So many things I want to talk about have come to the fore in just the two short months since my last essay. The Supreme Court decision on the DC gun ban. The Chinese pollution debacle that’s becoming more evident by the day as the Olympics approach. The coming U.S. Presidential election. The slow, years-too-late movement toward more domestic oil drilling. The explosion of SUV and truck sales in Kyoto-exempt Russia and China (oh yes, look it up). And so much more…

Right now, there are exciting new developments on every one of my core beats: Personal liberties, the surveillance state, global warming, guns and personal defense, the outdoors, and the utter corruption of the American political machine and the mainstream media that’s furthering it. Don’t worry, I’m keeping a file on all of it — so I’ll be loaded for bear when the time comes for my double-barreled return to Whiskey & Gunpowder.

Alas, today is not that day. I’m still on hiatus. But I’ve come back with this brief essay to offer you a gesture of gratitude that’s more than just words — one that I specifically asked the publishers of Whiskey & Gunpowder to allow me to extend to you today…

It’s worth exactly $50. Or a few million dollars, depending on how you calculate it.

Setting the Record Straight, Straightaway

First things first…

As you’ll recall, my last Whiskey & Gunpowder articles were a two-part series inviting you to the ninth annual Agora Financial Investment Symposium at the luxurious Fairmont Hotel at one of the most progressive, vibrant, and prosperous cities on the planet: Vancouver, British Columbia.

To recap a bit, that series was a “thank you” as well.

That’s because your voluminous and passionate feedback to my 67 Whiskey articles over three and a half years is the reason I found myself invited (for the second year in a row) to rub elbows at the Symposium with such world-class financial and political thinkers as Bill Bonner, Doug Casey, James Howard Kunstler, and former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker — plus fellow Agora Financial luminaries Dan Denning, Byron King, Chris Mayer, Kevin Kerr, and about a million others…

Like world-renowned bestselling financial author and swashbuckling “adventure capitalist” Jim Rogers, for instance.

By all accounts, I have no right sharing oxygen with such folks, much less the stage. And now that I’m back from Vancouver and the exhilarating 2008 Symposium, I must express my thanks to you again — for a very different reason. But before I get into the meat and potatoes of the gift I’ve arranged for you today, I need (as usual) to clear the air about something…

Though the vast majority of those who wrote in to Whiskey & Gunpowder when I announced my indefinite self-suspension were complimentary to my work, dedication, and passion in this forum (even if they didn’t always agree with me), some were less so. Of course, this is to be expected — I pressed a lot of buttons and raised a lot of hackles during my tenure here.

However, a few of these letters questioned the sincerity of my last pair of essays — whining that they were nothing more than a sales pitch for the 2008 Symposium. At least a few people even claimed that they weren’t even written by me, but by some slick copywriter pretending to be me…

To these folks, I say this: Not only did I write those letters myself (you ought to know I’m too arrogant to ever allow my name to be put on something I didn’t write) — but I wasn’t paid one red cent extra for “pitching” the 2008 Agora Financial Investment Symposium to you.

No cut of the profits, no royalties, no nuthin.’

I did it because I wanted all those who’d read my work over the years — love me, hate me, or want to debate me — to be able to shake my hand, flip me off, wag a finger in my face, or tilt a shot-glass with me for perhaps the last time, and in a breathtakingly beautiful and entertaining place.

I also wanted you all to have the same chance I was getting to become stupid-rich on the always prophetic, can’t-get-anywhere-else, money-in-the-bank actionable investing advice from minds you’ll never get a chance to meet face-to-face anywhere else but at the Symposium…

So yeah, I DID write those letters to convince you to sign up for this year’s event.

But not because I got paid to, or because it’s my passion in life to sell you stuff. I did it purely because I believe in the Symposium’s ability to change your life. And like I said two months ago, I wanted to be the one to have brought that power to you — as a reward to those who’ve supported me and as an olive branch to those who despise me…

And today, I’m here to once again offer you something I believe can change your life for the better, no catches or strings attached.

Lost in Truncation

As some of you may know, I was flattered to be asked to cover the 2008 Agora Financial Investment Symposium as the “roving reporter” for The Daily Reckoning. And over the five days I covered the event, I wrote more than 12,500 words to DR readers about the day-to-day goings-on in Vancouver (these dispatches also ran in Whiskey & Gunpowder )…

That’s around 40 single-spaced, typewritten pages — about as long as the body text of a typical master’s thesis. And I probably only covered around ONE THIRD of what there was to report. I tell you this so that you’ll get a sense of the Symposium’s scope and depth…

I also mention it to show you how I could never summarize such an event in the 2,500 words or so of even one of my typically longish Whiskey & Gunpowder essays. And even if I could come close, I know that a lot of what was conveyed by the money wizards that attend and speak at the Symposium would be “lost in truncation.”

So I won’t even try.

Instead, I’ll simply let you know once again that the heart and soul of the 2008 Agora Financial Investment Symposium — every minute of the 16-plus hours worth of general session commentary AND a comprehensive Special Report with all the specific picks and other recommendations from the more than 70 “break out” sessions — is now available on CDs or MP3 recordings.

This is a resource that could literally make you millions of dollars in the next few years. Or save you a few million, as well. And today, you’ll get the last chance at the lowest price on this incredible profit resource. More on this in a minute — right now, I want to go back to the event itself…

The theme of this year’s Symposium was A View From the Peak: Seeking Profits in a Time of Risk and Scarcity. Most every presentation dovetailed into this theme, and the “view” is indeed unnerving. Like I said, I couldn’t come anywhere near giving you a realistic “Readers’ Digest” version of this event — but I can share with you just a few of the invaluable lessons that I took away from it:

• Not only is the world currently at the mercy of multiple commodities and resources peaks — oil, gas, water, etc. — but America in particular faces some crippling peaks of its own: Peak dollars, peak credit, and the most sobering of all to the future of our republic, peak western influence (details on what this means for your money in your Symposium CDs or MP3s)…
• Why Bill Bonner sees the end of the world as we know it: Since FDR, America has been increasingly moving toward a state of nationalization, the death knell of many a republic. Government has now entangled itself in mortgage companies (FNMA and FHLMC), health care (Medicare and Medicaid), and may soon, through bailouts, have its tentacles into banks, airlines, automakers, and more. This “biggest-ever seizure of industry by government” spells the inexorable transformation from a capitalist America to a neo-Socialist state — and eventual decline and demise…
• Four reasons why the resources bull market still has legs — despite what the mainstream pundits say. This, from the man Bill Bonner himself claims “knows more about natural resource investing than anyone I know.” I also discovered, straight from this investing legend’s mouth (he’s made his clients 1880% on their money in just the last seven years ), a few specific resource profit-plays that are set to explode in the near future. Yes, they’ll be on your CDs…
• Seven reasons why farming costs are going through the roof — and not just in America. What’s this mean for food commodities prices? It means that those who play this crisis right stand to make some mind-boggling gains. But according to the Symposium’s acknowledged expert on the topic (you may already know him), making a killing in food-related commodity investment can be tricky. Find out why one particular play that everyone’s into — ethanol — is the kiss of death…
• Why a lot of us (maybe you?) may have lost more money from the modern dollar slide than they would have from a foreclosure or bankruptcy! An expert on the subject shows us why those who foresee a near-term stronger dollar are oblivious to four fundamental crises America faces that will drive the dollar still weaker. He also claims that the U.S. is headed for a rebirth of the 70s: High interest rates, high inflation, and low employment. But there are some easy — yet not intuitive — ways to stop the erosion of assets and investments you hold in U.S. dollars (yep, all on the CDs or MP3s)…
• How government book-cooking has changed the definition of “money” — and why it’s dead wrong. Also from this internationally known authority on the dollar and economics: The real definition of inflation and how The Fed causes it on purpose, how the U.S. rate of true inflation is higher right now than in the 1970s, and how, after adjusting for real-world inflation, any investment that’s not paying you back at least 8.79% right now is losing you money. What can you do? He’s got some specific suggestions…
• Why investing legend and bestselling money author Jim Rogers (Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist, Hot Commodities ) is hot right now on four particular countries for small-cap stock investment, three kinds of commodities for max gains (and three countries to get them in), two types of Taiwanese companies, and one particular segment of the Japanese stock market. He’s also heavily investing in one kind of Chinese company: Wine makers. Find out why when you listen to the Symposium for yourself…

Again, these are just a few of the high spots I can remember off the top of my head from the 2008 Agora Financial Investment Symposium. To get all the specifics — from people who actually know what they’re talking about instead of from a clueless half-redneck like me — you really need to hear it from their own mouths. Again and again…

And today, I’ve made that a little easier for you. Keep reading.

The Perfect Excuse to Write a Whiskey Essay…

So, what’s this big gift I’m offering, you’re asking me?

Well, if you read any of the dispatches I wrote from the Symposium, you might remember that during the conference itself, the price of these recordings (plus the Special Report on all the picks from 70 or more “break out” sessions) was a low $99 for downloadable MP3s — and just $149 for a complete set of hard CDs…

Or both formats (so you can listen anywhere — at home, in the car, on iPod, etc.) for just $149 combined.

However, since the conference is no longer in session, this price has jumped by $50: To $149 for the MP3s — and $199 for the CDs or the CD/MP3 “dual-media” combo pack…

Now don’t get me wrong, this is still an absurdly cheap bargain for what you’re getting. However, since Agora got its “roving reporter” from the Whiskey family, I thought it was only fair that my readers should get the last crack at the lowest possible price for all the life-changing investment revelations from the 2008 Symposium…

So I asked Greg Grillot (Whiskey’s Managing Editor) to take the matter up with Addison Wiggin, the President and Publisher of Agora Financial. After appropriate consideration, Addison agreed to allow me to extend this special opportunity to you.

And so I write to you today with this one-day offer, only for Whiskey & Gunpowder readers. Here it is once again:

Click on the ordering link at the bottom of this e-Mail TODAY (or click right here now), and you’ll have the chance to buy the complete recordings of the general sessions from the 2008 Agora Financial Investment Symposium for just $99 for MP3 files — or on CD for only $149…

Oh, or BOTH CDs and MP3s for the same $149.

Any way you cut it, that’s $50 in your pocket. Or a few million, maybe.

A Disclosure — and Some Closure…

Now, to make sure that none of you reading this write in to excoriate me for being a “sell-out” or morphing into some sort of pitchman instead of a serious editorialist, I need to make the following disclosure:

I am not, in ANY WAY, receiving one cent of extra money or perks for making this offer to you today. No royalties, no cut of the sales, nothing. I’m getting only the standard (and modest, I might add) fee that I’d get for any other Whiskey & Gunpowder essay…

Also, aside from a room and reimbursement of basic expenses — which I would have received anyway for my participation in the Whiskey Bar panel discussion at this year’s Symposium — my only compensation for my 12,500-word stint as “roving reporter” for The Daily Reckoning was my own free set of CDs/MP3 recordings (and the Special Report) from the 2008 Symposium…

That is it. No loopholes, no BS.

I hope this proves that I really am bringing this opportunity to you today because of how much I believe in the things I’ve learned from the Agora Financial Investment Symposium for two years running…

And that I want to give you something back for putting me in a position where I could learn secrets to protecting and nurturing my money that only a true insider in the contrarian investing world would be able to discover.

I owe that to you, and I’m truly thankful for it.

Also, I want to thank you once again for your support and feedback — and even your derision. Along those lines, I have to close with this…

Thank you so much, all those who approached me at the Symposium. I was overwhelmed by how many people (some of them other speakers!) not only bothered to single me out in the midst of so many superior minds — but who actually remembered various, specific things I’d written, some of them years ago, and wanted to talk about them with me.

Your cordiality, engagement, support, good-natured admonishments (sure, there were a few of these), and especially your urgings that I return to these pages soon brought many fond memories of my time with Whiskey & Gunpowder flooding back to me…

In a word, it touched me — as I hope this small gesture on my part touches you.

Thank you, yet again,

Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder
July 31, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Our Freedoms Editor Stops in — Bearing a Gift!

A Parting Gift, Part II

“I’ll be back.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger, as The Terminator, 1984

Yesterday I gave you some of my highlights from last year’s Agora Financial Investment Symposium. While last year’s experience is one that I’ll remember forever, what you can expect this year will be even better. And there’s a big reason for that. I teased you yesterday, but now I’ll let you know why you really can’t afford to miss it this year.

The “Indiana Jones of Investing” Rides with Agora

You probably already know that I’m talking about Jim Rogers.

That’s right, the world-renowned co-founder (with George Soros) of the Quantum Fund, originator of the Rogers International Commodities Index, and author of bestselling financial titles Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist, Hot Commodities, and A Bull in China has just been inked as the keynote speaker at this year’s Agora Financial Investment Symposium.

For those few who may not know, Rogers is without doubt the most in-demand speaker on the finance and business circuit. And believe me when I tell you that RIGHT NOW may be the only chance you’ll ever get to see, hear, and maybe even meet and talk money with the man they call the “Indiana Jones of Investing”…

Especially for the relatively low cost of the 2008 Agora Financial Investing Symposium. (For some of you reading this, it may even be FREE to attend .)

Rogers is a big part of the reason there are now only 97 seats to this conference left. Actually, it’s probably way less than this — no doubt some Whiskey & Gunpowder subscribers have already jumped ahead and signed up while you’ve been reading…

Now, if this isn’t enough incentive to make you go to the bottom of the page and sign up for this incredible event right now, I don’t know what would seal the deal.

But in case it isn’t (and in case meeting me isn’t enough of a draw), here are a few other things that might help you make up your mind to come to Vancouver and learn how to become a multi-millionaire…

An Advance Screening of the Biggest Budget Movie in American History

“…(An} alternately amusing and alarming primer on America’s off-the-charts fiscal irresponsibility…”

— Variety.com

“I.O.U.S.A. is crucial viewing for anyone who claims to care about America.”

— IndieWIRE.com

Agora Financial’s first foray into the Tinseltown scene, I.O.U.S.A., is a feature-length documentary about America’s real inconvenient truth: Our alarming budget, trade, savings, and leadership deficits…

Inspired by Bill Bonner/Addison Wiggins’ New York Times bestselling book, Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis, I.O.U.S.A. drew rave reviews at this year’s Sundance Film Festival — and was the only film to sell out all three of its showings at the recent Maryland Film Festival. I attended one of these that was oversold, and people were literally sitting in the aisles.

Told with flair and frighteningly clear graphic illustration by director Patrick Creadon (Wordplay), I.O.U.S.A. is completely non-partisan — and features interviews with such financial luminaries as former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker (slated to attend this year’s Symposium, by the way), former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, investing legend Warren Buffett, Robert Rudin, Paul O’Neill and Arthur Laffer.

