HOORAY FOR $5 A GALLON GAS
If I'm the only one in America cheering as the price of gas rises to possibly north of $5, that is OK.
This senior citizen remembers well the 1973-4 Mid East oil crisis and the 1979 Mid East oil crisis. On July 15, 1979, I watched President Carter lay out a six point plan for energy independence in his "Crisis of Confidence" speech, also famously known as the "Malaise" speech. In it, Carter said we would never again import more oil than we did in 1977. Those who agreed with Carter's urgent call for the oil addiction "cure" turned down their thermostats, drove smaller cars, and like Carter, installed solar panels to power their houses. Unfortunately, Carter lost his re election run to former actor and New Deal Democrat Ronald Reagan, who saw America as the "shining city on the hill" to be run by the super rich, many of whom were oil barons who had zero interest in weaning America off oil. When the Carter White House solar panels were removed by the Reagan White House in 1986, it served as a symbolic slap at promoting energy independence.
Here we are 38 years after the first Mid East oil crisis watching helplessly as the Arab world discovers the joy and sorrow of tossing out the tyrants we have cozied up to for six decades to ensure an endless source of our liquid heroin. Behemoth SUV's, just recovering from the sales crash of the Great Recession, may once again go on the "endangered species" list, and economists worry about a new recession from high gas prices strangling our recovery.
In baseball it three strikes and you're on the bench. In political economy, it may well be that its three oil crises and you're a banana republic. If $5 a gallon gas will get America to wake up and listen, the enormous pain it causes may just possibly save us. But as Don McLean wrote and sang in "Vincent" two years before the first oil crisis:
"They're not listening still......perhaps they never will"
Originally published in USA Today, March 1, 2011.
Also published in The Daily Herald, March 8, 2011
This senior citizen remembers well the 1973-4 Mid East oil crisis and the 1979 Mid East oil crisis. On July 15, 1979, I watched President Carter lay out a six point plan for energy independence in his "Crisis of Confidence" speech, also famously known as the "Malaise" speech. In it, Carter said we would never again import more oil than we did in 1977. Those who agreed with Carter's urgent call for the oil addiction "cure" turned down their thermostats, drove smaller cars, and like Carter, installed solar panels to power their houses. Unfortunately, Carter lost his re election run to former actor and New Deal Democrat Ronald Reagan, who saw America as the "shining city on the hill" to be run by the super rich, many of whom were oil barons who had zero interest in weaning America off oil. When the Carter White House solar panels were removed by the Reagan White House in 1986, it served as a symbolic slap at promoting energy independence.
Here we are 38 years after the first Mid East oil crisis watching helplessly as the Arab world discovers the joy and sorrow of tossing out the tyrants we have cozied up to for six decades to ensure an endless source of our liquid heroin. Behemoth SUV's, just recovering from the sales crash of the Great Recession, may once again go on the "endangered species" list, and economists worry about a new recession from high gas prices strangling our recovery.
In baseball it three strikes and you're on the bench. In political economy, it may well be that its three oil crises and you're a banana republic. If $5 a gallon gas will get America to wake up and listen, the enormous pain it causes may just possibly save us. But as Don McLean wrote and sang in "Vincent" two years before the first oil crisis:
"They're not listening still......perhaps they never will"
Originally published in USA Today, March 1, 2011.
Also published in The Daily Herald, March 8, 2011
posted by Walt Zlotow at 4:04 PM
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