What The USA Should Do

1. Build an effective missile shield and force the evil government of China to disarm its 25 nukes and stop selling arms to Iran (which in its turn provides arms to major terrorist organizations) and to leave Taiwan alone.


2. Make a major push to develop EFFICIENT hybrid automobiles, while simultaneously developing more of our own energy sources such as natural gas, in order to eliminate our dependence on Mideast oil. Once we don't need THEIR oil anymore, we could feel free tell medieval-thinking morons in the Middle-East to go to hell if it ever became necessary to do so.

well with a good missile shield China's 25 nukes wouldn't be a problem anyway so we can leave that part out for now;-)_

1. usa is the largest seller of arms in the world by far so that idea would get squashed by our arms companies


2.the oil companies have squashed that idea also.


noble thoughts but our govt is controlled by the big companies.

Why don't you leave it in for now. They may ship one Fed-Ex.


MS Sunshine

I am actually kind of interested in the new Honda Civic hybrid. Very good crash ratings, about 50 MPG on the highway with manual. Automatic gets like 48 in the city. Smaller than what I drive, but its still a regular car basically. Wish it had AWD. Tax deduction helps with the cost differential. I hate paying taxes. I hate paying gasoline tax, but not so much because I like roads more than welfare by a lot. I hate stopping for gas. Ford is coming out with a hybrid suv that will get about 40 mpg. I suspect Honda will run better. But if the companies build them, they will sell as long as they're not goofy like the Honda Insight.

Re China:


From Understanding China by John Bryan Starr:


"The elements most commonly associated with a socialist economy are public ownership of the principal means of production, economic activity largely determined by government decision as contained in an economic plan, a heavy dose of egalitarianism, and a high level of government attention to the welfare of the working population. All these elements are in the process of being dismantled in China under the current program of economic reform. There is little likelihood that China will return to socialist solutions."


I have personally seen the beneficial effects, both economically and politically, that reforms have had in southeast China. There has been democratization at the lowest levels in the countryside, and in the more developed areas on the coast, the Party has no real power. While I'm not an economic determinist, one would hope that political reforms at higher levels will follow the economic reforms. But Jiang Zemin is a disgusting human being. And unfortunately [again quoting Mr. Starr]:


"There are no signs in China of a visionary and powerful leader ready to launch a move toward democratization. Nor are there bold politicians prepared to form an opposition movement. Most of them have been imprisoned, placed under house arrest, or thoroughly intimidated. Also lacking is a strong commitment to democracy on the part of a politically aware and active public. In fact, among the politically conscious citizenry there is widespread skepticism about democracy."


He does see the possibility of "an abrupt collapse of the Party-state, similar to what happened in the Soviet Union in 1991.. . A rapid meldown of the Chinese Communist Party and the government it controls is plausible."


Now that China is a member of the WTO, it sure doesn't look like we'll be "forcing" their government to do anything other than sell us more goods.

well, thanks to clinton now those 25 missiles now carry a total of like 2-300 warheads.


brad

"Make a major push to develop EFFICIENT hybrid automobiles"


I bought a Honda Insight last November and it runs great.


MM

where i live in long island new york they are experimenting with a short trip electric car, used for short drives to and from the railroad for commuters. they are offering incentives for people to lease them also. so maybe it will catch on.


Pat

I don't think it even slightly likely that we will be forcing China's government to become decent (in real human terms) either.


With a good missile shield, at least the veiled threat that one of their generals made a while back (that we here in the USA "care more about Los Angeles than Taiwan") would be moot.

well maybe there is some way things could be structured so as to preserve our free enterprise system and democracy but still enable our government to tell our own big companies to go to hell if necessary;-) Not that I can readily conjecture what it might be

Lemme see if I can get my foot out of my mouth. D'oh.

You are delusional. A cost/benefit analysis of a missile defense system clearly shows that it is a complete and total waste of money. Well I take that back. there might be some useful technology developed in the course of pursuing this outrageously expensive, quixotic project.


As for dependence on oil, Those govt's are dependent upon US dollars to support themselves. it's true that we need middle east oil but that doesn't mean we have to kowtow to any particular regime. Can you comprehend that? One of my particular contrarian views is that we might be better off re-establishing friendly relations with Saddam and putting more pressure on the Saudi Royal family. At this point the evidence clearly points to the Saudi gov't as being the most radical islamist gov't and probably does more to support Al-Qaeda, support Hamas and spread anti-Israeli and anti-US propoganda than anyone else. You can call Saddam a "madman" but all his actions indicate he is quite rational. ruthless but rational. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight it now appears that we may have been much better off letting Saddam have Kuwait and maybe part of Saudi Arabia.

First off, a cost-benefit analysis of a missile defense system shows just THE OPPOSITE. The cost to the USA of 9/11 is estimated to be between $100 billion and $300 billion dollars. The economic cost of a single nuke destroying any major city would eclipse that many, many times over--it would be in the trillions. The cost of a missile defense system, however, is estimated to be in the low tens of billions at most. So if it prevents JUST ONE NUKE from hitting us, it is economically viable and in fact highly profitable. And since the threat of being nuked is continually moving away from the Russian threat to the threat from rogue countries, or conceivably from China, the USA having the capability to shoot down just handful of nukes (as opposed to intercepting the entire Soviet Cold War arsenal, which would probably be impossible) could prove extremely valuable. You are probably stuck in Cold War facts and statistics but current analyses strongly favor both the feasibility of such a system (in being able to shoot down a handful missiles as opposed to thousands) and the economic comparison listed above speaks for itself. I think the $10 or $20 billion insurance policy is a great idea vs. the possibility of losses in the trillions or higher--not to mention the cost of human suffering.


