On Iraq and Iran

US combat troops have left Iraq. Iran has fired up a nuclear reactor that is almost certainly the beginning of a nuclear weapons program.

What would the world be like if we hadn't invaded Iraq?

If we hadn't invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein would still be in power. It's very likely that the UN would have let the post-Kuwait sanctions lapse. Whether he had chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons before we invaded or not, evidence suggests that he was trying maintain the ability to resume such work as soon as the sanctions and inspections ceased.

Today Iraq and Iran would be locked in an arms race. The most oil-rich and politically explosive piece of real estate in the world would be an even bigger basket case than usual. $4/gallon gas would be nothing if they started tearing up the Middle East.

Oil isn't the only reason we went into Iraq, and by itself it's not a sufficient one, but given than it is the fuel for every industrialized economy in the world, we should be glad that Saddam isn't in power today.

Law of Unintended Consequences redux

Don't tell me you didn't see this coming: The high price of gas forced consumers to buy less, resulting in less tax revenue -- which governments want to replace.

Of course, what government always wants is more tax revenue, but for years people have been predicting that, if the liberals every got the decrease in gas consumption they said they wanted, it would bite them.

The same goes for if people quit smoking. Or eat healthy (healthy food is less processed, so it passes through fewers hands...). Or use public transportation (these things always run in the red; more riders won't help if they require more buses/trains).

Generally, there is a cost to every gain, and a good side to every bad. Conservatives (I didn't say Republicans) understand this and try to stay out of the way; liberals end up stepping on their own feet.

Adventures in Missing the Point 1

Senator Obama has said many times on the campaign trail:

“America has 3% of the world’s oil reserves and uses 25% of the oil.”

His point is apparently that we cannot “drill our way” out of the energy crisis.

Has anyone claimed that we could? Drilling will not solve our long term problem. Drilling will ease our short term situation.

The way Sen. Obama talks, you’d think all kinds of alternative energy technologies are mere months away from commercial use. The truth is we have no idea how long it would take to switch our economy to non-fossil fuel energy.

We do know that we’re sitting on a lot of fossil fuel, though, and that accessing it would lower prices and loosen some of our entanglements in the Middle East.

Sometimes I think Sen. Obama has another “point” in his 3%/25% line. He likes to point out that we use so much of the world’s oil.

Assuming his numbers are correct, we use 25% of the world’s oil supply. We also produce 20-30% of the world’s GDP. That seems like a fair trade.

Obama, Pelosi, Energy, and Parties

Senator Obama finally says maybe he can support a little drilling. Really, he had to; it was getting so that every fillup was like a McCain ad. I think the FEC was starting to track gas sales.

But Sen. Obama has a problem in Nancy Pelosi; she says she's trying to save the planet. I don't remember that being in the job description.

Anyway, she's worried about something with questionable data that might be a problem in 100 years; the rest of us are worried about indesputable economics that will be a problem next month. Gas is $4/gal; milk is next. Everything is tied the price of oil, and people need some relief.

But Speaker Pelosi, like many Democrats, says that drilling wouldn't affect the price of oil or gas for at 10 years (it used to be 5 and gets longer all the time). So it was with some giggling I read about the rejection letter a new study received from the journal of the International Association for Energy Economics. The study says that opening more drilling now, even when the oil is not yet available, will lower prices now.

The editors responded with a polite everybody already knows that:

"Basically, your main result (the present impact of an anticipated future supply change) is already known to economists (although perhaps not to the Democratic Policy Committee)."

But Madame Pelosi (and Harry Reid in the Senate) won't even let the question of drilling come up for debate, much less a vote.

However, she's telling embattled Democrats that they can run on drilling and blame her. This illustrates the problem with parties.

If you're conservative (or in this case just want lower gas prices) but vote for your local Democratic Congressman because "he's okay," you're also voting for Nancy Pelosi. As long as the Democratic party rules the House, she will never allow drilling to even come up for a vote. If you want more oil, you can't vote for your Democrat. To get rid of her, you have to get rid of him. Sorry, dude.