Saved comments from January 2016, Part 2: Energy, economy, and the election

[neonvincent]

I posted Part 1 of January's saved comments yesterday.  Today, it's time for Part 2.

My comment on Discovery:

"Either you drive yourself to the Target store for a slow-cooker and a few other things, or Amazon has to send the brown truck to each and every house. Either way includes an insane amount of transport, and sooner or later both the brick-and-mortar chain store model and the Amazon home delivery model will fail."

The "insane amount of transport" is why I emphasize the importance of America moving on oil to my students. Right now it's cheap in nominal dollars, but all of your readers know that it's actually expensive to produce, so the current episode of low gas and diesel prices will pass. One of the more sane responses from my students was to talk about trailer tails for trucks, which could save up to 12% of fuel consumption and greenhouse gases. That's a stop-gap to keep the current system going. My students liked that talk, but the presentation they really enjoyed was about self-driving cars. The feedback was that they'd had enough of doom and gloom and wanted something hopeful. They aren't ready yet to give up on the current model of doing things. Instead, "They'll think of something" prevails.


My comment on Worse than 1860

I guess unleashing a weapon of mass distraction on their supposed best friend is one way the Saudi royal family can direct attention away from their problems. While people, including our host, are gaping at the train wreck of our major political parties, we're going through a perverse kind of oil shock, as oil fell to 12-year lows, dragging stocks down with it. I thought low oil prices would be good for the U.S. economy. Apparently, not this low, at least according to the investors! We can't have oil prices this low without a recession somewhere, can we? Add that to the stock market being ready to head back down (DJIA in the 8,000s by the end of 2018, anyone?) and it's time for another bear market, which will bring a recession here just by making the 1% spend less. That includes our frenemies the Saudis, who realize they just might lose their game of chicken with us, the Russians, and the Iranians.

One Gulf oil state has already cut one of its projects in the U.S. as Al Jazeera America is shutting down as its oil subsidy dries up. Of course, it didn't help that too few Americans will watch a station that's too foreign. BBC America, sure. Al Jazeera? Sorry.


My comment on Donald Trump and the Politics of Resentment

"Even the once-mighty profit class, the people who get their income from the profit they make on their own business activities, is small enough these days that it lacks a significant collective presence."

The odd thing is that the small business owner still plays an important political and cultural role, even if they don't actually have much political clout. Lots of politicians craft the appeals for their policies as promoting "small business," even if they don't really do anything of the sort. There's also the repeated fantasy of running a business, such as a restaurant or store, as a way of achieving independence. The reality is that it's usually the interests of the investment class that get promoted when politicians talk about policies that are "good for business," not the profit class. Also, running a small business is much more work than people realize. In the current system, it's a lot more remunerative for less work to be a member of the salary class.

"Consider the loud claims of the last couple of decades that people left unemployed by the disappearance of wage-paying jobs could get back on board the bandwagon of prosperity by going to college and getting job training."

There is also the recruitment of people from the wage class into the lower rungs of the salary class, where there are still jobs. However the net result is that the people earn more on paper, but get the increase sucked up into paying off student loans. They're not much better off than they were before, but the same culprits you identified, the banks and colleges, come out ahead.


My comment on "Link round-up for 3 January 2016"

Thanks for linking to that entry and putting in the same paragraph as Rosa Rubicondior's about the Catholic Church. I'm in good company!

The New Republic is right about the Star Wars saga being a multi-generational tale of a dysfunctional family. However, I wouldn't call it bad parenting, at least in the first two trilogies. I'd call it absentee parenting combined with bad foster parenting (except in the case of Leia; I think the Organas were actually good parents). Obi-Wan screwed up with Anakin and was supplanted by Palpatine, who was even worse. Lars tried, but he wasn't suited to deal with his nephew by marriage, who had the family curse of being destined for greatness.

It wasn't until the current movie that a combination of an unruly child with parenting not up to the task became apparent. Leia, Han, and Luke all tried with Kylo Ren, and all failed. Smoke (sp.?) took over the Palpatine role and ended up being the evil foster parent. Thank you, J.J. Abrams for making crystal clear what George Lucas only implied.

The good news is that the foster parents can redeem themselves. Obi-Wan, with Yoda's help, succeed with Luke where they failed with his father. Anakin himself finally did the right thing by his son, although it took Palpatine doing his best to kill Luke to do it. I wouldn't be surprised if Luke and Leia do the same for Kylo Ren and Rey by the final film of this trilogy. There is a formula to these films, after all.

The Catholic Church and Star Wars? Insert Pope Palpatine joke here.

P.S. I have one thing to say about the situation in Oregon: Y'all Qaeda is on a Yee-hawd.