Oily hypocricy from Paul Krugman

The BBQ Pit
21

Perhaps Fleischer, or better yet (but unlikely) december, can explain some simple facts of timing. If Big Oil started today to drill up there, how long would it take for the oil to reach our SUV’s? Five, ten years maybe? How does this help a crisis, if there even is one, today? What will the world oil market be like in five or ten years (and if you know, tell me and my stockbroker)? How long before the field is pumped dry and the oil situation isn’t any better?

Nope, the argument is fraudulent, and it doesn’t take much thought to realize that - but more thought than some are interested in using, though.

22

Dead link.

I do hope that if you want to argue on Krugman that you’re going to provide substantive non-ideologues.

Not oversold december, dishonestly sold.

Excuse Krugman? So he was mean, I’m mean. I like the guy for not pulling punches while also giving due where necessary.

Ari Fleischer is either economically illiterate or dishonest, a few thousand barrels here or there is not going to change overall market dynamics, above all without any genuine moves on the demand side drivers, especially in re efficiency gains.

I missed that column so I can’t comment. Krugman’s not a journalist in any case. He’s an economist and a damned good one. His politics I may not agree with 100% and I don’t bother to read his political analysis, it’s not his forte. However, his economic analyses are excellent and he does a fine job of pointing out actual rationales.

Don’t like it, lump it.

23

Incidentally, december’s quote fits in the part where I made the bracketed comment [explains who J. Welsh is]. Since it was the most volatile part of the column, I probably should have included it. Readers can look at the parts that came before (I almost had a J.W. moment…) and after (to be fair to Fleisher) to decide the extent to which Krugman was mean or startled.

As Elvis has pointed out, (love the way that came out) the idea that opening ANWR could do anything about Iraq’s current decision to curtail production is preposterous. And that is what today’s Krugman article is about.

Recall that the immediate controversy entail whether oil companies should be allowed to do exploratory drilling in the region.

I hasten to add that Fleisher appeared (from Krugman’s column) to be making a more general point about Bush’s energy policy and was not claiming that ANWR could help the US economy over the upcoming 6-12 months.

I suspect that, upon careful inspection, few would find the 2 Krugman articles to be contradictory.

24

I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about ANWR. Unlike Collounsbury I am not an expert geologist with many years of experience and research in the Arctic oil fields, so I don’t know how much oil is available under ANWR.

Simply from a standpoint of rhetoric, I do not like Elivs’s argument. Every proposed solution to the oil dependence problem would take years to be effective. New drilling. Additional refining facilities. Wind. Solar. Nuclear. Conservation. Electric cars. None would pay off immediately.

Furthermore, the Middle East problem has been going on for over 50 years. Unfortunately, it will likely go on for many more years. So, any of these approaches could pay off in time to do us a lot of good.

25

What nonsense, December. Are you incapable of doing the research required to find out any facts whatsoever?

Exactly how would Conservation not pay off immediately? Do you read what you write?

Many, many studies have shown conclusively how improbable, dishonest and downright stupid the arguments for ANWR are. Thank you for recapitulating them.

Let’s be straight. ANWR is only a concern for the Administration as a symbolic FUCK YOU to the save-the-world “crazies” that Bush dreams about at night. It’s right up there in rationality as allowing snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. It makes zero sense, which would explain why your argument was S.O.A., Shredded On Arrival.

Don’t you think your credibility could be better spent elsewhere? Having read several of your posts, I don’t think you’ve got much to spare.

26

Let’s suppose that the Bush adminsitration and Congress decided to promote conservation. (Which I think they should do BTW.)

How long would it take to figure out, agree on, and enact a legislative program? A $2 per gallon tax on gasoline? Maybe $5? Rationing of all fuel? Voluntary efforts? Massive government support for development of electric cars? (Don’t forget that all kinds of special interest groups would be lobbying for self-serving provisions.)