Also featured are plenty of revealing sound bites from average Americans (who seem universally to know almost nothing about how our budget or currency system works), Chinese industrialists and their employees, heads of U.S. companies whose businesses are in transition because of Asian demand and competition — and key media snipetts from Ron Paul, Alan Greenspan, numerous U.S. Presidents and more…

I.O.U.S.A. also follows then-Comptroller General Walker and Tab-swilling Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert Bixby’s Fiscal Wakeup Tour as it travels from city to U.S. city, warning rank and file Americans of the dangers of our $9 trillion national debt. Watch (or cry) as their incredibly important message gets bumped from nightly newscasts for segments on lost-then-found-again diamond rings and other piffle…

This is an important film. And were it not for its engaging and even-handed, yet magnetic narrative style, I’d very nearly classify as a horror movie. Its all-too-true message is that disturbing. The film is scheduled for theatrical release sometime in late summer…

But at the 2008 Agora Financial Investment Symposium, you can see this groundbreaking film on the big screen before everyone else — and even meet director Creadon, author Wiggin, and “star” Walker — on opening night of the conference in the Fairmount Hotel Vancouver’s spacious British Columbia Hall.

Trust me, you don’t want to miss it. And remember, there’s only room in this venue for 97 more lucky investors. This is not including those who may be signing up right now with each passing minute. Jump to the sign-up link below to lock in your spot now!

But there’s so much more you won’t want to miss…

Viva Vancouver!

I used to wonder why Agora Financial chose Vancouver for it’s annual symposium…

Now I understand.

I’ve been to a fair amount of places, but I’ve never been anywhere on this side of the Atlantic that’s anywhere near as beautiful and wonderful to be in as Vancouver. It’s not only gorgeous, temperate, clean, and reasonably priced, but it’s an incredibly progressive and cutting-edge place. It’s more of a melting pot that anywhere I’ve been in America — and very nearly qualifies as an Asian city, so great are the Eastern cultures’ influence there. Bubble tea, anyone? Vancouver’s got a shop that sells it on every corner, it seems…

But don’t let that fool you. The options for entertainment and dining are as diverse as you can get. You want a great steak, like I always crave? Remember, you’re in Canada, home of some of the best red meat you can get anywhere. I can name you four places to get a fine slab of cow-meat cooked any way you like, all within walking distance of the Fairmount.

Jonesing for some seafood? With the cool waters of the Pacific only minutes away, Vancouver’s naturally got some of the world’s finest ocean-fare (the best tuna I’ve ever tasted was in a restaurant there — incredible).

Bars your thing? Some of the coolest, hippest ones I’ve ever been to in my life (and I’ve been to a few) were in Vancouver’s entertainment district, down near the waterfront. Everything from ethnic-flavored joints to Irish pubs with fiddle-bands blaring to shi-shi hipster hangouts to good ol’ beer-and-billiards joints…

And speaking of the waterfront, you can take a night cruise of the harbor while you’re in town and catch some of the Celebration of Light — the world’s largest fireworks competition.

If you do nothing else while you’re in town, though, you simply must check out the glorious Stanley Park. It’s a pristine, thousand-acre peninsula of fir and hemlock intermingled with tracts of ancient, simply enormous (redwood-sized) cedar trees. Well-tended hike-or-bike trails wind through most sections of the forest, and many streams and ponds dot the landscape:

Multiple beaches border the outer edge of the park, and it’s not uncommon to spy dolphins, seals, and all manner of water birds — especially Cormorants. It’s worth the trip to Vancouver all by itself. You simply must rent a bike at one of the many cycle shops near the park (around $12 U.S.) and take a leisurely two-wheeled tour of one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places you’ll ever see…

Or, if art and culture’s your thing, catch whoever’s playing at the Vancouver Center for the Performing Arts. Last year, I lucked into a ticket to see the incredible Bobby McFerrin. Mind-bogglingly talented, and the perfect venue to showcase it.

In short, there are a million reasons to come join me in Vancouver this summer. Getting rich is only one of them…

Happy Trails, Then

Can you tell I’m excited about being invited back to the Agora Financial Investment Symposium? What with Jim Rogers as keynote, I.O.U.S.A. as and opening-night special event, and all the best speakers from last year already booked, it should be even better in 2008 than 2007’s sold-out event…

And this year’s theme — A View From the Peak: Seeking Profits in a Time of Risk and Scarcity — is just as urgent and timely as ever.

Last but not least, I want you to have a chance (what may be your last chance) to meet me and experience the singular thrill of the second annual Whiskey Bar, a good-natured, yet unpredictable and electric debate on all manner of audience-chosen topics featuring your favorite Whiskey & Gunpowder columnists and guests. All of it takes place over heaping plates of delicious meats and other lite fare — and of course, plenty of whiskey to choose from…

2007’s Whiskey Bar evening event was scheduled for 45 minutes, and we’d hoped for a solid turnout of around 300 attendees. But we were stunned when 700 people showed up — and took the panel to task for nearly two hours! According to our surveys, the Bar was one of last year’s highest-reviewed events. I expect nothing less this year, except perhaps we’ll order more food.

Here’s my bottom line with all this: This may be my last article ever for Whiskey & Gunpowder — and 2008’s A View From the Peak Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver will very likely be my last hurrah as Freedoms Editor. So I want to savor it with even more of my readers than the dozens I met, debated, ate, and drank with last year…

To those of you who’ve mostly agreed with me and written in with words of praise or encouragement over the years, come say goodbye — and let me give you something back that you’ll never forget. If you like me now, think how much you’ll love me in a few years, when you’re rolling in the dough from the things you learned at the 2008 Symposium…

To those who’ve I’ve butted heads with and who have loosed your bile upon me in print, let me offer your these secrets to wealth as an olive branch — in hopes that, once you get rich, you’ll be forced to re-evaluate me. After all, if I was right about this, perhaps I was right about a few other things, too…

But whatever your reason for wanting to come to the 2008 Agora Financial Investment Symposium this July 22-25 in Vancouver, British Columbia, I urge you not to wait to sign up. Click the link below and do it now. This event WILL sell out, especially with I.O.U.S.A. in the mix and with Jim Rogers keynoting.

I’ll be there, glad to be among friends, foes, readers, and some of the most incredible forward-thinkers in the investing and political universe…

But sad that it may be for the last time as your Freedoms Editor.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It’s the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here’s a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you, ‘til we meet again!

— Happy Trails, Dale Evans

Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor, Whiskey and Gunpowder
May 30, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Only 97 More of My Readers Can Get a View from the Peak

And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands and part.

— Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5)

I’m not much for gooey goodbyes — even if they’re most likely only temporary.

But on the other hand, I couldn’t just up and stop writing for Whiskey & Gunpowder indefinitely without giving something more to my readers than simply a few parting words. After all, love me, hate me, or love to hate me, some of you have been reading my work in this forum for nearly 3 ½ years. And I don’t take that relationship lightly…

Yes, like it or not, friend or foe, we have a relationship. I know this because I’ve gotten literally thousands of letters and e-mails from you or readers just like you — some of them nearly as long as some of my essays. These notes have ranged in tenor from “attaboy” and “go-get-‘em” to “shame-on-you” and various other things I can’t print.

They’ve also included pleas that I run for office and that I leave the country, the most ribald of jokes and the most somber of personal anecdotes, death wishes, threats, and flirtations that border on marriage proposals, argumentations and affirmations from elected officials, industry leaders, and political insiders — plus the warmest of invitations from ordinary folks to hunt, fish, ride, shoot, drink, or just plain chat with them…

To all those who reached out to chide or cheer me, I give my heartfelt thanks.

But today, I want to give something back to you that transcends mere words. And I honestly believe that whether you like or hate me — or agree with the things I’ve written in these pages over the years or not — what I want to give you today could prove to be one of the best things that has ever happened to your bottom line.

This is not something I’m offering you only as a “thank you” for your readership. It’s something I’m doing because I owe it to you. Literally.

A Debt to My Readers, and My Chance to Repay It — to 115 of You

If I had a buck for every time I’ve claimed in these pages that I’m no economist, market analyst, stock-picker, or financial advisor, I’d have…

Well, I’d have at least twenty bucks or so.

But just last year, something happened to me that — while it didn’t instantly confer onto me an economics degree or Series-7 certification — gave me a near-instant wealth-building and investing advantage over 99.9% of the investors out there…

And it was all because of YOU. Let me explain what I mean, starting with an anecdote:

Whiskey’s Managing Editor, Greg Grillot, once said to me, “Jimbo, I can always tell when your articles run because my e-mail inbox gets crashed!”

Now, this isn’t to say that more people are reading my essays than those of my Whiskey brothers. In fact, I’d lay odds that far fewer folks read my articles than those of any other regular contributor. My stuff tends to be controversial, so I’m sure a fair number of readers see my name on a piece and automatically hit the “delete” key…

However, for one reason or another, I tend to provoke a lot of action from those that do read my stuff. You’ve written replies of every stripe to my articles, forwarded them to your friends and enemies, posted them on your personal blogs and Web sites — even printed and mailed them to elected officials. This fact alone is what has kept a quasi-literate rube like me writing in this letter alongside such esteemed financial thinkers as Jim Rogers, Doug Casey, Lord Rees-Mogg, Mark Skousen — and Agora’s own wizards Byron King, Chris Mayer, Dan Amoss, Dan Denning, and so many others.

Here’s what I’m getting at…

Because your feedback has kept me in the mix among minds I have no right to call “peers,” I was able to attend an event last July that put me in the midst of those great minds. This changed me from a dollar-dolt into a well-informed observer of monetary policy, markets, commodities, and macro-economics — and made me a much better investor.

That event: The eighth annual Agora Financial Investment Symposium.

As a result of 2007’s Symposium, I’ve completely revamped my approach to money. I’ve seen how the status-quo ways I’d been investing were boneheaded compared to the real money I could be making — if only I had the info the money mainstream’s ignoring or misinterpreting (like what many of this event’s speakers churn out on a regular basis). I also learned ways to protect (and even enhance) my assets from uncertain or volatile economic conditions — secrets that have saved me from losing thousands of dollars in just the last year alone…

Your support of my 3.5-year, 67-article run in Whiskey & Gunpowder has given me a rare opportunity to change the way I think about money and investing — and has likely made me a multi-millionaire over the long term. And because of your continued readership and engagement with my articles, I’m going to get to attend and participate in that event again this summer…

But this time, and by way of a heartfelt “thank you,” I want to invite YOU to come along with me this July 22-25 to the ninth incarnation of this event — once again set in scenic, historic, diverse, temperate, culturally rich, progressive Vancouver, British Columbia.

Here’s the kicker, though:

There are only 115 spots left before the 2008 Symposium is sold out…

How I Went from “0” to “Plugged-In, Knowledgeable Investor” in Four Days Flat

An open-minded and inquisitive investor (like I am now) could glean several lifetimes worth of information and borderline insider savvy from the dozens of exhibitors at a typical year’s Agora Financial Investment Symposium.

For instance, on each of the four days of the 2007 event — before, after, and in-between marquee speakers and special presentations — I meandered through the gorgeous exhibition halls of the elegant Fairmount Hotel Vancouver. And every minute of this time, I found a new, potentially money-making revelation that mainstream investors and the major money press overlook…

In that vast multi-room exhibitor area, I found myself surrounded on all sides by some of the world’s foremost experts from small-to-medium-sized, yet sometimes under-the-radar companies poised for huge growth in industries like:

• Mining
• Oil and gas
• Geothermal energy
• Gold and silver
• Industrial metals
• Diamonds and minerals
• Renewal and alternative power
• Real estate and mortgage
• Shipping and logistics
• Asset and money management
• Mutual funds and other investing vehicles
• Even stamp collecting and investment…

But as dizzying as this wealth of information and opportunity was, it was the Symposium’s captivating roster of A-list speakers that really brought me up to speed on what I was doing wrong with my money, what I should be doing with it, and where we’re headed as a nation and world. I learned an incredible amount from them — and about far more than just money and investing…

Each year’s Agora Financial Investment Symposium has a theme. In 2007, that theme was Rim of Fire: Crisis and Opportunity in the New Asian Era. These themes don’t dictate the content at these events — far from it — but they do loosely color the general commentary…

However, the dialogue at last year’s Symposium was some of the farthest-reaching and diverse economic, financial, and political commentary I’ve ever seen assembled in one place. Just a few such highlights I remember from last year’s event:

BILL BONNER — An animated-yet-soft-spoken, humorous and often improvisational presence at the podium, Bill blows you away with what he’s saying, not how he’s saying it. More than any other speaker I’ve ever heard, he has the ability to make incredibly complex concepts both digestible and entertaining. He also has rare ability to hurl the conversational boomerang far afield, yet still bring it safely home to his core concept. In one of his two speeches, Bonner clued us in on the pitfalls of “crack-up booms” vs. bona-fide booms, the virtues of doing nothing (and how humans can’t stand it), how keeping your assets in cash dollars is becoming a dangerous speculation, and how buying gold can be both the worst AND best thing you can do with your money…

JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER — The blunt, shocking, misanthropic, borderline profane, yet utterly credible Kunstler regaled us with The Long Emergency, a synopsis of his own book of the same title. This treatise debunks the common myths about oil in our time, reveals how U.S. oil extraction history uncannily mirrors Hubbert’s Peak, warns of the dangers of climate change, and blasts the oft-cited, rose-colored notion of a coming “hydrogen economy.” He also illustrates for us in stark (and darkly humorous) terms the diminishing returns of technological innovation in the energy fields, plus what we should be doing to counteract the coming energy crisis…

THE MOGAMBO GURU — Sarcastic, sardonic, wisecracking, hilarious, over-the-top and utterly on-the-mark about a broad cross-section of not only the money world, but also the world in which we live, long-time columnist for Agora and other outlets Mogambo (AKA: Richard Daughty) uses his acid tongue not only to self-aggrandize and self-deprecate, but also to flagellate the American monetary system. He reminds us of the idiocy of fiat currencies like the dollar, how the near-criminality of mercantilism’s rules and tariffs fuel the institutional corruption of the U.S. government, and the dangers of an approaching boom in inflation and rising costs that an Asia-centric global economy could portend for America. Scary, entertaining and thought-provoking all in one animated, acerbic package. That’s the Mogambo Guru in a nutshell…

DOUG CASEY — Everyone’s favorite globetrotting anarchist-investing wizard, wildly successful New York Times bestselling business-book author Doug Casey is truly one of a kind. Gravel-voiced, incendiary, incisive and unabashedly America-bashing, Casey’s talks could be rehearsed, but they come off like 100% improvisation. His presentation, The End of the World as We Know It, outlined the four sections of America’s “big picture,” and how they’re all pointing toward an impending depression. Yet for all his jokes, irreverent anecdotes, doomsday predictions and anarchic rhetoric, Casey’s chock full of nuggets you can take to the bank. His seemingly off-the-cuff speech taught me the basics of stocks, bonds, currencies, real estate, commodities, and the reasons why the corrupt system we live under prevents us from making money on most of them. Casey also explained why, aside from a few select mining stocks that he’s worked hard to uncover, gold is the best investment for the near future. Oh, and he also rattled off the five reasons why none of us should vote in the upcoming Presidential election…

NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB — Profoundly original and mind-bogglingly intelligent international bestselling author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, essayist and polymath scholar Taleb explains why conventional methods of data analysis and predicting just about anything under the sun (but especially things economic) are horribly inaccurate, and why so few mainstream experts will ever realize it. To illustrate his point, he eviscerates a mainstream investing bestseller called The Millionaire Mind. Citing the book’s flawed methodology and skewed-toward-sales message, Taleb builds upon this using his mathematical wizardry and grasp of the concept of “randomness” to expose the unsettling reasons why so much of what the conventional wisdom tells us about money and investing is exactly wrong…

Again, these are only a few highlights from four days worth of seminars and advice that I found especially riveting. Space doesn’t permit me to tell you what I got from other favorites like master money wizards Rick Rule and Larry Grossman (also hugely entertaining and humorous speakers, by the way), or my own favorite Agora advisor, Chris Mayer — whose presentation includes multiple jokes from the far-from-PC comic and “redneck” favorite Larry the Cable Guy…

At the time of this writing, nearly all of these folks are coming back for this year’s Symposium. And as if this weren’t enough of an incentive for you to skip down to the bottom of this page and sign up right now, I just found out that one more incredible speaker just signed up for this year’s event for the very first time. Even to a neophyte to money and investing like me, he needs no introduction…

But despite his pristine reputation, I can’t simply blurt his name onto this page. There has to be some sort of build up. And if this is going to be my final Whiskey contribution (for now) how could I wrap it up without some modicum of suspense. That wouldn’t be my style, would it. So for now you’ll have to sit tight and wait for tomorrow’s installment.

