Robert Reich's Blog

Robert Reich was the nation's 22nd Secretary of Labor and is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His latest book is "Supercapitalism." This is his personal journal.

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Name: Robert Reich

Latest book, "Supercapitalism," is now out in paperback. For copies of articles, books, and public radio commentaries, go to www.robertreich.org. This blog is available as an RSS feed. Public radio commentaries are now available as a podcast.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Remembering Exxon Valdez

Today’s Supreme Court decision, allowing punitive damages in a lawsuit brought by fishermen and others whose earnings had been cut or eliminated when Exxon’s Valdez supertanker dumped 258,000 barrels of oil into Prince William Sound nineteen years ago, should be a stark reminder that massive oil spills can have disastrous economic, as well as environmental, consequences. It should also remind us how long it takes for courts to award damages when oil companies like Exxon Mobil fight them. In this case, almost twenty percent of the plaintiffs who brought the suit have died in the interim. After a lengthy trial, a jury awarded those who had been harmed by the spill $287 billion in damages to compensate them for their losses, plus $5 billion in punitive damages, because of Exxon’s negligence. Exxon immediately appealed the award, arguing, among other things, that the Clean Water Act as well as maritime law doesn’t allow punitive damages.

Most importantly, the ruling should remind us that oil spills do occur, and that there are genuine costs associated with offshore drilling. At a time when Republicans and John McCain argue that more drilling is the answer to $4 a gallon gas – despite the fact that, as the government reports, any oil found offshore won’t affect gas prices for more than a decade, and that in a global market the benefits of any such drilling will be shared equally between Americans, Chinese, and every other user of oil around the world – we should remember Exxon Valdez.

Postcript: Some proponents of drilling argue that, despite the fact that any oil found offshore won’t directly affect prices for many years, it will reduce the price of oil in futures markets, which indirectly affects current oil and gas prices. This is a spurious argument, for the simple reason that the development of alternative energy sources – wind, solar, biomass – over the next few years would also reduce oil futures’ prices, since they would reduce the demand for oil. Given the environmental risks inherent in offshore drilling, then, it would seem to make far more sense to invest in these proven alternatives, which, when even slightly scaled up, will offer energy at lower costs than oil.

39 Comments:

Blogger dl004d said...

I agree. (Except that wind & solar can't replace oil. They are used for electricity, while oil is used primarily for transportation fuels.)

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

No matter how often Mr. Reich repeats his fears of “the environmental risks inherent in offshore drilling”, it will never change the objective, quantitative fact that Mother Nature has ALWAYS contributed ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more petroleum products to the world marine environment than offshore drilling EVER HAS!

Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less!

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger Nicholas said...

I am not necessarily against drilling, however the issues seem to be mixed. First, as others have noted, many of the current licenses have not been exercised. Why don't we put limits on them so that they are not held in perpetuity? Exploration and drilling are two different things. Secondly, how do we insure that companies are being responsible? Perhaps something like a catastrophic insurance fund. Problems could be dealt with through government arbitration rather than courts.

One could easily make this appealing only under the necessary price structures — really high prices — of which we are not there yet.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sbvor, have you been checked for rabies?

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Nicholas,

Quoting the “non-partisan” Congressional Quarterly:

“When federal land or waters are leased to oil companies in parcels of about 1,000 to 3,000 acres, usually for 10 years, there is typically just ‘a very general sense of the value of the land,’ said Larry Nation, a spokesman for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Only some portions of leased land may hold accessible oil, while other portions do not, Nation said, but companies must continue to lease the entire parcel.

‘There’s the misconception that every lease has oil,’ added David Curtiss, director of the association’s Washington office. ‘A lease is a line on a map. It has nothing to do with the geology of where oil is.’

Young, meanwhile, called it ‘most ironic’ that Markey, Hinchey and Emanuel were ‘even attempting to talk about increasing America’s energy production.’

‘That they are attempting to make it appear as if they are for domestic energy production is baffling to me,’ Young said. ‘Barely one month ago, Mr. Markey and Mr. Hinchey voted against my provision to open [the Arctic Refuge] for production.’ ”


Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less!

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Anonymous Frank Thomas said...

