A VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
By Rich Trzupek
Brazil
Brazil recently launched a giant oil rig that, according to the Brazilian government, will make that nation self-sufficient in petroleum terms in the next few years. In fact, Brazil will soon become a net exporter of oil.
Bully for them.
By tapping into their offshore reserves, Brazil will be able to cushion its citizens from the kind of wild energy price swings that force Americans to pawn grandma�s wedding rings each summer in order to fill up with a tank of gas. Even better, once production really gears up, they�ll realize a nice profit whenever the market goes nuts.
It�s the kind of thing you can do if you�re Brazil. Greenpeace isn�t going to waste much time trying to harass your drillers. Nobody is going to film it and, even if someone did, the Brazilians aren�t going to give a damn anyway. Why should environmental groups bother, when they can raise the disaster flag in countries with much tighter regulations, where publicity is so much easier to come by?
Brazil, finally, is making its way in the world. The government is relatively stable, the industrial sector�including what has become one of the world�s leading aircraft manufacturers�is chugging happily along. All of this on top of having Brazilian beaches where Brazilian women prance about topless, proudly displaying their Brazilian assets. It�s a good time to be a Brazilian.
Like many of the world�s up and coming nations, Brazil owes no small debt to the United States for its success. Without our cash, and our patience when the country�s economy was in a shambles, Brazil would have never made it this far.
Like Poland, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine and India, just to name a few countries, Brazil is young in political terms, hungry and relatively unfettered by the silly self-imposed constraints that the U.S. and much of the west have adopted.
Surely France is the ultimate poster-child for the fat, stupid and dysfunctional west. A nation that has 25 percent unemployment should be doing everything in its power to encourage employers. Yet, even the most modest of reforms sends the French into a self-destructive spin.
Under French law, once your hired, you can�t be fired, unless you try to blow up the Eiffel Tower or something. Not surprisingly, this makes French employers very cautious when hiring. Cautious to the point of not hiring in fact. If you might be stuck with dead weight, sucking money away to no purpose, the prudent thing to do is to stay as you are, don�t grow and avoid awarding disaster.
Even a moron like French President Jaques Chirac can recognize this state of sad affairs is entirely counter-productive. So Chirac proposed a modest reform: young new employees (under the age of 25) could be fired within the first two years�two years!�of their employment. French youth would have none of it.
They rioted, disgusted by the prospect of actually having to prove their worth in order to make a living. This isn�t much of an issue in Brazil.
Closer to home, the Bush Administration struggled mightily to pump oil out of the vast reserves in Alaska�s north slope, under the Alaskan Natural Wildlife Reserve (ANWR, for short). It ain�t happening.
The mainstream media, environmental groups and Democrats maintain that drilling under ANWR would be an environmental disaster, and do little good in any case. Oddly, the mainstream media, environmental groups and Democrats don�t seem much concerned when Brazil drops the world�s largest oil rig off of what could be called a �fragile offshore environment��if it were located in U.S. waters.
The fact is that ANWR is a mosquito-infested wasteland and that modern drilling techniques are about as unobtrusive as one can possibly imagine. No matter. When it comes to the western world, every risk�no matter how slight�is magnified by a factor of a million, and every desert becomes a garden. It�s stupid, it�s destructive and it shamelessly exploits the empathetic and cautious nature of our country, but it�s what we�re stuck with.
In the rapidly developing rest of the world, the people in the know are laughing their heads off. They don�t have to worry about competition, when the west is so obviously committed to self-destruction.
What makes it so painful is that the process is so damn slow. If we were falling off a cliff, it would be easy to recognize the fact and to pop the parachute of reason and prudence.
That�s not the case. We�re gradually, willingly, strolling down a long slope that leads to irrelevance, whistling a happy tune all of the way. We have no idea how far we�ve fallen and we won�t, not until we actually reach the bottom. And then? It will be too late.
In the meantime, Brazil will be selling oil, even as we continue to argue about the promise of ultra-efficient safer alternatives that don�t actually exist.
Brazilians will be entertained. And, as we fly on an Enbraer jet-liner, preparing to drive home from the airport with a tankful of $7 per gallon gasoline, maybe we�ll laugh too.
It�s either that, or beat ourselves in the head with a tack-hammer.