Forgive them, for they Knoweth Exactly what they Doeth - The Immoral & Uneconomic cause of the US Affordability Crisis

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Donald Trump and the republican party's Climate Change Cop Out since his return to office last year, is a repeat of the selfish and corrupt actions inflicted on America by the US oil industry in the 1950s, when it failed to alert, prepare and lead America into action to mitigate the real and catastrophic risk of Peak oil production actually occurring by 1970 in America with oil production then going into permanent decline over the next 40 years, forming the fundamental and structural economic and social decline in America, beginning in 1970. The beginning of the structural affordability crisis in American modern day history.

In the 1950s the US and global economy was almost totally dependent on oil to run and operate everything . This was especially true in the USA, the largest, the fastest growing, the wealthiest and most successful economy on the planet. In the early 1950s, the best and most credible scientist and economist in the world, warned the US energy industry and policy makers in the US that oil production would peak in America by 1970 and go into permanent decline for the next 40 year if America, did not do something between then, 1950 and 1970 to prepare and protect America from this catastrophic and permanently crippling of the US economy and American society. Oil production peaking in America would be a sustainable existential and catastrophic event - tragically disrupting economic and social life for everyday Americans for many years and decades into the future, with no easy fixes, if this was allowed to occur. A structural affordability crisis would be created in America, with no easy way to solve it over the medium to longer term, if ever, depending on America's resolve to come together to address the issue.

So given this warning from the best minds in science and economics in America, what do you think the energy industry and supporting energy industry politicians in congress did in response to this catastrophic threat to America and American life? Pretty much the same thing we see today with the threats of Catastrophic Climate Change to the US economy and American society. The US energy industry practically ignored this threat and distracted attention away from the very real threat and reality that oil production in America could really peak by 1970. From a US Capitalist and Capitalism perspective, the energy industry did not see any economic reasons for creating new massive alternative supplies of energy, in preparation for the case that US oil production actually peaks in 1970 and goes into decline over the following 40 years. But why wouldn't the oil industry be motivated and patriotic about helping America to prepare to mitigate the catastrophic risk of Peak oil by 1970. What possible reason would it not want to keep oil flowing freely and abundantly at affordable prices for America, like it had been doing for the last 40 - 50 years?

Well, again, if oil companies knew that oil production in America would likely peak in 20 years and then go into decline for the next 40 years, wouldn't you think that US oil companies would be working to discover more oil and help to create alternative supplies of energy to patriotically help and to make sure that the greatest, most efficient and most productive economy on the planet earth would stay that way. That would seem logical right? That would seem like the right, moral and rational way the competitive economic players in the US economy would behave, if the Market Knows best, and we really do not need government intervention, the private sector would automatically and proactively start to take action, invest and prepare for the risk that US oil production would peak in 20 years, and by 1970, America would have ample resources to meet US energy demand if and when oil production peaks, America would have created alternatives to oil or additional supplies of oil, to allow the US economy to continue to operate as one of the lowest cost and most productive economies on the planet. Free market conservative economist and politicians would call this the magnificent invisible hand of the free market place. Right!!!!!

Well unfortunately for America the invisible free market hand of America did not show up, because the oil industry and oil sector was and is not a free market, competitive economic ecosystem. The oil industry back in 1950, knew better than any other industry in the world what the catastrophic implications for the US economy and the American people would be if oil production 20 years down the road, 1970, peaked and went in decline for four decades. An efficient, competitive economic participant in the US economy being incentivized by the magnificent invisible free market hand of the economy which automatically incentivizes efficient market players to do what is best economically for the economy and society as a whole, would have incentivized the oil industry, business, government and banking system to create sufficient additional supplies of oil or other alternatives to oil in sufficient quantities in the event that the real risk of oil production peaking by 1970, would be mitigated, allowing the US to maintain a low cost, super productive and super competitive economy both domestically and in international competition, allowing the US economy to continue to grow economically adding net value to the US economy broadly without incurring massive and sustainable government and trade deficits. On the other hand, a crony capitalistic industry would see this potential catastrophic peak oil production market failure in the US economy as a super duper on steroids opportunity for a once in a century opportunity to lock in a totally captive customer, who have the greatest wealth on the planet. If oil production actually peaked in 1970 and went into decline for 40 years, the oil industry could use this structural long term shortage to become the wealthiest industry in America and potentially the world, in the 40 years, following 1970. Unfortunately if this happened, this would be at the catastrophic expense to the cost of living in America and the cost of doing business in America, structurally destroying the economic comparative advantages of America's best in the world economy and the beginning of the structural economic and social decline in America. The oil industry and its stakeholders would be in economic heaven, but feeding off the catastrophic pain and suffering of the bottom 80% to 90% in America.

