A couple of diaries recently have catalyzed a deep foreboding thought I have nursed for months, if not years, regarding the long-range plans for Iraq. Those plans quite clearly started with oil and will end with oil:
Yes, it is the oil. As a result of my upbringing on a relatively small family-owned farm in eastern Washington, and still a part of it as a family run corporation struggling to continue farming, I know the following:
- The grains that we can grow there have not appreciated even in absolute dollars since I can recall (early 1970's). I recall the energy shortage years in 197x temporarily driving up the cost of wheat to $7/bushel from $2 or $3. Those were fantastic times for us, but of course, it didn't last. Basically, the price of wheat is now cheaper than ever ($3.40/bushel for soft white winter wheat through Portland) when inflation is taken into account. PDF link here to Portland, OR white wheat price history.
- Price of fuel, while relatively cheap, is still increasing more in absolute dollars, if overall more slowly than historical inflation, than commodities such as wheat.
- Gains in production and efficiency have nearly all come at the expense of the petrochemical industry: diesel to run larger, more efficient equipment, natural gas and oil to make fertilizers and effective herbicides and pesticides.
- We are nearly at the end (or past it) of any large scale changes to efficiency we can apply to the production. It is becoming cheaper to not farm!
Conclusion: Many of our basic staples are priced low due to cheap oil. This is not those non-essential, consumer items. This is
food. Oil prices north of $50/barrel push every aspect of the food production channel to cost more: Production, transportation to secondary production (milling, etc.), baking, etc., packaging, transport to market, they all take oil. No one aspect of it can absorb all of extra costs. They will have to come down to the consumer at some point.
Further, cheap imports from the Far East are also beholden to cheap oil for transport across the Pacific to our container ports on the west coast. Even the most efficient container ships take an inordinate amount of oil: World's largest diesel engine. This takes approximately 118.5 gallons per hour per cylinder to run, with 6 cylinders minimum. At 711 gallons per hour, a run from Shanghai to Seattle or LA at a minimum of 8.3 days (back of the napkin guess for 6000 miles at 30mph). That comes out to 711 x 8.3 x 24 = 141631.2 gallons (3372 bbls). Multiply by however many (hundreds?) of container ships out there transporting to LA, Oakland/SF, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Vancouver and perhaps to the east coast via the Panama Canal, and that is a serious quantity of oil and money. They do carry a large amount of product however, so of course, that extra cost is spread among many items.
Relating to Kovach's diary, the PNAC plan to slide in and steal Iraq's oil by using a war would be just as effective regardless of the outcome of said war. The one way it couldn't work is if there were a relatively stable government there (Saddam) that was very unfriendly to the US. Either outcome of the war there would suffice for the PNACers: A "win" in their world would mean either a friendly, beholden puppet regime of some sort or much mayhem and unrest keeping our military there and the whole thing under a cloak of secrecy. The end result is that lots of big oil companies would be there to siphon off the oil, keeping us awash in cheap (by dollar count at least) oil.
The result is to try to keep our economy running at a full-tilt rampant consumerism pace (big gas guzzlers, cheap imports from China, Wal-Mart'ism) while big business continued to propel us forward to a debt-ridden ruin. They make a butt-load of profits that don't get put back into our economy and end up as a new aristocracy or feudal lords with a very ample number of serfs toiling along in slave-labor conditions.
I am very worried. Will we be able to transition back to home-made products when cheap imports are not cheap enough? Will we still have farms producing quality food rather than the swill we get from the Agri-Business companies of Archer Daniels Midland, ConAgra, and Cargill? Read Fast Food Nation if you think these companies have quality food products as their mantra or if you believe as I do that they want to make more money and simply risk having people get sick, obese, or die and deal with those consequences instead. It is cheaper for them to do that than to pay actual living wages, hire actual citizens of the USA instead of illegal immigrants from Mexico, and not produce crappy, hormone and anti-biotic infested meats.
I know that free market economics would say that food is (mostly, in this day and age of 24-hours to almost anywhere) fungible and if you can get it less expensively elsewhere, you should, but the effect here and now, in the USA, is a class of small farmers that have to sell out to larger and larger corporations. Then, they either have to do something else to survive or work for these large Agri-Business corporations w/o owning the land that they used to. Instant serf-dom.
I really have no idea really what the solution is. Subsidies to farmers seem anathema to most, but not having them doesn't seem to work so well either. Sustainable farming techniques and healthy animals for meat production such as organic, range-fed, etc. beef, pork, chicken, turkey, etc. may be the way to go, but it is such a small sliver of the industry and getting crowded.
All because of oil and rampant consumerism.
What is it about PNAC? Why do they want to destroy the planet to attain more power and money? Are they firm believers in Armageddon so that there is no reason to conserve and preserve the planet we all live on and the atmosphere we live in? Are they simply greedy, selfish bastards?
I welcome any comments. This has been a days-long endeavor and probably is a bit scattered, but I wanted to get my thoughts down before they were blown out by drinking too much over Thanksgiving. :)
I conclude by wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving from the Pacific NW.