Technocrat James Schlesinger Is Dead At 85 33
mdsolar (1045926) writes "James Schlesinger, who served as Secretary of Defense under Presidents Nixon and Ford and as the first Secretary of Energy under President Carter, passed away on Thursday in Baltimore at the age of 85. Schlesinger is perhaps the most technocratic person to reach such high office. He had a keen awareness of the connection between energy supply and national defense and as Administrator of the Economic Regulatory Administration, brought our Standby Gasoline Rationing Plan into existence. The existence of such a plan along with our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which Schlesinger also brought into being, have been a bulwark against further oil embargoes and essentially broke OPEC for a period of more than a decade. The NYT has an obituary that covers more of his career."
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
No, he didn't break OPEC. He nearly broke the US, though; his plans resulted in manufactured shortages of gasoline and sky-high (for the time) prices.
Sure, the oil embargo had nothing to do with petty middle eastern retaliation for U.S. support of Israel and everything to do with James Schlesinger. Right.
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Sure, economic retaliation against a nation far too powerful to retaliate against militarily is petty. Right.
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Sure, economic retaliation against a nation far too powerful to retaliate against militarily is petty. Right.
Little country do what big country say! The World is a playground.
Re:And then Reagan fucked it all up. (Score:4, Interesting)
Its bad form to put your post in the subject but i think you should know it was Carter that deregulated the banks. He worked eith the democrat controlled congress to pass into law the depository institutions deregulatiom and monitary sometjing act in 1980 before Reagan took office.
So lets proced from there if you still pretend outrage.
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Exactly! Nobody gives a carp, which is why I am not even going to post a comment.
At least you knew who he was. (Score:5, Interesting)
He committed mutiny during the last breaths of the Nixon administration when he notified the military not to take orders from the White House, particularly those with a nuclear tint, when he became concerned with Dick's erratic behavior... and he prepared for troops to enter Washington in case the succession to Ford didn't go smoothly.
I'm just simple, but give me a man of differing viewpoints who is candidly sincere about who he is versus an ally who takes fake to new levels...it becomes a monolemma.
I met Schlesinger in 1976 (Score:2)
He was a very bright man.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Meh. I had lunch with Robert McNamara and kissed Jeane Kirkpatrick. So there.
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He was a top ranked economists from Harvard. Not really what you call a slouch. [wikipedia.org]
Standby Gasoline Rationing Plan dated 1980 (Score:2)
"A priority classification, including, for example, national security, newspaper distribution, rental vehicles, agriculture and for hire mail and small parcel transportation and delivery, is established to assure adequate gasoline supplies for designated essential services."
http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/12000/1... [bts.gov]
Newpapers and mail aren't what they used to be, if you need gas you rent a car(?); this need to be updated.
(California 1973 sit in line every other day for gas veteran)
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How can a man be technocratic? (Score:2)
A government can be technocratic, but how can a man? Technically competent maybe. Or technically respectful (selects advisers based on technical ability), but technocratic?
Hmm, okay, double checked the definition - Wikipedia says "A technocrat has come to mean either 'a member of a powerful technical elite', or 'someone who advocates the supremacy of technical experts' ". I suppose the second definition could apply in this case.
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An OG (Score:2)
Economic hitman.
Oil Embargo? Please! (Score:1)
Nothing but an argument over price, and a devaluation of the dollar in the market two years after removing the gold standard. Old stock had to be used up before they could bring the new prices to market. It's an accounting thing. And I do believe it happened again in '79. This whole OPEC thing was a ruse. And the "strategic" reserve is just the government propping up the market, a bailout of sorts, kinda like government cheese.
"....essentially broke OPEC..." (Score:1)
"...our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which Schlesinger also brought into being, have been a bulwark against further oil embargoes and essentially broke OPEC for a period of more than a decade. .."
Although those have probably been factors in "breaking OPEC," there may have been other factors. Amory Lovins around 15 years ago pointed out the following. If you make a graph showing US energy consumption in the last century, you have a fairly evenly rising line from the early part of the century right up to the
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Wow, your post sounds like a partisan troll or an idiot repeating the rantings of one.
First, Reagan ripped the pannels off in order to repair the roof under them- most likely damages and having its working life reduced because of them. Second the pannels were rediculously expensive so in an era of deficit spending not putting them back made sense regardless of how many people were laughing at them. Finally, they didn't produce electricity, they heated water and not very well. We would have to wait untill B
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I would mod the GP +1 Interesting, and your post -1 Redundant.
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Then you would be proving to the world how much of a biasef idiot you are who abuses mod points because of political dreams not based in reality.
Wait, you just did that.Well, now we know and as GI Joe used to say, knowing is half the battle.
Re: (Score:2)
by Anonymous Coward
[...]
I'm not an anonymous coward.
Yes, yes you are. It says so right at the top of your comment.
For one thing, the NSA knows who I am anyway.
HA HA! HA! I'm slapping my knee here. But we still have every reason to believe that you are cowardly.
Mostly though, I'm lazy, too lazy to register. And, frankly, why should I trust /.?
No one is asking you to trust Slashdot with anything more than a potentially throwaway email address. All we want is confirmation that the person we were talking to yesterday is the person we're talking to today. If you're too lazy to register, are you too lazy to think or to do proper research? Who knows, there may be no correlation, but it seem
Nobel != technocatic (Score:1)
Steven Chu was just recently in that post, and he is a Nobel laureate. Could this mean that "technocratic" has nothing to do with anything (except, possibly, someone on the net trying to get more page views)?
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