Cliffhanging to the very end,

Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor
May 29, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

The Only Financial Advice I’ll Ever Give You

And both for what you thought I was saying: That nuclear power is The Answer to America’s (or the world’s) energy woes.

But I’d like to remind everyone reading this — pro, con, neutral, apoplectic or apathetic about nuke power — that I freely admitted in the first two parts of this series that I don’t know enough about nuclear energy generation to make an informed decision about its prospects. I never said atomic power was a panacea, or even that I believe it is. I only pointed out some realities about nuclear power generation so far in the United States…

First, that as far as I could discover from a good deal of research time, it has killed or sickened few, if any. Secondly, I reminded readers that the overwhelming majority of Americans favor nuclear energy, a fact that seems not to warrant much mention in the mainstream media’s portrayal of the debate. Also, I put a few numbers to some of the hazardous realities — both to humanity and the environment — of conventional American energy production. A side note on this:

One less-than-adoring reader observed that if I were to mention the tens of thousands of deaths related to coal mining, then injuries and deaths related to uranium mining should also be pointed out. Of course, I considered this when I wrote Part Two, in which I touched on the dangers of coal mining in my discussion of the human costs of American energy production…

According to my research, uranium mining was only recently resumed in the U.S. after being halted in the early ’90s. Since its resumption in 2001, domestic uranium mining has been predominantly “open-pit” — which is far less hazardous and manual-labor intensive that conventional underground mining (like for much of our coal). Long story short: I couldn’t find much on the dangers of modern uranium mining in America.

However, this reader’s letter spurred me to some further digging — which led me to some old newspaper stories and other sources indicating that uranium mining in Utah, Colorado and other places in the American Southwest (mostly in the 1940s and ’50s) may indeed have sickened or killed a number of miners and residents of mining communities. In fact, many of these people and their families have received payments under a 1990 law called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

Again, specific numbers were hard to come by — but since I’m nothing if not objective, I felt this was worth mentioning. Also, since the U.S. currently imports more than 80 percent of the uranium used by domestic reactors, the dangers of mining the metallic fuel in Russia, Australia, and other major supplier nations must be considered (finding hard info on this is another matter, however).

Lastly, I must once again thank Whiskey & Gunpowder readers for their voluminous feedback — pro, con and otherwise. Special thanks to the numerous bona-fide experts who wrote in to express support for this series, among them a former U.S. Navy nuclear submariner and numerous active and retired nuclear engineers…

Now, back to the business of neither defending nor exalting American nuclear power generation — but considering it as objectively as I can.

From Ukraine, With Bile…

Always on the tongue-tips of those who’d thwart the spread of nuclear power in America is the 1986 reactor meltdown and explosion at Chernobyl, Ukraine. Of course, this disaster embodied all of our worst fears about nuclear energy — and I, for one, would never try to minimize or understate the horrors those in surrounding territories (especially Belarus) have experienced for the last 22 years because of the accident. I also agree with nuke-power’s harshest critics on one point at least: We’ll likely never know the true extent of the incident’s impact…

However, even the most jaded of nuke-haters would have to grudgingly admit that in the history of nuclear power around the world, Chernobyl has been an anomaly, albeit one of the most terrifying sort. To make an informed assessment of the risks of nuclear power, one must look at the whole picture. That picture includes 31 nations that are generating nuclear power in 439 plants — apparently without significant loss of life or destruction of the environment so far, Chernobyl excepted.

Although I admit I have no data or expertise to base this on, I still think it’s a ridiculous notion to believe that a Chernobyl-type nuclear disaster is anywhere near as likely to occur here in the uber-regulated, hyper-litigious U.S. as in the run-down, cash-strapped, infrastructure-challenged, sacrifice-all-for-the-motherland former Soviet empire. I, for one, have little fear of a nuclear power disaster here in my own backyard — but would not be the least bit surprised to hear of another one in Russia or other zones within the former Communist bloc, or in environmentally unconscionable China.

Today, around 20 percent of U.S. electricity is derived from nuclear sources, while a full 30 percent of the E.U.’s electricity comes from nuclear power. Ditto this figure for ultra-green Japan — though they plan to ramp up to 41 percent by 2014 and 60 percent by 2050.

By all measures, however, France is foremost among nuclear nations. Nearly 80 percent of their electricity comes from the 59 active nuclear power plants on Gallic soil. They are also the largest net exporter of electricity in the world. And so far, France’s most serious nuclear accident happened not in a power plant, but in a nuclear particle accelerator — when three workers without proper protective clothing entered a contaminated area in 1992.

True, France and other nuclear-power-friendly nations face some future challenges in dealing with the waste — such materials can only be refined down and reprocessed to a certain degree, then what’s left has to be stored.

Or does it? As you’ll learn in a minute, there may be another solution to nuclear waste storage issues…

Further, it must be noted that nuclear waste products take up thousands (more likely millions) of times less space per kilowatt/hour of electricity generated than the toxic byproducts of coal-mining. Like radioactive nuclear waste, the oceans of black-water “slurry” coal mining generates cannot be processed for return to the environment. It must be forever stored in lifeless holding ponds, where it slowly leaches into the Earth — or occasionally bursts its dams and annihilates entire towns or river systems (Google: Buffalo Creek flood and Martin county sludge spill)…

This isn’t even to mention the tremendous reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) — even when those resulting from uranium mining are factored in — that nuclear power offers over coal-fired power plants, which are by far the world’s leading source of both electricity and GHG. Of course, this advantage depends upon the far-from-proven notion that GHGs are causing the ruination of Earth…

My point is the same as it has been all along in this series: For fear of making the nuclear power they hate seem more appealing, the mainstream media is loathe to point out anything positive about it anywhere on Earth, quick to overstate the impact of “disasters” like Three Mile Island, and silent about the REAL environmental horrors of coal mining (the toxic waste, not the CO2).

Space: The Final Landfill…

Everyone on either side of the nuclear debate agrees that the storage/disposal of high-level nuclear waste is a major issue. In the U.S., over 70,000 tons and counting of this hazardous material is currently being temporarily stored at over 120 sites in 39 states nationwide. The Government’s big plan for this waste is to bury it deep in the desert at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. However, the date at which this facility becomes operational has yet to be determined.

Originally, the site was to be up and running by 1998. But now, 10 years later, the Yucca Mountain project remains stalled by legal wrangling and insufficient funding, and has yet to accept a single ounce of nuclear waste. The most optimistic projections had recently pegged its possible opening date at 2017. But according to a February 19 article in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has now abandoned that target date, and is reluctant to set a new one…

This is not to mention concerns over the site’s suitability for long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste. Many have challenged Yucca Mountain’s location as being too close to major fault lines and to the local underground water table.

So what’s the solution, you’re asking?

Well, maybe I’m just a stupid rube, but I’ve been wondering for more than a decade why we don’t simply blow nuclear waste out into space…

I’m no rocket scientist, but it seems to me that if a pair of relatively simple and cheap solid rocket boosters can provide the bulk of the thrust necessary to propel the 2,250 ton mass of the Space Shuttle and all its fuel tanks and payload into outer space, similar units could certainly do the same thing for nuclear waste. By my math, less than 50 such launches could erase the half-century’s worth of the stuff we’ve accumulated. And one or two per year could dispose of our nation’s ongoing production of nuke waste, even if we were to double the amount of electricity we derive from nuclear sources.

I’m no accountant, but I’d be willing to bet that this would ultimately prove cheaper than building and maintaining a bunch of “Yucca Mountains” all over the U.S., such that the increasing use of nuclear power would necessitate. And even if it weren’t cheaper, I say it’s money well spent to jettison high-level nuclear waste from planet Earth forever. Now, I know what a lot of you may be thinking: What about a malfunction? Wouldn’t a mid-air explosion rain radioactive waste and debris down into the ocean and atmosphere?

I’m no engineer, but it seems to me that if we can build space shuttles that can repeatedly endure the intense heat and stress of lift-off and atmospheric re-entry, we can build a container for nuclear waste that can withstand whatever trauma an in-flight worst-case scenario might include.

All I’m saying is that the nuclear nations of the world should seriously and objectively look at the idea of deep-space nuclear waste disposal. I have a feeling that the reason why the U.S. government hasn’t already initiated such a program is because it certainly would be more expensive in the short run than Yucca Mountain. Currently, that project squeaks by on a relatively thrifty $400 million-a-year budget. Launching a deep-space disposal program would likely cost tens of billions of dollars…

In other words, it’s business as usual on The Hill: Do what’s cheapest now and let future generations deal with the consequences of our stinginess. This makes a kind of twisted Machiavellian sense, really. Why should politicians spend money they could be using to fund things that buy them votes and grab them headlines — things like welfare programs and subsidies for “green” energy boondoggles like ethanol — on something the public isn’t clamoring for, and that likely wouldn’t get them a drop of ink in the press?

After all, votes come from public opinion, which is driven by the mainstream media. And there are two reasons why the heads of most media outlets don’t want America (or the world) to find a real solution to nuclear waste. One, because by all indications, they simply hate and fear nuclear power. Two, because solutions rob them of stories. Think about it: If the nuke-waste problem gets solved, they can report it only once. But if nuclear waste continues to stack up at power plants and other sites nationwide, while Yucca Mountain’s opening date gets farther and farther away, they can milk the story dozens of times, from all kinds of angles…

This is too bad, because I’ll bet if we put our might and main into it, a deep-space waste disposal program could be up and running in just a few years.

The Scum of All Fears

“What about terrorists?” is one thing that’s always mentioned when the talk turns toward nuclear power. A legitimate question…

Per beefed-up Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC) security mandates after 9/11, nuclear power plants in the U.S. are now more secure than just about anything besides military bases. They’ve got barriers, cameras, armed guards, the works. It seems highly unlikely that a cell of terrorists could arm and equip themselves sufficiently to take control of one without prior detection of their plans by any number of law enforcement agencies.

A direct attack on a reactor stack or containment pool with an aircraft, however, remains remotely possible — though less likely now that pilots are armed, hand-held weapons are restricted on planes, and the military are on a higher state of alert to scramble intercepting fighters. Nuke plants are built to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes, but not jetliners. Opinions vary as to what exactly would happen should such an attack occur. Industry sources claim that the likelihood of an airplane penetrating the reactor core containment structure is low. NRC studies concur with this assessment…

Bottom line: Though theoretically possible that terrorists could enact a 9/11-type attack against an American nuclear power plant, it would take far more money, planning, skill, and coordination than may be possible today. Conversely, however, it would be relatively simple for terrorists to attack more conventional power-generation facilities — and with perhaps more disastrous results. Case in point:

I went fishing with a cousin of mine just three days ago on a major river in the American mid-Atlantic region, which I won’t name here. On the particular section of river we were fishing, there stands one of the largest non-federally-run hydroelectric dams in the U.S. It’s classified as a “medium height” dam, which means it’s around 100 feet tall.

The only thing preventing boats from reaching the face of this dam is a sign, some warning lights, and a couple of buoys. That’s it. If you wanted to risk the ticket, you could literally motor right up to the face of the dam. Also, a major road traverses the top of this dam, and a huge reservoir lay behind it. Similar to the situation below the dam, nothing except signs and rules are in place to prevent a boat from reaching the backside of the dam…

Now, let’s just say that a terrorist cell here in the U.S. wanted to try to wreak havoc with a major metro area’s energy infrastructure, annihilate numerous riverside towns, and kill a few thousand people or more. They wouldn’t need pilot training, a jumbo jet, guns or more than $50,000 or so to do it. All they’d need is a pair of cheap aluminum 20-foot boats with outboard motors, a rented U-Haul van of the largest size, 15,000 lbs. of ammonium nitrate/diesel-fuel bomb fixins, and three of their own who have a hankering for celestial virgins…

At a prearranged time, both boats, loaded with explosives, could motor to corresponding points at the top rear and bottom front of the dam at its mid-section. The truck-driver then cruises over the dam in his U-Haul bomb, stops on the roadway between the two boats, and ignites the whole deal simultaneously with radio-controlled detonators.

Again, I’m no engineer, but I’m betting three times as much of the same readily available ingredients that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols used to annihilate the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (along with 168 Americans) would do enough damage to cause that dam to fail. Take a minute to Google a picture of what that building looked like after 5,000 lbs. of fertilizer bomb got through with it and you’ll be as convinced as I am.

My point is this: Even if terrorists could successfully attack a nuclear power plant, there are thousands of other targets that are much more realistically within their scope — and with far greater odds of mass destruction and carnage.

But nobody in the media seems too worried about this, only the one-in-a-million chance of an attack on a nuclear power plant.

