Tag Archives: United States

United States now #1 oil-producing country in the world

Posted on by

The United States is again #1 in oil production, passing Saudi Arabia:

The United States has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become the world’s biggest oil producer as the jump in output from shale plays has led to the second biggest oil boom in history, according to leading U.S. energy consultancy PIRA.

U.S. output, which includes natural gas liquids and biofuels, has swelled 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd) since 2009, the fastest expansion in production over a four-year period since a surge in Saudi Arabia’s output from 1970-1974, PIRA said in a release on Tuesday…

Last month, China surpassed the United States as the largest importer of crude, according to the U.S. government, as the rise of domestic output cuts the U.S. dependence on overseas oil.

“(The U.S.) growth rate is greater than the sum of the growth of the next nine fastest growing countries combined and has covered most of the world’s net demand growth over the past two years,” PIRA Energy Group wrote.

Three quick thoughts:

1. People don’t often think of United States as having lots of oil though the natural resources within the US have been important throughout its history. With this new information, does this change how US residents and others around the world view the US? Does it then change how the US views the Middle East and other nations with lots of oil?

2. The article notes that this was the fastest production increase in over four years. The average person may not be terribly aware of this but those opposed to fracking should be able to use this info: this is quite a rapid change.

3. When will peak oil really arrive? One article recently suggested this oil boom is not the last; there is more untapped oil in the oceans. As the article suggests, this supply may make it even more difficult to talk about the impact of oil on the environment.

Sociologist: Canadians and Americans are more alike than people might think

Posted on by

A Canadian sociologist argues that Americans and Canadians are quite similar:

But experts suggest English Canadians — though the QMI Agency poll found we’re still divided whether stereotyping is widespread — are alike on most fronts.

In fact, so much so that most of us could blend in with our U.S. cousins, according to one scholar.

Ed Grabb, a professor in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Sociology, has begun a new course outlining how Canadians and Americans, while not identical, are more alike than most of us would have thought.

In fact, on things like attitudes toward health care, government and individuality, research has found we’re very similar.

Even differences in religion are shrinking. In 1991, Americans were 16% more likely than Canadians to take in a religious service at least once a week.

By 2006, that number had dropped to 11%.

While Grabb sees regional differences in both countries — during national elections, Quebec generally pulls Canada to the left just as the southern U.S. pulls that nation to the right — he’s also noticed a softening of old hackneyed chestnuts.

“I do think the Alberta redneck jibe is an endangered species,” Grabb said.

“I think that the assumption that all Ontarians are affluent is also going by the boards.

It would be interesting to see comparisons across the board: income, political and social views (both at home and abroad), religion, education, and consumer purchases and entertainment choices. Then, compare these to what Americans and Canadians think about each other. Why do I think Canadians would know way more about Americans than the other way around?

I also want to know how to explain this. Both the United States and Canada are settler colonies but we have different histories as Canada has had a different relationship with Great Britain in the last few centuries. Perhaps people might fall back on the frontier hypothesis since both countries pursued territorial expansion and span between two different (geographically and cultural) coasts. Perhaps today we tend to share a lot of media and cultural influences. For example, how many Americans care or would they have been able to tell without being told that Justin Bieber is Canadian. Perhaps our geopolitical position away from major international wars has led to similar ways of viewing the world. Perhaps the better way to differentiate between the countries is to refer to the “Jesusland” map where Canada joins with the East and West American coasts plus some of the Great Lakes states and red America is the south, great plains, and mountain west.

Hard to imagine the complex, modern world without bureaucracy

Posted on by

It is common these days to hear complaints about bureaucracy, often related to the amount of time it takes to get something done or the waste involved in completing a large project. But it is hard to imagine the world we have today without bureaucracy:

For instance, as a student sociologist, I was taught that bureaucracy was essential to an ordered society. A system of administration, based on a division of labour, designed to undertake a large body of work in a routine manner, was deemed essential to advanced economics.

Yet the term is now used to denote obstruction, complication and sheer bloody-mindedness to produce the opposite outcome.

I guess the modern image is one of an army of pen-pushers, or more accurately, dedicated e-mailers, committed to frustrating the desired outcomes or value for money of any project…

We all need the right skill mix, effective teamwork and the most efficient use of defined resources to serve the public well. In that sense, strategic planning is as essential to the desired outcomes as the obvious contribution made by good service delivery.

So, there is a case for bureaucracy, although it is wise to avoid that term. Demonising particular roles and functions is dangerous. It must be always the quality and quantity of product that counts.

Max Weber wrote about how bureaucracy made modern society possible. It is remarkable to think how large societies are actually able to function. Take the United States: it has its problems but considering that it has over 300 million relatively wealthy people from all around the world, has a large land mass, and has undertaken numerous major projects over recent decades, things still get done and life is decent or good for many residents.

