Economy
Trump’s Promise Of American Abundance, Fueled By ‘Liquid Gold’
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/tvrd-dc-trump-image-2024-07-22.jpeg)
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
One of the brightest nuggets of policy in Donald Trump’s July 18 acceptance speech to the Republican convention in Milwaukee was his ode to “liquid gold.” That is, oil.
As part of his inflation-fighting plan, Trump offered a gleaming solution: increase energy production, thereby decreasing energy prices. “By slashing energy costs,” Trump declared, “we will in turn reduce the cost of transportation, manufacturing and all household goods.”
He continued: “We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far. We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy.”
Indeed. According to the Institute for Energy Research (IER) technically recoverable oil resources in the U.S. total 2.136 trillion barrels. At the current price of around $80 a barrel, that’s some $171 trillion. And so, Trump concluded, “we will reduce our debt, $36 trillion.”
As former Alaska governor Sarah Palin would say, “You betcha.” In Palin’s Alaska, oil is so abundant, relative to the population, that everyone gets a check from the state. Last year, it was $1,312. For a family of four, that’s more than $5000. Our goal should be that every American gets such an energy dividend.
Moreover, the abundance of America’s carbon fuels is not limited to oil. According to IER, we have 3.391 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That’s worth $165 trillion.
To be sure, these staggering dollar totals can’t be counted directly against the national debt—or in support of some future tax cut. Yet every dollar of our energy assets would contribute to the economy, and if even 10 percent of the humongous total could be available to the public, we could, in fact, pay off the national debt.
Moreover, thanks to fracking and other enhanced recovery techniques, we keep finding more energy: Human ingenuity has upended old beliefs about energy shortages, ushering in an almost Moore’s Law-ish surge in production.
Indeed, there’s so much oil and gas (and coal) that an emerging school of thought holds that carbon fuels aren’t “fossil” at all, but rather, the product of earth’s vulcanism. The core of this earth, after all, is the same temperature as the surface of the sun. Perhaps all that heat is cooking something.
In any case, we keep finding more oil, and not just in the U.S.
So how, exactly, do we take advantage of this planetary cornucopia? As Palin said, as Trump said, and as the convention crowd chanted, “drill, baby, drill.”
Okay, but what about climate change? Most Republicans don’t worry too much about that, but if Democrats do, they should be reassured that we can capture the carbon and so take it out of the atmosphere. Trees and other green vegetation have been capturing carbon for eons; the element is, in fact, vital to their very existence. Similarly, the human body is 18 percent carbon. Yes, all of us ourselves are carbon sinks.
So we, being smart, can capture vastly more carbon — capturing it in everything from wood to cement, from plastics to nanotubes. These in turn can be landfill, construction materials — maybe even a space elevator.
We can, in fact, establish a a circular carbon economy: carbon fuels extracted, burned, and then recycled back into feedstocks. By this reckoning, carbon fuels are renewable. Such creative thinking can power all those energy-hungry data centers on which Big Tech and AI depend. So there’s the makings of a bipartisan “Grand Carbon Bargain,” uniting mostly blue-state tech with mostly red-state energy. More energy + more tech = more wealth for all.
In Milwaukee, Trump spoke of American “energy dominance,” and that’s great. But with all the energy we can produce and consume, we can speak of economic abundance — and that’s even greater.
James P. Pinkerton served in the White House domestic policy offices of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He is the author, most recently, of “The Secret of Directional Investing: Making Money Amidst the Red-Blue Rumble.”
Economy
Historic decline in Canadian living standards officially reaches five-year mark
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/tvrd-fi-people-taxpayers-canadians-image-2024-04-12.jpg)
From the Fraser Institute
By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro
Indeed, according to a recent study, from the middle of 2019 to the end of 2023, GDP per person fell from $59,905 to $58,134—a 3.0 per cent drop over four and a half years.
On Friday, Statistics Canada released its estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter of 2024, which confirmed that despite growth in the overall economy, individual living standards for Canadians declined once again. As a result, the ongoing decline in Canadian living standards has officially reached the five-year mark.
GDP—the final value of all goods and services produced in the economy and the most widely used measure of overall economic activity—grew by 0.5 per cent from April to June of 2024 (after adjusting for inflation). But while the economy continues to grow in the aggregate, inflation-adjusted GDP per person—a broad measure of individual living standards that adjusts for population—actually fell by 0.1 per cent during the second quarter of 2024, down to $58,005.
In other words, while the overall economy is growing, individual living standards are falling. This apparent disconnect is due to Canada’s growing population, and the fact that the rate of economic growth is not fast enough to account for the amount the population has increased. Specifically, while the economy grew by 0.5 per cent from April to June of 2024, the total population grew by 0.6 per cent (or 242,673 people).