As for Saddam he is pretty rational but he is probably one of the most ruthless individuals on the face of the Earth today or at any time throughout history and it is senseless to allow him to acquire more weapons of mass destruction.


Indeed these Mideast governments are dependent on US dollars but that doesn't entirely stop them from edging closer at times to using the oil card for political pressure or blackmail and at the very least they have the power to wreak temporary havoc with our economy. I think we should get ourselves into a position where we can tell them to get lost if need be.


The Islamic nuts in Saudi Arabia are indeed wreaking havoc with the minds of Saudi youngsters and we should be able to tell the Saudis to cut the bullshit, but at the moment, we aren't quite in a position to say it so plainly.

M - You are taking a myopic view of spending on missile defense. The correct question to ask is not "what are the chances any missile defense system will stop one city from being destroyed in a nuclear attack?". Rather we should be asking how we can get the most bang for our buck from the limited resources we have to spend on national defense. Sure, if we had unlimited resources then missile defense would be a great idea. But the fact of the matter is we don't have unlimited resources and we need spend our dollars efficiently. Like Global Warming, Missile Defense is an idea long promoted by a small number of vociferous, political idealogues. The only reason it has maintained any momentum is because the defense industry stands to make quite a bit of money. The billions of dollars we have already spent on missile defense have, quite frankly, been a total waste of money.


Given that any missile defense system will take years to develop, will only have an effective lifespan of maybe 2 years, and will only prevent nuclear attacks from a very limited range of delivery mechanisms, it's pretty hard to argue that we couldn't spend that $20 billion more effectively on some other defense activity.


"The Islamic nuts in Saudi Arabia are indeed wreaking havoc with the minds of Saudi youngsters and we should be able to tell the Saudis to cut the bullshit, but at the moment, we aren't quite in a position to say it so plainly."


No. This is exactly my point. There are many, many sellers in the oil market. We can buy from any one of them. We are absolutely in a position to pressure the Saudi's. This idea that the Saudi's somehow control our foreign policy because they have oil is total bullshit. They control our foreign policy because we let them. I don't know why, but we do.

if we have already had limited success in missile defense tests, why assume it is wasted? And developing a system which can shoot down a few lobs from an unfriendly isn't nearly as overwhelming a task as developing something to counter the now less likely Russian threat. We might have a hard time keeping up if the Russians kept improving, but that isn't our main goal anymore...and the new rogues won't be accelerating their technologies at nearly our rate. So if we can shoot down a couple missiles from Iraq or Iran in a couple years, I'd bet we would be able to handle their missiles for a few more years after that anyway--they're still way behind us. And as for the total $ cost of a missile defense system, it really is quite small compared to our total yearly defense spending.


As for the oil, I have often wondered along lines similar to what you are thinking. My guess as to why a Mideast embargo would throw us into some chaos is that it would have in part a psychological panic effect, and in part that reserves of available oil would quickly diminish...in commodities, it isn't just the immediately available supplies that influence pricing, it's things like reserves and how quickly they can be accessed to maintain current levels, etc. because things like that affect how readily low stocks in a certain area or pipeline can be replenished, etc...and of course the psychological factor cannot be underestimated.


Let's just say all of the Mideast stopped selling oil to us or to the West, or that we stopped buying of them. I doubt we could maintain our current levels of usage for long, even assuming we could deal with the initial shock without too much trouble. But yes, I agree with you in part and am of the opinion that it doesn't entirely make sense either, because those countries certainly do need to sell their oil (at least in the long-term--and maybe that is where they hold a bit of an edge over us...they could probably adjust more easily in the short-term than we could). So I'm all for getting us to a point where we could do just fine and have little or no shock to our economy without buying ANY of their oil by reducing our dependence/usage or whatever the right term(s) may be, even further. One thing to bear in mind is that oil is typically traded on the open market so except in unusual circumstances we aren't differentiating between Kuwaiti oil and, say, Saudi oil: it's all the same category of oil (Light Sweet) (whereas North Sea oil is somewhat different and years ago carried a different price per barrel than Light Sweet Crude...I haven't messed with that stuff recently so I don't know if it is still the same today). But the total readily available world supplies do usually significantly impact the price...in other words there can be a shortage of backup supplies and the markets react strongly even though there is no shortage of current supplies.

I don't know if anyone mentioned it and your point does address this, but for clarification of the issue I'll point it out.


The idea that we are "dependent" on middle eastern oil does not refer to the physical oil we get from the middle east (about 20% of our imported oil). The "dependence" comes from the fact that the Saudis effectively control the world price of oil. Even if we could get oil entirely from domestic supplies, the Saudis could still increase their own production and drive the price low enough for most of our doemstic production to be unprofitable (in which case the government woudl have to massively subsidize domestic production or we would do the smart thing and start buying cheap availible oil on the world market).


We will be "dependent" on the Saudis oil as olong as we use oil, period. It doesn't matter if it originates in the middle east or not. If we want to reduce "dependence" we need alternative energy sources, not domestic sources of oil. M seemed to allude to this by touting hybrid cars, but I don't knwo if this is fully what he meant. In any case, I thought I'd mention this.


Regards,


Paul Talbot

I used to own a CRX. So the Honda Insight is we similar body wise.


MM

Thanks, Paul.


I did indeed mean furthering the development of alternate energy sources, and also concentrating on creating highly efficient hybrid vehicles, since automobiles are a major factor in our dependence on oil. In another post, I alluded to some things related to your explanation regarding world oil prices, but thanks for putting it in more concise terms and pointing out that the problem isn't just relying on the oil of a certain country or region; it's relying so heavily on oil, period. I do suspect that with enough concerted effort and proper planning we could manage to reduce our reliance on oil quite considerably, hopefully to a degree that would make a very serious difference.