An Old Russian Joke In The White House

A peasant is out plowing his field, and finds a bottle containing a genie who promises to grant one wish of whatever he wants. But there is a caveat – his neighbor will get twice as much as he does.

The farmer hems and haws – ” I could ask for a million Rubles, but then my neighbor would get two million”  “I could ask for a beautiful wife, but then my neighbor would get two beautiful wives

Finally he tells the genie – “I want you to take my eye out

Fast forward to 2014

Obama says Keystone pipeline mostly helps Canadian oil companies, not Americans

Obama says Keystone pipeline mostly helps Canadian oil companies, not Americans | Fox News

So Obama would rather buy oil from the Middle East, than give Canada more benefit than the US receives.

In Obama’s world, Cuba is good and Canada is evil.

About Tony Heller

Just having fun
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

55 Responses to An Old Russian Joke In The White House

  1. inMAGICn says:

    Canada has oil, Cuba does not.
    Obama hates oil and the prosperity cheap energy brings.
    Hence, Cuba si, Canada no.

  2. policycritic says:

    The majority of companies operating in the Oil Sands are American.

  3. Alan Poirier says:

    There are days I wonder why we are allies with the US. If it weren’t for nice average Americans, I don’t think we’d bother.

  4. markstoval says:

    It just goes to show that most of the US leadership (yes, in both parties) are crony-capitalists if not outright corporatists (the term Benito Mussolini favored over “fascist”).

    In a voluntary exchange, both parties feel that they have come out ahead in the deal. I feel ahead when I buy fruits and vegetables at my local produce shop and the owner there feels like he has “won”. We are both better off for having done business with each other — else we would not have this 20 year voluntary relationship of me buying his products and he taking my ever more worthless US currency.

    The politicians are once again corrupting and interfering with the market. God, I hate hearing some uneducated boob mouth off about the “American free market” when there has been no laissez faire free market in the US for at least 200 years. (if there ever was a totally free market at all). We practice fascism/corporatism in the US and have for a long, long time.

    • Great post. I only buy fruits from local farmers, it’s great. I get cherries for 2 weeks in July, apples in September and pumpkins in October. I can never get any oranges or pineapples, and there is nothing all winter and spring. I would have to become a fascist/corporatist if I wanted fruit in the winter.

      Please exchange your ganglion for a brain when you get a chance.

      • Gail Combs says:

        Gee, Morgan

        I buy direct from the farmer as often as possible. Michael (my favorite organic farmer) has product swap deals with other farmers up and down the east coast of the USA. So no I don’t ‘buy local’ but I do buy from a ‘bunch of farmers’ once removed and I can learn their names if I wish. The guy who grows mushrooms is in Virgina for example.

        Why do I do this? Because I rather support the local small business entrepreneur than the big multinational corporation that wants ‘Harmonized Laws’ no competition from the ‘great unwashed’ and Global Govenance.

    • Jason Calley says:

      Hey markstoval! “God, I hate hearing some uneducated boob mouth off about the “American free market” when there has been no laissez faire free market in the US for at least 200 years. (if there ever was a totally free market at all). We practice fascism/corporatism in the US and have for a long, long time.”

      Very true. As you say, we may have never had a 100% free market, but what we have today is so far from free that my mind boggles when I hear the US described as “free market capitalism.” We are, indeed, a fascist country — at least using the old definition of the name.

      Various people (von Mises most famously) have pointed out that non-free economies eventually strangle on their own inefficiencies. I suspect that we as a nation are approaching the same state that the old USSR was in during the mid to late 1980s.

      Time to put the tray tables in the upright locked position. It is getting bumpy.

    • … hearing some uneducated boob mouth off about the “American free market”

      The local Progressives voluntarily self-identify by marking their cars with “Laissez Fail” stickers. I don’t know why they do it but it is useful and I never knew why morons do things anyway.

      • Gail Combs says:

        I guess the Progressives missed this picture of the number of regulations written in 2013 by unelected BureauRats. (The small stack on top is the laws passed.)
        Oh, and ask them if they have read and under stand every single one of those regs. because ignorance of the law is not an excuse….

        http://i.imgur.com/48tp5Jg.jpg

        laissez faire, my arse! Strangled in red tape is more like it.

    • inMAGICn says:

      Mark,

      Like so many, you do not understand Mussolini’s concept of who the corporate bodies are.

      • Gail Combs says:

        Dragging out a rather foggy memory, the corporate bodies of Mussolini were not what we think of as industrial corporations but instead were groups of people like guilds or labor unions.

        The correct term is perhaps Corporatocracy or “Third Way”

        • cdquarles says:

          Granted, but any such organization is a ‘corporation’ as is any artificial person created by some kind of an association, whether codified by statute or not or even voluntary or not. IOW the artificial person is ‘given a body’, so to speak.

  5. garymount says:

    “Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. is poised to meet a goal to boost crude shipments by at least 67 per cent next year …”
    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/keystone-xl.html

  6. Baa Humbug says:

    Not surprised are we?
    This POTUS has pissed off every ally and kowtowed to every enemy as well as dividing his own country along racial lines.
    Admit it you yanks, at the moment you’re fu€#€d.

  7. Pajama boy thinks differently than the rest of us.

  8. Ukrainian version, my friends here in Dnipro tell me: A Ukrainian finds a lamp, rubs it and a genie comes out, offering him one wish. He wishes his neighbour’s house to burn down.

  9. Coldlynx says:

    The world will be flooded by inexpensive oil and natural gas products for long time from now due to fracking and new technologies.
    US will soon export oil and gas in large quantities. Why then build a pipeline from Canada to US
    with the purpose to import expensive oil?
    http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Natural-gas-to-1-gasoline-5701521.php

    • Based on a six week dip in prices, you know what oil prices will be in ten years?

