China Snapping Up Energy Resources

Other, more solvent, nations are taking advantage of America's current financial crisis and lack of liquidity, as well as the current slump in oil and gas prices, to snap up energy resources all over the world at fire sale prices. A recent article in Terra Express (title link) states:

" Resource-hungry China has seized upon the financial crisis to sign billions of dollars in deals in a buying spree that is set to pick up pace and reshape the global economic landscape, analysts say.

From Calgary to Caracas, China has hammered out an unprecedented series of agreements over the past month as plummeting energy and commodity prices have left once mighty producers over-extended and short on funds.

I hope our leaders are taking notice of this development. I believe that Obama is aware of our predicament regarding energy security, but the financial crisis and economic morass have stolen attention from almost all other matters, including energy; while the temporary drop in energy prices has lulled us into complacency regarding the fossil fuel situation.

Our oil-dependent lifestyle and financial mismanagement have placed us at an incredible disadvantage in procuring the oil imports we need to fuel our car-centric lifestyle. In the meantime, worldwide oil production has dropped, and drilling and recovery projects in Calgary and everywhere else have been canceled because they cannot be profitable at the current prices of oil and gas. What this all means is that we will get caught in a massive supply crunch, which will overtake us very quickly, while more countries compete for smaller supplies of indispensable fossil fuels. Chinese leaders know what is coming and are making provisions accordingly, using the wealth this country has handed it to acquire a steep advantage over other nations in the contest for what remains of the planet's fossil fuel supplies.

We need to get very scared, very fast, and start making provisions for ourselves, against the time when we have only 90%, or 70%, or less, of the fuel available that we have now. Right now, we're doing next to nothing, either as a nation, or as individuals. We are still allocating more money to the construction of highways, airports, and sports venues than we are to rail or public transit, and we are still encouraging the construction of suburban sprawl. Team Obama has done good, on one hand, by steeply reducing the subsidies to oil-dependent agribusiness, but offsets it by throwing money at our failing auto makers and at ever more highways and airport expansions.