Which choice do you believe the oil industry took? Of course, the oil industry was as old, as familiar and as beloved and useful in the US economy as good ole American Apple Pie. Of course the oil industry took the rational patriotic competitive economic option which minimizes chaos, increases certainty, and keeps prices low for consumers and small businesses, allowing the US economy to work best for all Americans just as it is described in the constitution of the United States of America, and in free market capitalistic text books right? No need for American consumers, families, small businesses to get all concerned, protesting or putting pressure on politicians or industry, just keep your heads down, keep your nose to the grind, stay asleep, no need for wokeness, no need for challenging how the free market works, it will just all work itself out automatically if government and democracy just stays out the freaking way, RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wrong!!! SUPER DUPER WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The US oil industry as demonstrated by their behavior, between 1950 - 1970, are not moral and just capitalist, but are Crony capitalist. Crony capitalist are immoral and uneconomic exploiters who do not look to help create and sustain America's highest goal - creating and maintaining A more perfect union for All Americans - Crony capitalist look to maximize profits for their stakeholders, by any means possible, at the expense or destruction of anyone who gets in their way. The oil industry's intentional lack of leadership in helping America to research, plan and prepare to invest over 20 years, to mitigate the real threat that oil production in America could realistically peak and go into permanent decline over the next 40 years, was a catastrophic failure and economic moral hazard, that has massively crippled and increasingly reduced the productivity and effectiveness of the US economy by many orders of magnitude over the last 50 years, while at the same time making the oil industry wealthy beyond all conceivable possibilities.

So what happened? In 1970 oil production in America did actually peak and went into permanent decline for the next 40 years.

From 1970 to 1983, the price of oil increased 2,000%. The price of oil did not increase by 10%, not by 50%, not by 100%, not by 300%, but the price of oil increased by 2,000% between 1970 to 1983.

To demonstrate how catastrophic this was, imagine the current price of gasoline, increasing by 2000%? That would take current $4 per gal gasoline price to $84 per gal and for a 15 gallon Gasoline tank, the cost to fill up your tank for one week would be $1,300. Over a month, assuming you fill up your tank 4 times per month, your monthly automobile fuel cost would be $5,000 and $60,000 per year for one car. If you are like most families, you have two cars, so your monthly fuel cost would be $10,000, equivalent to making five home mortgage payments each month. Now that just for the cost of gasoline in your car, imagine how much your cost of living will skyrocket for other areas of your life, with oil prices at those levels.

This gives you a taste of what is was like for American consumers and businesses in the 1970s and early 1980s when the price of oil actually climbed by 2,000% between 1970 and 1983, causing the Great Inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s, which literally, structurally and fundamentally broke the economic backbone of the US economy over that 13 year period, turning the US economy into an uncompetitive, high cost, unaffordable broken economy, economically by 1983.

The big story or lesson that should have been learned from this experience is that the Great Inflation was 100% preventable, if Americans would just have been who we say that we are as described in the constitution. But our lust and desire for power and control over other Americans at their expense and even destruction is why we had the Great Inflation which is the fundamental and structural source of America's Affordability, Debt, Inequality and Polarization crisis that America is still catastrophically weighed down by to this very day as we will demonstrate shortly.