A Decent Start: 100 Years of Cleaner Energy

Critics frequently cite the finite world supply of uranium as a reason not to invest in nuke energy. According to March 2007 estimates from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world supply of uranium would last around 200 years at current usage levels. This is not counting the extraction of uranium from seawater — which is technically possible, but not economically practical at the moment (it may be, however, in the future)…

But let’s say that nuke power expands radically around the globe (which is more or less inevitable), and this supply becomes realistically only around 100 years’ worth. That’s still a century of almost CO2-less electricity generation, which any politician can tell you is all the rage nowadays. If a few key governments would put a little effort into making deep-space waste disposal a reality, this could buy the world a lot of time to develop truly sustainable clean energy sources.

Again, I’m not being an advocate here, just calling it like I see it. I realize that there are some big “ifs” in this nuclear power equation. IF we can prevent disasters. IF we can contend with the waste. IF we can keep it secure. IF we can safely decommission aging plants…

One thing’s for certain, though: Some major nations worldwide with spotty records on pollution, the environment and security aren’t going to hold off on nuclear power because of its risks. Take a look at this map:

China, Russia, the Ukraine and Iran are all building plants. I have to think that these nations (and quite a few others) will be less concerned with reactor quality control, the environment and the responsible storage of nuclear waste products than we are here in the U.S. — or in France or Japan…

This means that America can either sit back and wait for other nations’ nuclear problems to pollute the world while we’re busy trying to figure out cleaner ways to burn coal — or we can be proactive in developing solutions to the problems that face nuke power, along with other nations that seem to know what they’re doing around an atom. That way, we can help indirectly ensure that the inevitable expansion of nuclear power doesn’t contaminate us all.

Either that, or we could go to war with nations we don’t think are going to handle nuke power properly. We could strike a pre-emptive blow for Mother Earth, as long as we don’t use nuclear weapons, of course.

Needless to say, I suggest this “option” only to be wry — though I wouldn’t put it past the militant fringe of the environmental movement to advocate it. After all, going to war for the Earth is the eco-terrorists’ MO…

No, as I see it, the most conscientious course for the planet is, once again, one in which the United States invests, innovates and leads by example.

Whether the “talking heads” and pundits like it or not.

Rebuking, not nuking,

Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor
April 17, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Nuclear Reactions, Part 3

Not literal sabotage, of course — though any discussion of atomic power must at least touch on this subject (I will in the third installment of this series). No, I’m talking about political sabotage through spin, fear-mongering and misinformation. These things have marked the nuclear debate in America since well before the Three Mile Island “disaster” in 1979…

More on that in just a moment. But right now, I want to tell you everything I know about nuclear power in America. It isn’t much, but at least it’s objective — with no fog of left-coast Kool-Aid dust to cloud the issue. And hopefully, it’s enough to force any thinking opponent of nuclear power to reconsider the matter without prejudice.

Where Are All the Bodies Hidden?

As I said in Part One of this series (and as several of you pointed out when you wrote in response to it), I’m not an expert on nuclear power. Aside from the fact that 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of nuclear power in the United States, there are really only four other things I know about nuclear energy…

1. ONE DEATH IN A HALF-CENTURY — As far as I can ascertain from fairly extensive research, only one person has ever died as a direct result of radiation exposure from the generation of atomic power in the U.S. (several more have died from power-plant accidents unrelated to radiation or nuclear reactions). It happened in 1964, when an employee at a Rhode Island nuclear fuel facility was exposed to lethal levels of radiation from some liquid uranium he was working with. It’s also fair to note that a small number of Americans, mostly military personnel and scientists, have died or been sickened by nuclear mishaps in various military and research capacities, but not from power generation.
2. ZERO CASUALTIES IN “AMERICA’S WORST” — Not one person or animal died from the 1979 partial reactor core meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, dubbed by the media as “America’s worst nuclear disaster.” According to reports from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the results of a special investigation ordered by President Carter (himself a former Navy nuclear engineer who’d taken part in nuclear accident clean-up), the few who were most exposed in the TMI accident experienced a dose of radiation roughly equal to the amount the average American absorbs in a year from environmental “background” sources. The 25,000 or so Pennsylvanians living within a 5-mile radius of TMI were exposed to no more radiation than they would have sustained from a typical chest x-ray. Many follow-up studies have been conducted by all kinds of entities, with no credible proof of a link between this mild exposure to radiation and any deaths or long-term illnesses.
3. CANCER MORTALITY: NO LINK — Increased adult cancer and childhood leukemia risk is often mentioned by anti-nuke activists as inevitable to the adoption of nuclear power. Yet a number of large-scale North American and European studies have found no link between rates of cancer and proximity to nuclear power facilities. The biggest of these was a 1991 study conducted by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute. This research analyzed mortality rates of 900,000 people from 16 types of cancer, and found no increased risk of death from cancer for those living in the shadows of 62 U.S. nuclear power facilities. Further, the study found no increased risk of death from childhood leukemia in the counties surrounding these nuclear plants in the years following their start-up.

Aside from these three facts, I know only one other thing about nuclear energy in America: That it’s a deeply and irrationally polarizing topic.

Energy: An All-Around Deadly Game

For the longest time, I’ve wondered why it seems like everyone’s so knee-jerk against nuclear power. The only thing I could come up with is simple fear. Fear of a Chernobyl-type disaster. Fear of water or air contamination. Fear of disease in ourselves or mutation in our children…

These are natural concerns that I share with all thinking Americans. However, as far as the history of nuclear energy production in the United States goes, these fears seem not to be supported by much in the way of facts. According to everything I could gather, the “body count” for U.S. nuclear power generation is absurdly low compared to other forms of energy. Take, for instance…

• COAL MINING — According to the U.S. Department of Labor and other sources, approximately 8000 people have been killed in coal-mining accidents in the last 50 years (the time period since nuclear power came on-line in the U.S.). But when you add the 75,000 or more miners that have died prematurely from black lung during this same period, you’re looking at a body count of around 83,000 Americans! This is nearly 10 times the International Atomic Energy Agency and World Health Organization’s projections of possible long-term mortality from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. And this figure doesn’t even include serious injuries, which could realistically number around 56,000–80,000 over this same period. Coal mining is statistically among the most hazardous ways to earn a living.
• OIL & GAS — Department of Labor statistics reveal that over the last five years, the domestic oil and gas industry has annually averaged more than 20 deaths and around 500 injuries severe enough to require job transfer or duty restriction. If these numbers are roughly representative of the last 50 years, if follows that America has sustained at least 1000 deaths and 50,000 debilitating injuries from oil and gas drilling over that time period. However, the real mortality and injury numbers for the domestic oil and gas industry are likely far higher than this. The only stats I could find were recent, and industry practices have no doubt gotten steadily safer over the last half-century (especially since the creation of OSHA in 1970).

My point is this: Power generation is hazardous, both to those who work in the energy industries and, sometimes, to the people near the sites and machines related to those industries. That’s just an unpleasant fact of life. I, for one, am reluctant to make much of a distinction in terms of the human costs associated with the implementation of any form of energy — dead, sick, or injured Americans are all of equal value to me, whether they work in the various energy industries or are simply living in proximity to them…

And as far as I can ascertain (granted, I’m not an expert), nuclear energy is among the safest — if not the safest — of all the ways in which America powers its vast electrical grid. Not just in human terms, either.

Dirty Little Energy Secrets and the Carbon Catch-22

Much is made of the potential environmental downsides of nuclear energy. One of my favorite TV shows — and since 2007, a movie — The Simpsons, regularly satirizes these hazards by portraying multi-eyed fishes, glow-in-the-dark rodents, giant spiders and other such things in proximity to the dilapidated nuclear power plant in which Homer Simpson works. For years, American pop culture has seized on the idea of nuclear mutation in both humans and animals (see Spiderman, The Toxic Avenger, Modern Problems, The Hills Have Eyes, etc.)…

Of course, it’s true that a certain percentage of the spent radioactive fuels atomic power is derived from remain highly hazardous. Also, the risks of leakage of radioactive coolant, material or fuel can’t be overlooked. Obviously, safeguarding against and contending with these things in a low-impact way is one of the biggest challenges facing nuclear energy (more on this in the third installment of this series). As an outdoorsman and conservationist, I don’t want to minimize or be dismissive of these risks — they worry me as much as they would the greenest eco-terrorist…

However, I would like to contrast the highly-hyped hazards of nuclear energy — which so far in the U.S. seem to exist on the screen far more than in life — with the very real environmental downsides of many of the other ways in which America generates its electricity, some of them so-called “green” or “alternative.” Consider:

• MINING WASTE AND RUN-OFF — Strip-mining, open-pit mining, and “mountaintop removal” (MTR) mining all cause major environmental havoc. The muddy run-off from these operations can transform formerly cool, rocky creeks ideal for trout and other cold-water fish species into shallow, silt-filled, slow-moving runs where nothing but carp can survive. According to the EPA, MTR mining has literally buried 724 miles of streams in Appalachia between 1985 and 2001, and routinely changes the ecosystems of area streams that do survive. Also, the open-air blasting necessary for MTR mining launches sulfuric coal-dust and other nasty stuff into the atmosphere. And all of these coal-mining processes produce millions of gallons of watery coal “slurry” that must be contained indefinitely on-site in vast, dead reservoirs of toxic sludge. Problem is, this stuff doesn’t always stay contained. In 1972, a coal slurry impoundment dam holding back 132 million gallons of deadly slurry burst along Buffalo Creek in Logan County, WV, annihilating the town of Saunders, killing 125 people and injuring more than 1,100 others. In 2000, a similar impoundment broke in Kentucky, spilling 306 million gallons of slurry into two tributaries of the Tug Fork River and polluting hundreds of waterway miles. Water supplies for 27,000 Kentucky residents were contaminated, and all aquatic life was extinguished from Wolf Creek and Coldwater Fork.
• ACID RAIN — Another environmental downside of the combustion of coal is the release of sulfur and nitrogen oxides into the air. These compounds react in the atmosphere to form acidic precipitation. When this falls to Earth, it has been demonstrated to be harmful to vegetation, fish and other aquatic life, and even man-made structures. Acid rain is blamed for the reduction of brook trout populations in Appalachia (a phenomenon I can attest to first-hand as a life-long fisherman). The problem is especially severe in China, Eastern Europe, Russia, and areas downwind of these pollution giants.
• DAMS — It’s been a while since the Snail Darter made headlines, but by now everyone should know that hydro-electric dams pose great threats to fisheries, especially trout, salmon, and shad. Salmon populations on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts have taken a nose-dive because of hydro-electric power plants, despite the presence of fish ladders and other measures. Also, hydro-electric dams typically discharge much warmer water than is found upstream of the reservoirs feeding them. This can permanently alter the ecosystems of major waterways, making them less suitable for desirable cool-water fish species like trout, salmon, shad, pike, muskellunge, but perfect for “trash” species such as carp, chubs, suckers, and gar. (To be fair about the comparison, nuke plants cause warm-water discharge as well.)
• WINDMILLS — Many people tout wind as the perfect low-impact energy source, but it isn’t without its costs to American wildlife. Though their impact on bird populations is negligible, wind-turbines actually are quite deadly to another of our flying friends: Bats. In one 2004 study, just 63 turbines at two eastern-U.S. sites mowed down 2,200 of these furry insectivores in six weeks. The massive blades of wind-turbines don’t discriminate, either. They mince up the endangered species (like Indiana bats) just as readily as the more common varieties. If wind power takes hold in a serious way, it could have a disastrous effect on bat populations, which are already in decline.
• OIL/GAS SPILLS AND DISCHARGES — I shouldn’t need to get too specific here. Crude oil and natural gas consumption accounts for around 21.5 percent of America’s electricity. And everyone reading this remembers or has seen pictures of Prince William Sound after 1989’s Exxon Valdez oil spill or other similar events (not that this wouldn’t have happened if the U.S. had gone nuke — most imported oil is refined for vehicle fuels and the like). This disaster is emblematic of the destruction that petroleum spills can wreak on the environment.
• FARMING — It’s important to remember that farming isn’t without its environmental downsides, especially now that demand for false-panacea ethanol has caused a boom in corn farming. Because of the demand for maize, American farmers have reclaimed for agriculture thousands of acres of natural CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) lands. These are huge tracts of privately-owned lands the government paid farmers NOT to plant on, so that pheasants, quail, turkeys, deer, and other animals could have more habitat. Now, these critters are being plowed under, chewed up in combines, or displaced by the million so that a net-negative-CO2 “clean” technology can be mass-implemented. Also, let’s not forget the tremendous negative impact that fertilizer run-off from farms has on creeks, streams and estuaries.

Oh, and one more thing: If you believe CO2 is killing the planet, nuclear power totals up a fraction of the carbon dioxide emissions that coal- and gas-fired electricity generation does — or even that farming does (airborne nitrous oxide from fertilizer manifests many times more of a “greenhouse effect” than an equal volume of CO2). Quite the Catch-22 for nuke-hating Gaia-lovers, huh?

Bottom Line: Search as I might, I could find scant evidence of any nuclear accident, disaster, or long-term effect which has wrought any significant degree of mortality, mutation, disease, endangerment, or extinction of ANY species on U.S. soil, humans included. The same cannot be said of other, “cleaner” forms of energy.

I’m not saying that atomic power generation has no impact on plants, animals, or people. What I am saying is that as far as I can gather, every one of America’s large-scale energy technologies (including some “clean” alternatives that are growing in scope) carries a demonstrably greater impact on our nation’s flora, fauna, and folks than nuclear power historically has…

In the third and final installment of this series, I’ll show you a global example of nuclear power that’s working, address concerns about terrorism and accidents — plus expose you to a little-discussed solution to the problem of nuclear waste. Stay tuned.

Thinking, not Kool-Aid drinking,

Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor
March 13, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Nuclear Reactions 2.1

So why am I writing an essay series on nuclear energy?

Let me be clear from the beginning: I’m NOT writing this piece to defend the scientific merits of nuclear energy, because frankly, I couldn’t articulate them. Nor am I arguing the specific economic pros and cons of nuclear power; I haven’t been able to assemble credible figures from sources I consider impartial. I’m writing this simply because I believe the forces preventing the large-scale implementation of nuclear energy in the U.S. are motivated not by scientific, economic, or even environmental concerns — but overwhelmingly political ones.

For the record, I have nothing against organizations with political agendas trying to influence law, policy, and public opinion — that’s the American Way. And I honestly don’t intend this article to be a hatchet piece on the World Business Academy. To be frank with you, I’d never even heard of the California-based “think tank” (their words, not mine) before Whiskey & Gunpowder’s January 2 publication of an excerpt from their book, Freedom From Mid-East Oil…

However, if they’re going to unilaterally characterize the nuclear industry negatively, misrepresent its degree of acceptance by the public, and summarily dismiss atomic power as a “flawed technology plagued by faulty economics,” they’ll have to be prepared for someone to argue the other side. That’s the American Way, too.