These data confirm that Canadians are still suffering a historic decline in living standards.
Indeed, according to a recent study, from the middle of 2019 to the end of 2023, GDP per person fell from $59,905 to $58,134—a 3.0 per cent drop over four and a half years. This was the second-longest and third-deepest decline in living standards since 1985, and was only exceeded in both respects by a decline that lasted more than five years (from June 1989 to September 1994).
Unfortunately for Canadians, this recent decline in living standards persisted through the first three months of 2024, and now the newest data show the decline has continued into the second quarter of 2024. Therefore, as of June 2024, inflation-adjusted GDP per person stood 3.2 per cent below the level it was in the middle of 2019. Again, despite a few brief quarters of positive per-person economic growth since 2019, the general decline in inflation-adjusted GDP has officially reached the five-year mark.
Due to the continued persistence of weak economic growth combined with remarkable population increases, Canadians have suffered a marked and prolonged decrease in living standards over the last five years. This puts Canada just six months away from experiencing the longest decline in individual living standards of the last 40 years—a milestone no one should be eager to reach.
Authors:
Economy
British Columbia’s finances go from bad to worse during Eby’s first full year
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/tvrd-fi-bc-premier-david-eby-image-2024-08-30.jpg)
From the Fraser Institute
By Tegan Hill and Grady Munro
You might be able to justify higher spending if it improved programs and services for British Columbians—but it hasn’t. In fact, despite substantial increases in spending in recent years, the province’s health-care wait times have increased and student test scores have declined.
The recent move by BC United to suspend its campaign, essentially clearing the way for a two-party race in this fall’s provincial election, made headlines across British Columbia. But another recent event, which failed to garner much media attention, included some jaw-dropping numbers that will impact provincial finances for years to come.
Last week, the Eby government recently released its year-end report for the 2023/24 fiscal year—this government’s first full year in office. Unfortunately for British Columbians, provincial finances went from bad to worse as the government ran a larger-than-projected budget deficit and accumulated significant debt.
First, let’s take a closer look at the government’s budget—David Eby’s first official budget as premier—which projected a $4.2 billion operating deficit for the 2023/24 fiscal year (the government expected to spend $81.2 billion while only bringing in $77.7 billion in total revenues). For context, in its last budget the Horgan government had also planned to run a $4.2 billion deficit in 2023/24, but expected to take in $7.5 billion less in revenues. Put differently, the Eby government could have ran a budget surplus if it stuck to Horgan’s spending plan. Instead, the Eby government chose to spend away that $7.5 billion.
Given that per-person (inflation-adjusted) program spending was already at its highest level since 1965 (the earliest year of available data) under the Horgan government in 2021 (even excluding COVID-related spending), that’s a massive influx of new spending.
Now, the year-end report shows that the Eby government increased spending even further—$3.5 billion more than its original plan in the 2023 budget. Overall, it ran a $5.0 billion operating deficit in 2023/24, despite once again taking in more revenues ($1.9 billion) than it had originally planned. Again, the government chose to spend away every single dollar of extra revenue, and then some.
And the eye-popping deficit is only part of the picture as longer-term spending on things such as schools, highways and bridges, isn’t included. After accounting for long-term spending on capital projects, the B.C. government accumulated $11.3 billion in net debt (total debt minus financial assets) in a single year from 2022/23 to 2023/24. Government debt must ultimately be financed by taxpayers who spent $3.3 billion in debt interest payments in 2023/24. That’s money no longer available for programs such as health care or education.
According to the Eby government, “with a slower world economy and a growing population, we cannot afford to have a deficit of services. When we provide the services and support people need to have a good life, it makes our economy stronger and more resilient.”
You might be able to justify higher spending if it improved programs and services for British Columbians—but it hasn’t. In fact, despite substantial increases in spending in recent years, the province’s health-care wait times have increased and student test scores have declined. Put differently, according to key indicators, B.C.’s performance on health care and education—the two largest areas of government spending—have worsened despite higher spending.
Higher spending also hasn’t paid off for the B.C. economy, which is stagnating. The province’s per-person GDP, a broad measure of living standards, is expected to be lower this year than in 2018. And the Eby government expects negative growth in per-person GDP this fiscal year.
Unfortunately for British Columbians, the latest year-end report on B.C.’s finances shows the Eby government took a bad fiscal situation and made it worse with higher spending and an even larger budget deficit. The next government, whoever that may be, must deal will this fiscal mess.
Authors:
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