Education And USGS Budgets, And The U.S. Economy - Posted by EQF on January 14, 2012

The following are personal opinions. However, they are I believe shared by at least some high level U.S. policy makers.

Unfortunately, those high level U.S. policy makers apparently don’t know what needs to be done to get things moving in the right direction. If they did then they would have done that back a while ago when the Democrats had those veto proof majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate.

The U.S. and global economies and consequently the budgets available for the Departments of Education and the Interior (including the USGS) are directly tied to two things. And other things, such as the size of the national debt, are largely irrelevant.

1. GOVERNMENTS NEED TO HAVE REALISTIC ECONOMIC POLICIES

Without mentioning the names of any specific governments, if you watch the news you can easily see examples of countries that have a fair amount of wealth in their natural resources alone, not to mention their manpower resources. Yet their economic policies are so out of touch with reality that they have high unemployment rates. And large sections of their population are living in poverty.

U.S. economic polices toggle from administration to administration from being rather mediocre, at best, to being absolutely horrible.

The main reason that people in the U.S. haven’t had to pay the price for those horrible polities too much in the past is that the U.S. has always been a wealthy nation. So there is a type of economic buffer present, or, at least there was in the past. Also, certain parts of the U.S. economy are highly productive. And they help support the rest of the economy.

Running up the national debt year after year with no way in sight to reduce it is not a realistic economic policy.

On the other hand, eliminating government agencies such as the Department of Education can be compared with “eliminating your nose to spite your face.” Some money might be saved at first. But then an increasingly large segment of the population never gets a college education for example. Innovation and productivity are consequently lowered. And the economic picture just gets worse.

2. HIGH ENERGY PRICES MEAN HIGH RATES OF UNEMPLOYMENT

When energy prices skyrocket we go into a recession. And “coming out of the recession” actually means that the U.S. in general has adjusted to those higher energy prices through the following processes:

More people are unemployed, at least temporarily.

Non critical jobs and programs are eliminated. They include such things as:

Art teachers in schools at every level

Bands and band directors in elementary and high schools

School sports programs that are not self supporting

Tourism jobs

Airline industry jobs

Housing construction jobs

Chemical industry jobs - Those jobs get a double hit. There is the higher cost of the energy needed to run the factories. And there is the added cost of the oil and other raw materials that are used to produce plastic etc.

People are forced to downsize. They can no longer afford to have their families live in a comfortable home because they can’t afford the mortgage, real estate, heat, and electricity payments. So they have to move their families into smaller apartments, condos, or mobile homes in trailer parks.

Instead of making $50,000 a year doing computer programming work people might have to work for $20,000 a year at some convenience store, if they are lucky enough to even find employment at that level.

OTHER ECONOMY RELATED FACTORS

There are of course other factors that affect the economy such as the fact that many jobs that used to exist in the U.S. are now being done by workers in other countries where labor is less expensive. But, even with those types of job losses, if energy prices were low enough we could compensate for that. For example, tourism jobs would still exist here in the U.S. And industries such as the chemical industry that rely on tremendous amounts of energy etc. could stay out of bankruptcy.

WHAT’S THE BOTTLENECK IN THE ECONOMY?

In spite of what they keep saying at great length on TV, energy companies, oil companies in particular, are out to make a profit, not provide everyone with inexpensive energy. And a key step in making a profit is making sure that there is no competition.

Governments around the world need to dramatically increase the amount of money that they are making available for basic energy research. But, lobbyists for the energy companies don’t want any competition. And they are using their influence to keep governments from making those types of funds available.

The Democrats could have made major changes in U.S. energy policies when they had their veto proof majorities in the House and Senate a while back. Why they did not do that is something of a mystery to me.

It was perhaps the one chance for the U.S. to permanently get not only our own country, but the entire planet out of a global economic recession. And in my opinion, the Democrats really messed up royal with that one!

Finally,

I have been saying regarding earthquake forecasting that people around the world are being taken in by national and international “experts” who keep insisting that “Earthquakes can’t be predicted.” Those people are largely simply trying to promote their own agendas.

However, those earthquake forecasting “experts” are rank amateurs when compared with the energy companies when it comes to promoting and preserving self-serving, economy busting, bottleneck government policies. And I wouldn’t even dare to discuss my opinions, as a scientist, concerning anyone and everyone connected with the cigarette industry. Comments that strong would not even be allowed in an R rated movie.

Question: If gasoline and aircraft fuel cost only $1 per gallon and it cost only $50 per month to heat or cool a large home, what would likely happen to the U.S. economy and the job picture?

Would the economy and the job picture likely improve?

or,

Would they likely get worse?