WingRight

1. If you’re living in the Republic of Georgia or Ukraine, you better brush up on your Russian. Within 6 months of Obama taking office, Putin will send troops in to Georgia and Ukraine. He will make certain to grab the Baku-Supsa and the South Caucasus pipelines so he can put Europe into a hammerlock, particularly with natural gas. Obama will protest and so will the EU, but nobody will be ready to push Russian troops out. Estimated probability – 80%. Once he’s in Ukraine, Vladimir will start throwing his weight around with Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Romania, etc. Estimated probability – 70%.
2. Given the timing of the Israeli election, Israel is unlikely to be in a position to take any military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities until after Obama is inaugurated. Obama will absolutely refuse to allow Israel to attack Iran, prohibit overflights of Iraq and threaten to warn Iran if U.S. surveillance facilities observe any Israeli air force planes heading in the direction of Tehran. Estimated probability – 90%. Within the first two years of the Obama administration, Iran will explode a nuclear device and will announce that it has nuclear warheads mounted on missiles capable of hitting Israel and any other country in the Middle East or Central Europe. Estimated probability – 90%. If Israelis don’t start a major program to expedite the emigration of its citizens, Iran will fire one or more nuclear missiles at Tel Aviv. Estimated probability – 60%. If the Israelis strike first, Iran will launch nuclear missiles at Tel Aviv. Estimated probability – 90%
3. Hugo Chavez will decide that he needs some additional land to govern and will start taking it from Colombia. Obama will remember how much Bill Ayers likes Hugo and protest, but do nothing more. A significant border war will break out which will give Chavez a chance to use his new Russian military equipment. Estimated probability – 75%
4. The United States will join with the European Union in a treaty that imposes significant limits on carbon emissions. Most of the countries in the EU will cheat and exceed the limits. The United States will not. This action will reduce US corporate profits by at least 500 billion dollars in the first five years and increase US unemployment to over 10%. Residential electricity and heating bills will triple in that same period and Obama will create major energy subsidies for the middle class. China will not join the treaty and its annual GDP will grow to exceed the GDP of the US during this period.

Tags: Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Liberal "Solutions", Obama, Russia by Publius
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So we have a financial melt-down and new government regulations are going to fix it.

The problem is that government regulations caused the melt-down in the first place.

The real origin of the melt-down is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the most heavily regulated major financial instutions in the country and the most politically-connected.  If you want to see what a large institution looks like when it’s micro-managed by Congress, Phonie and Fraudie are exhibits A and B.

You see, Phonie and Fraudie are involved in more than just providing mortgage lending.  They’re experts on social engineering.  Poor people with lousy credit can’t afford to buy homes?  No problem.  Franklin Raines, the Clinton-appointed former head of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2004, made it his top priority to make mortgages easier to get for people with poor credit, few assets and little money for a down payment.

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Tags: Economy, Energy, Liberal "Solutions" by Publius
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All the early commentary about Sarah Palin focuses on the obvious fact that she’s a woman, evidently smart and outspoken, and a tempting choice for disgruntled Hillary supporters. Palin is also the only one of the four President/Vice Presidential candidates who has run anything bigger than a senate staff.

The most important thing that I see early on is that Gov. Palin is a big proponent of more oil drilling, including at ANWR. I take this to be an indication that McCain is going to move more toward drilling and (could it be?) away from the whole global warming/cap and trade mish-mash.

I think this is a bold, gutsy move on McCain’s part.

Tags: Climate Change, McCain, Oil by Publius
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In an editorial, Investors Business Daily reports that Russia’s Georgian adventure looks like the last straw for a lot of foreign investors. A giant capital outflow is beginning as foreign investors pull their money out of Putin Village, “fed up with the rampant militaristic nationalism, red tape, corruption and anti-investor sentiment in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”

As I’ve blogged before, the Russian economy is balanced on a single unstable point - world oil prices. If those go down below $100 and stay there for awhile, Russia is in big trouble. The flashy oligarchs mask the fact that, even with the oil boom, Russia’s per capita GDP is just 2% above where it was when the Berlin Wall fell.

Inflation is currently running at 14%, so monetary policy is also undercutting the economy and acting as a confiscatory tax for the vast majority of Russians who aren’t oligarchs. As Robert Mugabe could tell Vladimir, once you start down the inflation path to solve your problems, you are going into a steep decline. Could Putin put giant clamps on prices and begin to control inflation? I don’t think so. The corruption is so endemic in Russia and black market profits would be so high, that massive amounts of goods would be moving through an underground economy and continuing to increase in price.

If the clamps don’t work, the Russians drink more to forget their miserable existence and the population drops even faster. If the clamps do work, wide-spread shortages of goods cause the Russians to drink more to forget their miserable existence, etc., etc., etc.

The big influx of foreign capital into oil deals has allowed Russia to paper over an inherently declining economy. Now that the foreign capital is headed back home, the truth will come out in a way that the whole world will see. I would be happy to have someone point out a society in steep demographic decline that was ever able to expand its economy in a meaningful way. I don’t think there has ever been one.

Oh, and by the way, about your Russian army, Vlad? Demographic decline means that every year, there will be fewer and fewer 18 year olds to conscript into the military. Your army is going to get much smaller in the next ten years.

Tags: Oil, Russia by Publius
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The Russians have begun Cold War 2.0 by invading Georgia. Not since 1968 have the Russians invaded a small neighboring country. The 1968 Czech invasion reprised Hungary in 1956. The Georgian invasion has followed the Czech and Hungarian patterns closely even though Georgia is visibly and vocally separate from Russia, unlike unwilling Soviet bloc members Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

Russia’s strategic trump card in 1968 that allowed it to send in tanks and troops without fear of meaningful interference by other countries was a large stockpile of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles sufficient to deliver those weapons anywhere in the world. While nuclear weapons still lurk in the background today, the new Russian trump card is oil and gas.

