The expert from Seeds of Destruction explains how America can never truly reach its full economic growth rate until we cut down on foreign oil dependence. Our nation only constitutes 4.5 percent of the world's population, however we manage to consume almost 25 percent of annual world oil production. Some reasons as to why we are so dependent include: Oil prices are not set by the forces of supply and demand, but rather by a cartel (OPEC); world oil demand is increasing due to the rapid growth in China and India; America's oil addiction results in a loss of purchasing power, reduction in output and places a downward pressuer on wages.
Ways in which we can buck the trend stem from bi-partisan policies - Democrates and Republicans take different paths but the best path would be to walk in the middle. In otherwords, Democrates believe in energy conservation and a greater reliance on solar and wind renewables. Whereas the Republicans believe in drilling for more oil and developing more domestic natural gas to close the gap of increased coal and nuclear power use.
I believe an action needs to be taken to close the gap, but we all know that the "smart path" (the path in which both parties implement their strategies) will be the path less traveled, or avoided altogether for that matter.
This is a very intriguing idea surfacing recently. Oil is a big issue, as it is one of the biggest resources used in America. Americans have seen the price of gas rise quite a bit over the last twenty years, and this is because we are price takers and not price makers. The United States needs to find a way to be less dependent on oil, as the more we dependent are the more prices will go up. Some suggest energy conservation and drilling domestically, but either way we need to figure the problem out.
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