To: d1004d

Wonderful simple, innocuous, but important clarification detail of a complex subject the best economists are sometimes not well-informed about, including Dr. Reich. Compliments!

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger Auros said...

dl004d: You are assuming that there will not, in the next decade, be a mass-market battery or hydrogen vehicle. Batteries obviously can be charged from a wall outlet; the Tesla Roadster already gets around 225 miles that way, and range will likely increase fairly quickly.

People think of hydrogen as a "fuel", but it's really more like a bettery, a way of storing electrical energy: the easiest way to get it is by electrolyzing water. It's been suggested that we could replace water heaters, as they expire -- about a 10 year lifespan -- with a combination electrolyzer and fuel cell. (Electrolysis turns electricity and water into hydrogen, oxygen, and heat; fuel cells turn hydrogen and oxygen into electricity, water, and heat. So you get your hot water, and you also get a tank of H2, which can be pumped into your car overnight; some of it can also be turned into electricity during hours when grid electricity is more expensive. The electrolyzer also provides a sink for excess production from any local production you have -- micro-wind-turbines, solar, etc -- during peak-production hours for those.)

The companies that own gas stations would, of course, hate this idea. Considering their rather poor corporate citizenship over the last few decades, though, I'm not convinced that this is actually a drawback...

sbvor: You're absolutely right that not every leased plot contains oil. However, you can't actually determine whether there's oil under a given plot until you take soundings and otherwise investigate. The current complaint is that there are a lot of plots which haven't even been explored yet.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

My rebuttal to the postscript from Mr. Reich is found in this section of my larger post.

As I note in that section, the solution is not found in choosing between either oil or alternatives. The solution is oil AND alternatives.

Without more of the former, we will never generate the capital necessary to invest in the latter. And, the latter, at the moment, is what Matthew Wald of the New York Times accurately describes as “wishful thinking”.

At present, our economy is merely experiencing slower growth, not a recession. Five years from now, we could have:

1) The larger supplies of oil and natural gas which the world will need in order to continue to generate the capital necessary to invest in alternative energy.

OR

2) A REAL worldwide economic meltdown and insufficient venture capital with which to develop alternative energy sources which go beyond the current “wishful thinking” of Mr. Reich and the party of “NO”.

In other words, follow Mr. Reich and the party of “NO” and five years from now, we’ll REALLY be hosed!

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Auros,

You allege that “there are a lot of plots which haven't even been explored yet.” But where is the proof? There is none! It’s just empty rhetoric. Again, the facts are laid out clear as day right here.

This “Use it or Lose it” nonsense is nothing but a party which is desperately grasping at any straw man it can find which can convince a gullible and naïve public that they’re not just pandering to the Environmental Extremist lobby.

But, the Dems ARE just pandering to an Environmental Extremists lobby which is driven by nothing but a blind and ignorant hatred of anything that involves hydrocarbons (or Capitalism).

In the previous link, pay attention to what the co-founder of Greenpeace has to say about the current extremists.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A fair criticism, but offering less insight than what Becker and Posner offered (http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/). North Atlantic drilling has had a good environmental record, and domestic drilling would at least help with trade imbalance and the deficit.
I believe Mr. Reich's criticisms, that offshore drilling won't bring the cost of oil down significantly or in a timely manner. The Oil companies and their political allies are trying to sale offshore drilling to the American public, tired of paying so much at the pump.
The Oil companies that win the offshore contracts will be the only ones making money (I informed my mother-in-law that if she supported offshore drilling she had better by Exxon-Mobile stock or she won't see a penny).

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Anonymous donna said...

My word, how did we EVER transport things across oceans before we had oil?!

Oh yeah, wind power.... I love the idea of huge ocean-going wind powered catamarans, myself.... something elegant about them....

Could even work on land, now that we have nice big straight roads, hmm... praire schooners, indeed! ;^)

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"My word, how did we EVER transport things across oceans before we had oil?!"

veeerrrryyyyy sssssllllloooowwwwlllyyyyy

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger Art A Layman said...

sbvor:

Since you've moved here to repeat all your garbage I will repost from the other blog.