This commentary also hints at what Weber suggested was the possible problem with bureaucracy: a soulless, “iron cage.” The term today has a negative connotation often linked to the reduction of individual freedom. Thus, battles about bureaucracy are all around us: how much should you have to pay for your license plate? Should the government require restaurants to put calorie counts next to the menu? Should you be required to have medical insurance? And so on. It’s not bureaucracy that is really the issue: it is how it runs.

It then becomes a “framing” issue as people seek to avoid the “bureaucracy” label. The trend in recent decades has been to suggest governments, large or local, should be more business-like. Businesses are still bureaucracies – any organization can be a bureaucracy – but they have different goals and different methods of operation. Additionally, they are perceived as being less wasteful and more able to change course (both which are not necessarily true). In the current era of tight budgets, all levels of government are looking for ways to trim costs while maintaining service levels. As the commentator suggests, government needs to be more efficient and cost-effective.

Chart of total carbon emissions and emissions per capita

Posted on by

Miller-McCune has put together two charts showing total carbon emissions by country and also emissions per capita by country. See the two charts here.

This is colorful and vibrant. And it is nice to have the charts side-by-side as one can easily make comparisons. For example, the US is #2 in total emissions but #9 in per capita emissions. As The Infrastructurist points out, the chart gives some insights into how many countries might need to deal with per capita emissions rather than point fingers at countries with the largest amount of carbon emissions.

But there is a lot of information compressed in this chart – it is hard to see a lot of the smaller countries with small circles. Additionally, why are the countries in the order they are? It appears that regions are together but the order is not the same for both charts and it certainly isn’t rank-ordered (China and US are on opposite ends of the chart for total emissions). The color and vibrancy seems to be more important to the chart-makers than having a logical order to the countries.

h/t The Infrastructurist

Graphic comparing US to other developed nations on nine measures

Posted on by

This particular graphic provides a look at how the United States stacks up against other developed nations on nine key measures, such as a Gini index, Gallup’s global wellbeing index, and life expectancy at birth.

As a graphic, this is both interesting and confusing. It is interesting in that one can take a quick glance at all of these measures at once and the color shading helps mark the higher and lower values. This is the goal of graphics or charts: condense a lot of information into an engaging format. However, there are a few problems: there is a lot of information to look at, it is unclear why the countries are listed in the order they are, and it takes some work to compare the countries marked with the different colors because they may be at the top or bottom of the list.

(By the way, the United States doesn’t compare well to some of the other countries on this list. Are there other overall measures in which the United States would compare more favorably?)

Sarkozy joins growing chorus of Western European leaders who have said multiculturalism has failed

Posted on by

In a recent interview, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said multiculturalism has failed in his country:

“My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure,” he said in a television interview when asked about the policy which advocates that host societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious immigrant groups.

“Of course we must all respect differences, but we do not want… a society where communities coexist side by side.

“If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France,” the right-wing president said.

“The French national community cannot accept a change in its lifestyle, equality between men and women… freedom for little girls to go to school,” he said.

“We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him,” Sarkozy said in the TFI channel show.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australia’s ex-prime minister John Howard and Spanish ex-premier Jose Maria Aznar have also recently said multicultural policies have not successfully integrated immigrants.

Based on what Sarkozy said in this interview, it sounds like he either has a different definition of multiculturalism or a different end goal. A contrast to multiculturalism would be assimilation where newcomers to a country (or any group) should quickly or eventually adopt the customs and values of the country they have entered. Sarkozy is suggesting that because some immigrants have not done this, multiculturalism has failed. But Sarkozy seems to be explaining how assimilation has failed. The Oxford English Dictionary defines multiculturalism thusly: “the policy or process whereby the distinctive identities of the cultural groups within such a society are maintained or supported.” In this sense, a long-running policy of multiculturalism ends up changing the larger culture to some degree. It sounds like Sarkozy (and some of these other leaders) are not as interested in this. Can French or English or German culture change and incorporate elements of cultures from immigrants living within their borders?

These comments from various leaders seem to have been motivated in part by growing Muslim populations in these nations.

It is also interesting to note that there is not a whole lot of public discussion about this in the United States. Some of this may be more below the surface, particularly when issues like immigration arise (though this has been overwhelmed by economic concerns). Can you imagine an American political leader of any party making a statement like these Western European leaders have?

ABA wants free trade in legal services?

Posted on by

The International Business Times is reporting that American Bar Association President Stephen N. Zack is lobbying India to refrain from shutting U.S. lawyers out of the Indian legal market:

Currently, U.S. lawyers are allowed to travel to India on an “in-and-out basis” to advise their clients on non-Indian aspects of law. That “status quo” should be maintained as the [Bar Council of India] considers the broader issue of whether to allow the practice of law by foreign law firms in India, Zack said….”The ABA believes that allowing such activities is critical not only for the mutual benefit of the legal practitioners in both countries,” [Zack’s] letter said, “but also for fostering the vital and already close relationship between India and the United States and to promote the robust growth of trade and investments between our two countries. Allowing such activities is also essential in making India a preferred venue for international arbitration proceedings.”

