Ron Amundson’s Political Blog

Harley Davidson is cutting ~20% off their workforce since their peak a couple years back and their profits are shooting up. Of course, they also had greater than a 20% loss in sales, they killed off Buell, and sold MV Agusta too. I’d say its pretty hard to attribute causality to any one factor, but more so the total combination of things. Here in MN, there is one dude running for governor, who says we can’t cut our way to greatness… Well, he is right, if we only look at one thing, ie cutting taxes alone doesnt do much of anything, other than enrichen a few at the expenses of the masses.

The thing is… there is a ton that could be done in regards to cutting, apart from just cutting taxes, that could have a huge impact. Overhead cuts, anti-competitive regulation cuts, and re-prioritization of services could make a huge difference… but sadly, folks want the status quo, of more and more and more government, rather than to say “hey, wait a minute, this is stupid, and has to go”.

Overhead is often a killer. Just look at the massive layers in education…. case in point, actual classroom expenses, ie teacher + classroom + supplies are dwarfed by overhead. Or in other cases, some cities are finding its cheaper to use private contractors. In the future, I would guess many of these contractors will likely employ the same folks who used to do the same job as a government employee for a fraction of the cost.

MN is averse in anti-competitive and barriers to entry regulation. Politicians seem deathly afraid of a new entity coming in and doing the same work for 20% less for fear that it might cut into old entrenched businesses, the jobs such businesses create, and of course the resulting political contributions as well. They also seem to fear progress too… horrors that buggy whips might evolve, and something totally new replace them. I almost wonder had MN been more startup friendly, on all fronts, perhaps we wouldn’t have had the mass technical exodus post the CDC glory days.

Re-prioritization could be a huge deal too… Its like the Federal MMS on a small scale, or a Van Halen concert on a large scale. Writing up BS stuff for light bulbs being out, or improperly labeled buckets on the Deepwater Horizon, all the while major process issues go along unchecked and unregulated is a huge mistake. Granted, anyone can count light bulbs, and bucket labels or sort Van Halen’s M&M’s… it does take skill and expertise to understand the drilling process, or the rigging of a stage.

Trivial BS checksum methods (bucket inspectors)are mostly cross checks for attention to detail… with the philosophy that if attention is given to minor things, the feeling is that the major items are subject to the same attention, if not more so. The problem is… both on the fed, and state level… making sure that the bowl of M&M’s doesnt have any brown ones has become the greater priority, than the integrity of the stage rigging and floor.

Excessive overhead, the anticompetitive stance, and the prevalence of bucket inspectors are firmly entrenched… Its going to take a whole ton of folks crying uncle before any of that changes. We could cut our way to greatness… but instead, we talk about cutting key services, and cutting taxes, rather than cutting policies and procedures that could likely cut both taxes, and improve/expand valuable services to the citizens of MN.

A recurrent problem with the response to the oil spill is that no one wants to fess up. Apart from the legal aspects, the incredibly low science literacy both in the media, as well as the general public pretty much makes much of this deal as a “You can’t handle the truth” scenario.

The truth

The ultimate truth is the following. There are no easy answers, and there are 50 kazillion unknowns. There are tons of theories, and thousands of people working on answers and there are still kazillions of unknowns, and answers are going to take time, and some may never be known. In addition, solutions are going to require widespread failures and massive numbers of iterations. No matter how the legal, the managerial, the political, the agendized folks want to spin it… the laws of nature are immovable, and they reign supreme.

Human Fear

Then add in the fact that fear is running rampant, whether it be those who see the writing on the wall that everything will change as the spill is right in front of them, and others, who see that things might change, and their current lifestyle may no longer be sustainable, even if the oil spill is thousands of miles away.

I also think there is a synergistic multiplier effect between fear and uncertainty, combined with failure after failure leading to despair and resignation which will likely have profound and long lasting effects on society at large.

As a tech guy… Its easy to discount this fear aspect, but I think such will play out in technical and political judgment calls for many years to come… and that then plays back into the technical realm. Case in point, nuclear paranoia is incredibly strong post three mile island. Industrial contamination is a much greater danger, but short of highly localized arenas, most consider it a non-issue, and economics/finance/jobs are more important. It leads to a question of where will petro end up in 10 years.

Vested Interests Abound on all Sides

Then to add insult to injury, there are those with vested financial and political interests of one type, who wish to down play any and all downsides. Likewise, there are those with different ideological, and political interests, who wish to play up any and all downsides. Lastly, there are those who see such the spill as being so distant, it will have no effect on them whatsoever, and is nothing to be excited about.

