I'm not a big fan of Tom Friedman, despite his possessing of an intellect that is vastly superior to mine, if only because he is simply too unrealistic about the situation in Israel. However, he is right more often than not, and though this column initially deals with the proposal by Republican presidential hopeful John McCain to roll back the federal gas tax over the summer (a proposal seconded by Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton, but rejected by her opponent Barack Obama), the underlying theme is our oil dependency in general: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30friedman.html.
This has been an issue that has been of concern to me for a long time. At some point we need to ween ourselves off the oil addiction. Let's leave aside for the moment the considerable financial cost, a cost that is mounting by the day). This is a national security issue. Oil comes largely from OPEC, a collection of Arab Autocracies and other thuggish nations (such as Venezuela) all of whom hate us. It also comes from Russia, another country whose leadership is not exactly what I would call friendly. Yes, a fair amount does come from Canada, unquestionably an ally, and still more from Mexico, which says that it is our ally (I question that), but for the most part it comes from the Middle East.
Ask yourselves: Do you REALY want to support the economies of countries who despise us?
1 comment:
If economists think the tax break is a bad idea, then they are probably right. I read his book "The World is Flat" and I liked it. He has some information on Middle East countries and oil. He mentioned one country that ran out of oil and had to change to a different economy and it seems like they became more peaceful after that.
There was an interesting article on his Iraq timeline though:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2884
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