How many shots would it take for the government to find a truly effective program? If the original legislation didn’t save enough energy, how long would it take to find and agree on more effective legislation? And, if that one didn’t do enough, we might need many more efforts.

How long would it take for all Americans to change the way we live so much that we save enough energy to achieve oil independence? People might have to re-structure their homes, jobs and schooling to have shorter commutes. Could transportation of commodities be significantly improved?

More public transportation would be needed to reduce the use of automobiles. How long to build new subway systems. The ones in DC, Atlanta and Baltimore are quite successful, but each one took many years to plan, fund and build.

How does the government prevent Americans from increasing our energy usage in other areas, offsetting the gains from conservation efforts. To my knowledge,* the US has never cut energy use during any period.*

I fully support conservation efforts, but let’s be realistic about the anticipated payoff.

27

You may want to read up on a little-known event called World War II.

28

Though I wasn’t actually there, I seem to recall reading something about an embargo…

29

You are correct, Maegllin and I was wrong. Although US energy usage grew by more than 28% from 1992 to 1997, there were 5 individual years in this period when energy usage fell. See:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/25opec/sld018.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/25opec/sld019.htm

30

So December, you sat down with Dick Chenney today?

Depends, and of course we can exclude your strawmen, such as fuel rationing which no one [other than loons perhaps] proposes, and look at market oriented solutions.

Well, depends on whether they were informed by the wealth of literature on demand elasticities for energy and various fuels and experiences in other countries as models.

Yeah? And? Moving target. Looking at past efforts, there is no reason to presume that we’re entering into some strange new realm of science and economics.

Chimerical goal, oil is too large a component of the national energy basket to eliminate.

Please don’t set up straw men, above all one’s your drilling obsession doesn’t address either.

That’s what markets are for december, achieving efficient least-cost solutions to an issue.

The issue of course is efficiency.

Oh, high density lanes, car-pooling, buses, high train usage --park and ride-- all that sort of thing.

One need not always take the most extreme item on the list and hold it up, waving it around like a ninny to try to discredit the policy.

Incremental changes, not get there tomorrow.

Sure, well it depends on what measures we apply. If we simply apply a gross number, no. But then that reflects a degree of misdirection insofar as the gross figure ignores population and economic growth, and our aim is not an absolute but relative reduction. We really need to think about per capita usage or per unit GDP usage, measures of energy intensity.

I suggest you go to either the DOE’s Energy Information Agency or the International Energy Agency (Paris) and take a look at their trend graphs for the same for developed countries.

You’ll be surprised, it is clear, at the evolution. It ain’t magical like the ‘replace oil’ crunchies think but neither is it impossible like the Oil-Heads would like to spin.

Yes, let us. And well-informed and realistic about goals and methods. And let us leave Mr Chenney’s dunderheaded spin out of future discussions.

31

So December, you sat down with Dick Chenney today?

Depends, and of course we can exclude your strawmen, such as fuel rationing which no one [other than loons perhaps] proposes, and look at market oriented solutions.

Well, depends on whether they were informed by the wealth of literature on demand elasticities for energy and various fuels and experiences in other countries as models.

Yeah? And? Moving target. Looking at past efforts, there is no reason to presume that we’re entering into some strange new realm of science and economics.

Chimerical goal, oil is too large a component of the national energy basket to eliminate.

Please don’t set up straw men, above all one’s your drilling obsession doesn’t address either.

That’s what markets are for december, achieving efficient least-cost solutions to an issue.

The issue of course is efficiency.

Oh, high density lanes, car-pooling, buses, high train usage --park and ride-- all that sort of thing.

One need not always take the most extreme item on the list and hold it up, waving it around like a ninny to try to discredit the policy.

Incremental changes, not get there tomorrow.

Sure, well it depends on what measures we apply. If we simply apply a gross number, no. But then that reflects a degree of misdirection insofar as the gross figure ignores population and economic growth, and our aim is not an absolute but relative reduction. We really need to think about per capita usage or per unit GDP usage, measures of energy intensity.