This is a huge issue, and only going to get bigger in the coming years.  In most countries, including the U.S. and India, the legal profession is highly regulated and heavily skewed toward protectionism (i.e., preserving a pre-globalization status quo).  For example, in order to “practice law” in the U.S., one must generally graduate from college, attend law school for 3 years, and pass a state-specific bar exam.  Other countries have similarly stringent requirements.  Obviously, most people who have been through the trouble (and expense) of this process are vehemently opposed to competition from anyone else–including (and especially) lawyers licensed in other countries.

Which is what makes the ABA president’s statements so interesting.  Supposedly, U.S. lawyers currently provide Indian businesses with “consultancy legal services” (to use the article’s phrase) rather than “practice law” (which is the magic phrase to denote what one cannot do without an official license in a given state/country).  However, such verbal formulations are notoriously vague, and everyone who argues over their precise meanings are lawyers with a vested interest in either (1) expanding their own market for legal services or (2) keeping new competition out.

To date, new competition has mostly been kept out, especially here in the U.S.  It will be interesting to see whether the ABA president’s recent lobbying in India represents a first step moving toward a free trade in legal services between the U.S. and India.

A growing number of “encore careers”

Posted on by

Retirement is an interesting topic these days in the United States: can people retire after the losses in the recent economic crisis? How will society pay for Social Security and medical benefits when all those Baby Boomers retire? How will states (and other organizations) pay for pensions that have been underfunded?

One answer: have those who have retired enter an “encore career.”

Daly is part of the growing “encore careers” movement — an effort to match older workers who can’t or don’t want to retire with public service jobs that benefit society. The movement, begun in the late 1990s, has spawned non-profit groups and programs from Boston to Portland, Ore., aimed at helping older workers find new work. Many of the programs are run by people who have made the transition.

At a time when 77 million Baby Boomers ages 46-65 are moving toward traditional retirement age, analysts say the movement could grow exponentially in the coming decades. A 2008 survey by MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures, a national think tank on boomers and work, found more than 5 million Americans in encore careers. Half of those ages 44-70 expressed interest in them.

Moving from one career to a more altruistic job late in life isn’t easy, however. Analysts say there aren’t enough of those jobs yet, the pay is usually low and employers often favor younger applicants.

It seems to me that there is a larger issue underlying these practical obstacles: as a society, do we value the kinds of contributions older citizens can make? Those who have retired or are nearing retirement have a wealth of experience, related to jobs and working but also a variety of important life lessons and skills,  that the rest of society could benefit from. But if we are a society that tends to value youth and novelty, then these encore careers might not be something we encourage.

Ultimately, a movement like this could end up being a nice solution to some of the demographic and financial issues that face the country in the next few decades. If the number of these jobs could grow, those who have retired can share their experiences and wisdom while also earning some money in order to ease the financial burden on broader society.

Trying to figure out whether to support Mubarak or the people in Egypt is not the first time the US has been in this position

Posted on by

In the United States, part of the coverage of the happenings in Egypt involves how the United States should respond. As has been noted by many, the US is stuck in a difficult position: we have generously supported Mubarak but we also claim to be about freedom and democracy. How can we balance these two approaches, particularly when our larger strategic goals in the Middle East region are tied to Israel and Egypt’s long-term support of this country?

It would be helpful is this difficult position would be put in some historical context. This is not the first time this has happened for the United States (nor is it likely to be the last time). Since the end of World War Two when the United States emerged as a superpower, we have ended up in this position numerous times in countries around the world. Look at Iran. Look at Chile. This has occurred in recent years in Palestine – does the United States support open and democratic elections if it means that Hamas is voted into power? In order to further our strategic interests, we have ended up supporting dictators. Some commentators have said Egypt presents the same conundrum: support Mubarak or open it up to the possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood could come to power?

When American presidents speak about advancing freedom (President George W. Bush did this openly for years when talking about Afghanistan and Iraq), could people around the world take them seriously? On one hand, we claim to be a beacon of light in the world. On the other hand, we act in ways that seem at odds with the interests of “the people” in other countries.

All of this could lead to some interesting long-term discussions in the United States about approaching global politics.

(As an aside, it has been interesting to watch live coverage on the Internet from Al Jazeera English. I just heard an anchor openly argue with an official in Mubarak’s ruling party about whether the people in the streets were mobs or not – the official said they were looting and burning and creating disorder, the anchor kept saying that the protesters were peaceful and just wanted democratic elections. This perspective is quite different from coverage in the United States.)

Projecting the Muslim population in 2030 around the world

Posted on by

Pew has a new report on projecting the Muslim population around the world for 2030. You can look at separate reports by region and there is a lot of interesting information. If you look at the data for the United States, the prediction is that there will be 6.2 million Muslims by 2030. This is still a relatively small percentage compared to the total population though this would be a 140% increase. The numbers for Europe are quite different: the projection is France, Belgium, and Russia will be more than 10% Muslim.

Lots of good data here on everything from fertility rates to migration to age breakdowns.