Thursday, January 01, 2015

IRONY: America's Economy Finally Begins to Recover Thanks to the Cheap Energy that Obama Ridicules

Some gems from Victor Davis Hanson's latest at National Review:

...Just two years ago, when up for reelection, Obama reminded Americans, “We can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices.”

Obama ridiculed the Republican idea of lowering gas to $2 a gallon through new oil-recovery techniques. “They’re already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas,” Obama mocked. “I’ll save you the suspense: Step one is drill, step two is drill, and step three is keep drilling.”

...Then, finally, oil and gas prices plunged owing to the “drill, baby, drill,” can-do attitude of the private sector. Americans should thank the U.S. oilman — from the drillers in the field to the engineers behind the scenes — who did the impossible. They vastly increased the supply of what was supposedly a permanently declining resource, and thereby helped to crash prices.

Oilmen, not the government, returned hundreds of billions of dollars to American consumers. They, not Ivy League experts and Wall Street grandees, kick-started the economy where federal subsidies had failed to. They, not the policies of the Obama administration or the rhetoric of Secretary of State John Kerry, weakened our enemies...

...Almost everything Obama tried for six years in an effort to rev the economy — from near-zero interest rates and $1 trillion annual budget deficits to Obamacare and vast increases in entitlements — has failed. His foreign-policy stances of resets and leading from behind led to chaos and emboldened enemies.

Yet the United States economy is slowly recovering with cheap energy... [and abroad] spendthrift oil producers such as hostile Iran, Russia, and Venezuela are nearly broke. Friendly rivals such as Japan and the European Union can’t compete with the U.S. energy edge.

What Obama once ridiculed is now saving him from himself — after he had championed policies that nearly destroyed him.

The Greeks had a word for it: irony.

I must politely beg to differ, Victor.

Michel de Montaigne put it this way: "Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity."


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

3 comments:

Francis W. Porretto said...

Obama is already moving to stifle the surge in energy production via regulation, while claiming credit for the last quarter's growth. But he's so purely a politician -- one who lies and schemes in pursuit of power -- that we could hardly have expected him to do otherwise.

Our real problem is the lack of a principled opposition to this dictator. We've just put large Republican majorities in both houses of Congress...and what happened next? The GOP leadership immediately announced that those caucuses would not undertake any substantive action to rein Obama in or penalize him for his anti-Constitutional actions.

The soap box has failed. The ballot box has failed. That leaves the jury box and the cartridge box. Any bets on which of those two will be necessary?

Mark said...

Mr. Perretto is correct, but VDH not so much. Doug, I know you read ZH so highlighting an article that you (should) know is half-assed is beneath you. I went to NR and scanned the full article and the words Saudi Arabia appeared not once. FAIL. And as for this bogus "tax break" that the consumers are getting that is supposedly driving this great economic rebound? It has been proven that the 5% increase in Q3 GDP was overwhelmingly driven by ObamaCare spending (carried over from Q1 where it wouldn't have "helped" as much). How is that a freaking net plus anywhere outside of Gummint stat manipulation? Hmmm?

Mark said...

Let me put it this way... if VDH is right, and the fracking shale miracle is the reason for this wonderful turn of events, then how come oil company stocks are cratering and oilfield services in the Dakotas are panicking and laying off workers? They did this to themselves on purpose? That would seem to be Davis' argument.