If one chooses to play down potential issues, or ignore them completely, the obvious danger is if they are wrong the costs could be extreme, ie death and destruction. By the same token, over playing such could create un-necessary fear (already on top of the current fears), it shoots holes in future credibility of the messenger, and it runs the risk of potential economic hardship.

Such vested interests often end up muddying the waters from a technical solution point of view. Even from a political point of view, its really muddy… just look at the FCC, more lawyers than engineers… and they are to address technical issues? Go figure

The solution?

The next generation will have a much clearer view and armchair quarterbacking likely will present a multitude of solutions. In the short term… some of the next gen is already here, in grade school. Dead animals, dead beaches and the like will start to color their thought processes in short order. No matter how much they are sheltered or are attempted to be led one way or another… images engrained early on will play a huge role in the development of their thought processes, their morality, and their hope. In other words, these youngsters will see through the BS, the spin, the garbage of today. They likely will see the truth long before the rest of us.

Desire and Finance always win out over safety, even when it comes to regulation… well, unless of course those on the safety side of things have more money or desire at stake. It doesnt seem to matter whether its oil, bio, transportation, or even ones own personal choices, desire is an incredible motivator. It may be time, it may be money, power, jobs, politics… but desire wins. Well, at least it wins over safety in the short term; statistics and physics are always the ultimate winners.

This plays out in nearly every risk/benefit decision made, whether it be the purchase of a family car. Ie do you buy a clone of Cadillac One or a used Hyundai? Obviously the chances of an encountering an IED, or a sniper in a family car are low, so armor plating and bulletproof glass would be overkill. Yet, an encounter with an out of control semi is much much greater in the Hyundai than Cadillac One, or even spinning out of control on ice, but such events are virtually never considered when it comes to car buying.

It plays out in the regulatory arena too…. case in point, the experience requirements for being an airline pilot make great financial sense, from a hiring perspective. However, when the chips are down…. not so well, case in point Colgan 3407, where in both pilots had thousands of hours, said hours were not of the quality needed to prevent the tragic loss of life.

A similar deal in oil regulation, ie if multiple relief wells were required for deep water drilling, oil companies would make less money, there would be less profit, less taxes to government, and ultimately higher consumer costs and fewer jobs. On the other hand, we (the taxpayers) will likely have $50billion+ to pay in cleanup costs, society will have untold amounts of human suffering, and the environment in some areas may take generations to recover, due to extended time needed to drill them now. Even now… one relief well is being drilled, one is on hold… and what if both fail? We then start on well #3 in September?

Future blog posts, which will be hotlinked as I get to them

Justification due to Operating in Deficiency Mode

Money is Almost Always Available After the Fact

Changes in Safety are Usually Short Lived

Second Guessing will Haunt many for Years

Can anything be done?

some background bits
from http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6524#comment-633217

Judgement calls

from Rockman

IF I suddenly thought I could use the RW BOP to deal with the leak and IF I felt the other RW was doing OK I would delatch and move to the blow out. And my two prime motives: to do the BOP move as fast as possible and to pinch pennies. I’m VP Operations and there are times when I make such decisions on an almost daily basis. And sometimes I make decisions based on a minimal (but never zero) risk vs. costs. I don’t always take the most expensive route to minimize risk. So yes, there are times when I accept a certain risk to the environment, the rig and the lives of the hands working for me as well as myself. As yes, I’m still on crutches after my double knee surgery so I would always be the last one to get away from a rig if something goes wrong. It’s a judgment call. No different than when everyone here bought his or her last car. Did you spend the most money possible for the safest car available? No in most cases. Then you must value your money more than your life or the lives of your loved ones. Right? More than 30 years ago I had to help the company carry off the body of a dead floor hand in a tarp. As I said once before I can still easy remember how that tarp felt in my hands. I’ve never made a decision that hurt a hand let alone killed one. Right now I’ve the ultimate authority in my drilling ops…anything goes wrong…someone gets hurt or killed…it’s on me…no one else. So I make those judgment calls. And monetary considerations will always be a factor. But when I make those calls I literally always ask myself that one question last: is saving money going to cause any “real” increased risk? Each one of has to decide how we define “real”.