Art A Layman said...
sbvor:

Facts and estimates and hypotheses are not exactly the same thing. I would guess that USGS studies are fairly reliable but if they were absolute fact we would never see "dry holes".

All the assumptions in your reports are at 1998 constant dollars; the assumed rate of return on capital is 12% and Exxon for the last three years has averaged an 18% RONA.

You can harangue all you want with your facts and figures but until you, and the oil companies, can answer the questions that result from this report, your arguments are full of more hot air than a hot air ballon:

http://courtney.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Natural%20Resources%20energy%20report.pdf

Examples:

_ On the Outer Continental Shelf, 82% of federal natural gas and 79% of
federal oil is located in areas that are currently open for leasing.

_ Onshore, 72% of oil and 84% of natural gas resources are either fully
accessible under standard lease stipulations designed to protect lands
and wildlife, or will be accessible pending the completion of land-use
planning or environmental reviews.

_ Between 1999 and 2007, drilling permits for oil and gas development on
public lands increased more than 361%.

_ Since 2004, the Bureau of Land Management has issued 28,776 permits
to drill on public land; in that same time, only 18,954 wells were actually
drilled.

_ Oil and gas companies have stockpiled nearly 10,000 extra permits to
drill that they are not using to increase domestic production.

_ Onshore, of the 47.5 million acres of federal lands leased by oil and
gas companies, only about 13 million acres are actually producing oil
and gas.

_ Offshore, only 10.5 million of the 44 million leased acres are currently
producing oil or gas.

_ Combined, oil and gas companies hold leases to nearly 68 million acres
of federal land that are not producing oil and gas.

_ The 68 million acres of leased, inactive federal land could produce an
additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural
gas each day.

_ That would nearly double total U.S. oil production, and increase natural
gas production by 75%.

_ 4.8 million barrels of oil equals more than six times the estimated peak
production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

_ Development of and production from the 68 million acres currently
under lease but not in production would cut US imports of oil by one third.


More:

Even if increased domestic drilling activity could affect the price of
gasoline, there is yet no justification to open additional federal lands because
oil and gas companies have shown that they cannot keep pace with the rate of
drilling permits that the federal government is handing out.

Proponents of opening additional lands to oil and gas leasing assert
that vast quantities of oil and gas are closed to energy development. In fact,
according to the Minerals Management Service, of all the oil and gas believed
to exist on the Outer Continental Shelf, 82% of the natural gas and 79% of the
oil is located in areas that are currently open for leasing.


Now compare that to your oft quoted fact:

currently off limits “85 percent of OCS acreage offshore the lower 48 states”

Your number is bigger but says nothing compared to the statement from the report. You have even admitted to the accuracy of the report numbers.

The Department of the Interior recently released a report that the
Administration is using to delude Americans into believing that vast tracts of
federal land with large concentrations of oil and gas are off-limits to oil and
gas development. In actuality, the report shows that only 38% of the oil and
16% of the natural gas are excluded from leasing B largely because those
resources are underneath National Parks and wilderness areas that have significant scenic, recreational, and wildlife values. The rest is either fully
accessible under standard lease stipulations designed to protect lands and
wildlife, or will be accessible pending the completion of land-use planning or
environmental reviews.

Combined, oil and gas companies hold leases to nearly 68 million acres
of federal land and waters that they are not producing oil and gas (Figure 4).
Oil and gas companies would not buy leases to this land without believing oil
and gas can be produced there, yet these same companies are not producing
oil or gas from these areas already under their control.

However, in addition to ANWR, there are another nearly 91 million acres
currently open to leasing in the Arctic region of Alaska, including onshore and
offshore lands. Oil and gas companies have leased only 11.8 million of the 91
million acres.
Within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), oil companies
have leased 3 million acres of 22.6 million acres available to lease. No
production has occurred on any of those lands and industry has drilled only
25 exploratory wells there since 2000.


When you were young your parents told you NO many times and you learned from that and are all the better for the experience.

Harrowing times tend to bring out all the crazies and you are living proof.

Put it to bed until you can explain the above.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger Art A Layman said...

donna:

Sounds lie a beautiful idea. Timely braking could be a slight hinderance.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Anonymous,

If the Party of “NO” continues to constrain the supply of oil, where do you think the price of gasoline will be 5 years from now.

