Finally, Panic....

It's really happening. Panic in the streets over a shortage of gasoline. Not since the early '70's have I seen such fear among Americans about what has been assumed to be a commodity, endlessly available. Sitting in unusual traffic snarls for 20 minutes only to find that they are caused by snaking lines of cars trying to get the last few gallons of gas available at a BP station really does remind one of the time when OPEC embargoes brought us all to the obvious but unpalatable conclusion: there is not an endless supply of gasoline. No amount of money spent on advertising by carpooling advocates or the transit authorities could ever buy the epiphany that has occurred these past couple of weeks.

If gasoline in the U.S. hitting $5.00 a gallon this spring was the warning tremor, then for Southerners, at least, this is the earthquake (recent conversations with family, friends and acquaintances in other geographic regions of the U. S. point to this being a crises localized to the Southeast). Much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth won't produce an answer but maybe it will provide some initiative among us to start the process we started during the last crises: reduce our dependency on petrochemical products. Remember the politicians pontificating about reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the '70's? Whatever.

There is potential for a lively discussion concerning the fact that we haven't built a major refinery in the U.S. in a generation or that half of our refining capacity is in the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico region. We'll leave that for another time. What's before us right now-over the next few weeks, is electing our next President. We have heard the sound bites and seen the platforms crafted by their experts. We watched the debate. What I want to know is in their heart, what do they really see as the potential answer to this crises? Further, how do we rid ourselves of having the geopolitically unstable oil-producing states, the proverbial tail, from wagging the American dog?

In reality, if Washingtonites continue their course of the last 50 years, the answer is a long way off, if it ever comes. If the Conservative view of eliminating government intervention in our everyday life prevails, there will be no government action and only cataclysmic meltdowns will compel profit-driven enterprises to actively seek remedies, if only in the name of profit. Our suffering during that time will be severe but we'll see what the profitable solution will be, at least in the eyes of the shareholders of that particular enterprise.

If we shift to a post-Great Depression stance of creating the answers in Washington, a favorite of the Democrats, the panic will quickly subside while we wait to see what remedy the legislation will provide to solve the problems. As one who lived through our government legislating the "Great Society" under LBJ, please be prepared to be disappointed, as save the Civil Rights Legislation that truly did set the stage for changes in racial equality, all the other economic programs were largely failures. The sad lesson is that governments historically make terrible businessmen.

Both candidates agree that exploring for more petroleum at home is a necessary short-term solution. I doubt seriously that Senator Obama will spend the political capital to begin drilling in the ANWR region of Alaska but I do love surprises. They both point to our needing more growth in alternative sources of energy but with paper-thin strategies for implementing this from both camps. John McCain likes France's model: build a nuclear power plant on every river. Of course, we'll never agree on what to do with the spent fuels, but who cares? He won't be around then, anyway.

I know I'm beating a dead horse (don't worry, I checked his pulse) but this is going to have to be a combination of individuals changing the way they live and demanding that government invest in us, instead of spreading it around the world to countries that hate us anyway (I'm not talking about humanitarian aide). Besides the foreign aide being squandered, what about our financial markets? Do we have to intervene? I guess the foreign banks that hold the credit swaps and other securitized sub-prime mortgages needed to be reassured. But just think what the creative American people could do with $700,000,000,000.00. if funneled into solving the energy crises, rebuilding our infrastructure and other issues. As it is, that money, your money, will go to remedy some of our neighbor's poor home-buying decisions getting their loans from greedy entrepreneurs, who in turn dumped them all on morally bankrupt financiers, which was all regulated by political appointees. I'm sorry, why are we acting surprised?

Fill 'er up.....