PrintMay 3, 2011
What Color is Obama?
There are many misguided souls who think President Obama is a a green environmentalist because he strives to limit offshore drilling and to halt the building of coal power plants. However, Obama's recent actions have shown that his motivation is not to protect nature's health and beauty.
Sometimes in physics two different theories can explain the same observations. If an experiment is found that only one of the theories predicts, that theory is deemed superior.
Two theories explain Obama's effort to limit domestic production of hydrocarbons. The first possible explanation for this effort is that Obama is an environmentalist. He wants to keep our air clean and our beaches pristine. The second is that the President is a redistributionist. He wants to transfer American wealth overseas to poorer countries by forcing the United States to buy expensive foreign oil.
Which rationale explains Obama's recent massive 3 billion dollar loan (through the U.S. Export-Import Bank ) to Ecopetrol, the Colombian national oil company, to expand its refining operation and the 2 billion dollar loan to Brazil's state-owned Petrobras Oil Company?
The environmentalist theory does not account for this largess because apparently Obama does not care about the possibility of seagulls covered in oil and poisoned fish in Columbia or Brazil.
However, the redistributionist theory is superior and clarifies Obama's motivation behind these generous loans. Since the United States is being prevented from developing its hydrocarbon supplies, we will have to buy ever more costly oil and gas from Brazil and Columbia. As Obama noted after his meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, "We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you're ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers."
Given the intensity of Obama's desire to redistribute wealth in the United States, it is not surprising that redistributing wealth internationally is a fundamental goal of his foreign policy. This was also one of the aims of the recent defunct international climate conference.
The two loans to the South American countries are the beginning of a pattern to transfer wealth abroad regardless of the effect on environment. If Obama keeps doing this, Obama President of the United States will have no serious opposition, like George Washington, in his quest to be Obama President of the New World Government. But don't be fooled: a Green, Obama is not.
Peter Landesman (mathmaze@yahoo.com) is a teacher, a mathematician and an author of the 3D-maze book Spacemazes, with which children can have fun while learning mathematics.
