I have written about health care before but over the past couple of months the whole dialog has turned into bizzaro land from the wacko right. Watching the people yelling “We Want Our Country Back!” while holding up posters with Obama with a Hitler’s mustache is disgraceful. These people have no ability to think for themselves or understand the difference between socialism, communism and fascism and are the same people who take as gospel the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Rush Limbaugh has been saying on every show he has done that the “New Deal is Dead” and then plays a song that makes fun of homeless people. This at the same time he signed a $400 million contract last year. Now here is a guy who really cares about the very people to whom he preaches his hate speech. Many of those listeners who don’t trust the government have no trouble collecting government funded social security, Medicare or unemployment insurance after their jobs were shipped to China.  

What side were Conservatives on when Social Security and Medicare were passed? If you said against you are correct. Even the Right Wing Icon Ronald Reagan did an Anti-Medicare commercial in the 60’s saying we were now heading down the road to socialism, a fear we now know was unfounded. What side were Conservatives on when Bush gave massive tax breaks to the top 2% income earners while the nation was at war? I’m afraid Conservatives were fine with giving $1.6 trillion in tax breaks while putting the war and everything else on the people’s credit card. Somehow Conservatives are also fine with Limbaugh saying when Obama got elected, “I want him to fail” all the while embracing their own failed policies that have brought this country to its knees.  

Yes we do need health care reform! We need to have at a minimum a public option that allows for all Americans to have affordable health care. What does it say about us as a nation where the Bush tax cuts could actually have paid for a public option? What does it say when we can put war on a credit card while the reason 55% of Americans file for bankruptcy is because of burdensome medical bills? What does it say when people truly believe that we would create Death Panels? What does it say when a local small business owner who makes around $40,000 has to pay nearly $13,000 for health insurance for his young family?  I guess for Conservatives and Right Wingnut talk show hosts that is just fine. How come we can spend trillions of dollars on our military so that we will never again lose 3,000 lives to terrorism and yet according to a recent Harvard Medical Study 45,000 deaths per year are linked to the lack of health insurance coverage? How come we do not have the willingness or for some the intelligence to do both? 

So when Sarah Palin and Senator Grassley say that Obama is going to pull the plug on granny, they lie. When they say we have the greatest health care system in the world, they lie. When they say you will not be able to see your current doctor, they lie. When they say federal dollars will be used for abortions, they lie. When they say we have a great health care system when the poor have to go to the emergency room to have a wart removed, they lie. When they say we can’t afford it, they lie. When they say the current system doesn’t put insurance companies’ profits ahead of people, they lie. Oh, I miss the old Conservatives like William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater; at least they could conduct a reasonable debate based upon intellect and civility.

As a person who has personally had serious life threatening illnesses recently, I know first hand that we have wonderful and caring people in our health care system. If I even thought for a moment that I would have to give up going to my doctor, who I know saved my life, I would be the first one demonstrating against any health care changes that would make me lose my doctor. It isn’t the health care profession that is broken; it is our current health insurance system. I do think Medicare needs to be fixed so that proper payments are given to doctors but those who say government can’t provide decent health care should take note of the high patient satisfaction of those using the Veteran Health Administration.  

Let me end with asking one question, why is it that if a person commits murder and is sentenced to life in prison, he or she will get free health care courtesy of tax payers, but 45 million citizens who have committed no crime have no health insurance at all? I guess to Conservatives Jesus shouldn’t have healed the sick because leprosy was a preexisting condition or He should have at least checked their co-pay!

As I wrote earlier, I was not and still not in favor of the current structure of the bailout of the banking and insurance corporations that have contributed to creating a global financial crisis. Transparency is still lacking and the persons that drove these companies into the ground have not been held accountable. If anything they are being rewarded while taxpayers pick up the tab.

We are still hearing from Washington that these institutions are “Just to Big to Let Fail!” I’m sorry but if they are too big to fail then they are too big to exist. It has been deregulation and the lack of enforcement of those few regulations left that has put us in this quagmire. I think most reading this article have seen the Jimmy Stewart’s classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”. What has happened is that our country is no longer Bedford Falls but we have become Potterville. In George Bailey’s nightmare Mr. Potter got what he wanted and that was to eliminate the Bailey Savings and Loan because then he wouldn’t have any competition and then he controlled all the wealth and the town.