Scale of Consequences

from greenish

In choosing a car for one’s family, one weighs risks and costs. When choosing a car for the president, likewise. That’s why I have a beat-up Hyundai Accent and the president travels in a car-shaped tank within a convoy with traffic shut down. Because the scale of consequence is different.

from Rockman

greenish — A little friendly picking on you: so the life of the president is more important than that of you and your loved ones? So you’re willing to save a little money to not maximize their safety?

There really isn’t a proper answer to my question. But those decisions are made every day. Do you cancel every flight out of NYC because there’s a bad thunder storm predicted? I would offer that killing 300 folks in an airplane crash is as significant, if not more so, as the POTUS being killed in an auto accident. Heck… that’s why we have vice-presidents.

It’s all about choices. A bad choice is always a bad choice even if it doesn’t cause an accident. It appears the folks at BP made a bad choice and it bit them hard. But sometimes the proper choice can kill you too. But do you base your choices on the magnitude of a worse case scenario? I fully understand your “scale of consequence”. Killing your baby in a car accident would be considered a rather significant conseqence of scale by most IMHO.

What I offered earlier wasn’t as much a justification for anyone’s judgment calls. Just laying out how it works in the oil patch (as well as the rest of life IMHO).

Real Moral Hazard

from pbnj

One issue though that petroleum industry (and any industry that could mess up the environment) must deal with that my industry doesn’t have to.. is moral hazard. If I misjudge risk, it messes up my customers and my own company. If Petroleum industry misjudges risk and screws up (or nuke, or coal, or chemical or etc) then the mistake messes up OUR world and our raw natural resources. This places petroleum industry in a position not well suited to corporations because they must be stewards of shared resources as well as for-profit corporations. Some of that stewardship may be offloaded to government agencies, but regardless, the performer (the oil industry) still must work in good faith with the agencies. That is a tough position that I am glad that I am not in. Unfortunately the government (enforcer of stewardship) only really has one or two hammers against a misbehaving actor. Nationalization (nuclear option) and regulation/fines. So I ask you (in this philosophical discussion) do you think that the “corporation” concept is appropriate for an organization that has such a high moral hazard?

To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to endanger the public health by encouraging food-borne illness, decreasing the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and decreasing the security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.

1. It encourages food borne illness through consolidation of operations, through preferable treatment to large agribusiness.

Its interesting to note the major food borne illness outbreaks are the result of large consolidated ag practices, which are encouraged under this bill. Diversity of production is a national security concern. Imagine the consequences of Monsanto, or ADM screw up in a huge way, its not a matter of if, its a matter of when, biology can be messy that way. In part, this is why small producers are subsidized to encourage some level of diversity. Just as we found in banking, the too large to fail mantra, and the monopolistic practices granted to some firms are counter productive. Thousands of small banks did ok. The 18 or so super banks are in serious trouble.

2. It decreases the safety of food, by a massive influx of new and inexperienced inspectors, and focuses more on the administrative side than physical inspection and testing.

The FDA is tragically undefunded as it is. Adding a new overhead layer of govt, re-arranging all the chairs, increasing the paper work burden, and the inspection scope, will require a massive increase in human resources and training. As a result, experienced people are likely to be diverted to greater administrative functions, rather than being in the field. The end result, greater administrative functions, and a focus on paperwork inspections, combined with less actual testing, planning, and review by those skilled in the art.

3. It decreases the security of food from intentional contamination.

This comes back to the diversity issue once again. Ie, one person could now jeopardize security of food for millions of people, rather than just a local area. It would no longer be necessary to utilize massive terrorist cells for a ampaign, as the vulnerabilities are so concentrated. The lone errant individual would be a much greater concern as well. Introducing pathogens in the food supply chain is not rocket science, doing it over a large scale as existed 30 years ago would be impossible. Today, its possible but difficult. After passage of this bill, it would be rather simple.

In many ways large agribusiness using transgenic crops is in effect a bio lab on a large scale, and its open for business pretty much anytime day or night, with exceedingly limited security. Such crops pose a serious enough problem in the south that over 50% of biotech cotton land must be used as refuge acres, and even here in the north, the EPA requires 20%. The idea is to prevent transgenic crops from loosing their specific traits as concerns insect resistance. Its a similiar situation with volunteer corn having different gene expressions than off the shelf corn. In other words, if left unchecked its a disaster waitng to happen. Case in point, BT volunteer corn.