I suggest you go to either the DOE’s Energy Information Agency or the International Energy Agency (Paris) and take a look at their trend graphs for the same for developed countries.

You’ll be surprised, it is clear, at the evolution.

Yes, let us. And well-informed and realistic about goals and methods. And let us leave Mr Chenney’s dunderheaded spin out of future discussions.

32

“Saint” Bork?

Just when I thought Collounsbury’s supercilious idiocy had peaked, he ups the ante a little!

Though, like most conservatives, I was outraged by the unprecedented tactics the Left used to defeat his nomination, I don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on Robert Bork. He lost, that’s that. In fact, to this day, I’m far less angry at the liberals who slandered Judge Bork than in the President (Ronald Reagan) who refused to spend any political capital to fight for him.

Most ideologues in the GOP idolize Reagan and never respected George Bush, but let’s give Bush his due: when the going got tough for Clarence Thomas, Bush went to the mat for his nominee, and came out on top. Ronald Reagan never lifted a finger to help Judge Bork, once the aprtisan fighting got nasty, and let Bork twist in the wind.

I EXPECT liberals to try any means, fair or unfair, to derail conservative candidates or nominees for any office. In the case of Judge Bork, they succeeded. Such is life in the world of politics.
Periodically, conservatives succeed in tearing down a liberal politician or nominee, in the same way. Tit for tat. That’s the way it goes.

SO. COll old pal, if I bring up Robert Bork in THIS context, it’s not because I haven’t stopped weeping for him in the past 16 years. Rather, it’s because Paul Krugman’s stupidity and hypocrisy (which you evidently share) couldn’t go unchallenged. Krugman is the one who’s still whining about how mean the “vast right wing conspiracy” was to poor Bill Clinton. He’s the one sobbing that, while rich evil Republican ideologues are digging for dirt on helpless liberals, rich liberals are FAR too nice ever to dig for dirt on Republicans!

Krugman is the one claiming that rich liberals are too busy making the world a better place to spend their time or money libelling Republicans, or trashing their reputations over victimless crimes.

That, Collouns, is a load of crud, and you know it as well as anybody. Liberals regularly spend long hours and tons of money, searching for peccadillos that can be used against their ideological foes. They TRIED to do it to Robert Bork (who impolitely refused to rent the naughty videos they hoped he would). And they SUCCEEDED in doing it to John Tower, Bob Livingston, and numerous others.

Do I blame Liberals for playing hardball? Not at all. And when a prominent conservative gets caught with his pants down, do I blame liberals for trying to make that front-page news? Again, no. They’d be foolish NOT to take advantage when an enemy hands them an opportunity like that.

But when liberals try to claim the high ground, when they decry the likes of David Brock (lemme get this straight… you think he was a pathological liar before, but that we should treat his every word as gosepl now???) for sullying Bill Clinton’s good name, when they pose as idealists who are only interested in honest debate, when they pretend that they don’t engage in the sleaziest imaginable tactics themselves… yes, I bring up Robert Bork, as proof positive of liberal hypocrisy.

Incidentally Coll… you don’t see the SLIGHTEST humor in the fact that Ted Kennedy voted down John Tower on the grounds that drunken womanizers have no place in high office?

33

Didn’t the “Saturday Night Massacre” (firing of Archibald Cox) have a lot to do with why he was disliked and not confirmed?

34

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. The 2/9/02 column by Krugman was about the risk of an imminent oil crisis.

The previous column was about the dishonesty of pushing ANWR as a way of lowering oil prices.

These are different. In 2 different ways, no less.

  1. Even Fleisher has not claimed that ANWR would be an effective way of increasing the oil supply over the next 6-12 months. So, rolling eyes at Krugman’s worries about the current economic recovery -implying that ANWR could do anything to affect supplies over upcoming months- is sort of silly.

But, hey december appears to have shifted his position: “any of these approaches could pay off in time to do us a lot of good.”

Alas, he is still wrong.