When former Treasury Secretary Paulson gave a $125 billion bailout to nine banks to include his old firm Goldman Sachs we the taxpayer have been ripped off. The actual value of those nine banks was about $62.5 billion if we bought their stock on the open market. So our generous Mr. Paulson gave them a little extra bonus with taxpayer’s money. You do the math. We should have bought them up to break them apart and sell off the good parts back to the private sector and dissolve the toxic parts, which in reality is just a small part but who actually did most of the damage.

Unfortunately Obama seems to want to get back to more oversight but I still don’t see a major change in policy with the current Treasury Secretary. We need to start breaking up these “We Control All” Corporations and get back to basics and put competition back into the free enterprise equation. Let’s take one company that is a mega conglomerate and see where General Electric’s (GE) tentacles go:

They own NBC Universal which is media, GE Capital – Financial Services and Insurance, technology from nuclear reactors and turbines to medical equipment, military and commercial aircraft engines, lighting manufacturing and pipeline industry products and the list goes on and on which would fill up most of this column.

I say if you’re in the banking industry, you are a bank and not a weapons contractor. If you issue a mortgage you own that mortgage until the mortgagee pays you back. The bundling and selling off mortgages where some should never have been issued in the first place must stop. If you can’t sell off a bad mortgage, maybe bankers will be more responsible when they can’t sell off their liability to other investors or taxpayers? The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act which was enacted to bring oversight to the banking industry during the Great Depression must be put back into law. President Clinton with the major push coming from the former Senator Phil Gramm (R) and Congressman Jim Leach (R) repealed the law 1999. We now see the tragic results.

What I don’t want to hear from the party that preaches they are against regulations and want more tax cuts is they have a better answer to our problems. I think the recent four million people who are now unemployed in the last four months would be happy to pay taxes if they were still getting a pay check and maybe not losing their home. The hole that was dug by those who controlled the past eight years never questioned deficit spending and who never questioned when two wars and Katrina were never factored into the federal budget. All of a sudden they get deficit religion? I’m sorry but they had their chance and that dog just won’t hunt. And Democrats like Christopher Dodd who accepts campaign donations from the very financial corporations he is now in charge of overseeing, shame on you too!

We have seen since then a dismantling of the very services that government services are supposed to provide. The purpose of government is to protect its citizens. But we have been told by the many, especially on the Conservative side, is that the private sector can do everything better than our government. If that be the case then let’s just privatize everything. Let’s do away with even our local police and fire departments. If your house is on fire and you didn’t make your payment, sorry you’ll just have to watch it burn.

As a Capitalist, I know that corporations are in the business of making profits and not providing for the greater good of our society. Richard Nixon even realized this and under his administration he formed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) when there were no controls on companies such as General Electric who were dumping PCBs into the Hudson River. After 9/11 we have the former head of the EPA Christie Whitman lying to the heroes working at ground zero telling them the air quality was safe. These heroes are now suffering and dying.

Since the 1980’s our regulatory agencies have been gutted or their hands have been tied by their agency heads who are political appointed cronies who in most cases came from the very corporations they are now suppose to oversee. Most remember the Savings and Loan (S&L) collapse which up through the 1970s were highly regulated. During the 1980s regulators found that their hands were being tied, regulations were being relaxed and S&Ls were allowed to venture into speculative loans and investments. When the regulators were cut back, I compare it to having seven football games going on at the same time with only two referees. Tell me someone isn’t going to take an illegal cheap shot?  This fiasco cost the US taxpayers in the neighborhood of $130 Billion with the failure of 747 institutions.

We have seen recently the privatization of even our military services such as meals, laundry and supply transportation given to Haliburton and its subsidiary KBR. These services were once provided by our enlisted personnel and when they had to put down the spatula they picked up a rifle when the “stuff hit the fan”. In Iraq security of our diplomats and embassies is now being provided by a corporation called Whitewater, who follow no laws or regulations and are mercenaries. All making billions of profits from no bid contracts paid again by US taxpayers.

Currently we have a crisis again with our major financial institutions who have been allowed to go into the subprime mortgage arena unregulated. Merger mania has also gone un-tethered in all areas especially in the financial services area. Now we have a situation where the politicians are bailing them out because they are too big to let fail. So again your tax dollars are bailing out this fiasco because the current and past administrations have allowed this to happen because they are beholden to corporate interests, not the people. Where is President Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? He distrusted wealthy businessmen and saw the monopolies that were being created by a few.  Roosevelt had the average American and the country as his priority and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations and became known as the “trust buster.”

