The Era of Confusion Confirmed: The Energy Anabasis Begins

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. - GROUCHO MARX

But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. And to support that innovation, we will invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America. - Barack Obama

Unlike Rush Limbaugh I would very unhappy to see Barack Obama fail as President of the United States, but President Obama faces a steep learning curve during his early months at the White House. He has indeed found trouble everywhere, and in his energy policy he attempts to kill two birds with one stone, by investing tax payers money in the development of "wind power, solar power, advanced biofuels, and clean coal".

i did not really expect Mr. Obama to do better. I has, after all spent the last year and a half on his Anabasis to the White House. Mr. Obama's November, 2008 election was not the end of his journey. Indeed beginning in November a new march upcountry began, one which involved not 10,000, but a nation of over 300 million people, finding its way into the 21st century. The leader called us together, to speak of his understanding of the tasks we face and and the steps he believe we need to take. But the first seeps of the journey were exceedingly inauspicious.

Even if things seem tp work in the short run, the economy only works by borrowing money to pay for the can openers we buy from China. The Chinese lend us the money, but this cannot go on forever. At a certain point the loans may stop coming, and at that point the system will be in danger of collapsing. No diagnosis that does not identify the structual problems, is likely to do more than postpone the evil day of reckoning, and that postponement cannot and will not be for long.

The diagnosis of the troubles we face is wrong, and the remedies are wrong. But the leader is calm and self confident. He seems unlikely to loose his head in the midst of adversity. He is resourceful and capable of recognizing and acknowledging his errors. I did not expect more from Mr Obama, and indeed I expect most of his first administration to be spent in finding the proper diagnoses, and learning to apply the right remedies.