no third solution

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Category Archives: World Politics

Economist on Peak Oil Myth

January 5th, 2008

The Economist cites that oil is now nearly five times as expensive as it was in 2002, which leads the Peak Oil theorists to conclude that oil is running out. It’s not, and any serious economist can explain why the world will never run out of oil: at some price, alternative energy sources become profitable and more viable than oil. If the price of oil crosses this threshold, investment will begin to be directed towards these (and other yet undiscovered) means of producing energy. Russ Roberts uses pistachios to illustrate this point in one of his books.

One component of the rising prices is that oil is increasingly being found in hard to reach places, like the tar-sands in Canada. Another is increasing global demand, as countries like India and China industrialize. But the Economist notes that:

The biggest impediment is political. Governments in almost all oil-rich countries, from Ecuador to Kazakhstan, are trying to win a greater share of the industry’s bumper profits.

We’ve seen these efforts in the U.S., too, where many politicians want to increase the taxes levied on Big Oil companies. These taxes do not provide Americans with more affordable oil, instead, they reduce the incentive to invest in a commodity that is becoming increasingly more difficult to extract. Furthermore, the taxes levied on businesses are always passed on to individuals in one form or another, such as smaller returns on investments in corporate stocks, or higher prices at the pumps, to name a few.

Oil isn’t running out, yet. And it never will.

The Nüremburg Standard

January 3rd, 2008

The Nüremburg Standard is a position that I like to take whenever the subject of war-crimes or torture are part of a discussion. Eventually, the warhawk will beg sympathy on account of the soldier who is “just doing his duty” or “just following orders,” or some variant on that theme. The fact of the matter is that this defense has been tried before, with little success. Admittedly, my understanding of the Nüremburg Trials comes from a filmstrip or something that I watched in a government indoctrination camp, so bear with me. My understanding of the situation, upon examination of recent (and not-so-recent) events lead me to ideate my Nüremburg Standard, which I most recently I applied to the case of some G.I. sniper who was found not guilty of baiting targets and staging bodies post-mortem in order to justify the killings. Sickening, eh? It is something like this:

It is not morally acceptable to violate a man’s rights simply because someone instructs you to violate those rights.

My Nüremburg Standard is closely approximated by Principle IV of the Nüremburg Principles (which I discovered today!) which states:

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Whichever way you slice it, I believe this is a fairly well-settled legal principle and I’m not just making this shit up. You can’t get away with war crimes just because someone in your government told you to do it. Fast-forward to 2007 and beyond, where the United States government and its contractors have been involved in, stand accused of, or otherwise implicated in a number of incidents that could appropriately be described as war crimes or other crimes against humanity, including but not limited to:

  • Snipers baiting targets
  • Allegations of an unjustifiable massacre perpetrated by private contractors hired by the government,
  • Destroying evidence (i.e., video tapes) of/and/or pertaining to the practice of “waterboarding” and other forbidden interrogative techniques

America cannot pretend to be the vanguard of moral superiority while reducing itself to tactics it has (and continues to) denounce as barbaric. Unfortunately I am not optimistic that the world will be as vigilant in meting out justice to the (no less) guilty among our countrymen.The most recent news-item related to the Nüremburg Standard is the case of a JAG officer Andrew Willaims who has recently resigned in light of these moral conflicts. He refuses to participate any longer in the charade that is the American Empire any longer, and for this I applaud him. I am genuinely thrilled that someone in his position is applying the standard. While addressing Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann (the legal adviser at Gitmo), Williams argues:

Thank you, General Hartmann, for finally admitting the United States is now part of a long tradition of torturers going back to the Inquisition…

…General Hartmann, following orders was not an excuse for anyone put on trial in Nuremberg, and it will not be an excuse for you or your superiors, either.

Correctomundo!

It was not an excuse for anyone at Nüremburg. In fact, it still isn’t an excuse: our government continues to hunt down and deport people found to have been at one time SS men, prison guards, or otherwise employed in a position materially related to the Third Reich’s crimes.

If it is reprehensible for a foreign soldier to beat, humiliate, or torture one of us, it is no less so when the roles are reversed.

The standard applies to everyone, everywhere, at all times.

$ < €

January 1st, 2008

It is apparent that people know that the future value of dollar-denominated debt will be diluted by inflation, and accordingly the dollar is losing quite a bit of its prestige.

In the past year, the value of euro notes in circulation exceeded the value of dollar bills. The euro has also overtaken the dollar as the main denomination of international debt issues.

At present, the dollar’s declining value is jeopardizing its position as the world’s reserve currency and standard of value. For the American government, this creates a number of problems.

Countries like Saudi Arabia are being urged to drop their peg to the greenback, and if they want to avoid importing U.S. inflation, they’d be wise to do so. Lack of financial clout also takes away one of the weapons with which the United States continually assaults the rest of the developing world — “by limiting [foreign] banks’ access to dollar financing … the US can damage such countries’ financial systems and make financing more expensive to obtain.”

The simplest way to prevent any further decline (25% vs. the Euro over the past 4-5 years) of the dollar against other currencies is to stop printing more dollars. This method is guaranteed to work, unless other countries begin contracting their respective money supplies. What’s more, is that so long as the Fed ceases to create more dollars, the value of the dollar should actually rise versus other currencies, assuming that they are inflating expanding their base.

no third solution

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