The bankers whose friends and associates profit from lending the U.S.
government the money when the budget runs a deficit were panicked
(Alan Greenspan has written about this) that the Clinton era tax and
spending levels, if continued, would result in ZERO debt, something
Greenspan saw as potentially disastrous. Yeah - disastrous for all
his buddies who make enormous profits loaning our government the same
money they should be paying in taxes.
The Republicans have had a policy of devaluing the dollar for
decades. They want the currency to be worth less. I will leave it to
a Republican to explain why, but I think the theory is that our
products will then be cheaper when exported. Unfortunately the robber
baron free trade agreements have resulted in most manufacturing moving
off shore, so there are few products left to sell. In addition, we
import 4 million barrels of oil a day or something, so at $120 a
barrel we are going in the hole fast. No way are cheaper prices going
to make up that kind of profligate spending. The fact that the dollar
is still the preferred reserve currency and that the oil trade is
based on the dollar are about the only things keeping us afloat, and
if the downward trend in the dollar continues it is only a matter of
time until exporters of oil will no longer accept dollars.
Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, EXPORTS about 4
million barrels per day, each day, making now, at $120 a barrel, half
a billion dollars a day in profits.
By the way, it isn't quite true that oil sells for the same price
everywhere. In Venezuela I think gas is $0.12, twelve cents, per
gallon. In Iraq, before the U.S. occupation, gas was $0.04, four
cents, per gallon at the pump. It was up to $1.26, I read, a couple
of weeks ago. I don't know what the price of gas is in Russia, but as
an exporting nation they may have lower prices than we are forced to
pay in oil importing nations.
The U.S. is still one of the world's largest producers of oil, but we
waste so much that we have to import huge amounts besides what is
domestically produced. If we nationalized our oil here, had fuel
efficient vehicles, and greater use of mass transit, we could have
cheap oil here too. If we eliminated wasteful gas guzzlers and
implemented maximum alternative energy like wind and solar we could
live as well or better than we do now on only domestically produced
oil.
>> Stay informed about: Yikes! Diesel $4.50/gallon 
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