By Matt Miner
From today's WSJ:
You know what makes sense? Trying to drive up price as demand plummets. See, when fewer people buy your stuff, watcha' do is...Raise the price like hell! That'll show 'em - they'll buy more for sure!
Oh wait. No, actually it doesn't work like that. OPEC is being very short sighted here. If they had any sense of strategy, they would let the price fall and let the world get re-hooked on cheap energy. Also, in the current downturn, and with cheap energy, investment in renewables would pull way back as is already happening. All those smart people would go get other jobs, and we'd set this process of reducing oil demand back by at least three to five years. But instead OPEC will try to manage short-term revenue, thereby lending support to continued renewables investment. Cool, huh?
The cloud in this silver lining is as follows: The lovely countries that produce our oil (Chad, Niger, Venezuela, Iran, etc.) have an immediate finance problem. If oil goes to $40, these countries will get much poorer. Of course, in the long run, even if oil stayed at $140 but demand was cut in half, they'd still be in trouble. I will go ahead and predict that the process of weaning ourselves from oil will not be without geo-political turmoil. I also will predict that between climate change, general outrage, and the current economic woes, we've passed the tipping point on this weaning process. If OPEC really takes production way down, the shift will just accelerate.
Of course, I may be completely wrong. Check back in ten years. |
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| Posted by Matt Miner at | | | |
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Hello world,
It's been a while
I hope you're doing well.
I'm busy now
With many things
I bet that you could tell.
Grad school apps
Midterm today
And work goes on and on.
See you soon,
I guess I'll say,
I hope I won't be long.
MJM
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| Posted by Mark Miner at | | | |
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I hate politics. They invariably degenerate into power struggles between equally greedy parties or people. This year the stench of machiavellianism is particularly striking.
Don't get me wrong, I think that so far, everyone who has tried to run or is in the race, top or bottom of the ticket, is basically as personally qualified to be president as the rest of them. We are supposed to have a representative system, and there is actually a surprising diversity of the population represented on either ticket. So far, so good.
But then the mud starts to fly. Then the barbs and jibes. Then the slings and arrows. This arms race only has one end that I perceive. Whether the red button is pushed by the campaigns or by the 5th column YouTubers or the 529s, somebody's gonna go nuclear towards the end. "John McCain doesn't want to let a black man in the White House." "Barack Obama won't let a woman get anywhere close to the seat of power." And there will be the fallout and winter of the b-word. Bigot, that is.
It is such a horrid word. It is a harsh, blunt, divisive word, one best ascribed by historians with the protection of time and grave between them and their subjects. You can't say it and win. By calling someone a bigot, you draw a big black line. It doesn't matter which side of that line you are on, since you have sundered rational debate by drawing it. It is the end, and I fear it is nigh.
Why have poll gaps closed so tight in recent elections? Why has the congress been functionally deadlocked for quite some time? Why has our "conservative" president succeeded in squandering his administration, leaving a legacy of missed opportunities and bigger government? I submit that it is due to this strangling of debate that occurs when the bigot lines are drawn. There are many. So many it hurts. Why are there so many? Why do we face such a polarizing choice when flipping between Fox and CNN?
I think our national attention span has been greatly diminished. The decisions people are asked to make are "A or B, NOWNOWNOW!" What the relative merits of A or B might be will be drowned in the din of the next news story. Yesterday's Doonesbury was particularly salient.
If this sort of yellow journalism, yellow legislation, and yellow campaigning takes root, Americans will lose that once-so-defining characteristic: a nation of misfits thrown together who acheive astonishing things. Think about what you think. Consider that others may hold their beliefs equally dear. If you want to win them over, try talking, not shouting. The heritage of our nation, of eurdite lettered men conversing at length with dirt farmers about one idea or another, is in danger from the din of the demagogues.
Let's hold out. |
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| Posted by Mark Miner at | | | |
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By Mark Miner
summer is dying
writhing and lashing with heat
will soon die and cool
winter is plotting
scheming its crooked-hand plans
here we mock his chill |
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| Posted by Mark Miner at | | | |
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Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Langston Hughes
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| Posted by Mark Miner at | | | |
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"What happened to your eye?"
"Oh, I fell off a motorcycle." He looked nonchalant, but the scar was long and deep.
"Slice it on the pavement?"
"Naw, the lens on my sunglasses broke out and just sliced it up."
"Ouch."
"Yeah, it's not too bad now, it happened about a week ago." He looked back at the paper in front of him. "Ready for run two?"
"Sure," I said. "Randy, you set?"
The operator muttered in his beard and hollered that he was. He called back to the big friendly bubba at the electrical control panel. They were set.
This was the tech belt of the town. The company had been here for about a century, and been in and out of chapter 11. They knew how to build batteries, but apparently not how to manage. The folks were friendly, good Missourians, who liked hunting, fishing, and barbeque. It was a kind of life I knew about, but hadn't ever run into. They were good people, but something about the whole shop still came off as unprofessional. I was here to ride herd on the testing, representing my company's interests, and I was accompanied by our first-tier supplier's rep. He was a quality guy, I was the engineer, between us we were supposed to keep the bugs out of this batch.
The engineer with the scar double-checked the paperwork, and gave the boys the go-ahead. The battery was activated, the shock hammer hit, rose, hit again, rose one last time, paused, and fell for the last hit. Now the data processing started. That always took a while. They folks here weren't too confident with the setup that I had made them use. My hands were bound by company policy, though, so I could sit in smugness and point out the requirements. Ah, engineering. Is this what I wanted out of you? To be an emanation of a company, working its will on the good people of Missouri? Life is funny. The next hit was ready now. I scuffed my boot on the floor and got back to supervising.
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| Posted by Mark Miner at | | | |
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| The murky hollows and bottoms along the Missouri line are a magical sort of terrain. You just don't know if this one will have a bluegrass breakdown heating up, or if that one might contain the body of a raped and murdered girl. It is a strange country. Only those who live there can understand it, and they would rather not have outsiders knowing too much. Those bottoms contain a freedom of a sort. It is the freedom of obscurity, and it is vital to the preservation of the Southern Way. What's not known will blow over. With this sort of freedom, all manner of things can go on just the way they always have. If you are driving the Missouri line at night, it's best not to stop unless you must. Gunshots may ring out, and it may not be clear what their purpose is. Just keep moving. This is not an evil or sinister country, but just one that wants to be left well enough alone. Let it be. |
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