You’ll find a hint in the first few charts of my post.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Art,

Showing more courtesy to others than you have, I will merely note that I addressed your repetitious nonsense here.

I will not bore the audience by dissecting each quote. Randomly selecting the first one should suffice as an example of the twisting of facts by partisan politicians.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger Mark said...

As far as tapping our (U.S.) domestic oil reserves further, it seems that the basic premise of "buy low - sell high" would suggest we leave that oil in reserve until the rest of the world, is tapped out before we bring on the world market. Just a thought.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Mark,

Good luck selling that idea to lower income Americans struggling to pay the current gasoline prices.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sbvor, I quit taking you seriously as soon as you referred to my party as the "party of no."
I don't think there is substancial evidence to predict where the price of oil will be in five years, higher I'm sure but by how much? Besides, In five years new domestic oil will not have hit the market yet, and consumer demand will be more elastic. I'm not opposed to offshore drilling if adequate environmental compromises are established and each state is given veto power of its local waters. But I for one am perfectly happy at $4 a gallon if thats the price of breaking US dependence on the middle east so we can avoid future wars (until the world runs out of water).

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Anonymous,

1) Fear mongering over environmental concerns associated with offshore drilling is, and always has been, a canard. The the objective, quantitative data prove it to be so.

2) If you want to know why we invaded Iraq, here is a primer that so-called “journalists” forgot to tell you (and which you can easily verify for yourself).

3) I also wish you good luck in selling your uninformed and elitist attitude on gasoline prices to lower income Americans struggling to pay the current gasoline prices.

4) Sorry, but your Party IS the Party of “NO” (and elitism). That’s just a FACT! In the face of soaring world demand for oil, your party says “NO” to doing our part to increase supply. Thirty years of saying “NO” brought us to this point. Another four years of saying “NO” will only extend the pain even longer before we finally get some relief!

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Anonymous Blutown said...

Off-shore drilling is another election year sham policy as is the temporary suspension of the federal gas tax. There are many reasons for this but one that is rarely mentioned is that by the time the first drop of oil were to flow from deep water wells, we will have a carbon cap and trade system in place making such exploits uneconomical. So the talk of deep water drilling is just more wasted hot air from our "leaders".

We are just coming to the realization that we are in a desperate race to meet the energy needs that run our world. Squandering scarce resources and time on the dead-end street of fossil fuels will only forestall new and innovative solutions.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

BlueTown,

1) Cap & Trade is the biggest scam ever proposed and CO2 is NOT a problem.

2) There is no “desperate race to meet the energy needs that run our world”. “Peak Oil” is decades away, quite probably 75 to 80 years away. And, that does NOT factor in the FACT that the United States alone has almost twice as much oil in Oil Shale as the sum total of all of the current proven reserves.

3) Also see this comment.

Wednesday, 25 June, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pretty funny you had to go back 19 years to make a point about the dangers of oil! And this canard about 10 years(re new dupply making a difference)- any real solution will take that long unless the Democrats secretly, in the name of 'fairness' believe we should ration gasoline to reduce demand. Perhaps that is the plan, although I'm sure Al Gore will continue to fly around in his private jet.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger we_are_toast said...

Sbvor:

At night when you here those black helicopters flying overhead, and when you know that all your neighbors are "dims" and are watching you, and when you hear those voices telling you "MUST create more blue links! MUST create more blue links!", do you reach over and gently hug your keyboard and say a little prayer to God thanking him for the internet?

About the futures market:
Anyone who knows anything about the futures market knows it's a short term trading opportunity and the contracts with the most volume are seldom more than a few months out. What's happening a couple of years out, much less a decade out, has little impact on futures traders.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Toast,

Let’s assume you are correct.

Let’s assume opening OCS and ANWR to drilling has no near term impact on oil or gasoline prices.

If we do not open OCS and ANWR to drilling now, what will the price of oil be five years from now?

World demand will continue to grow. And, that growth in demand is beyond our control. If we do not increase world supply, prices will go nowhere but higher.

The Congress correctly voted to open ANWR in 1995. But, Clinton vetoed it.