Capitalism is good, but unregulated greed will allow corporate leaders to sell out even their own country. We need our government to be the cops on the block. We don’t need children’s toys being imported with lead in them, we don’t need people dying from food poisoning, we don’t need coal miners dying because the Mine and Safety Administrator is a former mine executive who also had safety violations where his miners died and we don’t need unsafe drugs approved because the Food and Drug Administration is in bed with their “clients” the pharmaceutical companies. And the worst from the Bush administration is how FEMA reacted to Hurricane Katrina because their head guy’s background was in Arabian horses, not public safety.

I find it funny that those that say they want government out of their corporate lives and leave everything to the private sector say they aren’t socialists! They believe all the profits the CEO makes is their private money, but when they crash and burn their corporations as the financial giant Bear Stearns recently did, these same CEOs have no problem socializing the corporate loses!! Yup, CEOs keep their millions and the taxpayers will pay for the bailout.  Sounds like some type of their own form of convoluted socialism to me.

So again we are making a deal for the international corporations who don’t care if the government of Columbia is violent and corrupt, but it is just being rapped under the euphuism of “Free Trade.” The only thing that is free is what it costs corporations for labor and our manufacturing base is getting smaller and smaller every day as jobs and factories leave. Does anyone know of even a TV that is made in this country anymore?

Several decades ago we passed the Maquiladora Trade Treaty with Mexico even before NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). This treaty was suppose help Mexico’s economy and provide better jobs for Mexican citizens. In theory better wages would provide growth and prosperity for Mexican’s and as their standard of living grew, so would what they could buy from US Companies. But in reality US Companies did build and move their factories over the border and what benefits did the Mexican people get? They got living conditions that still kept them in squalor, wages that were a small fraction that US workers used to be paid for the same job and environmental standards that were supposed to be enforced. Hazardous waste was being dumped in open trenches and anyone who tried to organize a union had their skulls split.

Now let’s look at China. China machine gunned down over 2,000 of its citizens in Tiananmen Square as they marched for democracy in 1989. Organizers were given a trial and then executed and the cost of the bullet was charged to their family. Catholic Priests and other Christian leaders are still serving prison sentences under false charges. Since the 1950’s over one million peaceful Tibetans have lost their lives under the Chinese Government. Even today we are seeing soldiers in Tibetan streets shooting protestors. In Beijing the air is so polluted that some Olympic athletes are only showing up on the day of their events. The government also is unfairly controlling the value of its currency which in itself is creating unfair trading practices with the US. In 2007 for every $1 of US exports to China we imported $256 worth of stuff. And what is the Communist Government of China doing with all the US dollars they are sucking out of this country? Just building up their military and using the technology their spies stole from us.

The part of all this that I see is actually comical is that we deal with all these countries that are run by brutal dictators, communist regimes to now to include Vietnam where we lost 58,000 lives, but fifty miles off our coast is Cuba. Since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 what kind of threat has Cuba posed against the US? None. But till this day we have to have an embargo that is serving no military or international purpose. When Katrina devastated our Gulf Coast the Cuban government said to the Bush administration that they know we have our differences but if for now we could put that aside, they would like to send 1,200 doctors and medical staff to offer assistance. The reply from this administration was no, so I guess Bush felt that if he wasn’t going to react immediately to the crisis, no one else should be allowed to either.

The Cold War is over and I truly feel if we opened trade and travel with Cuba and families could reunited after 50 years, the Cuban people themselves will bring about changes that will make for a better neighbor. I for one would rather visit Cuba than our so called ally Saudi Arabia and I have friends who have gone to Cuba and said the people are wonderful.

Remember any politician who wants “Free Trade” is not working for the good of America. “Fair Trade” Yes …. “Free Trade” No such thing! Over 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000 should say it all.

We saw during the Johnson and Nixon administrations the misuse of our intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens who the administrations thought might be a threat to their power and war policies. The FBI and CIA spied on civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King and others who were looking to end the carnage that lasted ten years in Vietnam. Political opponents had their offices broken into, State Department Official Daniel Ellsberg was under the threat of prison but he still released the Pentagon Papers. These Papers proved that the US was lying to the American people with the illegal bombing of Laos and Cambodia all the while they were saying we weren’t expanding the war. Senator Mike Gravel also had the courage to put into the congressional record the 4,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, so that it could be discussed publically without the threat of being charged with treason and possible conviction.