Yep, I got a typo in the title, and then thought hey, why not live it as is… it is a dud in many ways. The legislature has asked for opinions, so I cranked out a number of suggestions in their online form, not sure how well that format will work… I guess if I get any feedback from them, maybe it does, but then again, its likely filled with a bunch of extremes on all sides. As such, I expect the local meetings likely will carry a lot more impact, but I just don’t see how I can get to one, much less testify… so I’ll rant a little bit here.

The biggest issue… the legislature. They need to take this seriously, and realize that nothing should really be off the table, and that little things do add up. Now, in sound bites and internet commentary, they do seem to look at this seriously. However, a quick scan of the 290 proposed bills in the domain of the finance committee suggest otherwise. Egads, it seems nearly every bill is focused on expanding government and spending more money. That doesn’t bode too well for a need to take things seriously. If anything, a moratorium on all new spending bills may be in order. Granted, there are no doubt some good things in there… but when you can’t manage with what you have, adding more is not prudent at all. At a minimum, if one proposes to spend more money in one area, concurrently cut in another. (in fairness some of the bills are based upon incoming fed money, but thats a whole other story).

The only way the budget issue will be solved is massive cuts, plus tax increases. One or the other along will not cut it… and using debt and creative accounting sure didnt work out too well for banking and housing… its not going to work out too well for state govt either, if not now, it will come back to haunt later.

I really like what rep Steve Drazkowski had to say in his learning from the private sector release. However, he didnt go far enough with the parallel to the private sector. Ie, no business in their right mind will cut their unique selling position / core competence beyond what will scale (ie, a business needs scalability, otherwise its doomed to shrink etc). Pretty much everything is negotiable up to that point. Once you start gutting out a business such that scalability is negative, failure becomes inevitable, short of the current trend of bailouts.

And thats the issue of state budgeting, what is the minimum level needed to achieve positive outcomes in the future. Ie, q-comp is not it, prisons are not it, university building projects are not it, nor is any level of further govt expansion. Cutting public health services to the citizens will come back to bite, even dental funding if deferred will be much more expensive later. Oversight, administrative, and supervision functions on the other hand even if efficiency drops, provided its not state mandated are tolerable. Errors made in those areas are fixable at minimal cost later… but basic safety nets are not. Thiis would require a rewrite of mandates and qualification criteria, as agencies would not have the manpower to comply, if overhead in such areas were cut…. lots of sacred cows would need to go.

Cutting public safety back through a reduction in laws and a change from misdemeanors to non-crimes will also reduce the load on the judiciary, and the prison system at minimal future expense. (I dont buy the law enforcement side that going after minor crimes saves money in the long haul…. I’ve got too many friends in law enforcement who admit otherwise privately). Also history bears that out, in the 70′s our percentage of folks in prison was a fraction of what we have today, and society back then was not all that bad.

Education needs to be cut all around… $160,000 costs per classroom, where a teachers fully burdened wages is under $100,000 is just too much overhead. Its not sustainable long term… and do teachers and students really get much benefit for that $60,000 worth of overhead, I really doubt it. I know they dont get didly for standardized testing, in fact, I realy see NCLB as focused on all the wrong things… rote learning and teaching to the lowest denominator in 2 subjects is not the way to prepare the young for the future. Accountability is needed, absolutely, and NCLB had good intentions, but the implementation is insanity cubed. I’d rather see overhead slashed by 25%, and a $2000 refundable tax credit given to each full time teacher for their classrooms… Put the money where it most closely impacts the students with as few strings as possible… My guess is education spending efficiency would shoot through the sky if the individual classroom teacher had the responsibility to make it happen. Sure, some would get wasted or misused, but I’d bet the vast majority of cases would result in a windfall

LGA at the city level should not be cut , as its where most citizens receive the greatest value for the dollar, either via education, local services, or public safety, ie police and fire. Otoh, LGA should not be expanded either.

At the county level, consolidate, consolidate, consolidate, even going so far as to use online remote terminals and limited hours in some locations. Its a luxury we can no longer afford.

Tax cuts, when the problem overall is a lack of demand are likely to result in hoarding, or offshore investments. Encouraging investment in NEW MN business or expansions into NEW markets through targeted tax deductions is a different matter entirely. Its like the stimulus bill, if you want A, you need to comply with B… across the board non discretionary tax cuts would be exceedingly counter productive.