We would be better off now if ANWR had been opened in 1995. There is no excuse to delay opening OCS and ANWR any further.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger we_are_toast said...

Sbvor said:

"We would be better off now if ANWR had been opened in 1995."

This is EXACTLY what they said about the Alaskan north slope oil in the 1970's. They said it would solve our energy problems. But we are not only not BETTER off, we are much, much, WORSE off. The window that we could have used to transition to renewables was slammed shut because conservatives told us that if we could drill on the north slope, our energy troubles would be over.

"fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and uhhh uhhh, We won't get fooled again!"

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Toast,

I can see the 2008 Dim bumper stickers now:

Drill Less, Pay More, Vote Dim

Yeah! That’s a winner!

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm more concerned about McCain's plan to add 45 nuclear plants in the US. A nuclear disaster has much more impact then a few seagull deaths on the beach.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Anonymous,

Quoting the NRC (emphasis mine):

“The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) nuclear power plant … on March 28, 1979… led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community”

Chernobyl was a mess. But, that was Soviet incompetence.

When it comes to nuclear energy, the difference between the USA and the French is the ratio of lawyers to people (and most Dim politicians are lawyers). That is the primary reason we’ve allowed ourselves to fall so far behind in our nuclear power technology (and every other energy source).

Listen to this (long) clip:

rtsp://video1.c-span.org/project/energy/energy051608_gop.rm

and learn, among other things, that the biggest problem we now face (thanks, once again, to the Dims) is the fact that there are bloody few Americans who still have the skills needed to build the nuclear plants.

If you like electric vehicles, you can get that electricity from coal, natural gas or nuclear. Wind and Solar remain, in the words of Matthew Wald of the New York Times, “Wishful Thinking”.

Personally, for now, I prefer coal. It’s dirt cheap, getting cleaner all the time, we have at least another 100 years of coal in this country alone, there is no hazardous waste and CO2 is NOT a problem.

But, if you believe in the fantasy of a climate crisis arising from Man Made Global Warming, then nuclear power is your friend. Just ask the co-founder of Greenpeace.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Anonymous piglet said...

I'm surprised nobody mentions the fact that the right wing extremists on the Supreme Court, together with their pro-corporate conservative allies, have just created a new pro-business law by decree. There is nothing in the constitution or statutory or common law that even remotely justifies the Supreme Court's decision to limit the amount of damages Exxon has to pay.

The damages award of 2.5 billion was a result of repeated, extremely diligent scrutiny by several competent courts. The Supreme Court has not found any mistake or oversight in these court proceedings. They pulled an arbitrary number out of thin air just so that the greediest company in world history can get richer on the back of its Alaskan victims. Seldom has the Supreme Court disgraced itself so whole-heartedly as the whore of wealth and power.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Piggy,

I’m sure the party of lawyers is crying in their really expensive, imported limo-liberal beer.

The rest of us can breathe a sigh of relief in knowing that a slightly smaller portion of what we pay for gasoline will be going to trial lawyers (like John Edwards).

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger Art A Layman said...

One must constantly marvel at sbvor.

He exhibits harsh disdain for the NYT, often referring to it as "Old York Times". Comes Matthew Wald, a reporter for the NYT, who makes a statement regarding alternative fuels in the near future as "Wishful Thinking", and he becomes the sage we have all been waiting for. He becomes the bearer of such wisdom that sbvor cannot but post his quote everywhere on the internet. The fact that Matthew works for the NYT, that bastion of the liberal dogma of NO, is of little consequence. It is not what he does but what he says that counts.

Now I am not a snob or an elitist and I certainly have faith in man's ability to acquire knowledge, well sbvor may be hopeless, but generally I like to find experts with decent educational credentials.

Mr. Wald has a BA in Urban Studies and a Certificate in Auto Mechanics, and experience as a reporter. He may be a brilliant man but one would hope for a sounder foundation for someone held out as the last word in science prognostication.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Art,

Would you find my citation more credible if I cited a journalist working for Fox News?

The beauty of arguing from the Conservative perspective is that I can cite the New York Times in proving my points.