In this series, I intend to give this dialogue some balance. I’m going to do this first by exposing what I perceive as a major bias in the debate; next by contrasting dollars-and-cents economics with the other, unmentioned costs of various energy forms to the Earth and her people; and lastly, by pointing out some of the nuclear industry’s ongoing and emerging successes — and proposing some solutions to its biggest challenges…

Considering the Source

It’s clear from reading the January 2 Whiskey & Gunpowder excerpt from their book that the World Business Academy is pretty-much dead-set against nuclear energy. What I wanted to understand was why…

Their marquis claim is that nuclear energy makes less economic sense than other forms of electricity generation (as though that’s the only measure of an energy source’s worth). As I said before, whether this is true or not is beyond my ability to conclude. However, one thing I will say is this: There are a huge number of factors that must go into any objective dollars-and-cents analysis of nuclear power — far more factors, I might add, than the government subsidies, waste storage/disposal costs, and defunct plant decommissioning expenses the WBA makes mention of in its book.

I’m no accountant, but it seems to me that any calculation of the economic pros and cons of nuclear power must take into account the costs — not just the dollars, but also the human and environmental costs — that society would be spared by the replacement of traditional methods of electricity generation with atomic energy. For example, were every kilowatt of electricity currently generated by coal incineration (around 50% of U.S. power) to be supplanted with nuclear, America’s “carbon footprint” would be slashed dramatically…

Since the prevailing regulatory trend in the U.S. is toward the forced lowering of CO2 emissions, this would carry with it a hefty dollar value in any equation figuring the relative costs of energy. At the very least, going nuclear would ease the burden on other industries that produce CO2, perhaps saving billions in R&D and retooling for lower-CO2 technology, carbon credit purchase costs, and CO2 “pollution” penalties. These costs are all, in one way or another, ultimately passed on to consumers or offset by higher taxes. This isn’t to mention the costs (both human and economic — more on this in the next part in this series) of the mercury contamination that’s escalating in our nation at an alarming rate, much of which is a by-product of coal consumption…

None of these things — plus any of what must be dozens of other pertinent factors, only a few of which I could even list — are mentioned in the World Business Academy’s conclusion on the comparative costs of nuclear energy.

Also, the World Business Academy argues that the current revival in the nuclear energy industry’s prospects is due t

“…a ubiquitous public relations campaign funded by a handful of companies who stand to gain tens of billions if they can talk an appropriately cautious public into buying this ill-fated technology.”

I’ve got three bones to pick with this little snippet…

World Business Academy: Profit is BAD!

What’s so wrong about power companies spreading their side of the story because they want to make a few billion dollars — even if a certain amount of it comes from subsidies? It’s little different (and nowhere near as devious, if you ask me) from pharmaceutical companies running prime-time ads for their drugs so that people will self-diagnose, then flock to their doctors to request these medicines by name.

Also, does the World Business Academy think other industries don’t benefit from government subsidies of one kind or another? How about Big Agri-Biz, driving force behind the left’s precious ethanol (the WBA is bullish on ethanol as a “transitional” fuel, by the way)? And what are government contracts for flu vaccines and drugs for the military but forms of subsidization to Big Pharma?

Come to think of it, what business wouldn’t cash in on government subsidies if they could? And what “business academy” would coach them not to? It’s not a CEO’s fault that our system is corrupt enough that our elected officials can be bribed or coaxed into distorting the free market to their company or industry’s benefit. They’re obligated only to make money for their shareholders…

But I digress. I’m NOT defending government subsidies or the corporate maneuverings that land them. I’m trying to defend what’s left of American capitalism. And as far as I know, every watt of electricity produced in this country is done so by a company that aims to profit. This is how it works. It’s part of the natural yin and yang of enterprise and government in the free market — or at least it’s supposed to be. One doesn’t have to be an economist (or sit on the Board of a left-coast think tank) to understand this.

The sole aim of business should be to profit as much as possible within the regulations. The aim of government should be to ALLOW as much money to be made as is safely and ethically possible. They should erect only so much regulation as reasonably protects the public, the nation, and the environment. Ideally, the end result is the fulfillment of public needs, jobs, salaries, personal spending — and revenue to run the country from income and corporate taxes (the fairness of these is another topic).

I find it peculiar that this concept should be so offensive to the World BUSINESS Academy. What system of accomplishing these things would they prefer, I wonder? Governmental control of industry? Not exactly, as it turns out — but I’m not too far off. I’ll elaborate on this in a minute. But right now, on to my second gripe with the above quote from Freedom From Mid-East Oil…

Stare at the pendulum: “I’m scared. Nuke is dead. I’m scared. Nuke is dead…”

That bit in the excerpt about “an appropriately cautious public” gnawed at me, since it implies that the bulk of public opinion is against nuclear energy, or filled with trepidation about it. I didn’t think this was the case, so I did a little digging. Here’s what I discovered:

As you can see, according to a 2005 poll of Americans, just a hair over one quarter of us oppose nuclear energy — while nearly three-quarters of us are in favor of it or are at least open-minded about it…

Does this seem like an “appropriately cautious” public, or one that’s ready to give nuclear energy its day in the sun?

The last axe I have to grind with the quote I highlighted from the World Business Academy’s book excerpt is that last little swipe about nuclear energy being an “ill-fated technology.”

Yeah, tell that to France, the U.K., Finland, Japan, Sweden, and a bunch of other nations that depend on nuclear energy to one degree or another — many of which are thriving on it. I think anyone who’s even remotely objective would concede that it’s a HUGE stretch to imagine that nuclear power is on the decline or doomed to the scrapheap of history. A lot of places worldwide are making it work, including the U.S.A. If anything, nuclear’s star is on the rise globally in a big way.

Bottom line: I’m not as smart, accomplished, educated, or famous as many of those who sit on the World Business Academy’s Board of Directors or are counted among their distinguished Fellows. However, I am smart enough to find a lot to question in what small portion of their book, Freedom From Mid-East Oil, that I have actually read. To me, it smells of spin and hidden agenda — I believe it to be a polemic masquerading as hard-nosed economic analysis of the industry.

My suggestion to those who read it: Do so with the proverbial grain of salt.

I recommend this not simply because of their anti-nuke stance — but more because of what I’m certain is a larger goal of trying to transmute capitalism into some feel-goody engine for social architecture, communal responsibility, and their own brand of leftist morality. Keep reading…

Biz Brother?

A quick browse of the World Business Academy Web site reveals that their raison de être is the “…fundamental redefinition of business as a social partner.” I found this phrase in two places on the “Academy FAQs” page. On that same page was the statement that: “The Academy is engaged in a wide range of activities to support business taking responsibility for the whole.”

Hmmm. So commercial enterprise isn’t supposed to concern itself chiefly with profit, but instead busy itself looking out for me and my fellow man? Companies are supposed to take a holistic view of their place in society, and not simply focus on boosting their own bottom lines any way they can within the law? Business should take responsibility for things that are normally under the purview of other institutions of society: The church, families, communities, legislatures and the courts?

That just isn’t natural. What’s worse, it’s dangerous. Making business my “social partner” would convey upon them a certain amount of power over what I’m allowed to do. That would clearly be a conflict of interest. Rarely is what’s best for me the same as what’s best for Big Business’ bottom line. It would be like making business into a second form of government — or blurring the lines between the two entities to a point where their interests are even more closely aligned than they already are.

I could be wrong, but didn’t they already try something a little bit like this ‘business-meets-government’ thing — in Russia?

Again, I don’t intend all this to be a smear-job on the World Business Academy. I just go where the facts take me, folks. And as a last note on the topic, I want to mention just one other thing I learned about the WBA in my research for this series…

The organization’s co-founder was a WWII veteran, social scientist, academic, author, and futurist named Dr. Willis Harman, a man whose credentials and achievements are impressive — as are many of the Board Members and Fellows of the World Business Academy. However, it’s interesting to note that Harman served as President of an organization called the Institute of Noetic Sciences (ION) from 1978 until his death in 1997…

The group focuses on the power of mind-body relationships, human intuition, alternative health/medicine (including “distance healing” by focusing mind/body energy on others far way), psychic and paranormal abilities, and other such New-Age type stuff. Trust me, I could write a couple thousand words on this — but instead I’ll just encourage you to Google “Institute of Noetic Sciences,” “noetic theory,” “noetic consciousness,” and “noetic science” and see what comes up. Wild stuff, especially that bit about how we’re all evolving toward a new hyper-telepathic species of human called homo noeticus.

Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure: The Institute of Noetic Sciences is listed by Quackwatch as a “questionable” voluntary organization…

But enough New Age gobbledygook, agenda-exposing, quack-stabbing, and objectivity-questioning. On to the surprising, fascinating, and sometimes disturbing under-reported truth behind nuclear energy in America — which is coming soon in Part Two of this series.

Whistleblowing, but not glowing,

Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor
March 10, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Nuclear Reactions, Part One

“Liberty: One of Imagination’s most precious possessions.”

— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

BECAUSE I KNOW EVERYONE WILL BE WONDERING ABOUT IT as they read this, I have to disclose something right up front: I’m one of the few people you’ve ever met (if one can say that writers and their readers have “met”) who has never used tobacco in any form. Never smoked any, chewed any, snorted any, whatever. Not once. That means I don’t know what it’s like to crave a cigarette, nor what an addiction to nicotine feels like…

But I know all too well what such things look and smell like. That’s because for my entire adult life, I’ve been in the presence of a good number of smokers. Most times I’ve chosen (an important word, as I’ll explain in a minute) to go out to local pubs, concert halls, clubs, fairs, festivals or sporting events with friends or dates in my home state of Maryland…

No longer, though. As of February 1, 2008, smoking of any type is now banned in the Old Line State’s bars, restaurants and many other venues — including American Legion halls and other such private clubs.

Like with a lot of other states where indoor smoking has been banned in public places, poll results show that most people consider this a victory for Marylanders. And in truth, I personally will not miss the passive-smoking headaches and congestion I get from nights out in smoky bars or concert halls. Nor will I miss my clothes reeking of smoke in the laundry hamper — or my truck’s upholstery smelling like an ashtray simply because I’m not in the habit of stripping naked to drive home (not typically, anyway)…

However, what I will miss is yet another way in which we Americans can exercise our liberty to do what we want to do, even when it’s arguably not what’s best for us. This is the bittersweet essence of freedom, and I believe it’s something worth preserving — even when personally distasteful to me. I also lament the demise of yet another opportunity for the free market to accommodate both personal liberty and the varying preferences of individuals. This was what the Constitution’s framers had in mind, after all…

Not the arbitrary domination of The State to serve politicians’ majority-pandering — or even bona-fide cost-benefit calculations.

Freedom of/and Choice Extinguished

In my opinion, the smoking debate transcends fact, science, statistics and economics. To me, it isn’t about health or public safety or tax revenues or insurance costs so much as it is about the fundamental nature of government (and the greedy, devious hacks that run it) to hobble and ransom liberty for its own ends. The smoking issue is more emblematic than anything else that comes to mind of both the corruption rampant in our system and that system’s perversion of its freedom-first, free-market roots.

Don’t misunderstand me, here. I’m all for the government looking out for us. I think it’s entirely appropriate that they should regulate whatever they must in order to make sure we have reasonably pure food and drugs, high-quality housing construction, relatively safe roads, toys without toxic lead paint on them and so on (whether they do this properly or not isn’t today’s can o’ worms)…

And I don’t think it’s the least bit in conflict with the principals of freedom to restrict smoking in places we have no choice in going — places like airports, offices and on public transportation and its hubs. After all, the ultimate litmus test of personal liberty is “Does my exercise of freedom infringe on anyone else’s freedom?” If the answer to this question is “yes,” then regulation is appropriate.

However, I’m very wary (and weary) of a government that confounds the free market as it regulates away our liberties. That’s exactly what banning smoking in bars does. Here’s what I mean, from personal experience:

As I mentioned above, for years I’ve been going out to pubs, clubs, concert halls and taverns, either solo or with a wide variety of friends and dates. But whenever I go out with one particular friend of mine (I’ll call him R.A. Hill), the degree of cigarette smoke we’d likely encounter would factor heavily into our calculus in deciding where to go. R.A. Hill, being more smoke-sensitive than me, knew which bars attracted the greatest ratio of smokers, which had the best “smoke-eater” filtration systems, which had the highest ceilings to dissipate smoke — even which had their ceiling fans rotating in the proper direction to waft smoke up and away, instead of forcing it back down into the hair and clothing of bar patrons…

You see, that’s the free market at work. When we’d go out, we’d make a priority of choosing bars based on the “exposure to smoke” criteria — and we always found a way to have a blast without smelling like an ashtray or giving ourselves passive-smoking headaches.

It has always been my feeling that the marketplace responds better to people’s needs and desires than the government does. I also think that if the market can sustain non-smoking bars, clubs and restaurants, they spring up. They have in many places — without regulatory mandate. Consider as proof how many restaurants currently either prohibit smoking entirely in dining areas, or have dedicated “smoking” sections. I remember when this started to be a widespread policy (the 1980s). It was in response to the demands of the market, not the mandates of state or federal lawmakers…

Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking: What about the non-smoking employees of bars and restaurants in which smoking is allowed? (It’s under the auspices of concern for these folks that a lot of states pass smoking bans, by the way.)

Again, I look to the free market. People have a choice of where to work, but not the unalienable right to work there. If you can’t tolerate smoke or are afraid of the health risks, don’t apply for jobs in which you’re likely to be exposed to smoke. Those jobs will be filled with people who smoke themselves, are not worried or offended by the smoke — or who may be, but choose to forego their concerns in exchange for the money…

This idea of “choice” is the beautiful, self-regulating linchpin of the whole free-market concept upon which America is founded, yet that seems all of a sudden so foreign to our politicos and pundits.

Principle vs. Principal

Make no mistake, politicians regulate smoking for one reason only: Votes.

By ever-further restricting smoking (but not banning it outright), they get to have their cake and eat it, too. They get to curry favor and leverage votes from the non-smoking majority as crusaders for better public health and lower health-care costs. But at the end of the day, as long as smoking remains legal, people will still smoke, get sick and require medical treatment — yet politicians will still get every penny of the enormous corporate taxes tobacco companies pay, all the federal excise tax money from cigarette sales, plus all the sales tax and other revenues at the state and local level…

Oh, and all the money they can extort out of the tobacco industry — like the $206 billion 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and other high-dollar lawsuits.