As far as MNCare and such goes… cutting is counterproductive on the outset. However, negotiating with providers to save money is another story. They full well know if MNCare gets cut, their ER visits, and non collectible recievables will go through the roof. Force them to compromise on reimbursement… as getting 80% on the dollar, is better than getting nothing combined with increased usage.

Its probably a good thing I’m not in govt… I’d be too ruthless with cuts, and lobbyists would have my head by upending central control, but I’d rather see the calls made in Warroad, MN that best benefit that area, than St Paul dictating what they think best for the far north areas of the state.

I’ve seen reference to the 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure in numerous news sources, but had to do some digging to find the actual source. Well,its there in the previous link. Obviously, the ASCE wants things fully funded, as their membership base would do very well financiall. However, beyond that, it is very clear infrastructure is in terrible shape. How many more I-35 collapses, or dam collapses, or even power grid failures (I should write a blog on that, its probably a good thing J6P doesnt know how bad things really are) will occur before action is taken.

Clearly, a $2.2 trillion dollar package for infrastructure alone is not going to fly, in part that the govt would rather throw such levels of money at Wall Street for the benefit of the few cronies, but also, there is not enough construction capacity to burn through that amount of activity in a reasonable time frame. That being said, the current funding levels proposed for infrastructure do not max out capacity, and in many ways, end up continuing with the bandaid process which has been used for years. Sooner or later something very bad is going to happen… unlike mark to finger in the wind accounting as was used by Wall Street, the damages from an infrastructure collapse will make the financial collapse seem miniscule.

Some years back, we were within minutes of loosing half the midwest power grid, fortunately good judgement calls, and some systems that worked kept disaster at bay…. but having multiple states without power for weeks if it were to happen in winter would no doubt result in substantial loss of life. Emergency backup is designed for short terms, and it assumes key infrastructure within a reasonable transport distance is available… 7 minutes, and the midwest would have been toast.

Next, look at Mississippi river transport, and even the St Louis seaway. A lot of that infrastructure is operating beyond its expected life span… and all it takes is one link in the chain, and now we have a huge problem with multiple cascading and far reaching effects.

Then brownfields… yes, they can be a real boondoggle for a wide range of reasons, imho mostly too much govt involvement and oversight on the technical and operational aspect causing huge costs, all the while running with minimal financial oversight. Go figure, but its not attractive to a finance type, but they attrack bureaucrats in huge numbers, with restrictions at every path. Hopefully the ASCE guys can apply pressure… the clean up needs to occur, and it needs to be safe, but one should never have to get a flat bed and crane for a day to take a piece of gear off the brownfield for a 15 minute repair, as it takes 2 weeks of paperwork to effect the repair on site.

And there-in leads the inefficiency of govt contracts and programs. The focus is often driven not on what is beneficial to the public whether it be optmization value via low cost, or short duration, but on what is beneficial to the politically driven govt bureaucracy… In the case of catostrophic failures, the govt can step in and work wonders as evidenced by the repair of the Oakland bay bridge after the earthquake nearly 20 years ago, or the I-35 bridge more recently. Contrast this with the current Eastern span replacement of the Oakland bay bridge… yikes.

No doubt infrastructure needs help, and a ton of it… but just how much can be done, how much it will help the economy, and if it can be soon enough before disaster ensues. All very difficult and challenging questions, the only thing for sure, is the status quo (ie bandaids) will result in failure for all of the above.

Senate approves four-month delay to digital TV changeover — OrlandoSentinel.com.

This was a good call, albeit it doesnt solve the underlying technical issue, which is lack of coverage, which could result in no OTA (over the air) availability for some, and drastically reduced selection for others.  In some cases, its possible a high gain antenna, tower, and amplifier may be adequate, in others… it will take a change in the laws, the private sector cannot be expected to solve this on their own.

The reason being, to solve the problem of blackout areas, assuming the end customer has done everything on his end possible, it will require one or more of the following. Greater transmitter power (a regulatory issue… and many digital transmitters run at significantly lower power than their analog predecessors), more translators (low powered tv transmitters operating on unused channels to provide specific coverage to a local area), and/or potentialy a requirement that broadcasters must ensure their coverage area remains the same on digital as it did on analog.

The end result, hugh cost increases for tv stations, and potentially tons of regulatory hoops to jump through… then add in an assurance of virtually nil increase in market size, and its not justifiable. Ie, providing service to 1000 existing viewers in a market of hundreds of thousands just doesnt add up.