  1. Among long-run solutions, I seem to recall reading that increasing CAFE standards would save a lot more oil than ANWR would cost. I’m would guess that december has read similar estimates.

  2. In some ways, all this is immaterial though. While there might be environmental benefits to reducing demand, and ANWR may be good idea once oil prices reach a certain point (and drilling technology continues become less invasive), these are secondary issues vis a vis the oil security issue.

The leverage that individual oil producing nations have is roughly proportional to their share of total excess capacity in the world oil market. And excess capacity is a short-run phenomenon. *

To the extent that oil security is a concern, I would think that adding to our strategic oil stockpile would be sensible, preferably when oil prices drop below, say, $22 per barrel.

  • Although, I admit that to the extent that OPEC has a smaller share of total capacity, they are more likely to have a smaller share of excess capacity. In practice, the plurality of excess capacity is usually maintained by the Saudis.
35

City Paper, a Washington freesheet, broke the Bork video tape story. Not the Washington Post, not the NYT.

The ACLU complained to the editor about this.

People for the American way urged the District of Colombia to pass a law against this practice.

And I don’t recall any US Senators supporting the article.

I saw the Bork hearings on TV. IMHO, he lost because he couldn’t persuade Howell Heflin (and others of Heflin’s conservative southern democratic POV) that Bork was not “an extremist”, to use Heflin’s terms.

And, personally, I see a right to privacy in the 10th amendment of the constitution. Robert Bork does not.

Oh, man, this is going to go on forever. Suffice it say that launching a media campaign against a Supreme Court nominee sounds a lot like democracy to me. Hiring PI’s to dig up dirt on a sitting President or Presidential nominee, spending millions of dollars to explore a President’s personal life - well, that seems a wee bit different to me. (I’m thinking about Scaiffe in this respect).

36

Et Spirutus Sanctus.

Idiocy? Well, as you wish. I wasn’t the one trying to find yet more fantastical ways to defend the ignorance of the big fat idiot, but I suppose in a partisan world idiocy is measured by adherence to a vision, or not.

Yeah, whatever. Saint Bork, blah blah blah.

Relevance to the issue for the non-ideologue?

Ah yes, and the reverse? Fair play as we say?

Whatever, the whinging about a guy who went down while I was in college is just, well, sad.

Stupidity?

Krugman?

hehheh. You are a funny, angry little ideologue. I like you, you amuse me.

Did he? I don’t know, I don’t follow his non-economic writings and frankly don’t see the relevance to the present issue as the present issue rests on economic facts.

Laying that aside, if you have some direct quotes --with context please-- that would be nice, but in any case, I already noted I have never read Krugman for his political insights.

???

Shrillness is very becoming of you Asty old maid, but to what do you refer as you pee your panties? I’m confused.

Liberals, Conservatives… Well for all your Capitalization I don’t live in the same shrill ideological world that you do.

I actually could care less. It’s not as if either set of political tendencies has a real monopoly on immorality, so if they want to play to pedestrain sensibilities they bloody well can. Gingrich, Kennedy… Whatever, it’s all the same game. I’d rather care about actual things, rather than the petty blather of shrill ideologues.

Unless they provide unintentional entertainment like you do.

37

How ironic…

McCarthy did not “out” a gay man, he “outed” a member of Senator Welchs staff who had past ties to the Communist Party. I put “out” in quotation marks because actually the N.Y. Times had already written an article some days before mentioning this staff member and his communist background.

What makes your comment ironic is that one of the reasons McCarthy “blew up” was Welchs constant gay-baiting of Roy Cohn during the hearing, including sly references to Cohn being a pixie and a fairy.

Ron

38

Never heard of John Rutledge, astorian? From Advice and Consent of the Senate by Joseph Harris, p43: “It was rumored [by Federalist partisans] that Rutledge, who was advanced in years, was subject to mental derangement, and that the speech [opposing a Congressional treaty passed by the Federalist majority] could have been made only by a person suffering from mental disorder.”

Unprecedented, indeed.