Now Back to Connecting the Dots from history:

Now, by the early 1980s, America had come to another strategic cross road after surviving the Great Inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. The US economy was structurally broken economically, super high cost of living, super high cost of doing business, uncompetitive to many international trading partners in many sectors and industries in the US economy. How could America grow its uneconomic and uncompetitive US economy on a going forward basis, without leaning on an expensive all of government and all of business approach. For the structural and economy wide problems that beset the US from the 13 year ravages of the great inflation, there are no shortcuts if you really wanted to fix the US economy, structurally and prepare it to once again to be able to operate economically and affordably for US consumers and small businesses?

To address this issue, in the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan and the Reagan revolution stepped to the table with a different approach.

What the Reagan revolution did in the early 1980s was to fix the symptoms in the US economy with the appearance of solving the structural problems in the US economy. But at the end of the day, since the Reagan revolutions solutions were really not solving the real problem in the US economy but was really only solving the symptoms in the US economy, 25 years later, the Global Credit Crisis and Great Recession exploded onto the marketplace, revealing the Ponzi Scheme Corruptness of the Reagan Revolution, 25 years of solving the economic symptoms, directly and causally, actually created the Global Credit Crisis and Great recession of 2007 - 2009, because solving the symptoms in the US economy and leaving the real problems or Economic Cancer in the US economy, Untreated, gave explosive birth to the global credit crisis and great recession of 2007 - 2009.

By year 25, America's best in the world, capitalistic free market, competitive economic economy, was naked with no clothes at the onset of the global credit crisis in 2007 - demonstrating that you cannot solve a structural problem burned onto the breastplate of the US economy over 13 long years, 1970 - 1983, by easily and quickly solving an economy's symptoms that does nothing to kill a metastasizing economic cancer, continuing to suck the economic life blood out of the real and fundamental US economy, whose structural economic problems have not been addressed.

Again, to recap, following the great inflation of the 1970, the US economy had a broken and excessively high cost of living and high cost of doing business problem. The structural solution for solving this type of economy wide problem is to harness the full diversity and portfolio of skills, abilities, perspectives, etc…of the American people to solve this problem, again this process is called democracy - creatively, collaboratively, diversely and synergistically - creating 1 + 1 = 5 productivity effects that are beyond mankind's wildest expectations, when we make time to invest in the value of our diversity to create miraculous results, unachievable by any other method known on the planet. (see Link to my structural & Fundamental solution at the end of this blog)

The Reagan revolution was a clear example of how republicans rigged the US economy to make it look like their crony capitalistic system had solved America's economic problem when in fact it was hiding the economic cancer that was continuing to metastasize across the economy, with still very visible signs that America's Economic problem had not been solved. As the old saying goes, if you keep telling a lie long enough, and no one challenges it, it becomes truth until the lie blows up in our faces and the truth can no longer be hid or misrepresented. The US Economy was the Emperor with no clothing, at the onset of the 2007 - 2009, Global Credit Crisis and Great Recession.

Reagan revolution economics was built on growing the US economy uneconomically, where wealth and income in total is the measurement that reflects healthy, secure, vibrant and successful growth in the US economy, even though that growth required catastrophically uneconomic borrowing and uneconomic wealth distribution in the US economy where now 85% of wealth in the US economy is owned by just 20% of the people in the US economy and 70% - 75% of consumption in the US economy is done by the wealthiest 20% in America.

Over the past 50 years the buying power of the bottom 80% is down 75%, while the buying power of the wealthiest 20% is up by 160%. Over the past 50 years, the wealth transfer between the bottom 80% and the top 20% has been about $100 - $120 Trillion. The Reagan Revolution uneconomic growing of the US economy, through financial engineering, transformed the US economy into a Ponzi Scheme financial system in the early to mid-1980s going forward.

Riddle me this!!! When did sustained and massively large increases in US Federal Government Deficits and US Current Account and Trade Deficits begin in the United State on a sustained and massively growing basis, year after year going forward and have not stopped from that point forward? 1983!!!