With the obvious abuses from the Nixon administration that had its enemy’s list and who finally left office in disgrace over Watergate, Congress in 1978 enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act known as FISA to curb future administrations from violating our Fourth Amendment which protects all of us from illegal search and seizures. This includes wiretaps, any electronic surveillance, and opening our mail or email unless there is a warrant. FISA was put in place to make sure that foreign threats should be monitored by our intelligence agencies, NOT Americans. If a US citizen is suspected of working with a foreign threat, the intelligence agencies actually could immediately tap that phone without a warrant. But once done, the agency then has to go to a Secret FISA Court within a couple of days to justify their actions. But the Bush administration in their quest for absolute power found justifying what they were doing as inconvenient. A FISA judge resigned when he realized that they had no intention of following the then current FISA law.

The current debate in Congress finally showed some backbone by the Democrats when they wouldn’t give immunity to the telecommunication companies who were tapping our phones without warrants. Quest was the only company that didn’t violate the law and our Constitution! They said no to this administration that lied us into Iraq. Bush recently was saying that these companies were doing the bugging of our phones because they were being Patriotic! Guess what? When one of these Patriotic companies didn’t get paid by the US Government, they stopped bugging until they got paid. Yeah that is real patriotism!!?

The main reason certain members of congress and the Bush Administration want immunity for these companies is because if they are brought to court they know the fingers will all be pointed back at the Oval Office. I can hear their defense now, “We were just following orders.” So for those who voted in Congress to give immunity to the telecom companies please reread the Constitution you swore to uphold. And yes Congressman Carney your one of them and I am very disappointed. 

Congress recently passed a $168 billion so called “Stimulus Package.” Who is really going to benefit or get stimulated? The only major part of the package which I can agree with is the part which is helping our veterans. But the question that comes forth from all those who claim to” Support the Troops” why does supporting the troops, after six years of war have to be considered now in an economic stimulus package?

Part of the reason is that the past control of both houses used patriotism and support of the troops as political slogans versus real actions. Wounded soldiers had their measly pay deducted for meals when they were hospitalized from their wounds until it became public. Shame Shame Shame.

Now, both Democratics and Republicans come out with this so called “Stimulus Package.” It should be more appropriately called, “Get me Reelected in November and Pile on more National Debt Package.”  We are bowering from ourselves with the hope that people will go to Walmart and buy more stuff from China or continue pay the high gas prices so the oil companies and their Arab Sheik friends can make more billions.

I suggest instead of sending a check that our government issue VISA Cards with a set limit that we have to pay back in three years. Maybe then Americans then will realize we our using our American Express Card to pay our VISA!

If we are going to create REAL stimulus we should use that $168 billion to truly invest in our future. Let’s create real jobs that produce clean energy, let’s produce jobs that retrofit every home with proper insulation, let’s give meaningful tax credits for every American that buys energy saving devices for their homes and businesses. Let’s give interest free loans for those who want to put solar panels on their homes and businesses if those products are produced in the US of A. And guess what? Those people and businesses will be earning real dollars that they will be paying taxes on!!

We have become a society that only lives in sound bites, instant gratification without planning for our futures. It took from the beginning of our nation till 1980 to have 1 trillion dollars of national debt. In the last 6 years we have added 5-6 trillion more. Yeah let’s elect someone again that strokes us with saying they are going to cut taxes! Try only paying half of your mortgage payment going forward or half your rent and see how long you will have your home. Well, our home (nation) is almost in default so why not continue to borrow against it? I want to elect someone that knows that it will take 10 years to put a man on the moon. Not someone who says it is impossible or they can do it next week.

Real wages are decreasing, the cost of traveling back and forth to work or the grocery store is increasing, the costs to heat your home are increasing and the disparity between the rich and average Americans have never been greater since before the Great Depression.

Beware of politicians who say all are problems can be blamed on illegal immigrants. The blame is on the politicians who have sold their souls to corporate lobbyists and their rich donors. When a politician comes along that doesn’t except corporate money then they have my interest. 

The future has to be planned, not just wished.  Unfortunately our future has been mortgaged away and the bill is past due.

We need to restore a foreign policy where we don’t invade sovereign countries that don’t attack us.

