PUTIN NEEDS CASH: His ‘Cheap Oil’ Problem
Every once in a while you run across a story that really breaks your heart and another that makes you laugh, but rarely on the same day.
The sad story is first. You may have seen how the Rooskie economy is growing cold because the oil market is in slow mode. This is partly due to the reduction in crude prices by our Arab Buddies in the Middle East (you know…the guys we gave all those really cool modern fighter planes and parts to recently… No…don’t get confused. The Abrams Tanks…also very cool and also handed over with parts and plenty of ammo…No…that Big Weapons Freebie…was handed over to I.S.I.S.. I know it’s hard to follow this stuff because I.S.I.S. is now another Oil Producing nation on the World scene).
I’m speculating, but I guess that the Saudis (our fighter plane pals) have lowered the price they charge for crude so as to freeze out American producers by making it less lucrative to keep fracking and drilling in the areas in which Jimmy Carter’s (now Obama’s) EPA drones are preventing or hindering domestic oil production. Apparently, they aren’t that keen on competition. Particularly, competition from The Great Satan. Unfortunately, their attempt to hurt America by lowering prices momentarily, also hurts their “running dog” atheist/infidel friends in the Kremlin. (Russia is an oil exporting nation.) That’s why this is a “Kleenex Story.”
Apparently, the first place to feel the “squeeze” in Russia is the Military. As Americans, this fact should not be surprising since we have been told for decades that the military eats up a great big hunk of the economy.
This is a false impression created by the Media for years. Actually, the truth is that the military is an item of expenditure by THE GOVERNMENT. And it is only a small piece of the Government’s budget…whatever that is. And the military expenditures are kept artificially and unnecessarily high…remember those $400 toilet seats on bombers? Well, those fake costs were caused by government regulations regarding bomber toilet seats. It confused me, too. Do bomber pilots have problems with bowel movements at high altitudes or with their nerves because they are riding the ultimate Roman Candle (with nukes on board)? At any rate…military expenditures are very small compared to the ever expanding costs for government bureaucracies and entitlements like the programs that feed, clothe and house the Ferguson looters.
Anyway, the Russians might be feeling the pinch during their latest military adventure in Ukraine. You see…it takes money to keep an army on the march. Soldiers may be willing to go without pay for a time, but when (like in North Korea) they aren’t being fed…morale suffers. Badly! When the tanks run out of gas they just sit by the road. The machines of war requiring fuel cannot be cajoled into action by speeches appealing to a sense of esprit de corps, patriotism or threats to exterminate their ancestral villages back home.
A passing knowledge with the Bible would have prepared Putin for such a contingency. Jeremiah tells how Nebuchadnezzer faced this problem many years ago as he approached Jerusalem after sacking the nearby city of Lachish. Jeremiah simply tells us Big Neb decided to take a temporary excursion to Egypt before getting on with his invasion of Judea. He didn’t want to just see the pyramids. Secular history tells us he ran out of cash. So he went to Egypt where the pickings were easier. When his treasury had been replenished, he returned to Jerusalem and did his worst. He was far less ruthless and cruel than Titus a few centuries later, but it was no Sunday school picnic, either.
This story illustrates how militarism has a cost that must be serviced. We should have been using this reality against our enemies in the World for decades. But, instead, we have stuck our heads in the sand and instead of drilling for oil in America, we allowed our government (thanks to the Department of Energy, whose primary purpose was to make America “energy independent”) to hobble our economy and bring on the current debt crisis ($18,000,000,000 and counting).
On the bright side…I guess we saved the “Snail Darter”…whatever that was.
Think of all the harm we would have prevented if we had allowed cheap energy to be produced here at home. No Russian incursions anywhere after their failure in Afghanistan. No rise of Islamic Terror (financed by the Saudis, Iran and other anonymous nations). No ISIS. No mass beheadings of children and women and Christians. No Obama…Ok…OK…Obama Mania might have occurred anyway. Cheap energy may not have prevented Affirmative Action and the Welfare State and race-baiting. But cheap energy (which is amazingly clean today) raises the level of prosperity for everyone. Even the poor. Ergo, no need for affirmative anything. Air Jordans all around!
O.K….enough rending of our garments over the Russians’ budget problems, which is not the funny story I promised. The funny story is about how certain merchants in Ferguson averted disaster. (Go ahead, Google the story. Maybe it’s false, but it has the ring of truth about it.) Two stores in particular are worthy of note. One was a tattoo parlor, the other was next door. Both joints positioned ARMED employees and buddies out front. They were armed with assault rifles and large caliber handguns. (How do I know the handguns were large caliber, you ask? The story I saw didn’t say so, but I happen to know the Second Amendment types like I saw pictured in front of these two stores don’t mess with small caliber handguns…except for decorative purposes.) The fellows on guard duty looked like the typical guys you see sporting tattoos. Baseball caps, big biceps, snarling grins, most sported very closely cropped haircuts, several were African Americans (not, apparently, in need of Affirmative Action) and, of course, tattoos. The mayhem and arson miraculously missed both establishments.
Did I mention the second store was a gun shop?
“Big caliber biceps.” How’s that for alliteration? How did I miss that above?
What…you don’t think the second story is funny? At least not funnier than the first story? Then you are officially banned from looking at my cartoons ever again. Unless, of course, you are like people who don’t like Second Amendment stories, who are typically also “artistically impoverished.” You know who you are. You have crummy prints of Monet’s paintings of bushes and foliage instead of his best water lilly pictures hanging over your couch (probably a crappy imitation extended Barcelona chair). Or…a bad print of Picasso’s horrible “Woman in a Mirror.”
More laughs are coming, I’m sure.