By the way I'm not for scrapping the idea of free trade or NAFTA. Just that energy independence is getting trotted around by some of the same people who espouse free trade and I don't think they go together unless you get some kind of miracle technology (possible), or the oil starts running dry (inevitable but not for at least a decade).

In reality I think energy independence would either require some form of subsidy or tariff or something of that nature. And it would put us at a disadvantage globally.

Though of course a miracle fuel cell breakthrough would be nice.

You are entirely correct. However, bringing domestic production of oil up would give us the ability to be energy independent if we absolutely had to be. The reason why people in the US want to be energy independent is partly because they don't want the Arabic countries have control over our economy in the case of conflict. Economic power is very real. If we started to bring domestic production online, it would be an option to go on to if we ever absolutely had to be energy independent. No one simply wants America to be energy independent no matter the cost. We do however, want that option to be available.

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"It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary"

-- Ludwig von Mises

If you take the oil crises of the 70s and 80s into account, you may note that we were on the path to energy independence more than two decades ago. We would be there by now, if the prices had never come down. Today, the reality of a quick, sharp plunge in unlikely due to demand from developing countries.

Countries such as China and India are heading down the same road we once were, and will sap up any small drops in demand out of the United States. The incentive to become independent is there today, and could bring with it many jobs and help, rather than hurt, the economy.

I say let Asia become the new slaves to the Middle East. We would be better off without foreign dependence.

But if the theories behind free trade are true (which I think they are), we give up opportunities to do more with our economy by devoting a lot of our workforce and land to the production of oil (regarded as a curse by the people of most countries that produce a lot of it). Asian countries buying their oil from the Middle East (and other countries. Note that most of the US oil does NOT come from the Middle East- we diversify our sources, another economically smart idea) will not suffer the same opportunity cost and will gain some competative advantage.

Protectionism kills economies. Maybe not always. Mercantilism had its times. But in today's economy, protectionism is suicide.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

Interesting viewpoint. But look at it this way, if we were to transition into a country that doesn't use more than a fraction of the oil we produce, we would make big bucks in exports.