I see we disagree on the premise, as your attempt to constrain the debate to how well Obama executed a "good" strategy. I don't think government "stimulus" does anything more than keep failed business models and sales projections afloat for the short term, at greater expense in the long term.

In that case, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

It also set this up to happen again, as management realize that the government will cover any downside to any risk they take. This is the essence of moral hazard. There is no systemic incentive to act responsibly.

I recognize, especially in the case of Wall St., that we had a system of profit privatization and loss sharing among taxpayers, and I agree that is a major problem. I'd solve it somewhat differently than you would, I suspect. I'd like to see wage equalization. But I think it is possible to craft regulations to put a stop to the worst of this sort of thing.

Additionally, I think the global economy is too complex for anyone to understand well enough to manipulate it with any realistic confidence of having the desired effect. Central economic planning failed for the Soviets and it will fail for us. And this is in an ideal world where the people at the wheel are altruistic, which is certainly not the case in any political body. In the real world where the people at the wheel are beholden to monied interests, the inability to know enough to act correctly is compounded by the desire to distort the market in favor of your source of reelection funds.

Hmmm.

I'm inclined to agree with about central planning.

However, we'd better hope that we can find an alternative to capitalism because it is driving us inexorably to catastrophe. Any system in which growth is an intrinsic goal will lead to the same disastrous destination. We are literally destroying the carrying capacity of the earth. I believe a population crash is already inevitable, and the longer and further we push economic growth, we only ensure the crash will be more horrific.

Iran will be increasingly exporting a higher percentage of its stagnant or falling oil production and faces an energy crisis.

This is wrong. Iranian exports will shrink in the coming years, and probably go to zero in a decade or less, although the part about an energy crisis is no doubt correct.

Google the Export Land Model - Iranian oil production will stagnate and fall, but their internal consumption will continue to rise, and so exports will fall sharply and then disappear.

Glenn mentioned this recently in one of the comment sections too.

Last point - this is not specifically an Iranian problem. This phenomenon is general. Britain and Indonesia were the most recent oil exporters to flip over to oil importers. Mexico will likely be next, but Iran's days as an exporter are definitely numbered.

Would in not be the path of least resistance change Iranian law with the stroke of a pen, teach the population that they need to pay for what they use like the rest of the world, an do more oil exploration like the rest of the world?

New oil exploration will not help. Iran's oil industry is mature, and new giant finds are extremely unlikely. Certainly there is more oil to find, but the odds of finding enough to offset declines in the existing and older giant fields is highly unlikely. Iran can not rely on oil and natural gas to supply its existing needs for more than another decade at most, let alone power any growth.

Just look at the US. Oil exploration has been more extensive in the US than in any other place on earth. We keep finding more oil, too. However, US oil extraction rates peaked in 1970-1971, around 10 million barrels per day (mbpd). The US now produces about 5 mbpd.

This is easily explained by the fact that the big fields tend to be the easiest to find, and are produced first. Later, as the big fields age and their production declines, the new finds are of smaller pockets of oil, and the new finds simply can't offset the large declines in the large existing production base.

All of this seems more economical to me as opposed to developing the nuclear option - especially if they have to export uranium.

Maybe right now that is the case, but it won't be for long. When the oil and gas run out, something needs to take their place. While I have my own issues with nuclear power, at least it is an alternative power source. The Iranians are just thinking ahead.

That is dependence on foreign energy which is exactly the pickle in which we find ourselves.

Yep. Unfortunately it looks like Iran is heading down that road too. In fact, the whole world is - global oil extraction rates are peaking as we speak. The world is going to have to learn to get along with less, and soon.

Excellent post.

The sheer brutality of the various Western actions and occupations in the Middle East, and the turmoil and the chaos that ensues, seem to be the innovation of these neo-Colonialists. By keeping the Natives in a state of holy terror all the time, they can't focus on their own interests (apart from bare survival), and so they can't organize sufficiently to thwart the will of their Imperial Masters.

I think this is exactly the the strategy. We can't allow those arabs to use their fossil fuel bounty for themselves. How best to do that? Well, we've got the biggest, baddest military in the world. So let's either bomb the hell out of anyone who displays some independence. And support dictators who rule through fear, and therefore need our military assistance, and will therefore strike a good deal with us on energy exports.