Oil and gas are even better trump cards than nuclear weapons. Firing a nuclear weapon at another country is an unarguable act of war and even threatening to do so is an extreme act. Intermittently reducing or stopping the flow of natural gas to Western Europe in the middle of the winter or raising prices far above agreed-upon levels is something Putin & Co. have done before and can repeat without that tactic being viewed as an act of war. I doubt that Germany would consider a military counter-attack on Russia if gas is shut off for a period of time.

The Reagan strategy that won Cold War 1.0 included defense spending to build a significant increase in military capacity as its centerpiece. Previous presidents had maintained U.S. strategic arms at a rough parity with the Soviets. Arms reduction talks, a popular international activity during the 60’s and 70’s, were aimed at maintaining that parity. Conventional wisdom held that the world would be safer if the arms race between the Western powers and the Soviet bloc could be slowed down.
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Tags: Energy, Environment, Liberalism, Oil by Publius
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John McCain wants to drill for oil. Barack Obama wants to drill for taxes and leave the oil where it is.

In McCain Rows The Boat Offshore, Hallelujah!, Investors Business Daily lays it all out.

John McCain visits California to make the case for offshore drilling. The oil spill off Santa Barbara was 40 years ago. It’s time to stop crying over spilled oil.

Just as he courageously opposed subsidies for energy-inefficient ethanol before the Iowa caucus, whose mandated use has driven up food prices, the presumptive GOP nominee ventured to electoral-vote-rich California on Monday to repeat his support for offshore drilling. His call comes despite lingering California angst over the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that prompted current restrictions off the California coast.

Critics of offshore drilling, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, use the spill of 80,000 barrels of crude some six miles off Santa Barbara nearly four decades ago to block efforts to recover the 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off the California coast. Schwarzenegger has suggested he wouldn’t mind being “energy czar” in an Obama administration. Obama opposes offshore drilling.

I’m not a giant fan of McCain, but when your choice is between something bad and something even worse, you can’t sit this one out or waste your vote with Bob Barr.

If you combine Barack and Nancy and Harry, you’ve got a bullet in the head of the economy that we’ll pay for over the next ten years.

Remember when Jimmy Carter persuaded a Democrat congress to set the speed limit at 55? (Hint: 1974) Remember how long it took to get rid of the most hated federal law in the nation? (Hint: 1995) Apply that legislative timeline to taxes designed to redistribute income and you’ll get an idea of how much damage little Barry can do.

Tags: Energy, Liberal Hysteria, Taxes by Publius
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When you watch the gas pump roll past $50, then $60, thank the Democrats.

From Investors Business Daily,

When the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, and oil was $50 a barrel and corn $2 a bushel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised an energy plan. We’re still waiting for it. Today, crude oil is $134 and corn is $6.50.

It’s pretty clear who’s to blame: Congress. In fact, House and Senate Democrats have obstructed any progress in America’s fight to regain some semblance of energy independence.

Tags: Energy, Environment by Publius
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The Democrats like to say that giving U.S. oil companies the right to drill in ANWR or offshore would mean that it would take at least 10 years before any oil actually flowed.

Why so long?

Most of the time is spent complying with environmental regulations or defending suits from the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, etc.

Following are a couple of illustrations of the hurdles placed between the oil companies and U.S. oil by the Bureau of Land Management.

Here are some from the Forest Service (they haven’t figured out how to get forests underwater on the continental shelf, but they’re working on that)

The states get into the environmental flow chart business as well. Here’s North Carolina’s:

and California:

It’s clear to me that you can’t propose any major energy program without a flow chart, so I’ve gone ahead and put together the WingRight Lower Gas Prices Flow Chart:

Which of these processes do you think can proceed the fastest?

Tags: Energy, Liberalism, Oil by Publius
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Sometimes a picture is worth a zillion words.  Via Powerline.

Tags: Economy, Environment, Liberal Hypocrisy, Oil, Welfare by Publius
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A good post from Hugh Hewitt - Memo to the Bush Administration: If Drilling Is That Important, Act That Way via On the Other Hand (thanks for the mention!)

The Obama-Pelosi-Reid Don’t Drill Democrats aren’t budging in their opposition to seeking new oil supplies, as the electoral benefits they envision from high gas prices far outweigh their concern over the damage done to individual Americans and the U.S. economy from the oil shock. They’d rather win the presidency and expand their majorities in the House and the Senate than bring price relief to average Americans and shore up a shaky manufacturing sector buffeted by skyrocketing energy costs.

Democrats of course say in unison “We can’t drill our way out of this,” but in fact we can. More oil production means lower gas prices –it is that simple.

Democrats say it will take too long, but markets react to short and medium term developments, and a firm commitment to new supplies would immediately impact those markets.

Democrats try and throw dirt in our collective eyes, using the most inane talking point of the year about unused leases –as though Americans don’t understand that not all leased land holds oil and that oil companies don’t sit on proven reserves that they lose control of over time.

The recognition has broken through and is spreading that a vote for any democrat is a vote for soaring gas prices and a shrinking economy. Add in Obama’s feverish tax hike plans, and the recipe for an economic disaster is on the table to go along with Obama’s incredibly risky plans to retreat from Iraq and sit down with Ahmadinejad and Chavez for “no-preconditions” talks.

Tags: Hugh Hewitt, Liberal Hysteria, Oil by Publius
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