This is rather like citing Pravda in order to prove the value of Capitalism. So-called “Liberals”, with their smear tactics, incessantly demand precisely that from their Conservatives opponents. Hey! I can deliver! But, even when I play by the “Liberal” rules, my only reward is (predictably) to see myself and my source get smeared some more! What a surprise! NOT!

So-called “Liberals” are congenitally incapable of arguing the facts. The only tactics they know are smear and slander.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sbvor,
Is someone paying you to spend all day on the internet flaming democrats, or do you really just have that much free time?

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger SBVOR said...

Anonymous (6:15 PM),

Thank you for proving my previous point.

Not only am I not paid for my work, I don’t even solicit donations on my blog.

However, as a believer in the Capitalist system, I reserve the right to do so at any time.

P.S.) Criticizing is not the same as flaming. This is a flame (as is yours). It is also an excellent example of a purely ad hominem post (as is yours)

This comment of mine is neither a flame nor an ad hominem. I am legitimately responding to the “issue” (if we can elevate a flame to that level) which you raised.

Thanks again.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger Art A Layman said...

sbvor:

You always have such a hard time understanding.

Whether from the NYT or Fox News or the Washington Times or National Review or wherever, it is the quality and credentials of your reference that matter.

I'm sure Mr. Wald is a knowledgeable man. He has been writing about science for a number of years. This gives him some credibility. When he abuses that credibility with a "sound bite" he loses some of the credibility that he has some of.

Of course that is what got you hooked. You Cons love "sound bites". They allow you to spout fatuousness without thinking.

The other thing you fail to realize is that you have become a joke. Oh yes, at first you were annoying, peppering us with your blue links, making believe that if we just follow your links we will gain the wisdom of the ages and we will come to recognize you as the Sage of Sages. Alas, most of your links are either to charlatans or to reports, that if one is to read them, not only dispel your hypotheses, but in some cases prove you down right wrong.

Now with each new post of Dr. Reich's come a few newbies who haven't segued through the annoyment, the anger, the frustration with your incessant links. Most of them, and some of the regulars, have a limited amount of time to surf the net. They aren't inclined to go off and read all your links. After a couple of visits to your blog site they have had enough BS and misinformation, realizing that you lack for the most part any sense of logic and certainly have no sense of science.

They will be offended and will bark back at you and of course you will reply with your usual name calling and slandering and with your inane "Dims" and the "party of NO", which you seem to think is original.

After awhile some just ignore you, others engage you until they feel it's a fruitless waste of time and they move on. They'll be back to Dr. Reich's blog but they will over look all your posts, realizing that they have, "been there, done that!".

Others of us who have more time on our hands and enjoy going tete-a-tete, will check out your links - other than those to your site, we ain't dumb - and we will read the reports that you hold out as factual proof of your premises and we will find that while some of the numbers you post do show up in the reports, they have no semblance of a relationship to the conclusions you come up with.

After awhile we become amused, we laugh at the consistency of your inanity. That moves to hilarity and we howl at each new post. Of course most of your posts are not new, they are just regurgitations of previous posts. Often you are like a broken record.

At that point, when in the mood for validation, we will respond to you but only to prove you wrong. Since you are incapable of intellectual dialogue there is no other reason to communicate with you.

You are the personification of a blogging clown. That's not a bad thing because we all need comic relief from time to time. Dr. Reich's posts can get heavy at times and your offerings provide us a respite. It is good, on occasion, to read humor that doesn't require thinking and certainly doesn't represent thinking on the your part.

I have to modify those immortal words: You just keep NOT thinking Butch. With the price of oil being what it is we need all the laughter we can get.

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Blogger Art A Layman said...

sbvor:

Let me give you another quote that fits right in there with Mr. Wald's:

Space travel is utter bilge.
Woolley, Richard (U.K. Astronomer Royal)
(In 1956, one year before Sputnik)

Thursday, 26 June, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Professor Reich:

I addition to the unemployment disgrace, no one ever mentions anymore that UNEMPLOYMENT Benefits have been IRS taxed since Ronald Reagan years;

My state of IL does NOT tax unemployment income;

We need to have this source of tax funding removed; why tax those who have already suffered a financial blow? ... and so forth

Nicholas J

Wednesday, 09 July, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

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Thursday, 12 February, 2009  

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