      • Coldlynx says:

        No, I use information. As this:
        “After becoming the world’s largest producer of natural gas in 2010, the United States also became the world’s largest producer of petroleum last month. With U.S. production and exports driving crude oil prices down and forcing other producers to crank up production to maintain cash flow”
        http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/11/07/u-s-oil-exports-hit-57-year-high/
        New technology will press prices down even further. Especially with smaller players on the market:
        “With gas at $4 per mmBtu Lipski notes that you can produce a barrel of finished diesel product for $66.”
        http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2013/01/17/gas-to-liquids-plants-no-longer-exclusive-to-larger-players/

        The future seems to be flooded with inexpensive energy. That is very good news.
        Why invest in expensive Canadian oil import now? Why waste money?

        • Rick says:

          Coldlynx The oil is coming anyway but by rail and will utilize excess American refinery capacity and provide American jobs.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Rick,
          Warren Buffett, Obummers good buddy, bought up a lot of rail lines so a pipeline is not wanted. It would mess-up Buffett’s net profits.

          If you follow the money the logic is clear.

        • John M says:

          Coldlynx, there are so many things wrong with your facts and understanding of this issue; I’ll just start with, to me, the most obvious.

          Who exactly is “investing money” in and possibly “wasting money” on the pipeline, if (when) it’s built?

        • R. Shearer says:

          The Forbes article downplays the reality that successful companies in the GTL space, such as Sasol and Shell have to invest multi-billions to make plants of the size that are economical. Companies like Velocys not only have to overcome significant technical challenges, such as dealing with the expense of eliminating catalyst poisons at small scale, they must overcome logistical challenges.

          Certainly, Keystone economics will be revisited but to Tony’s point, a short term change in trend does not guarantee a long term change in trend and that has been shown throughout history in commodity cycles.

  10. Coldlynx says:

    Excess refinery capacity? Where?
    http://bismarcktribune.com/bakken/breakout/domestic-oil-production-approaching-refinery-capacity/article_138e6dba-1342-11e4-bfe9-001a4bcf887a.html

    “With the U.S. on the verge of becoming the largest oil-producing country in the world as early as 2014 and lack of refining capacity for light sweet crude, exchanges involving domestically produced high quality shale oil with foreign supplies of heavy crude better suited for the current profile of most American refineries could conceivably occur.”

    Better to invest in refining capacity for light sweet crude, than a pipeline for heavy crude. That will create more Amercan jobs.

    • R. Shearer says:

      The U.S. is in a good position with cheap energy. I’d be inclined to agree with you on investing in refining capacity vs. a pipeline for syncrude in a falling crude price environment, but I’d rather the politicians let the business people decide.

  11. morri says:

    American’s buy the oil at a discount. send it to texas, refine it and sell it at world prices. oobama does not know his a ss from a hole in the ground.

  12. Bob Greene says:

    Keystone XL will transport oil from Canada and the US Bakken region.

  13. The US imports about 75% of its oil from non-OPEC sources and Middle Eastern oil is mostly from our buddies in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The source of oil has never been the real issue, it’s the world price of oil and by extension gasoline $/gal that is the real issue and that the US no longer has much influence on that. Also the US produces pretty much zero electricity from oil so electric alternatives, wind, photovoltaic, nuclear, appliance efficiency, CFLs, etc. make no difference in oil consumption, imports, or “dependence.” It’s all about transportation.

  14. Corrections: latest EIA, percentages 1/2013 through 9/2014, 47.1% imported.
    OPEC 37.20
    Non-OPEC 62.80
    Persian Gulf 21.00
    Canada 33.50
    Saudi Arabia 13.50
    Mexico 9.20
    Venezuela 8.40
    Russia 4.30
    Sub Total 68.90
    Balance assorted sources each less than 5%

  15. northernont says:

    These Nostradamus types predicting long term depressed oil prices use the same logic as Climate alarmists. They think the world operates in a static environment and never changes or adapts. Temporary cheaper oil means more of the world’s poorer will now be able to afford more of it, driving more wealth generation, thus over a short period of time will cause the price to rise as demand rises. Even my friends are taking advantage of the low prices, and doing more travel to visit friends and family.

  16. Coldlynx says:

    Here are some more facts:
    “Forecast U.S. crude oil production increases from an average of 7.4 million bbl/d in 2013 to 8.6 million bbl/d in 2014 and 9.3 million bbl/d in 2015. Recent onshore Lower 48 states oil production has been higher than expected, causing an upward revision of 155,000 bbl/d from the previous forecast in the fourth quarter of 2014”
    http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/us_oil.cfm
    From 7.4 to 9.3 in just two years.
    I think it is great. This is very good news. Maybe not for OPEC. But that is good news for me.

  17. Like OPEC cares. It’s a world market and the US is no longer the biggest dog on the block.

    • rah says:

      Oh OPEC cares for sure. In the short term the Sheiks won’t be able to so easily afford solid gold hand rails in their palaces. In the long term if the oil money dries up so will their power. The cradle to grave welfare states some have established will collapse because they haven’t bothered to use some of the oil money they’ve been rolling in to diversify their economies and to train their own people to be an industrial/commercial work force. Already Algeria is feeling the pinch. http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/algeria/articles/20141220.aspx and you can be sure others will too. Fact is that that the Shale oil boom could very well change the status quo in many of the OPEC nations and we may not like the ultimate result.

  18. Sparks says:

    Nice story, who cares tho?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *