steve01XJ said:
For what it is worth, people I know from all over the country and from both sides of the aisle are all expressing a desire to remove W - even those who voted for him in the last election.
And I fall into that camp, though perhaps not quite as radically as that statement may suggest. However...
At the end of the day, "It's the economy stupid," and there are just too many people who lost their good paying jobs at $20+ per hour for $8 per hour jobs in retail stores or flipping burgers.
Speaking as someone whose employment status became rocky in late 2000 and lost his job in early 2001 only to follow that up with a year-and-a-half of unemployment (yup, I was dot-bomb fallout despite working for a company that had been around for nearly a decade), I'm curious to know how the Bush administration was responsible for that - this was a condition inherited from the previous administration, plain and simple. It takes a full term of office for enacted economic policy to generally start showing results, and another term for it to show its results.
Yes, as a result I'm now about three years behind where I'd like to be in my career path. However, one reason why I voted for Bush was based on the economy. When I relocated to the Bay Area in late '99 to take that job, it wasn't uncommon to run into people in the 20-25 age bracket who were CEOs of companies that sprang up overnight on funding from venture capitalists who had no idea what they were investing in. Usually, they were ploughing their money into the 'buy the CEO a Ferrari' fund: these companies made *nothing* - they were trading on the idea of the Internet as a money-generating cash cow solely by the virtue of its existence, or, if they did make something, it was a product that nobody cared about.
By November of 2000, we were starting to see the first round of layoffs - not only in the tech sector, but in others as well. Nearly eight years of economic policy were coming to fruition, and it was looking bad. Being one of the more junior engineers at the company I then worked for, I was let go in February of 2001. Bush had been in office for four weeks at this point and the layoff train across the board was starting to gather speed; another four months and it'd be going at full steam ahead. Saying that his administration caused this problem is entirely unreasonable; clearly, this was an inherited issue.
Let's move forward to today. The economy is starting to recover and the first effects of that policy are beginning to be seen. It's still early, granted, but we are beginning to head out of the doldrums. Like I said: it takes two terms of office for the effects of economic policy to be felt. We're pretty much following that rule to the T right now.
And to address a couple of points directly:
(10) What if we poured some cash into a serious run at alternatives to oil? Would we be in Iraq today if we already had the alternatives?
I'm entirely in favour of exploring and producing viable alternatives to oil-based vehicles, which is what I assume you mean by "alternatives to oil" - the original statement didn't specify what areas oil alternatives were wanted in. I'll get to that in a minute. To answer the second part of the question first, though: yes, I do believe we would be in Iraq regardless. Here's why.
If this were truly about oil, we wouldn't be paying over two dollars a gallon at the pump for 87-octane. We've already invaded Iraq, demolished the old regime and its governmental infrastructure, and established what could rather easily become a permanent presence there. Getting more oil out is a no-brainer at this point. So why are our gas prices so high?
The oil companies are gouging. They're doing it because this is a free market (mostly), and they can get away with it because we'll pay it. About two years ago, we had an oil glut and prices were as low as 85c/gallon, something I hadn't seen since the mid-'80s. I notice that despite selling gas at approximately 55% of the price it is now, the oil companies didn't go out of business. However, the station owner's profit per gallon has stayed about the same - roughly 2c/gallon. I call bullshit on the oil companies.
Besides, if we need more oil we can do it through trade with other countries. We don't have to go to the expense and trouble of invading other countries and having our soldiers be killed to get it. Hello, Venezuela? Please send tankers our way until we say we're good, thanks. This was a military action intended to enforce a decade of ignored UN resolution on Iraq's behalf regarding biological warfare research.
To answer the first part of your question: alternatives to oil, and I'm assuming we're talking about in motor vehicle propulsion systems. Yes, I am in favour of them. However, there are two criteria they need to meet: one, they need to be at least as efficient in terms of power provided as gasoline engines currently are. Granted, gasoline engines waste a lot of potential energy, but still provide a yardstick for motive force in vehicles. Secondly, they need to not create higher gas prices for a minimum of 20 years after their widespread introduction.
To clarify that second point: if we see widespread adoption of, say, hybrid engine technologies (which seems to be the current darling of the automotive industry), gas demand will go down. Oil companies will charge more per gallon as demand drops. This means that the people who can least afford to drive and replace their vehicles with newer, more efficient models will effectively be priced off of the road. If you're working for minimum wage at McDonald's, it's already hard enough for you to register, insure, and maintain a vehicle. And let's face it: we are a nation of drivers. Some cities have good public transport; most don't, and if you live outside of a major population centre driving is the only way to conduct your life's business. And none of this even touches on transport issues involving road or rail (diesel) or air travel (kerosene).
The reason I say 20 years on this: that's how long it's going to take to be able to develop these technologies to a point where they're pervasive enough that they're not affecting the economy through their use.
(9) Do you feel that our policies in the Middle East will serve to improve our relations with those nations and the rest of the world?
No, I don't. However, this isn't uniquely a Bush problem. Look at what happened under the Clinton administration in Bosnia and Somalia, both of which were operations that can be described with a compound word starting with 'cluster'. And those are only two examples from his administration. Over the last decade-and-a-half, we've had a succession (Bush Sr. included) of administrations with a generally poor understanding of foreign relations.
Let me give you an example: Northern Ireland. I'm a dual Irish and American national, holding both passports. I grew up in Ireland, but mainly spent the first part of my life here. Living there at the time and watching the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process in about 1996 was painful: Clinton attempted to have the US act as moderator in the talks. Quite frankly, this was one of the most idiotic things that administration attempted to do. It was blatantly obvious from the start that they had no idea what they were walking into, but certainly wanted to achieve *something*. What that something was, nobody really knew - but the situation surrounding the parties on both sides of the table was a complete and utter mess, and required both an in-depth understanding of the issues involved as well as a delicacy in how they would be handled.
Thank God the US *didn't* get involved in that one. It was apparent from the beginning that the political intelligence and diplomacy they would've needed to handle the situation just wasn't there, and it potentially could have turned a bad situation with a chance of resolution into something much, much worse.
My point is this: this is not a new problem; it's endemic to how our government has operated post-Reagan. Until we figure out how to relate to others, it's going to continue to be a problem - regardless of who's in office.
I Think that's funnier then the original emails I got!!
