Tag: Environmentalism

PROGRESSIVES PREFER MURDER’S OIL

A man with his hands crossed in front of him.Progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil. More specifically, the left, communists, socialists, progressives, liberals, and Democrats prefer murder’s oil over oil drilled and refined in the United States. This is based on the actions, not the rhetoric, of the left including progressives. Since oil is financing much of Putin’s Russian war against Ukraine, the west, especially the United States, needs to cut off all sales of Russian and their allies oil on world markets. This must include removal of Russian and their allies oil transactions from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. The Biden Administration is sending representatives or third-party negotiators, like Russia, to try to negotiate increased oil production for export to the United States from murderous dictators in counties like Iran, Saudi Aribia, and Venezuela. The Administration, including the President, is also unsuccessfully requesting increased oil exports from other Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) like the United Arab Emirates. These actions show that the Biden Administration and progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil.

The Biden administration and progressives think the We the People of the United States are to stupid to understand that all greenhouse gases are the same regardless of the source of the carbon during their transition to renewable energy. Progressives also believe that energy inflation is an acceptable tool to reduce carbon energy use in the United States. Perhaps the Biden Administration and progressives are the stupid ones. They believe that it is economically sound to pay other countries, many controlled by murderous dictators, for oil. This strategy also ships good paying oil jobs to foreign countries robing We the People of these good paying jobs. Our enemies, both military and economic, use energy as a weapon. Progressives and the Biden Administration fail to understand that the United States, with the largest energy reserves in the world, especially our petroleum reserves, should use energy as a weapon to crippler or destroy the economies of our enemies, especially Russia which invaded Ukraine without provocation and is committing unprecedented war crimes against the Ukrainian people.

Unfortunately, for the United States and the world, the Biden Administration, from the President to Cabinet Secretaries and regulators in the Environmental Protection Agency, The Federal Reserve System, banking, treasury, commerce, energy, and transportation at virtually every level have stated their intent to eliminate carbon-based energy produced in the United States, especially petroleum, as quickly as possible. Â This policy eliminates the possibility of using our petroleum as a weapon against tyrants like Putin and his nation Russia. The policy also guarantees continued gas price inflation into the future, at least 2024, unless Republicans win veto proof House and Senate majorities in the 2022 elections. The energy policy of the Biden Administration demonstrates that Biden and progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil.

Hopefully, Putin’s Russian invasion, war, and war crimes against Ukraine and its people will show the freedom loving, independent, democratic people of the world that that murderous dictators like Putin cannot be tolerated any longer. The free world should unite to destroy the economies of dictatorships, like Putin’s, before they have the economic power to wage wars like Putin’s Russian war against Ukraine. To accomplish this goal, the free democratic countries of the world must be unified economically by enacting true free trade agreements which excludes the dictatorships of the world.

The Biden Administration’s energy and foreign policies plans are totally inept, short sighted, and strategically lacking. The potential wars of the future are not being considered by this administration, progressives, and globalists. The Biden Administration does not understand that China and Russia are uniting to wage the current and upcoming economic energy wars. When the Biden Administration acted to immediately curtail carbon-based energy production, primarily petroleum, in the United States, Russia, the world’s third largest petroleum producer, could finance its invasion and war against Ukraine with oil revenue from the United States and the rest of the world. This was because we reduced Unites States oil production and became an importer rather than an exporter of oil. Our reduction in production reduced global supply and increased the global market price for oil increasing Russian oil profits. More actions demonstrating that progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil.

In addition, the Biden Administration lacks foreign, environmental, and energy policies that ensure the long-term ability to secure the rare earth minerals and capacity to produce the Lithium-ion batteries needed to power the electric vehicles that they are forcing on We the People in the United States. However, Tesla does manufacture its lithium-ion batteries in their Panasonic plant in California. The minerals needed to produce lithium-ion batteries are lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, manganese, copper, and aluminum (bauxite). According to United States Geological Survey information summarized in the article, Where do batteries come  from? And where do they go?, the natural reserves of these minerals in the United States do not rank among the top five countries of the world. In contrast, China is among the top three producers of lithium, graphite, copper, and aluminum (bauxite), and the United States is not listed as a top producers of these minerals in the world. Additionally, according to the 2020 United Nations publication using 2018 data, COMMODITIES AT A GLANCE Special issue on strategic battery raw materials, Commodities at a Glance: Special issue on strategic battery raw materials (unctad.org), China controls trade of critical duratives of the world lithium, cobalt and manganese supplies by aggressive import of raw materials and refined exports and produces most of the world’s graphite. The 2019 article, How Electric Car Batteries Are Made: From Mining To Driving states that mining lithium and cobalt causes harmful environmental pollution, and cobalt mines in the Congo use child labor with extremely low wages and deplorable conditions. The Biden Administration foreign, environmental, and energy policies do not provide a long term strategy to secure supplies of the essential minerals needed to produce lithium-ion batteries in the United States. This failure will make our electronic vehicle industry supply chain issues controlled by military and economic enemies, especially China. Just as progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil, progressives prefer enemy murder’s lithium-ion battery mineral supplies over America’s and our ally friend’s lithium-ion mineral supplies.