Now some would say tough, folks should just switch to satellite or cable, but in todays economy, more and more are going to OTA, rather than sat or cable. Then add in the fact this whole deal was done, not so much as to increase quality for the average Joe, but to bring in huge revenue in spectrum auctions for Uncle Sam. Sure, in some areas, clear spectrum is rare, but for vast portions of the US, its amazing how little spectrum is really used, and for where it is in use, how inefficiently it is used.

And yet others will say, who needs OTA TV, its not a right or anything… well there is a public safety aspect to this. Tornado warnings, and other emergency comms are typically disseminated via TV. Sure, radio does some, as does even the internet, but the primary method is via TV. To drop the coverage from entire communities is just asking for liability headaches should something bad happen, and thats apart from any injury or loss of life aspects.

Then add in the 4 month delay, and wow, we are right in the middle of Tornado season. At least the bill buys more time to get more of the tech issues solved, and it is much easier to do antenna work in the summer than it is now. On the other hand, the way things normally go, it will just be a delay, and until analog goes away, we really wont know how bad things truly are…. and then the mad scramble begins. Hopefully more and more testing will be done, and heat can be applied to the legislature, well before segments of rural America go completely dark in the midst to summer.

U.S. Mulls Widening Bailout to Insurers – WSJ.com

Go figure… life insurance companies made bad investments, and now want in on the bailout too… but they also do not want to fess up to their precarious financial position, and thus want govt to socialize the whole industry so as not to give competitive advantage to well run firms.

Its pretty screwey, many folks are against socialized medicine, and yet we have big insurance firms that want to be socialized, at least in the less lucrative arena’s it seems.

About the only thing we can probably figure on, is that Joe sixpack and mainstreet are not going to get bailed out, and likely a vast portion of the F1000 will, either through overt socialization through the bailout program, or exceedingly favorable tax or other corporate welfare schemes. What on earth ever happened to antitrust laws such that no entity would ever be too big to fail.

A most interesting discussion by senators as concerns energy speculation. Al Franken brought this to light when he brought up Norm Coleman’s vote against it.

GovTrack: Senate Record: STOP EXCESSIVE ENERGY SPECULATION ACT OF… (110-s20080722-17).

Its pretty clear no one wants to look at the one or more elephants in the room….

1. The idea is to game the speculation markets, such that oil prices will drop…. The differences are on how to do so. and….

2. Oil companies see this as the potential for a huge land grab, which they know is unlikely to be available after this session.

3. Likely all senators agree a coordinated plan with multiple attack paths are needed… but Republicans want to protect the speculator markets from going offshore and apart from the fact their campaign contributors would be severly hurt by such, they also would likely loose any and all future control, and once the genie is out, he is not likely to come back in. Democrats want to protect the environment and the associated economies, and see through the land grab issue, the speculator issue, and likely feel that increased capacity through leases is unlikely to have much of an impact either short or long term as to oil prices, albeit many likely do see the issue of some big businesses making a windfall at the expense of others.

Again, the goal is to up-end the speculator market, such that oil prices will drop, all the while ensuring that not too many investment banks and speculators dont loose their shirt.

Why not be brutally honest and put all the cards on the table, illuminate those elephants… other solutions might just well appear.

If the elephants I presented are true, and even partly true which is a huge guess….

1. Look into a world solution… work with China, Russia, the EU, India, and other countries. It does affect us all… easy in a blog, not so much in practice. Yet, putting speculator limits on US soil, will accomplish nothing, if the speculation market just goes off shore.

2. Put huge fear in the speculation markets, by investing in infrastructure to make oil shale recovery economically and ecologically viable. If that happens, the US reserve is huge… and it will make speculators run for cover. Its also a slow process, and likely many incremental steps will occur along the way, thus allowing only but the highest risk speculators time to jump out with safety. (it is banking on unknown technology, with a multitude of pitfalls though…. it could well end up failing)

3. Follow the Franken plan part 2 as concerns the strategic petroleum reserve. It will create a huge ripple in the markets…. and it may be possible to capture data to offer some predictability as concerns the speculator markets in the future. It may end up accomplishing very littel too… but at least knowledge would be gained to assist in future strategy.

4. Follow the Franken plan part 3 as concern conservation… its simple, and proven effective.

At that time… we can likely get through the elections, and by then be working on a longer term energy strategy which includes multiple attacks on energy which likely will include drilling in some capacity. What must happen, is something short term, or way too many folks are going to be in a world of hurt come winter, and the high costs of home heating.