Oil Price Nonsense
I have heard two arguments recently with increasing frequency:
- The U.S. should expand drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico as a means to increase the oil supply and reduce oil prices
- The recent high oil prices are good because it provides the economic incentive to develop new types of alternative energy
An equally attractive argument is that the U.S. annex the rest of Mexico or at least the Mexican oil fields. The logic is both compelling and historically relevant
- First, we wanted all of Mexico at the end of the U.S. Mexico War in 1848 but anti-slavery forces thought that Mexico would expand the area supporting slavery and so we settled for just Texas and environs. We are no longer concerned about slavery (although the new citizenry might vote Democrat).
- Second, we would solve the contentious problem of illegal immigrants. All the Mexicans would just become citizens and we could build a really high, electrified fence along the short, new U.S. border with Guatemala.
- Third, we could take over Mexico for a lot less money than Iraq, which would lead to an acceptable ROI for the U.S.
My argument, of course, adopts the best parts of both of the other two arguments. We increase the area for drilling by "annexing" Mexico and we use economic incentives because the war with Mexico would only last two days and therefore be very cheap on a per barrel basis.
Now that we have covered all the stupid arguments related to higher oil prices let's get back to work on finding new ways to reduce oil consumption. Polluting the environment in more of the U.S. is not a viable alternative and we are only at the frontier of understanding and measuring the benefits of clean tech and alternative energy sources.
