As the World Turns...and Burns...

I like Mike Shedlock. We don't always agree, usually on the viability of the dollar, but in his latest opinion, "Energy Crisis & the Politics of Oil" he is dead on.

The US is worried about "safety issues" while Japan buys half of the world's supply of LNG and China is ramping up, both without concern. Meanwhile the UK seems to be stuck in the same sorry boat with the US. By the time the US is ready to be signing deals with Australia I have an inkling the rates will not be as good as the 25 year deals negotiated by China.

If Australia was smart they would hold out for free trade deals on sheep and cattle and everything else they want too. After all, if the US does not take that natural gas, China or Japan or someone else surely will. Higher prices are the consequences of letting the world pass you by with trade deals while being preoccupied with silliness in Iraq.

It's high time the US stops trying to be the world's policeman (a role we clearly can not afford) and starts thinking more like pragmatic India: "We live in a very complex neighborhood, surrounded by governments and rulers of different orientation - communists, military dictatorships, monarchies ... we hope the US understands the difficult choices we have to make for the well-being of our people," India's ambassador to the US, Ronen Sen, has said while referring to Washington's dislike for Iran.

The sooner the US (and the UK) learn that lesson the better off the US and the world will be. If we fail to learn that lesson, we risk a major world war over energy. Perhaps we are sowing the seeds of that war right now, attempting to police the world instead of securing energy deals for our future like everyone else. Now we are eyeing Iran. Will India and China and Russia stand idly by if we strike Iran? Do we want to find out?

The rest of the article here...

Our government is bent on either world domination or the complete destruction of the American Republic. There can be no other explanation. The safety and security issues have been proven false and they were never justification in the first place, for the attack on American liberties.


"I see,... and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power... It is but too evident that the three ruling branches of [the Federal government] are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic."
-- Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1825. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, ME 16:146