never be said in public’.
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Here’s the guy she’s torturing.
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Here’s his info website:
“Citizens for Affordable Energy”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niJAkR_6tKQ
this is the Maxine Waters link i messed up above.
trying again: at the end of it, watch her little commie bureaucrat staffers giggle and shuffle at her accidental spill of THAT word, ‘never to be said in public’.
Will they be roundly chastised by the First Directorate for letting their ”project” (Maxine Waters) get loose and repeat that behind-closed-doors word?
YES!
C@65: the world’s technically recoverable gas resources could jump by 40 percent to 22,600 trillion cubic feet, the report said.
The context that would give meaning to these numbers:
2007 world annual nat gas consumption is 112 trillion cu ft (World Fact Book) which is a 200-yr world supply – at 2007 levels of consumption, less if one factors in consumption growth due to economic development and replacement of oil. I’ll throw out a guess and say less than 100 years. The USA only numbers will be different.
Doesn’t mean the reserves shouldn’t be developed.
bl…
The end of Cheap Oil = government enforced taxes at the wellhead…
Using one guise or another.
That’s it.
If you want to destroy the economics of resource extraction then such taxes do the trick like none other.
It matters not if you’re talking copper ore, coal deposits or crude oil. Extraction taxes are lethal. They are enacted on the political belief that government can cut itself in and the deal will still go happily forward. Not so.
There are no end of Cheap Oil prospects all over the globe; but they’re in areas with ferocious taxation: Russia, Brazil, China, the MENA, Nigeria, etc.
The tax takes the form of equity expropriation, usually. Just as common is complete prohibition of Big Oil.
Venezuela comes to mind.
wretchard@28,
Not really — no matter what happens to the country we have allowed Obama to destroy, nothing will come back to haunt him.
It will come back to haunt us.
to tell you the truth, I am most decisively ambivalent on this. Either we cut spending radically by trillions of dollars, and it’s hurts, particularly those on the “entitlement” programs, or we stick our heads in the sand, and spending and borrowing collapses the national government of its own weight, and THAT hurts everyone else included.
even if, by some miracle we get the solvency of our national government under control, none of the problems outlined by blert and others is addressed. The crooks out there need to be named and prosecuted. Fat chance o’ that.
But I got a bridge you may be interested in.