This multi-streamed delta of tax-and-blackmail cash dwarfs any increased costs that smoking levies on society (or at least on the government) — and is the reason why they’d never ban cigarettes outright. Their “dirty little secret” is that they know there’s little, if any, correlation between restrictions on smoking (like taxes and public-area bans) and reduction in cigarette consumption. Smoking, after all, is an addiction, and politicians know that smokers will continue to smoke, even if they can’t do it in their favorite bars.

Consider this, to In 1976, the Feds banned Red Dye #2 based on 1969 Soviet research linking the food coloring to cancer in laboratory animals (the FDA’s own attempts to duplicate this research was inconclusive, by the way). Did they jack taxes up on food-makers and sue them for a few billion dollars, issue public alerts, mandate warning labels on products with Red Dye #2 in them, then let the public decide what level of risk they were comfortable with? No, they didn’t hesitate to simply ban the substance…

Why do you suppose this is? Don’t you think it’s because there was no real money for them to wring from the situation? After all, tens of millions of people weren’t addicted to Red Dye #2, and it wasn’t the cornerstone of a mega-billion-dollar industry from which billions in corporate, sales, excise and other taxes flow — and from which hundreds of billions more in “damages” could be ransomed.

In other words, it cost them very little to ban Red Dye #2, so they did — on nothing more than the suggestion that it might cause cancer in lab rats.

Now, in the case of cigarettes, an overwhelming amount of decades worth of scientific, clinical and anecdotal evidence from every corner of the world — not to mention leaked internal memoranda of tobacco companies — proves that smoking is strongly correlated to lung and other deadly cancers in millions of humans, yet the U.S. government won’t ban it…

This couldn’t have anything to do with the money, could it? Nah.

Look, I know that this is obvious stuff here. I just want to re-emphasize it to hammer home a larger point: That nowadays, personal liberties in America stand or fall based not on their fundamental value as exercises in freedom — but on whether or not they’re profitable to the government.

The Liberty Equation, Revisited

I’ve written in Whiskey & Gunpowder before about what I call the “liberty equation,” most recently in July 2007, as a companion essay to a speech I gave that same month at FreedomFest in Las Vegas. Back then, I wrote:

“Today, it’s the tendency of politicians, commentators, advocates on both sides of an issue — and increasingly, American citizens — to distill the debate about any personal liberties to one of numbers. Statistics, not principles, rule the day…

“Is there any liberty-based debate in the public discourse today that doesn’t center on an argument about numbers — that hasn’t become merely a contest of “dueling statistics?” The point of those statistics is always the same: To determine whether a freedom makes bottom-line sense in a twisted equation in which liberty is allowed to stand or fall based solely on its mercantile merits…

“The smoking debate is a good example. Few are talking about smoking in terms of its intrinsic value as an exercise in personal freedom. Most only talk about it in terms of economics: Mainly, whether the increased costs of health insurance and medical treatment for both active and passive smokers is greater than the profits bars, restaurants, public sports venues, and the like (tobacco-company profits are rarely mentioned) gain from smoking.”

As you can see, my beef with politicians isn’t so much that they’re self-serving, greedy, grandstanding hoodwink artists. Everyone knows this. I’d even go so far as to say that our elected leaders are so consistent in their avarice that the lack of a ban on tobacco constitutes conclusive proof that smoking MUST be an overwhelming net economic positive to America’s bottom line. However, since that’s not PC to say that in the media — and no politician would garner any votes talking about it — we never hear it. But I’m digressing…

What boils my noodles is that this kind of bottom-line thinking rules the day instead of concern for the proper care and feeding of freedom.  Politicians and the mass media have used the smoke and mirrors of number-crunching to transform the way Americans think about their liberty. They’ve colluded in force-feeding us their balance-sheet mentality for so long that we’re starting to be brainwashed en masse by it. We’re all weighing statistics the media spews at us, counting money politicians promise us, and doing all sorts of convoluted math in our heads to try and figure out how to prove the merits of the freedoms we love — or to justify the regulation (or eradication) of freedoms we don’t…

No longer do we seem to remember that liberty has value in and of itself, and that the free exercise of it is a healthy thing, whether we always find it tasteful or not.

No longer do we seem to realize that it’s not the government’s job to protect us from ourselves.

And no longer do we seem to have the righteous indignation to question exactly WHY our freedoms are regulated or abrogated — we simply accept it as part of a “greater good” scenario the politicos and pundits are pushing…

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds a lot like Marxism?

Jim Amrheim
Freedoms Editor
February 19, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Freedom’s Great Big Pain in the Butt

“What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder.”

— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Chapter 2

“My friends are toys. I make them. It’s a hobby. I’m a genetic designer.”

— J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson), Blade Runner, 1982

CALL ME A GEEK, BUT ONE OF THE GREAT HIGHLIGHTS of my 2007 was the night in December when I finally got to see a favorite film of mine on the silver screen at the biggest and best cinematic venue I know of, Baltimore’s historic Senator Theatre…

That film: The “Final Cut” of Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi/noir classic Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is a favorite of mine for a bunch of reasons. First, it’s the finest example I’ve ever seen of the seamless integration of script and cinematography. Unlike with so many others of the science fiction genre, the special effects — though incredible for their time and for the budget from which they were created — don’t overpower the story, but complement it in a sublime symphony of storytelling excellence.

In fact, Blade Runner’s symbiosis of story and effect is so elaborate and well-conceived that it almost literally transports you to a future America that seems as plausible and palpable as the hustle, bustle and daily grind you left outside the theater. The primary reason for this isn’t Ridley Scott’s renowned movie-making wizardry, which has given us such indelible classics as Alien, Gladiator and what is almost universally acknowledged as one of the greatest commercials of all time — Apple’s famous “1984” Super Bowl ad for the then-new Macintosh computer…

In my opinion, it’s because of co-screenwriters’ Hampton Fancher and David Peoples’ inspired and ingenious re-envisioning of the equally ingenious source material: Sci-fi master Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Beyond being an intense, nuanced, visually arresting, near-perfectly realized exercise of the cinematic art (I believe it’s filmmaker Scott’s high-watermark as a director thus far), what truly makes Blade Runner great is its uncannily prophetic story.

A story that becomes more relevant with every passing day.

The Blade Runner Prophecies

Blade Runner is set in the year 2019, in Los Angeles. For those of you who don’t know the story, it’s basically a cop drama about a police assassin whose job it is to track down and kill genetically engineered and organically manufactured super-humans (called replicants) on Earth. Replicants are superior to ordinary people in strength and at least equal in intelligence — and are indistinguishable from the natural-born without detailed tests of emotional responses. Bred for slave labor, combat or dangerous jobs in the “off-world colonies,” replicants are illegal on Earth, under penalty of death…

This fact does not stop some of them from coming to Earth incognito. Enter assassin Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford at the peak of his early fame). He’s semi-retired, but pressured back into service by his old boss to eliminate an especially deadly group of four replicants who’ve returned to Earth bent on infiltrating the company that manufactured them, the Tyrell Corporation, in hopes of finding a way to extend their lives beyond their built-in four-year life spans…

The movie illustrates how this infiltration attempt plays out (violently), how these replicants struggle with their own mortality and emotional under-development, how Deckard “retires” these pseudo-humans and comes to grips with the guilt of killing them — and deals with the fact that he may indeed be a replicant himself…

It’s a great story, and extraordinarily well told. But what’s so prophetic about the movie isn’t the plotline so much as the vision of 2019 America that Dick, Fancher, Peoples and Scott created during Blade Runner’s production in the early 1980s. In their Los Angeles of 37 years later:

• The language spoken on the street is not English, but a mish-mosh of several languages. The floating sky-billboards alternate the languages they entice people with, and generally feature Asian-looking faces. Most of the people seen on the street are non-whites. Ethnic foods, especially Asian varieties like sushi, seem to be the kinds most consumed. These things imply a huge, unchecked influx of immigrants into the U.S., and an aggressively globalized economy — with resulting changes in the culture…
• The L.A. cityscape is vast and towering. It’s a dirty, gritty mix of industrial structures, futuristic architecture and dilapidated old apartment buildings. The night sky is illuminated violently with flaming natural gas blow-off from high discharge stacks. Also, it’s almost constantly raining. Clearly, the U.S. (and presumably, the world) is still dependant on fossil fuels for much of its energy, and the global climate has changed as a result…
• If the size, prominence and extravagance of their corporate headquarters is any indication, one of the most influential and profitable businesses in Los Angeles is the Tyrell Corporation — manufacturers of 100% organic, genetically engineered replicants (and other man-made duplicate organisms, the script implies). Their motto is “More Human than Human.” It seems that a sizeable amount of people are employed in this industry, or subcontracted by the Tyrell Corporation…

Clearly, Blade Runner’s masterminds spent considerable time and effort to imagine what the U.S. would be like in four decades time. And judging by where we are in 2008, they’re not far from the mark on a lot of things: Globalization, immigration, America’s changing cultural identity, climate change theory and the rise of genetic engineering.

It’s this last element, genetic engineering, that I want talk about a bit more today…

Children of a Transgressor “God”

In Blade Runner, the replicants locate and force one of the Tyrell Corporation’s genetic engineers, J.F. Sebastian, to arrange a meeting with the company’s master designer and patriarch, Dr. Eldon Tyrell. What transpires at that meeting, I won’t spoil here. But what I will mention is what Sebastian has surrounded himself with in his own home. Being a genetic designer, Sebastian has created a spacious apartment full of genetically aberrant pseudo-humans whose only purpose in life is to amuse and befriend him…

They’re like pets. And they are engineered not to be free of defect — but to be more entertaining or endearing than typical humans by virtue of their defects. They are abnormally sized, have abnormal voices and mannerisms, and are clearly less intelligent and coordinated than typical humans. Sebastian dresses them up in cute little costumes, teaches them to say trite catchphrases in greeting as he comes home from work each day, and poses them around his home like stuffed animals.

This, in my opinion, is the most terrifyingly prophetic aspect of Blade Runner: The notion that needy, greedy, maladjusted, corrupt, agenda-driven or just plain lonely people could one day implement the awesome power of genetic creation on a whim and without due concern for its ramifications — like a kid who finds his dad’s pistol in the bedside table and shoots up the neighborhood just to hear it go “bang.”

Think this couldn’t happen? Think the sole purpose of human genetic engineering science is to accelerate evolution, prevent chromosomal imperfections, ensure better health and eradicate disease? Think we humans are too moral and noble of spirit to intentionally create less-than-perfect children?

Think again.

Right now, in the U.K., a pair of deaf-rights organizations — the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People and the British Deaf Association — are lobbying to give deaf prospective parents (and presumably, hearing parents as well) the right to genetically engineer deaf children. Their efforts are focused on amending a bill currently passing through the legislative process in the House of Lords, the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which currently would prohibit the screening of embryos for the purpose of choosing one with an abnormality. According to the U.K.’s The Sunday Times, a broader coalition of organizations representing people with disabilities will also begin campaigning for this amendment to the bill, starting this month.

This kind of stuff isn’t just happening in merry old England, either. According to an Associated Press report from December 21, 2006, 3% of the 137 surveyed U.S. clinics that offer genetic embryo screening have provided the service to families intent on creating disabilities in their children…

The arguments on both sides of this issue are, in their own ways, persuasive. And they starkly illustrate just how slippery a slope human genetic engineering will be in the future. Groups that support the right of parents to choose disabilities in their children are concerned that the genetic eradication of conditions like dwarfism or deafness would be tantamount to the eradication of valuable cultural identities — and would weaken the bond parents and kids with similar disabilities share. And they’re right, sort of…

Opponents of giving parents the ability to choose disabled children say it subverts the cardinal rule of medicine — to heal, not harm. They equate the practice to the intentional crippling of kids. And they’re right, too.

Consider this as well: If the engineering of disabilities becomes OK at the genetic level before birth, how would this be any different from the infliction of the same disabilities after birth? If, say, deafness or blindness were to somehow become the right of parents to design into their kids at the embryonic level, wouldn’t it also be their right to simply wait until the child is born, then deafen it with repeated gunshots close to the ears — or blind it by poking its eyes out? Other than a little pain, what’s the difference? Kids live through circumcision, right?

Arguably, most forms of post-birth disabling would be better than genetically engineering the same thing. Unlike embryonic screening, post-birth deafening or blinding of a child, for example, would be 100% reliable — and it would surely be a lot cheaper than paying $15,000 or more for gen-gineering procedures…

Which would mean more money left over to make a kid’s home deaf- or blind-friendly!

Also, when would the Statute of Limitations end on disabling kids? If a single father, for example, were to be deafened by an explosion at work, could he then come home and deafen his nine-year-old daughter to buttress his own cultural identity or/and strengthen his family unit?

Beyond this, if the right to genetically design children were to reside wholly with parents, what would stop some maladjusted parents (see also Spears, Britney ) from designing kids that are entirely dependant on them? If parents with low self-esteem see the nurturing of their children as a way to validate their own lives or restore their own sense of worth, what better way to ensure a lifetime of this than to create a mentally or motor-challenged child that can never leave the nest?

Extrapolations and suppositions (absurd or otherwise) aside, someone’s going to be playing God here any way you cut it. Either the government and medical establishment will do it by determining where the lines are in terms of what “designer” features we can and can’t build into our children — or disabled parents will by creating kids in their own defective images, or for their own sick validation…

Bottom Lines: Is it fair to children to engineer them deaf, blind, dwarfed or otherwise challenged to ensure the survival of their parents’ cultural identity? Is it fair to children if they’re intentionally bred inferior as therapy for, or enablement of, their parents’ neuroses?

But here’s the most disturbing aspect to this equation: As scary as offering the power of genetic engineering to parents might be, it could become even more dicey to invest the government with that authority…

Grave New World

In Aldous Huxley’s classic 1932 novel Brave New World, the vast majority of people (those who are part of the World State) are sterile, marriage and parenting and family are obsolete among them and children are purpose-bred and lab-reared by the government to meet society’s needs. In the World State, there are five classes of genetically engineered humans. In descending order of intelligence, they are: Alphas, betas, gammas, deltas and epsilons. Each has their own skill set and societal roles that suit it (alphas are the thinkers, epsilons the menial laborers) — and everyone is medicated by the government into blissful acceptance of their place in the scheme of things.

Here’s why I mention this: No matter how much moralizing we do here in America, human gen-gineering is coming to this world. It is already here in the form of “prenatal health screenings” — and it won’t be long before more and more of the traits of our children will be things we can decide for them. So let’s think down the road a bit…

Let’s say that by 2019, we can more or less order our children from a catalog. A couple can provide the DNA raw materials, and science can add positive traits, subtract negative traits, dial up intelligence, build in immunity and splice in hair color, eye color, height, metabolic rate, sexual preference, etc. Now, how many people in this brave new Utopia would opt for average, natural kids instead of gen-gineered, hyper-smart, disease-proof “super-kids?”