1983 was also the year where the Reagan Revolution financial engineering and uneconomic massive borrowing in the private and public sector, to make spending in the US economy affordable, not not not not economic, but just affordable in the short term but massively massively catastrophically much more expensive in the medium and longer term. The Reagan revolution effectively Transformed the US economy into a Ponzi Scheme Financial System, where the bottom 80% borrow massively to continue spending in the short term, but become more and more constrained in the medium and especially longer term, where the borrowing is to help pay for debts owed from many years in the past, plus paying for the inflated cost of living and doing business that is massively artificially elevated by the massively liquidity in the market made available to consumers to pay for their indebtedness and the high cost in the economy artificially inflated because of massive borrowing liquidity.

On the other end of the economy the wealthiest 20%, borrow massively to buy and bid up their asset values, creating wealth growth for themselves at exponential levels, with other people's money. This explosion in asset values of the wealthy, by their own bidding up of these asset values with other people's money, made the prices of goods and services that the bottom 80% need to purchase, much more excessively unaffordable, creating the viciously observed phenomena, from 1983 to 2008, where the rich got super crazy richer at the expense of the bottom 80% getting catastrophically poorer over that 25 year period.

This is the Ponzi Scheme Financial System that Reagan brought to the US economy and is really just a sophisticated Ponzi Scheme for swiftly but uneconomically growing the US economy on the backs of the masses until the wealthy have to start eating the wealthy to keep the system alive. How do we know this is true? We saw the first phase of the implosion of the US Ponzi Scheme financial system in 2007 - 2009, the Global Credit Crisis and Great Recession.

To prevent the world from entering into another Global Depression like back in the 1930s, the federal reserve, doubled down and expanded its balance sheet by $9T to refinance all or most of the clogged up and bad dept developed over the previous 25 years from the Reagan Revolutions' Financialization of the US economy - Catastrophically Un-economic growing of the US economy with massive debt levels, diversified and dispersed all around the globe to make it look like the US economy was strong, financially and economically fit, creating exceptional economic value for American citizens and the world, but it was a farce, really only creating exceptional real economic value added for the wealthiest 20% in the US economy at the expense of everyone else.

Today the US economy is riding on borrowed time. The money borrowed from the Fed to save the financial system from the Global Credit Crisis and Great recession is still being used to keep the US and Global Financial System afloat. President Obama provided great Moral and Economic leadership and stability required to pull the US economy back from falling over the cliff. By the end of President Obama's term, he and his administration had positioned America to lead and dominate in the areas of clean energy, electric vehicles, oil and natural gas energy production, Climate Change Compliance, peace in the Middle East with a two year brokered Global Nuclear Weapons Deal with Iran, the successful global coordination and elimination of a global Ebola Pandemic, which if not contained would have made the Covid-19 global pandemic look like Sunday stroll through the park. Finally president Obama and our Allies from around the world were positioned to unite in an international global trading framework which would have permanently contained, Russia, China & Iran within economic and military boundaries, incentivizing peace and stability for all participants in the global economy.

If president Trump and the Republican Party were interested in governing for and protecting the Economic and Military security of America and its Allies, they would have learned from and taken the wins and achievements won from President Obama's Master Class in US and global leadership. If president Trump and his administration would have graciously accepted and used the fruits of President Obama's presidency:

The Middle East would be peaceful and stabilized

America, not China would be the global leader in the manufacturing and sales of clean energy equipment, electric vehicles and electrification of US Transportation Market, leading exporter of Clean Energy Technology & Electric Vehicles, Low/no Carbon Fuels, etc...

Covid-19 Pandemic would have been contained in China, no global pandemic, because of applied lessons learned from president Obama's global containment of much more deadly, much more contagious Ebola Virus. No large and sustained rise in inflation 2021 - 2026, because Covid-19 would have been contained just like Ebola Virus outbreak was contained.