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THE PROGRESSIVE GLOBALISM CONTRADICTION

 

A cartoon of people standing on top of a globe.
The progressive globalism contradiction is global wealth redistribution from US laborers to foreign laborers.

The goal of global wealth redistribution, globalism, is contradictory to the progressive goal of wealth redistribution within industrialized capitalistic countries. From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, progressives struggled to increase the wages of the lower and middle classes, the primary work force. Activists on the left called themselves communists, socialists, progressives, and liberals depending on which term was more acceptable to society at large at the time and location involved in the world. These activists were essential to the success of the labor movement in Western Europe and North America. As a result, the wages and benefits of Western workers became the envy of the rest of the world. The contradiction, for progressives, is the fact that Western wages and benefits have resulted in comparatively high disposable income and standard of living in the industrialized Western world. For globalism, global wealth redistribution, to succeed, workers in industrialized countries must expect wage and benefit stagnation at best or decreases in their standard of living through reduced disposable income. In other words, the left gives and the left takes away, the left’s globalism contradiction.

As industrialization expanded to other regions of the world, specifically the Asian-Pacific rim countries and China, global competition also increased. Initially, lower wages and benefits in these regions allowed Asian automakers, consumer product producers, as well as Chinese steel and other consumer good producers to compete effectively in Western European and North American markets. Additionally, the fall of the old Soviet Union brought capitalistic enterprise and increased industrialization to Russia and Eastern Europe which allowed additional low-cost consumer goods to enter Western markets. The result was that Western manufacturers faced competition from newly industrialized areas where wages and benefits were lower than those in the United States and other Western countries. In the United States, our manufacturing plants, steel and special metal mills, textile mills, and consumer product manufacturing plants were old and outdated. The cost of updating these facilities as well as the time required for licensing and construction and the high cost of construction labor made new manufacturing plants even more time consuming and costly to bring on line. The time and expense of environmental impact and economic assessments adds significantly to the time required and the expense of constructing new modern manufacturing facilities.

Faced with low cost competition and the rapidly expanding global market, the globalism contradiction forced corporations to make decisions regarding manufacturing plant locations. The result was plant closures in the industrialized parts of the United States and new plant construction around the world to replace facilities closed in the US. These decisions have adversely affected the number of manufacturing jobs available, wages, and benefits in western countries like the United States. As a result, middle and lower working class wages and benefits have been at best stagnant or declining for at least two decades.

The final globalism contradiction is related to free trade agreements like NAFTA and TPP. When these agreements result in excessive trade deficits for the United States, they are effectively global wealth redistribution. This fact is contradictory to conservative ideology. Although US consumers purchase goods at a lower price, the value of the good paying jobs we lose in the exchange is roughly equivalent to the value of the trade deficit. The free trade competition results in lower cost consumer goods, but we lose good paying manufacturing jobs due to the high costs associated with US manufacturing. From the perspective of the left, opening factories in developing countries is great. Capital is redistributed from developed industrialized countries to underdeveloped Third World countries creating good paying jobs, more disposable income, and increased standard of living, global wealth redistribution. Of course, leaders and planners on the left do not discuss the sacrifices this global wealth redistribution inflicts on the middle and lower class workers of the more advanced industrialized countries. They stress that the top 1% are not paying their fair share of the costs they inflict on our workers. The question is, are workers in the United States satisfied with the answers provided by the Left?

On his last overseas trip, President Obama indicated that globalism has not leveled the world playing field as quickly as he had hoped. The 2016 election demonstrated that workers in the United States are not interested in sacrificing their standard of living to advance global income redistribution. It was the progressive globalism contradiction, stagnant or declining wages and employment in the United States, that cost progressives the Presidency in the 2016 election. This debate will be critical for the future of our country. This issue among others at this point in time and our history places us at America’s Crossroad.

