[ExI] EP and Peak oil

[PJ Manney]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 3:31 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> This looks to me like another ideological kneejerk. PJ's point (I
> believe) is that what people seem to refer to as the US free market
> is generally--I might prefer "frequently" and "importantly" NOT A
> FREE MARKET but (read her lips) "government/corporate collusion."

There are some on this list who could use a little femoral nerve
deadening right around their patella.  Stop looking for commies under
my bed, Lee.  All you'll find there are dust bunnies.

Thank you, Damien, for responding while I was out: yes, my point is
not advocating a specific replacement.  I'm not sure that a
hierarchical system of human governance is capable of truly free
markets, since corruption seems to be the flip side of humanity's
managerial coin.  There were kickbacks, secret deals, war profiteering
and manipulation of the populace in Mesopotamia.  Today is just more
of the same on a grander scale.

My original statement is a recognition that in my particular political
culture, there's no free market and most likely won't be any time
soon, since 1) the military-industrial-congressional complex
(Eisenhower's original phrase before Congress twisted his arm to drop
'congressional' before his famously observant farewell broadcast) is
alive and well and the basis of the US economy; 2) the only people in
corporate or governmental America I see loudly touting free markets
with their blowhorns are those who take advantage of the fact of its
absence -- meaning what they call the creation of such are anything
but; 3) the revolving door from industry to government and back again
ensures that corporate agendas are the government's priority until
citizens yell loudly enough and sometimes, not even then; and 4) the
people who make the laws are the people who benefit from them and visa
versa.  And that ain't you 'n me, buster.

The bigger problem is that the populace doesn't care enough to look.
If you want to spend some time dumpster diving, the Transactional
Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University tracks federal
expenditures.  You'll see where your money really goes, if you can
read between the lines:
http://trac.syr.edu/
Here's a sample summary report on the Dept. of Homeland Security:
http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/178/
Sadly the Pentagon's expenditures (the lion's share of tax money) are
not a part of the project.  What a report that would be.

Finally, the populace doesn't like to feel like a schmuck.  So it's
human nature to bury our heads in the sand or cling to the sinking
mast of outdated political ideologies promoted by our leaders.

None of this is news.  It's simply reality.  As Deep Throat said,
"Follow the money."  Unfortunately, it's never been truer.  And
there's no magic wand to make that pesky aspect of human governance
irrelevant any time soon.  As long as money changes hands under the
proverbial table (or even over it, in the form of campaign
contributions), determining who sells what to whom and for how much,
your beloved free market is doomed.  As it always was.  Or perhaps a
better statement is that it never could exist; it was a mirage, a
figment in Homo economicus' idealized, ever-rational,
never-found-on-this-planet mind.

Wait a second... maybe that's why Lee and others like him are on a
transhumanist list... he wants us all to have a free market neural
transplant, so the dream of Homo economicus could become a reality!
Now if we could only find the part of the brain that governs free
markets...  ;-)

PJ