(thanks to TowardLiberty for suggesting this thread!)

"oil, security, financial crisis, global warming - converging from the same root cause"

That's my sig, penned long ago and forgotten.  But indeed a great forum topic!

Seems like a huge part of our economy -- the energy sector -- is caught up with another huge part -- the financial sector -- in a three-way with government collusion to create a cascade of problems for our society.  Problems that can largely be addressed with a little common sense and existing know-how.

Oil drives our economy, but oil is heavily subsidized by the government.  There are the tax breaks and all, but mainly this subsidy is in the form of military security for the global oil trade, and public infrastructure that guarantees continued addiction.

As a result, we have whopping fiscal deficits, trade deficits, and infrastructure deficits, but with no political will to raise taxes or cut spending.  This hurts our economy by sucking large amounts of capital away from business and into government bonds, sending interest payments to China, etc.  But more importantly our government has become addicted to printing money to cover our debts.  It's not entirely negative in that the resulting inflation taxes foreign dollar holders as well as us, but that's not nearly enough to make up for the damage done.

And this heightened, artificially-induced oil addiction has of course led to other unintended consequences.  Many of you categorically deny that CO2 can warm the globe, but you can't deny that CO2 levels are going up, and you can't deny why.  And beyond all that we are still dealing with a pollution load made all the worse because emerging economies like China and India are following our lead with their own emerging dependence on fossils -- without our pesky environmental controls.  All that sulfur and mercury ends up in OUR water and mother's milk and children's lungs.

I originally came up with that sig to draw attention to possible solutions -- cut fossils, use existing green tech, plant trees, improve zoning, rationalize security, reform wall street, etc.

But after reading many of TL's posts (and others) it is clear that the solutions will remain out of reach if the cause of these problems remains, and that appears to be this 3-way collusion between energy, finance, and government.

I am rambling, and clearly not well-focused, but would welcome all of your thoughts!

forgotten centrist wrote on Apr 12^th, 2012 at 2:49pm:


Does this include all forms of energy?

forgotten centrist wrote on Apr 12^th, 2012 at 2:49pm:


I don't think that's the cause of our malaise at all.  I think it is the increasing awareness that the optimistic promises of enlightenment philosophy have proven empty.

SiouxRebel wrote on Apr 14^th, 2012 at 1:23am:


Glad we could find some common ground.

I would add that I was wrong to say they have completely taken away the class action suit, but they have put road blocks up to it.

Here is Rothbard on the matter..

How, then, have the recent class action rules been applied to the question of air pollution? Krier says with dismay that while the 1966 Federal Rule 23 is indeed more liberal than its predecessor in allowing class action, the US Supreme Court has virtually nullified its impact by ruling that class members may aggregate individual claims for federal courts only when they share a common undivided interest.[103] According to Krier, this cogent limitation rules out most class action suits in air pollution cases. He adds that while this restriction does not apply to state suits, these are often even less viable than federal class suits before the new rules. Krier complains, in an unconsciously humorous note, that some class action suits don't attract any plaintiffs at all.[104]http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/air-pollution.html

This is actually a good article by him on pollution and the environment.