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GLOBALISM IS WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION

 

To understand progressive domestic policy it is necessary to understand that globalism is wealth redistribution. The critical concept of globalism is the statement by Marx, From each according to his ability to each according to his need wealth redistribution will occur on a global scale. To prepare people in successful, industrialized, capitalistic countries like the United States for a totally globalized economy, several precursors are necessary. Changing the minds of the citizenry to accept global wealth redistribution is probably the most difficult, but essential, step. To accomplish this goal, an educational dictatorship has been established by progressives. The second step is the left’s domestic policy. The third step is the lefts foreign and immigration policy. These three prerequisites are discussed in detail at the links provided. A great deal of progress must be made in these three areas before the final stages of global wealth redistribution can be accomplished. The left plans and thinks in evolutionary time frames. They have worked toward their goal of complete globalism, wealth redistribution, since at least the early 1800’s.

A group of people standing in front of a map.
For progressive domestic policy and globalism to succeed, it is necessary to understand that both require wealth redistribution.

Some of the tactics of the left in this process are virtually invisible especially in the developed countries. From the perspective of individuals and families, the greatest difference between the people of advanced countries and Third World countries is disposable income. In my opinion, disposable income is income available beyond basic survival needs. Basic survival is simply food to maintain population vigor and vitality or a strong, healthy, and reproductive society. Safe water to drink and the ability to survive extreme heat or cold which requires adequate shelter are also basic survival necessities. The ability to stave off severe epidemics and diseases is also a basic necessity for life. Virtually everything beyond these survival necessities constitutes disposable income. Meeting these needs constitutes the fixed costs of life at the survival level. The more income a population has to secure amenities above these survival needs, the greater their disposable income.

The left has numerous resources and tools available for their closure of the disposable income gap between advanced capitalistic countries and Third World countries. Incremental increases affecting regulatory policies that increase production costs and higher taxes on fixed cost products and services like food, shelter, water, and healthcare are stealthy methods of reducing disposable income in advanced countries. In addition, taxes and regulations that increase costs of unnecessary necessities, such as advanced transportation systems, entertainment, recreation, and technology related to the basics of the good life decrease disposable income available for these necessities in industrialized Western cultures.

Similarly, excessively high business income and property taxes as well as business and financial institution regulations reduce available capital for business expansion. One of the most detrimental regulations has been Obamacare which mandates employee health insurance coverage for all businesses with 50 or more employees. This regulation stifles business growth and profitability. Small businesses either restrict growth to less than 50 employees or increase their prices to cover increased costs. Banking and financial regulations such as increased cash reserve requirements for banks reduce the supply of capital for business improvements or expansion. Financial regulations also cause a reduction in the number of local banks further reducing the supply of capital available to many small businesses. These actions result in lower product and service supplies resulting in increased costs. Until the current administration  reduced regulations and taxes, these costs caused corporations to move their headquarters or factories overseas to reduce overhead costs. Loss of productive capacity also increased costs. When taxes and regulations increase, the resulting cost increases are added to fixed costs related to the real or perceived necessities for life, thus reducing disposable income in developed countries.

Possibly the most powerful tool in the progressive stealth toolbox is global environmentalism. In the United States, the environmental movement has been supported by both Democrat and Republican administrations. Republican support shows that they support reasonable efforts to maintain safe water, clean air, and stable ecosystems. Republicans, however, do not support regulations that have adverse effects on the quality of life of our citizens by increasing fixed costs of living. One of the strongest proponents of environmentalism has been the United States federal court system. Our federal courts usually side with environmentalists. Often, these court decisions have the effect of decreasing supplies of lumber products, agricultural production, other renewable natural resources, and nonrenewable natural resources, both petroleum and mineral extraction. Environmentalists also work actively to reduce planned, and in the not too distant future, eliminate existing hydroelectric and irrigation dam projects. Many existing Hydro projects are facing their fifty-year environmental impact reviews in the near future. In all these critical areas of our fixed consumer economy, the result is a decrease in disposable income as fixed costs of the basic necessities of life increase. Environmental regulations associated with global warming have the same impact. They increase the fixed costs of both real and perceived necessities for life. Costs of heating, cooling, energy production, manufacturing, and transportation and sales of consumer goods, constitute increases in fixed costs in industrialized societies.

From the left’s perspective, the stealthy beauty of the entire environmental toolbox is the fact that saving minnows, spotted owls, or rare lizards, sounds so progressively wonderful and feels so good to a large portion of the populace, the urban dwellers. The impact on their disposable income and quality of life is irrelevant to them. After all, they already have enough, until they start losing too much of what they currently have.

In the United States, middle class voters in the northeastern industrialized states who experienced stagnant wages and rising fixed costs for a decade voted for change. They voted against the status quo and declining disposable income because they started experiencing the reality of global wealth redistribution on their quality of life.

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