Not many, I’m betting.

And that means that over the span of a single generation, the natural Darwinistic Yin and Yang between bright and dim, strong and weak, hardy and vulnerable, beautiful and plain people would be unnaturally skewed to the “perfect” side of the spectrum. Instead of an America in which people run the gamut of all shapes, sizes, appeals and skill sets to fit every job and need in our society — from physicist to ditch-digger — we’ll have a glut of smart, fit, hardy, beautiful people perfectly suited to the most intellectually high-minded work, and a dearth of those suited to more menial, yet no less necessary, posts.

The dirty little secret of American society is that no matter how much rhetoric about opportunity and achievement our schools, parents, after-school specials, movies, therapists and self-help gurus sling at us, the brutal reality is that we need only so many supermodels, professors, lawyers, doctors, artists and Supreme Court Justices. For every one of these, we must need 100 ditch-diggers, pipe-fitters, welders, bricklayers, car mechanics, farmhands, cabbies, truckers and port-a-pot cleaner-outers. The vast majority of jobs and duties in America (and in any country, for that matter) fall on the less desirable, least glamorous and modestly remunerative side of the spectrum…

There are two very likely ways these needs would be met in a future America of lopsidedly perfect people: We’d either import an underclass to do these things for us (we’re already doing this), or we’d regulate who can have what kinds of kids — a la` Brave New World. Or both.

Bottom line: If we’re not mindful of how we apply this inevitable human genetic engineering technology, we’ll end up handing the government the power to tell US what kind of kids we’ll be having, based on societal needs.

Like the Office of the Handicapper General in Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron, we could end up with the Department of Equity in Breeding, or some such. Like applying for credit or a loan, maybe we’ll have to prove our suitability before we can order up our perfect bundles of joy. Or maybe there will be a Breeding Lottery, and we’ll have to be happy giving birth and raising whatever kind of kid we pick. Becoming parents — and being happy and grateful to the state for whatever kind of child they allow us to have — could simply become one more duty of a Proper Citizen, like paying taxes.

Think I’m being absurd with all this? Keep reading…

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, NEW Fish

If you think the urge to tamper with nature isn’t pervasive among humans, consider what we do to ourselves in the name of individuality. We dye and curl our hair, trowel on makeup, pierce our skin, wear contact lenses (in colors, no less), tattoo ourselves — and go under the knife for bigger boobs, trimmer bellies and slimmer noses. We spend endless hours and countless dollars shopping for clothes, shoes and makeup to further enhance and call attention to our uniqueness. We do the same thing with our cars and homes. We customize them, because we aren’t happy with them as they are…

Don’t misunderstand me here — I’m not being critical of this tendency toward the improvement of all things. I do these kinds of things, too. We all do. I’m simply saying that it’s human nature to modify one’s self and one’s possessions (a lot of people view kids as these) to more closely fit some inner ideal of ME-ness. Do you really think we would resist this tendency when it comes to our children? Look at how we name our kids; many couples intentionally pick odd or unique names — or even make them up — to give their children a head-start toward individuality…

Do you really think parents — had they the power — wouldn’t do the same with how a kid looks? Do you really think you wouldn’t see young punk-rocker parents designing babies with hot-pink hair? Do you really think you wouldn’t see bodybuilding types lumbering down the street with blockish, sculpted kids trundling after them?

For those of you with doubts that this all is coming, consider the GloFish.

Marketed in the U.S. since December 2003, GloFish are genetically modified zebrafish (native to India and Bangladesh). By inserting genes from jellyfish, sea corals and other sources into the zebrafish’s genome, designers of the GloFish have succeeded in making them glow brightly in green, red and orange. The FDA, after study and risk assessment, found no public health reason to regulate these fish beyond what regulations are in place for normal zebrafish. Yes, they can breed — and yes, they continue to be strong sellers…

Also, consider the case of LifeStyle Pets — a new line of genetically modified, hypo-allergenic cats and dogs. All the pleasure, none of the sneezing.

Perhaps coming soon to a pet store near you: GloDogs — harder to lose and easier for cars to avoid…

Maybe soon thereafter: GloKids?

Trying to be brave in a grave new world,

Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor
February 1, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

Genetic Engineering and Morality

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. Some men, you just can’t reach…”

— Strother Martin, as “The Captain,” in Cool Hand Luke, 1967

BEFORE I GET STARTED, I WANT TO THANK the Whiskey & Gunpowder readership for their feedback to all the installments of this series, positive or negative. As is usually the case when I write about the environment (which I wish to preserve at all costs — even if it means more expensive hard goods), responses have run the gamut from plaudits and thanks to ridicule and outrage. All I appreciate, the former for their affirmation, the latter for the grist they give my mill.

I want to give special mention to the numerous environmental engineers and similar experts who’ve written in at various points along the way to thank me for challenging the green Kool-Aid drinking status-quo. Such feedback always has special meaning to me…

Thanks also to the gas/coal energy industry executive who wrote to me from China to report on the horrific environmental conditions there — and to give first-hand validation of my assertion that China’s energy costs are so cheap in large part because of lax enviro-regulation…

And to the guy who said I was “accurate to the point of being boring,” I thank you for the kudo-chuckle…

I offer my most heartfelt thanks to the disgruntled reader who unwittingly gave me kudos with this gem: “…instead of burning all those precious carbon-based brain cells thinking about a rational (sic) for your place in the global warming miasma, why don’t you get your safari-ass back to africa (sic) and kill another cape buffalo to stop it from emitting all that methane gas…”

To this spelling-and-grammar-challenged fellow, I say: Good idea, I plan to. And when I do, I’ll surely be doing more to keep the Earth cool with my .416 Rigby safari rifle than you will be with your glorified golf-cart Prius. As many of you may recall, a 2006 United Nations report pinpointed animal, uh, tailpipes as the world’s number one source of greenhouse gases…

Also, to the colleague who shot me an e-mail, minutes after my last installment, asking “Do you actually believe the stuff you write?,” I say: Given America’s pervasive fog of misconception on GHG and the environment, I’m probably making myself more of a national pariah with every word I write. So I better believe in it, because beyond mere Editor’s wages — which would be the same no matter what I write about — it’s more or less inconceivable that I could ever profit from these views (my name’s not Gore, after all) and may in fact be jeopardizing my future as a columnist. The only thing I have to show for any of this is belief…

Her note was also frighteningly illustrative of the mainstream’s misguided perception about who’s doing the real polluting in this world — she maintains that there’s likely nothing anyone can do about global warming as long as there are capitalists around. That’s an interesting way to think, since the nations that expel the least GHG per unit of oil consumed are the leading capitalist states: The U.S., Japan, Germany and France.

Lastly, to the many readers who wrote in to argue the nuts and bolts of global warming theory along all points of the spectrum, I say: Thanks, but with all due respect, every one of you is missing the point. In America, the “debate” on global warming is over. The celebrity-driven, bad-news-sells media — and politicians hungry for more things to tax/regulate, and yet another issue with which to garner votes — have succeeded in force-feeding our society (especially the young generations) the notion that mankind is causing global warming. End of discussion.

That’s why the entire premise of this series is the supposition that the current trend of global warming IS caused by smokestacks and tailpipes — but that America is still doing the wrong thing by planet Earth with its carbon policies. Yet every time I write one of these pieces, I’m astounded by the percentage of mail I get from people wanting to contest man-caused global warming theory (as though I need to be persuaded that it’s bunk). I feel like I’m in Cool Hand Luke. I’m simply failing to communicate that what’s true doesn’t matter — only what people can be made to believe.

And the tragic, ironic bottom line is that in this day and age, any assertion about global warming can ONLY gain an audience if it’s compatible with the flawed assumptions that govern the dialogue. I realized a long time ago that trying to educate or challenge the global warming hysterics with things like facts and logic was a futile errand. The issue has simply become too symbiotic to America’s media-fueled collective guilt at being the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world…

However, I do want to point out one grand hypocrisy inherent to the America-bashers on the global warming battlefront: Critics of U.S. fossil-fuel policies claim that they’re taking a more balanced global view by calling for reduced American consumption. They say that we’re egocentric and arrogant for using as much oil as we do. However, these ignorant gadflies are JUST as arrogant and egocentric themselves for trumpeting that America alone has the power to eliminate (or even to reduce) global warming by curbing its consumption. It’s nothing but typical top-down American empire-think to believe that other nations’ contributions to atmospheric CO2 are insignificant compared to ours, that they’ll follow our lead — or that somehow, magically, they won’t scoop up and burn every barrel of oil we don’t.

As I’ve spent the last month attempting to prove, this is flatly contrary to the facts. In the very nearly zero-sum world oil supply scenario, the cleanest atmosphere results when the more environmentally conscious nations burn the MOST oil, not the LEAST. I don’t understand why I have to reiterate this simple point…

Oh, and one more note to the few critics who wrote in about the first three parts of this series: If you honestly think that a barrel of oil or pound of coal consumed in one part of the world results in the same release of GHG as in another, you really must have your head examined.

Do you actually think that power plants, refineries, cars, trucks, etc. in places like China, Korea, the Russian Federation, the Middle East and Africa are designed, built and held to the same stringent (and ever-tightening) emissions specs that they are in places that are closer to the environmentally responsible end of the spectrum — like Japan, the U.S., Germany, and France? If this were true, nations’ greenhouse gas output would precisely mirror their fossil fuel consumption in barrels-of-oil equivalent. Yet as anyone who can read a cartogram or data from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change will attest, this is not even remotely the case.

But enough volleys back at my critics. After all, some men (and women) you just can’t reach. Right now, I want to examine some of the things I think are driving U.S. energy policy…

Global Warming, Inc.

As populist and conspiratorial as this may seem, I really do believe that America’s petroleum policy has been shaped in large part by the avarice and selfishness of a few. Lately, this assertion is made flesh in the form of the world’s greatest global warming profiteer: Al Gore, Inc.

Despite his reception of the Nobel Peace Prize and incessant fawning praise from the mainstream media, the fact remains that before adopting climate change as his cause celebre`, Al Gore was nothing more than your run-of-the-mill American career politician whose run was over. And with only a degree in Government to fall back on after the 2000 election, he desperately needed a new gig…

This isn’t to say that Gore hasn’t been consistently at the vanguard of the climate-change issue since it first came on the scene, or rather, since he first forced it there. Indeed, this may be the only constant thread of rhetoric, and perhaps belief (you’ll see what I mean in a minute), in his political life. Gore held Congressional hearings on CO2 and climate change in the late 1970s and again in the ‘80s, wrote numerous articles and editorials on the subject, published 1992’s Earth in the Balance — and of course, starred in 2006’s hugely successful “documentary” on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, for which he also wrote a companion book in that same year.

However, I maintain that it’s easy to “believe” in something that’s profitable — either in terms of political image or in monetary terms. For me, the proof is in whether someone walks like he talks. You decide if The Reverend of Gaia (Gore actually attended divinity school in the early ‘70s) is “living the word” or just profiting from it:

• According to BusinessWeek and other sources, Al Gore’s 20-room, 8-bath Nashville mansion drained more electricity from the grid per month than 20 average American households combined in 2006 — the same year his book and “documentary” called on Americans to conserve electricity. This represents an increase in consumption of 13.5% over the previous year.
• Not ashamed enough at merely over-consuming electricity, habitants of Gore’s home and guesthouse sucked an average of nearly $1,100 a month worth of natural gas in 2006.
• Instead of walking to save greenhouse gases, Gore and his entourage drove five cars the roughly 500 yards from his hotel to the screening of An Inconvenient Truth at the Cannes Film Festival.

Aside from this kind of hypocrisy, Gore has leveraged his pet cause to morph himself from a public servant who, according to Newsweek, barely made the millionaire list on paper in 2000 into a “green” consulting juggernaut now worth an estimated $100 million or more. Consider als

• Gore claims to offset his mammoth personal carbon footprint by buying carbon credits from a company, Generation Investment Management (an institutional asset management firm specializing in opportunities positioned to cash in on global-warming-driven policy changes), of which Gore himself is the Chairman and Founding Partner. To say he stands to gain financially, as this firm’s global clean-energy investments pay off, would be an obscene understatement. He’s not buying pollution absolution, he’s simply funneling that money into investments that are poised to ripen on the strength of his own hot air.
• Last November, Gore was named as a new partner in a famously successful venture-capital firm, Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers, symbolically leading their “Greentech” division — a strategic alliance with Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management. Though Gore has stated that his entire upfront salary will go to the non-profit Alliance for Climate Protection (which he Chairs, coincidentally), he stands to rake in tens, maybe hundreds of millions down the road as KPCB claims its 30% profit stake as “green” start-up firms that Gore helps them cherry-pick for funding go public or are sold.

If you look at all this from a certain point of view (an objective one), what we’ve basically got here is a politician with a flair for opportunism shrewdly pre-positioning himself to profit from climate change hysteria that he may or may not believe in — then collaborating with Hollywood big-shots in making a high-profile movie that, along with a willing media, pumps such hysteria to a fever pitch. Obscene profit, accolades, Nobel prizes and freedom-robbing legislation ensues…

What I want to know is when politician-made movies ceased to be called propaganda.

I must say that from a purely Machiavellian standpoint (damage to America’s economy and freedom notwithstanding), Gore’s flim-flam is really a marvel of vision, ambition, and execution. What a different nation this might be today had he exhibited some of these qualities while in office on behalf of America’s best interests.

Doom with a View

Another thing that has a huge affect on American petro-policy is the regulation of domestic oil drilling. And interestingly enough, I detect the fingerprints of a selfish, greedy few driving this policy — instead of the energy needs and environmental concerns of a nation…

First, some background. Currently, only about 15% of the United States’ Outer Continental Shelf — roughly, the seabed from around 3-9 miles from shore out to 200 or more — is open for underwater oil drilling, a practice which is far less likely to result in disastrous spills than the importation of oil by tanker. From what I could gather (it proved remarkably hard to find easy-to-interpret data on this), somewhere north of 80% of the world’s worst petro-disasters in terms of volume of oil released into the environment have been from tanker spills. Conversely, 97% of oil spills and accidental discharges from offshore rigs do not exceed one barrel, industry sources claim…

But I digress.  I was starting to wonder aloud why such a small percentage of America’s coastlines are dotted with offshore oil rigs — until I looked at the locations of offshore drilling rigs in OCS waters of the U.S. Again, I didn’t have time to make an intensive study of this (it could be book-length if I had, I’m sure), but I’m pretty confident in postulating that there’s a strong correlation between the location of offshore drilling rigs and costal real estate values, or the comparative wealth and influence of states.