20% - 30% of US oil demand would have been structural eliminated by clean energy technology, structurally allowing for a sustainable $35/bl crude oil price today, and $20/bl oil by 2035 - 2040

Abundant, fair, free and friendly trade with all the countries of the world based on mutual understandings and economic benefits, worked on together and agreed upon over a five to ten year period, making the time to do it right so that everyone benefits to the greatest extent possible. US and Global economic growth higher by 2 to 4 percentage points.

$12 Trillion in Tax cuts for the wealthy would have been diverted to debt reduction programs, etc.... US Public Debt would be closer to $20 - $25 Trillion today instead of the $40 Trillion we are actually experiencing today.

etc...

Unfortunately the absolute corrupt, prejudice and revengeful nature of President Trump and his administration, completely ignored and proactively destroyed as many of the hard fought wins, policies, regulations and organizational and institutional knowledge and experience were thrown out the door with no discretion, attempting to blatantly show and signal that President Obama and his administration were inferior, useless and did not warrant Trump administration consideration. Some of the consequences of the Trump administrations fighting tooth and nail to destroy any and all assets and benefits achieved from the Obama administration for the American people are pure corruption and naked bigotry as follows:

Covid-19 is not contained in the region of China where the virus emerges because:

US corruptly destroys diplomatic relations with China because of bitter trade war that Trump starts with China. Eliminates cross functional international studies and coordinations which mutually served US and China interests, and absolutely destroyed any ability for America to work with China on the front end, during and after the Covid-19 Pandemic

Trump administration corruptly dismantles emergency pandemic response team that had resided in the executive branch, used to coordinate global events necessary to contain global pandemics before they get started

Trump and his administration corruptly ignored the science and called Covid-19 a mild condition, no worse than the flew, no need to worry, prepare or plan because the virus would simply evaporate in thin air when the warmth of summer temperature arrived. This lack of preparation during the incubation stages of Covid-19 in America from Nov-2019 to Mar-2020, allowed the virus to fully infect America, unnecessarily killing more Americans in 2 years, than all the soldiers killed in all American wars from the Civil war to this day. Unmitigated Corruption, Waste, Fraud and Abuse to Infitity - 1.2 million Americans, unecessarily killed in just 2 years, and all of this was 100% preventable and directly caused by President Trump and the Republican Party

100% preventable shut down of entire US economy, then massive, $5T financing required to prevent shut down from becoming a major recession or depression, absolutely caused the massive inflation push in US economy from 2021 to this very day, because of the corrupt and abusive leadership decisions of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Like president Trump always says, only he knows best, that is why he guts the government of all expertise and demands 100% loyalty of all government workers to him and not the constitution....this is 100% abuse of power, waste, fraud and abuse, which is 100% attributable to President Trump and the republican party with this corruption 100% attributable to decisions and actions made by Donald Trump and the Republican Party

Donald Trump and the Republican Party's destruction of a perfectly work JCPOA Nuclear Weapons deal with Iran, for Corrupt Spite, Vengeance and Bigotry purposes, reignited tension, violence and chaos, in the Middle East, with stringent sanctions put on the Iranian People, trying to bully and starve them into corrupt submission by the Trump Administration and the Republican party, when Iran was 110% in compliance with an agreement that was perfectly brokered with the international community over two year in the making. This is corruption and arrogance at the highest level by Donald Trump and the Republican Party. After creating this mess, they double down on their corruption by creating more chaos through more corrupt actions which results in a war and the closure of the strait of Hormuz, which worsens the already catastrophic affordability crisis that America and the world were already suffering with