We need to restore our manufacturing jobs that have been lost to cheap foreign labor. Paper Magic in Troy is closing and losing 65 jobs just in the past week. This is happening all across this nation to rural and urban communities, but this will only stop when the President and Congress restore us to a time before NAFTA and the WTO. We need to restore trade tied to human rights and hold other nations to the same labor and environmental standards as ours. Also, Congress should never allow any President to have Fast Track to avoid their responsibility of setting trade policies.

We need to restore an energy policy that was set back 30 years ago that would not have us funding Arab Sheiks who financed the attack on 9/11 and would have had us allot closer to true energy independence today. Last week Bush was bribing the Saudi’s with over 30 billion dollars worth of our latest and most sophisticated weaponry and asking them, “Please lower your price of oil”. Weren’t 17 of the 19 hijackers Saudi’s?

We need to restore a nation that would never have torture as a matter of policy.

We need to restore our education system to where our children are number one in the world, not near the bottom of other industrialized countries.

We need to restore the meaning of “Support the Troops” by giving those returning the healthcare, both physical and mental care that they truly need. Having them living in squalor in our nation’s capital across from Walter Reed is a national disgrace. Our soldiers should be more than just a back drop for a President, who uses them to support his illegal war,

We need to restore the ballot box, not the computer box from corporations, and go back to paper so there can be verifiable recounts.

We need to restore our airwaves and print media so that it is owned by many corporations who are just media companies and not weapons manufacturers, Mickey Mouse, or by just one Australian named Rupert Murdoch.

We need to restore the accountability of Congress to hold hearings on War Profiteering as President Truman did.

We need to restore the value of our America dollar so that it is worth more not less than even the Canadian dollar.

We need to restore the rule of law so that no longer will any of the President’s underlings be able to ignore Congressional subpoenas when the possible crimes make Watergate look like a speeding ticket.

We need to restore to a time when Americans knew that their government was not listening to their phone calls, reading their emails and entering their homes (Sneak & Peek) without a warrant.

We need to restore our image to the world that sets us as an example of what is right and moral.

We need to restore a tax policy that doesn’t give millions back to billionaires while average Americans are losing their homes, paying over $3 per gallon for gas, and can’t afford healthcare.

We need to restore New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to before Katrina instead of sending billions of dollars each week to Iraq.

We need to restore a fair bidding for all US Government Contracts, not no-bid contracts for Halliburton and all the cronies of a President and Vice President.

Finally, I want to restore us to a time when you couldn’t find an American Flag that says “Made in China,” and restore us to a time where our President brought hope and vision for our nation instead of perpetuating fear and endless war. And less I forget, please restore us to a time when our President could talk in complete sentences.

Last week was the week this nation was waiting for since the first of the year. This was the week we were told that we would get the true assessment from General Petraeus about the results of the escalation of troops into Iraq. The so called Surge was to help quell the sectarian violence so that the Iraq government could work on resolving the internal political turmoil. Well there is still no real government and what we do call a government takes a months vacation while our soldiers die and are wounded.

Also, many of our politicians who have gone over to Iraq are given their scripted three hour tour that is carefully choreographed by this administration. Soldiers who have negative opinions are prohibited from commenting; all the while those who are not as critical are given written scripts of what to say. The streets that are shown as models of success could just as well be from a movie set at Universal Studios. Shop keepers have been paid up to $2,500 by our military to open up their shops so these politicians and reporters can feel like they’re walking down a street as if they were back home. One congressman commented that it was as if he was back in Indiana. I think he must have clicked his heels three times to many.

So what did we get from two days of testimony from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker? What we got are the same statements that Petraeus gave when asked about his assessments in 2004, 2005 and 2006 with only a few minor tweaks. It all boils down to things are getting better, violence is coming down and in another six months we should be able to have a better handle on whether we are going to be successful. This time his comments did change just a little. Because instead of six months, we now have to wait till next summer. And guess what? We are going to bring home thirty thousand troops back by then. How stupid does this Administration think we are? All those troops coming home have too because it will part of their normal rotation and where are we at when they do come home? Exactly at the same number we were at before this ill-conceived Surge. Does anyone think that had General Petraeus reported anything but what the Administration wanted to hear that he would have been picked? Every other General who has voiced their concerns or opposition to this administration has been ignored and/or sacked. I’m surprised that Admiral Fallon hasn’t been asked to step down after the following story was reported, “WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) – In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus’s superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.”

