Sunday, May 4, 2014

Progressive Policy: No Progress, Anywhere

Townhall.com ^ | May 4, 2014 | John Ransom


David206 wrote: Again .. You get the facts wrong ! NOT ONE DROP OF KEY STONE is for the U.S.A. All the oil is spoken for by Asian countries ALL OF IT !!!!! I fact if the pipe line is built , we will see an INCREASE of Gasoline and Diesel of at least 40 cents. Why? I'd tell ya but go look it up yourself I did.--Another Oil Train Explodes in Town; River Contaminated: Who Wants Keystone Now? Dear Comrade 206, Again…you have your punctuation wrong! Oh yes, another proponent of Common Core math. Question: If Johnny has 18 billion barrels of oil, and Mary adds 2 billion barrels of oil, how much can we tax the racist white men for their exploitation of ancient fossil burial grounds, black people and the transgendered? Answer Key: At least $.40 more! There is only one group of people standing in the way of this country, this economy and this people making progress. And that group is Progressives. The facts are not on your side. This is the same math that has brought us a GDP print just short of contraction for the first quarter of 2014 at 0.1%. And since it subject to revision, there's a possibility that we may have had a contraction-- that is a recession, albeit short-lived so far-- in GDP when the statistical dust finally settles. As the Washington Post points out in their Wonk Blog, construction spending, which is a major portion of GDP, has likely been overestimated. And the same can be said for retail sales, which was revised downwards. “Do the math,” writes the Post, not known to be unfriendly to whatever bogus number the administration puts out, “and you’ve got an economy that contracted by 0.1 percent in the first quarter -- and that might be the optimistic case. Barclays economist Cooper Howes said his calculations show a 0.2 percent decline. In either case, it would represent the worst performance for the recovery in three years.” This is the same math that allows the administration to claim 8 million people signed up for Obamacare, when in fact, only about 2.5 million people paid premiums to actually complete their “sign-up.” When WorldCom used this kind of math, Bernie Ebbers got 25 years. Were I running for Congress or the United States Senate, my platform would be to amend every piece of legislation with the final words “All portions of the above legislation shall apply equally to the government of the United States of America and its employees.” Because this the same math that has unemployment plunging to 6.3%, which is just short of “full employment” according to the Federal Reserve Bank, yet employment underutilization is growing not shrinking. Real unemployment is more like 23%. As we noted on Ransom Notes Radio, one in five households is absent a member that has a job. Please explain to me exactly how that is anything like full employment? Punctuation is optional. Indisbelief wrote: Just throwing oil out on the market will not bring down the price. Keeping the oil here at home and causing a local glut will keep the price down. Just as the situation with Steel City. Oil used to flow from Texas to steel City but then Keystone was built for the Canadian oil. The oil backed up at Steele City and caused a glut. The price of fuel was .40- .60 cents a gallon cheaper than the rest of the country. Now that the keystone from steel City, through Cushing, to Texas has been reversed there is no more glut at Steele City and no more depressed prices. The Bakken oil will never be destined for U.S. market--Another Oil Train Explodes in Town; River Contaminated: Who Wants Keystone Now? Dear Comrade InDisNeyLand, Please step away from the bong now. Seems like more and more of the Townhall trolls will work for weed. I don't really understand your point, Comrade Dis. But then of course neither do you. The Keystone pipeline has not been built. So I'm guessing that you're talking about some other pipeline that was built. Let's pretend that you were, just for the sake of reality therapy. So let's establish your premise, as hard as it may be: 1) keeping oil here at home will lower prices; 2) not keeping oil here at home will raise prices and 3) shale oil will not stay here at home. I don't really care about prices as long as the product is an American product. But I will observe this: currently oil prices are determined by a cartel. If America develops its energy resources, as I have written extensively about since joining TownhallFinance, the energy balance of power switches to the United States worldwide. Don't just take my word for it. In December 2012, PwC issued a report out of their London based branch that essentially backed up the data that I have produced regarding GDP growth, employment and energy production. PwC estimates that if shale oil is fully developed, US Gross Domestic Product could grow an additional 2-5 percent per year --that’s $300 to $800 billion in extra growth…every year…compounded-- greatly reduce the influence of OPEC, lower global energy prices, and ---with NatGas thrown in-- add at least a million jobs to manufacturing that are now just going to energy costs. That means- I’m saying this, not PwC- that we could significantly reduce the deficit, without drastically cutting benefits for a generation of Americans who have planned to count on those benefits. It means-- I’m saying this, not PwC-- we don’t have to raise taxes. Actually, it means we could go to some sort of a simplified tax code, like the fair or flat tax. Along the way, the U.S. would create at least 10 million new U.S. jobs in ten years, plus keep an average of $500 billion per year here at home yearly. Over twenty years that would be an additional $12.5 trillion in GDP even at a modest 2 percent growth rate. At 4 percent, the numbers are closer to $15.5 trillion. And that's the reason why I'm not really worried about the price of oil in this scenario. By keeping the money here at home, it adds to our GDP, our national income, and here is the coolest part: that money compounds throughout our entire economy. Do think the average Saudi worries about the price of oil? Yes they do. They want it high. Ask yourself “why?”

T-Shirt