I could go on and on, but the biggest Con Game and corruption plan of all, is Donald Trump and the republican party's plan and current strategy that is being implemented in real time, is the deliberate and intentional $5T in Tax cuts for the wealthy and $4T in import Tariff to pay for AI data center build out on the backs of American consumers. The war against Climate Change Compliance and Renewable Energy as a payback to the Oil and Gas industry, for their Billion Dollar campaign support to Donald Trump and the republican party, and to remove electric vehicles from competing with AI Data Centers for electric power supply. But the most egregious and I would say treasonous corruption is President Trump and the Republican Party's very obvious plan to secretly and quietly make a lot of noise about the dangers of AI as it relates to Bio weapons, Cyber Security, etc... and are making provisions to regulate those threats, but President Trump and the Republican party are preventing any discussion, analysis, plans or policy for protecting the American people for the most high probability and most likely catastrophic result from AI, which is the high likelihood that AI will intentionally and deliberately drive and cause massive never ever before seen permanent unemployment levels approaching 50% - 60% in America. During the peaks of the Great depression of the 1930s unemployment rate peaked at about 25% and that was temporary, the bug, not the feature. The 50% - 60% Unemployment rate designed and caused by AI is the Feature, the goal the mission and here is the reason why. The reason why the president, the Republican Party and Wall Street are not talking about this in a serious way is because they know that this is the most likely outcome, and they do not want the American people to overtly see their Corruption and absolute lack of care and concern for the American people. President Trump and the Republican party are actually betting on AI to cause 50% - 60% unemployment, because this is the quickest and easiest way for investors to achieve their 10x returns on an investment of $10T in AI infrastructure over the next 5 to 10 years. But they are hoping to achieve these unemployment levels over the next 3 to six years, and the fastest, easiest and most sustainable way to do that is through permanent labor force reduction, resulting in unimaginable extreme wealth for the wealthiest 1% to 5% of Americans, with pain and suffering for the rest of America at levels never before experienced in American history, except for African Americans. This strategy in effect, reinstituties slavery level living conditions and opportunities for the bottom 90% - 95% of Americans on a going forward basis in the next 3 - 6 years, if President Trump and the Republican party are successful.

If you will notice, everything that President Trump and the republican party do, they do it with absolutely no love, concern or compassion for others, who are not in their orbit or sphere of control. Meanness, Cruelty and Arrogance is the point. They want us to get use to this behavior as being the norm and being actually ethical, moral and considered right. Yes if you look at President Trump and the Republican party, it is getting much easier to say that they actually really do believe that everything that is moral, ethical, right and good, is actually wrong, bad and immoral, because they are corrupt and in order to win when you are corrupt, right must become wrong and wrong must become right. This is not Trump derangement syndrome, this is the reality that we are seeing unfold right before our eyes everyday and has been unfolding before the American public since the early 1970s.

All is not lost. President Trump and the republican party are our fellow Americans. There is still ample time for reconciliation and the creation and maintenance of a more perfect union for all Americans, with our best days ahead of us for current and future generations of Americans. But this requires that we as Americans have enough love and care for each other that we are willfully willing to use our freedoms to be who we are to ourselves and who we are to others in America and around the world. We just need to fall in love with being who we are, Americans as defined in the constitution of the United State of America. It's that simple. My vision, goals and strategy for accomplishing this reconciliation are laid out here for reading or listening to: Link

Reconciling with Republicans is not optional, it is imperative!!! America's secret sauce is proactive commitment to the limitless benefits of synergy creation and growth created from the loving and dedicated commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in achieving maximum economic and social beneficial outcomes from the democratic process. We are orders of magnitude better together, when we love each other enough, to hold ourselves accountable and each other accountable, out of love, so that we can see how valuable and beneficial we are to each other, together as a synergistic united whole, rather than as waring disconnected entities, trying to exploit and tear each other apart and into chaotic and useless nothingness.

Father Forgive them, for they Knoweth Exactly what they Doeth - The Historic Immoral & Uneconomic cause of the US Affordability Crisis

MEETING FORMAT

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See you Soon!!!! Carlton Buford On the day of the event, you will be called about 5 minutes before your discussion with Carlton starts.

Thank you for making the time to register for this event and share your feedback, questions and stories with us and our YouTube Audience. So looking forward to meeting you, learning from you and creating extraordinary value and direction for our audiences from our engaging discussions.

See you Soon!!!! Carlton Buford