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Money is an imaginary resource, of potentially infinite supply, which can continue to exist after it has been “used,” a potentially infinite number of times.

Petroleum is a physical substance, of fixed supply, which is effectively destroyed through use, at least when used as a fuel.

Republicans firmly deny that we can spend our way to prosperity through government stimulus measures, yet are equally convinced that we can drill our way to greater energy abundance.

Truly a stupefying paradox.

This is mostly just an attempt to review a few things, and examine whether any sense can be made of them, for my own benefit. Though of course, as always, anyone who wishes is welcome to play along at home.

Now then. Here we are with just (thankfully) a couple of weeks left until the 2010 general election.

We’re less than two years removed from an eight year debacle of a Republican presidential administration, which has left us a legacy including:

• growing budget imbalances (after inheriting surpluses from the previous administration)
• military adventures which turned into continuing, and ruinously-expensive, foreign occupations that have made our own country no safer and have probably, on balance, brought only negligible benefit at best to the residents of the occupied countries.
• an enormous financial crisis which led to a deep recession, now technically over but leaving unemployment stuck at the double-digit threshold.

Additionally, America’s vaunted market capitalism private sector has proved itself, essentially, completely bankrupt. Morally, intellectually, and financially. The financial sector imploded through its own reckless greed and the auto manufacturers imploded through their own stupidity (to simplify matters greatly), both requiring government intervention to bail them out. The oil industry presided over a disastrous and humiliating flood of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. And private industry, in general, seems capable only of enriching the ownership class and associated elites whilst, as a job-creation machine, it appears to be entirely unfit for purpose.

The Republican opposition has had nothing to offer in response to any of this, other than meaningless bluster and a constant refrain of “no no no no no” to absolutely any action that the current government takes or even proposes.

So, naturally, reactionary sentiment is apparently “surging” and expected to hand the Republican party increased power at all levels of government along with, perhaps, control of congress.

What am I missing, here?

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This began as a comment on a post by a friend of mine, but at some point I realized that it was really turning into a post of its own. Readers may nonetheless wish to begin with the thoughts of Mr. Sean Kleefeld, here, in which he writes on the idea of innovation, and remarks that: “if the landscape changes around me, that’s no one’s fault but my own if I can’t find a place in it.”

Which, to me, seems an awfully harsh standard, excluding even a shred of sympathy. Also kind of an odd standard, given that his post mentions, multiple times, the concept of people needing to be taught how to learn; I’m not sure how that squares with the idea of absolute and total individual responsibility.

In any event, as I have suggested at other times, I have doubts that the notion is even practical, never mind desirable. (Darwinian selection is something of a dangerous concept when applied to human society; it’s a short step from explaining brutal conditions to justifying them.)

And, whether or not we as a society need or want genuinely constant innovation (and setting aside questions of what really amounts to true “innovation” and how much value it has), I don’t believe our society is remotely prepared for it. (more…)