Perhaps the starkest example of this is Florida. Home of some of the wealthiest coastal zones in the U.S. (seven of the top 11 places with the country’s highest per-capita income are in the Sunshine State), Florida has been under a strict moratorium on offshore drilling since 1983 — despite no doubt being home to huge reserves of eastern Gulf oil…

Yet the coastal waters of neighboring (and comparatively poorer) Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas are dotted with thousands of rigs, without which the U.S would be far more dependent on foreign oil. Here’s a map I found showing this stark contrast. The green sites are where offshore oil rigs are:

Now, what do you suppose the reason is for why there are no oil rigs off Florida? Do you think it’s because there’s no oil there? Or could it be because a comparatively few rich people who live in Florida and can afford to buy gas and heating oil at whatever the price have decided that they don’t want their pristine horizons spoiled by a few speck-sized rigs?

It’s the same way in California — there are some offshore rigs there, but you won’t see them along the Monterey coast…

Currently, only a handful of U.S. states allow drilling in the waters adjacent their shores. And it’s my perception that the greatest concentrations of rigs seem to roughly cluster off coastlines where there are relatively few marquis beaches, and where relatively few rich people live.

I could go on and on about this stuff, but the simple point I’m making is this: Whether it’s increasing offshore drilling, judiciously tapping into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or partnering up with Mexico or Canada (a lot of their future oil sands yields are destined by agreement for China), the United States has far more oil in its backyard than we’re extracting.

And these sources are one component of the energy policy I think we should be living by…

The End of Carbo-geddon

Here’s the real bottom line with this whole four-part series…

As a nation, we need to decide what we want: Cheap stuff or a cleaner atmosphere. We cannot have both.

If we really want to buy into unproven global warming theory and commit ourselves to what we think will be the betterment of planet Earth, we must reduce the demand for (or availability of) oil by nations that pollute with impunity. The only way to do this, barring warfare, is to compete with them — both on the world oil stage and in the manufacturing arena.

As it stands right now, curbing American importation and consumption of oil is a BAD thing for the global environment, all other things remaining equal. Every barrel of oil we leave on the market is a barrel of oil that hyper-polluting China will scoop up at any price (they have little oil of their own to extract) — and they both need it and can afford it, since we’re buying all of our stuff from them.

I believe that in the short term, America should ramp up its importation of oil and pour our national might into once again becoming a worldwide leader in manufacturing and production. This limits China’s access to oil (since we’d be buying comparatively more of it), their ability to buy that oil (since we’d be buying less of the stuff they make with it), and their need for it (since their manufacturing sector would lag without booming U.S. demand). Upsides are a stimulated American economy and comparatively less global GHG. The downsides are that we’d become even more dependent on foreign oil in the short term — and we’d have to pay higher prices for domestically made things…

I also believe that America should simultaneously, aggressively begin drilling and extracting what oil we have. It will be years, maybe decades, before such an effort could reach full swing. However, when it happens, we’ll be in far better shape in terms of our ability to sustain ourselves without foreign oil once we reclaim the former production glory that made us great (this will take years, too).

Finally — and as a lover of free market capitalism, it pains me to say this — I believe that we must find a way to generate some solidarity and resolve among the American people to buy only those products made in environmentally responsible nations, foremost among them the U.S.

Ideally, this should come from our leaders. Our politicians, were they truly ecologically conscientious (instead of hustling us for their own fortunes), would expose and propose solutions to the “dirty little secret” that America’s appetite for cheap, foreign-made goods may be speeding the warming of planet Earth — and that it’s our duty to our fellow man to produce and choose more goods made domestically and/or in an environmentally responsible way. Even if they cost more.

However, hoping for objectivity and a greater-good mentality from politicians who, by and large, are motivated by their own enrichment and bound (somewhat) by the selfish wants of their individual districts is perhaps even more futile than hoping for some reason and sanity in the global warming debate. Therefore, I don’t think it would be out of line to slap the hard-goods made in major polluter nations with a hefty tariff. It’s not like there’s no precedent: We’ve enacted economic sanctions before over human rights violations — and what’s rampant greenhouse gas pollution, if not a violation of our basic human right to a clean, cool Earth…

The real question is: Do hyper-consumptive, stretched-thin, credit-addicted Americans have the fortitude to pay more for their principles — even if they’ve been falsely sold on them by the greedy and corrupt?

Jim Amrhein,

Freedoms Editor
January 16. 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

The Cleanest Solution to America’s Dirtiest Little Secret

I seem to be one for knowing why, however.

Now, perhaps it’s because I’m a simpleminded half-rube without intensive education in economics that I can see the reason so clearly — I’m simply not close enough to the trees for them to obscure my view of the forest, so to speak. The Associated Press and other sources claim that violence in major oil-producing Nigeria is what drove crude over the C-note mark. That’s not what did it, though…

While it may be true in the most literal sense that this recent upheaval in Africa resulted in the particular spike in oil prices that crested the legendary $100-per-barrel mark, the actual reason crude’s spiraling upward is because America is sucking down a big batch of killer green Kool-Aid — instead of the oil we should be guzzling for the betterment of planet Earth.

Yep, you read that right: For the betterment of the Earth.

Crude Economics 101

This essay was intended as a conclusion to my Carbo-geddon series, but the historic $100-a-barrel mark for crude has given me an opportunity to shoehorn another essay which underscores the main cause of not only skyrocketing oil and gas prices, but also levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG). Knowing this is important to understanding my rationale for what should be America’s energy policy (I’ll spell that out in my final installment — coming in just a few days).

Now again, and for the record, I’m not saying that I believe — or that the bulk of evidence supports — that man-caused CO2 and other gases are responsible for the modern trend of global warming (which does indeed exist). I’m merely using that supposition as a framework for my arguments, since it’s as obvious as a case of Tourette’s Syndrome that just about everyone else in the country is sold on the theory of man-caused global warming.

This has caused some confusion among readers — many of you have written in to chastise me for what you perceive as my buying into the mainstream’s stance on global warming. I hope, with this, I’ve cleared up any misconceptions. Trying to argue about the causes of global warming is like whizzing into the wind, so I’ve been making the case for consumption using the cleaner-Earth arguments everyone else is using to defend crude conservation.

Now, bear with me if I’m covering ground you already know (I’m sure I am) but one basic truth warrants repeating if you’re going to understand my “global” point with this essay: With a few caveats, the price of any commodity goes up when demand for it outpaces or approaches the limits of supply.

In the case of oil, there are some other factors. Firstly, and as we see right now with the Nigeria situation and a few years ago with Katrina, the price of petroleum products are to some degree at the mercy of certain external forces — things like third-world political strife, weather events, oil spills, pipeline sabotage, mad dictators setting whole oil fields on fire and price collusion or manipulation within oil cartels. However, these kinds of factors typically only cause temporary changes in the price of crude.

Secondly, oil’s price is itself a major driver of production. The profit a company can make on a barrel of oil must justify the time and expense of finding it and extracting it. In order for new petroleum reserves to be tapped — and their yields finally brought to market years down the road — oil’s price per barrel must be high enough to warrant it, and with no price decline in sight. Otherwise, the anticipated profits won’t justify the costs…

Thirdly, and perhaps the most significant to my argument, is that unlike supplies of a lot of other commodities (corn, wheat, etc.) — which can typically be increased to meet demand relatively swiftly — the world’s flow of oil can’t be ratcheted up very quickly. There are a bunch of reasons for this: Exploration costs, new site infrastructure expenses, R&D costs of new technologies for the extraction of oil from dwindling fields or alternative sources (like oil sands or shale), and about a million other things…

But enough Crude 101. Like I said before, underneath ALL these ancillary factors is the very simple economic truth that rising demand is what really drives sustained increases in oil prices over time. And for the foreseeable future, world demand for oil will increase at a pace that’s far greater than the rate at which new supplies could come on line (you’ll see why in a moment). Hence, the recent $100 price-tag for oil futures — which, I predict, won’t end up being the commodity’s high-water mark.

Yes, this skyrocketing demand for oil is America’s fault. But not because of our rampant consumption of it.

How Consumption = Conservation

As you learned in Part 1 of this series, America’s thirst for crude has actually declined in recent years, despite steady increases in both population and GDP. We’re now using less oil per capita and unit of wealth created than at any point in recent history. Continuing this trend is exactly what many in the environmental relig-, er, movement, would claim is the key to a cleaner Earth in the future, since we’re the world’s biggest consumer of fossil fuels…

Their smarmy, capitalist-guilt-driven belief is that if the largest petro-consumer (the big, bad U.S.A.) consumes less, that just HAS to result in less global pollution and GHG. Now, this would be true if every nation on Earth consumed its oil with similar outputs of GHG/pollution per unit consumed. But as I’ve spent 20,000 words or more showing you over the last three years, this simply isn’t the case.

To recap a bit: Measured in terms of GHG-per-unit-of-oil-consumed, America burns its crude with less than half the greenhouse gas output of Russia or India — and with around one-third the atmospheric GHG as pollution-belching China. In fact, according to a report released last June by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China became the world’s largest gross emitter of CO2 in 2006 — by a decisive 8% margin over the next-closest nation, the U.S. This, despite consuming ONLY 37% AS MUCH OIL and around 72% as much total energy as the U.S. did…

But did you read about this on the front page of the big papers — or hear the talking heads trumpeting it on the evening news? Not likely.

A scarier question, one I’ve asked before, is: How do you think the global GHG/pollution picture is going to look once China consumes as much oil as we do — or more?

Bottom line: If the pervasive mainstream GHG theory is correct (whether it is or not isn’t today’s topic), the U.S. is directly responsible for accelerating the warming of the planet. In the name of cutting our own consumption — and in our quest for ever-cheaper shelving units, blenders, shavers, towels, clothes, sporting goods, rubber balls, Happy Meal prizes, lead-painted toys, killer pet-foods and shoddy tools — we’ve sold our manufacturing soul to a nation with no environmental conscience whatsoever.

And in so doing, we’ve outsourced nearly three times the pollution and GHG that we’d have produced had we made these things ourselves…

THIS is what’s really driving the price of oil upward: The fact that China is now factory-to-the-world (instead of the U.S.), and it takes that nation several times more fossil fuels to produce the same stuff that America could have — plus the fact that we’re lining up in droves to buy as much of their cheap, often-hazardous and always wastefully-produced junk as we can.

So you see, high oil (and gas) prices ARE America’s fault. Seduced by all manner of cheap stuff — and bamboozled by our own politicians and the media into believing we need a cleaner “Earth-print” — we’ve facilitated the rise of the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut. And now they’re putting pressure on world oil supplies, which can’t ramp up fast enough. Prices are soaring as a result.

Now, with all this in mind, I repeat the same question that I’ve been asking you in so many words for three years: If your primary concern is the environment — and you believe that man-caused global warming is ruining it — who would you rather have consuming fossil fuels to make the things you need and want: China or the U.S.?

Here’s another way of looking at this: If the world oil supply spigot is wide open and still not meeting demand (it must be, since oil prices have gone nowhere but up for more than a year), and if Chinese consumption of oil yields 2.8 times more GHG than American consumption, doesn’t it make for a cooler Earth if the U.S. consumes more of the oil coming out of that spigot — and China less?

Once again, folks, the blunt, inconvenient truth is that America’s increasing consumptive restraint and ongoing transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a services- and finance-driven one only serves to fuel an exponentially growing, hyper-industrial monster that cares nothing for the Planet — except as a market for its inexpensive products.

Think about that as you look at the “Made in China” labels on just about everything on the shelves in Target, Wal-mart, Toys-R-Us, PetSmart or even Home Depot.

The Carbon Catch-22

But hey, that Chinese-made stuff is really cheap. If the Reverend Owl Bore turns out to be right (again, I’m not saying he is — just that most people seem to believe he is), we’ll all be able to afford sunscreen, melanoma treatment and inland real estate with the money we’ve saved by paying China to cook the planet…

Indeed, the data show that what China does best from an industrial standpoint isn’t efficiency or quality or eco-consciousness. They’re the masters of doing things cheaply. But that’s only by virtue of their inexpensive labor and a lack of costly environmental regulation to comply with — not any true innovation in manufacturing or design. That kind of stuff is left to the Japanese, Americans and Germans (not coincidentally, Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in the low-GHG use of fossil fuels)…

Therein lies the quagmire, the Catch-22.

Imagine what a shock it would be to the U.S. economy if people all of sudden had to pay, say, three times as much for everything that’s currently made in China.

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that it somehow dawned on everyone in the U.S. at 8:00a.m. tomorrow morning that Chinese-made goods were contributing to global warming at a far greater rate than if those same products were made right here in America…

And lets also say that by 9:00a.m. tomorrow morning, everything on every store shelf in the country with a “Made in China” label was situated right next to a similar product made in the USA, with far less waste, pollution and GHG…

However, owing to our democracy — which regulates how polluting our manufacturers can be, forces them to pay their workers a decent wage and enacts standards for product safety and quality — all that Earth-friendly American-made stuff was three times the money. Do you think people would spend the extra cash to (maybe) help keep the Earth a degree or two cooler?

Would you?

Democracy’s Crude Awakening

All this should make you wonder: WHY does the U.S. consume its oil/coal/whatever so much cleanlier than China, Russia, Korea, et al? (Hint: It’s the same reason that products made in the U.S. are more expensive). It’s called democracy.

As a system, democracies are at a distinct manufacturing disadvantage in a global free-market economy. That’s because they’re beholden (theoretically, at least) to the interests of concerned citizens who won’t tolerate waste, pollution, near-slave-labor and low standards of living.

However, democracies (where costs of living and taxes tend to be higher) thrive on cheap stuff. In America, we depend on a tide of it from China, Taiwan, Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh, etc. Ergo, the real price of economic globalization is a dirtier global environment — since the countries that can produce things the cheapest are those with the least constraints on pollution, quality control and wages (usually non-democracies).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking democracy. It’s the least crappy system of government ever tried — and ours in America, as flawed as it may be, is still the least wretched among major world democracies. However, democracies, when not properly led, can be the victims of their own majorities. I’m seeing evidence of this right now with the global warming debate.

Instead of leading and educating the American people about the environmental pitfalls of outsourcing more and more manufacturing to the developing world, politicians from each side of the aisle are simply testing the winds of public opinion (which blow according to the biases of the media and the hot air of guru-celebrities), then kowtowing to it for votes.

It doesn’t matter that they’re crippling our economy in the name of fuzzy-math ecology.

So what’s the answer, you’re asking? Is it economic isolationism or protectionism? Is it hording up the world’s oil? Is it regulation of the media? Is it sanctions against China?

I’ll tell you what I think it should be in the conclusion to my Carbo-geddon series, next week. Stay tuned…

Doing my part to consume and conserve,

Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor
January 11, 2008

This article was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

The Carbon Kool-Aid and the Catch-22