Alice in Wonderland - Further Down the Rabbit Hole

The United States experienced recently the most severe recession since the end of World War II. The housing collapse, the resulting economic downturn, TARP, and various bailouts and economic stimuli resulted in a rapid buildup in federal debt held by American taxpayers, 36 percent of GDP at the end of 2007, 62 percent of GDP at the end of 2010, and 100 percent of GDP at the end of 2011. Our national debt is $17 trillion, on par with gross domestic product.

Almost half of all Americans under the age of 30 do not have a job. One in five men of working age is unemployed. Twenty-five percent of college graduates are without a job with no prospects in sight. There are 13.1 million unemployed Americans.

We have a “progressive” and broken education system, a dwindling military, constant threats of terrorism, nuclear Iran, exploding entitlements and health care costs, illegal immigration problems, endemic government corruption, the Democrat-controlled Congress has not passed a budget in 1,000 days, crushing new regulations, the collapse of the Euro, the violence in Iraq after the departure of U.S. troops, to name just a few.

Our President continues to misrepresent America as strong, concentrating his vacuous teleprompting on class warfare, fairness, and massive tax and spending increases, vilifying the rich who “do not pay their fair share.”

Emphasizing his campaign mantra of “hope and change,” the President stated in his union address, “The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated, and remote. That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.” Was not the intent of our Founding Fathers to balance powers by creating three distinct branches of government?

By guaranteeing equal outcomes for all Americans, regardless of one’s merit, and encouraging mediocrity and sloth, this administration continues to de-develop America.

He made scant mention of Obamacare, its challenge in the Supreme Court, its bankrupting costs, Social Security crisis, energy crisis, the Solyndra scandal, the denial of the Keystone XL pipeline, the expensive and bogus green initiatives, and illegal “recess appointments” while Congress was not in recess.

The President forgot to mention his visit to Brazil in March to secure contracts for oil. “We want to work with you. We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and, when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”

Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company will pump 4.9 million barrels a day by 2020 from an ultra-deep sea of oil. The President of Brazil signed instead contracts a month later with two state-owned Chinese companies. China had offered Petrobras a $10 billion loan in 2009 on the promise that Petrobras will ship oil to China for 10 years.  

Curiously ignored was the fact that the U.S. is exporting for the first time in 62 years, gasoline. We started exporting gasoline in late 2008. We have exported 430,000 more barrels of gasoline a day than we imported in September 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In case you are scratching your heads in bewilderment because you are paying $4 to $4.50 to fuel your car with Diesel or could be paying record high gas prices this year, consider this. The U.S demand for gas has dropped 10 percent (from 9.6 million barrels per day in 2007 to 8.8 million) and we have excess refining capacity.

Recession, fuel-efficient vehicles, higher prices, use of ethanol as ingredient in gasoline, decline in travel, decline in use of jet fuel and Diesel, caused the drop in demand for gas. Prices should drop based on the supply-demand model, however, we are paying $100 per barrel of crude from OPEC countries.

We are still importing plenty of crude oil; we are dependent on foreign countries for over half the crude. However, we export gasoline now to Brazil, Mexico, and Chile where demand for gasoline is stronger. Shell, Exxon Mobil, BP, and Chevron are happy to refine crude to make gasoline for the rest of the world.

President Obama said in his State of the Union speech that the future of America is a “future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world.” Yet he denied the Keystone pipeline XL days before, a pipeline that would have carried oil from Alberta, Canada to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. At the same time, he squanders money on ephemeral green energy such as the bankrupt Solyndra, the faulty electric Volt that nobody wants to purchase, and expensive renewable energy.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D- West Virginia) said, “President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a major setback for the American economy, American workers, and America’s energy independence.”

Obama could have created 20,000 shovel-ready jobs and 179,000 jobs by 2035 with the Keystone pipeline. He could have granted offshore oil leases – only one was given in 2011. He could have reversed the 40 percent reduction in oil and natural gas production on federal lands, a decade long drop.

Instead, the President announced in front of Cinderella’s Castle his latest plan to create jobs by increasing tourism to the United States. He signed an Executive Order on January 19, 2012, “establishing visa and foreign visitor processing goals and the task force on travel and competitiveness.” He also created another bureaucracy, Recreation.gov, the new Federal Interagency Council on Outdoor Recreation. Tapping tourism as a creator of American jobs, “This is the first time our country has had a national strategy and set goals for the amount of visitors we want to welcome.”  The interagency tourism and this quote were so troubling on many levels.

During the week on January 25, 2012, 1,600 economic and political elites and 40 heads of states met in Davos, Switzerland for the 42^nd World Economic Forum to find ways to reform capitalism because they found it “outdated and crumbling.” Perhaps they are planning to replace it with global crony capitalism.

Preoccupied with the global economy in light of the recent downgrade of credit worthiness of 12 EU countries, including France, discussions centered on deficit of leadership in Europe, social responsibility, and environmental issues. The ever-present Occupiers protested the “self-proclaimed elites.”

Our 236-year old monolithic sovereign rock called America had been chiseled away by domestic and international socialists/communists for the last hundred years. They are now sledgehammering big chunks from our rock of freedom. Why do we allow it? Why is a failed utopia so tantalizing to Americans?