From the Baker Commission to anyone who knows anything about the Middle East, we will never have success unless it is through political means. Bush tried to compare his current failed illegal invasion of a sovereign nation to the end of World War II when we occupied Japan and Germany. He is obviously the poster child for the “Child Who Was Left Behind” especially when it came to his history classes. Japan and Germany were primarily mono cultures who had unified structured societies. At the end of the war we allowed Emperor Hirohito to remain as well as their police departments and other governmental structures. In Germany, German soldiers and police worked hand in hand with our occupying Armies to maintain order and to help rebuild. Then the icing on the cake was his reference to comparing Iraq to Vietnam which by the way this administration has gone out of its way to deny any comparisons to for the past five years.

The most memorable question was asked by Senator Warner (R-VA) when he asked General Petraeus if our presence in Iraq is making us safer here at home against terrorism? Petraeus said he really has never thought about that question, which was his way of dodging the question because he knows it isn’t.

We have been told different reasons over all these years why we went into Iraq. Finally this past weekend someone else agreed with former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neal who said it was about oil and it was former Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan who did so. Hopefully our Congressman Carney has finally realized that he was duped when he voted against the Iraq Accountability Bill and gave Bush more time to keep this war going until he can get out of office. What is Bush’s or any of these Presidential candidates definition of Victory? Is it having more than 58,000 names of America’s finest on another black granite wall? To me Victory is not losing one more life in Iraq and Osama bin Laden is captured or killed and Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are taken to The Hague and tried as International War Criminals!

 The saddest part of this week was when I heard what had happened to the seven soldiers from the 82^nd Airborne who wrote their column several weeks ago in the New York Times. They wrote about what is really happening to them and their fellow troopers on the ground which was in contrast to what their leaders were telling the American public. On Monday two were killed and another was shot in the head. This is happening all the while Bush tells an Australian diplomat, “We’re Kicking A**!” when asked how Iraq was going?

Wind turbines cannot solve our energy problems alone but it is the beginning of putting all the pieces of the puzzle together that will help us wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. The current technology of wind turbines has developed by leaps and bounds over the last 20 to 30 years, such as the personal computer has. The newest turbines that they are proposing are quiet, larger and generate so much more power than the old versions.

Several weeks ago I was present at the Earth Works Convention in Denver where all types of solar, wind companies were presenting their products for both the home and commercial uses. Also there were builders of energy efficient homes, electric cars and appliances. The reason I was there was to promote and give workshops on my business, which is managing investment portfolios which focus on those companies that are producing products that are helping to make a more sustainable world.

While I was there, a women came up to me who asked some questions and told me that she was an engineer and geologist who worked for British Petroleum for eighteen years. She said she had worked on deep ocean oil rigs and has been up into the ANWAR (Artic National Wildlife Refuge). Part of my display was a graph showing the Theory of Peak Oil, and since she was an expert in oil, I asked for her personal thoughts on this issue. She said she always has to reeducate people who talk about this theory and let them know it is not a theory it is fact!

The Peak Oil graph shows that we have been on the downside of reserves of oil since we reached the peak in 1970. In 1970 we discovered and produced one barrel of oil for the one barrel we used. Today we are using 4-6 barrels for the one barrel that we discover and refine. The US uses 25% of the world’s energy, but with the growing demands for oil by China and India, the oil reserves which are getting fewer, deeper and harder to get to clearly show that life as we know it can’t continue. Gas will be going to $10 per gallon in the future and will we ever factor in the current cost of our military that is used to protect our oil interests in the Middle East.

There are actually cities around the US and Canada such as Portland, Oregon and Hamilton Ontario that have been planning for the end of cheap energy. As one keynote speaker said, twenty years from now it will be too expensive to ship lettuce from Arizona to the northeast. He says that we as communities and individuals have to start looking at what we can do so that we can all have a positive instead a negative outcome. One of the suggestions he had was that we start or continue to buy our agriculture products from local farmers and to plant victory gardens in our own yards similar to what we as a nation did in World War II.  Other little things each of us can do is as simple as replacing a standard bulb with an energy efficient florescent bulb. 

I wrote before that we haven’t had a true national energy policy for over 30 years. But let us not wait for the federal government to dictate to us what a sustainable energy policy should be, but let us take this opportunity these wind turbines will bring to our area to show that we are doing our part. A nice side effect will be that this company will help improve roads for those townships where they will be sited and will put around $250,000 of tax revenue back to us.