You have one job

AUDIO NOTE: I haven’t given up on the audio experiment, but the home office is still in disarray due to the renovations that are underway. Audio should resume at some point next week.

Berlingske’s “Business Overview” this morning—a round-up of the business news the paper’s business editors consider most newsworthy—includes an item entitled “Denmark, Sweden and Finland warn Norway about energy hoarding.”

In Norway, dwindling electricity production and historically high electricity prices – coupled with general energy scarcity across Europe—led the Norwegian government to discuss power rationing and export restrictions to neighboring countries earlier this month.

The Norwegian government is trying to solve Norway’s problems. They’re Europe’s largest net exporter of energy (having overtaken France a couple of years ago), so they’ve got a lot of options.

This has now caused representatives of the energy operators in Denmark, Sweden and Finland to issue sharp criticism of the possible measure, writes the Financial Times.

Well, sure. Norway’s exports are our imports. If they start reducing exports, there’ll be less for us to import.

Sucks to be us.

“It would be a very dangerous step – and nationalistic. It is very selfish behaviour,’ says Jukka Ruusinen, the managing director of the Finnish counterpart to Danish Energinet, Fingrid.

Ruusinen is right that it would be a nationalistic step for Norway to put their own citizens above those of Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. But is it selfish for a mother to ensure her own children are fed before she starts worrying about all the other hungry children of the world?

Any national government that isn’t operating in the interests of its own citizens should be disbanded and replaced immediately. They have one job. If your definition of nationalism is “elevating the interests of your own nation above those of others,” then any government that isn’t nationalist to the core has no claim to legitimacy.

The countries warn that this will be exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes will be a consequence of the country’s gas squeeze on Europe.

That may well be. So what? Denmark is a net importer of energy. We’ve disfigured our beautiful country with windmill and solar panel farms and prohibited nuclear power generation (about 4-5% of our energy is imported nuclear energy), and lo and behold: we don’t produce enough energy to meet our needs.

We’ve got world-class smug, but half-assed policy.

If we suddenly had enough power to meet our own needs and our government said, “Sorry, folks, we’re going to send some of this juice out to Germany, Sweden, and Poland,” I wonder whether the Danish energy experts would be whining about our nationalism.

If Norway introduces restrictions on electricity exports, it will in all probability send the already historically high electricity prices in Denmark even higher.

If supply goes down but demand remains constant, then prices go up?

Is that what you’re saying?

It sounds like that what’s your saying.

Then if we don’t want prices to go up, we just have to increase supply. Right?

Fire up the nuclear plants—they’re even doing it in Japan, for god’s sake—and let’s get busy tapping the North Sea for all it’s worth. And then just watch what happens to electricity prices. It’ll blow your mind!

Any country that isn’t actively and aggressively and even urgently pursuing energy independence right now—along with pharmaceutical independence—is guilty of malpractice.

You have one job: keep your country going. Work to make it better, stronger, wealthier, healthier. Or at least prevent it from getting weaker, poorer, or sicker.

If you’re not working for your own people, then whom exactly are you working for? And why are we paying your salary?

Let’s stop trying to save the world and start trying to save our own countries. It’ll be much worse for the world if western productivity grinds to a halt than if we spew more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for a few more years while we figure out how to reduce it without screwing ourselves.

You want the Global Merit Badge for Being Green? Then go work for St. Greta of Stockholm. Let her pay your salary. . . if she’ll have you.

Let’s not forget that Vladimir Putin didn’t choose his moment to invade Ukraine because the west was healthy, strong, and energetic: he did it because he perceived us as sickly, weak, and enervated. His perception was not inaccurate.

So yes, Vladimir Putin is probably delighted to see our predicament, but he didn’t put us into it. We did. Ourselves. With great pride and fanfare.

But to say so is to be a “populist” or “nationalist” and incur the ostracism of the very idiots whose fault this is. They did this over the objections of people who warned them exactly what would happen, and now they have the nerve to make us the bad guys?

You had one job.

You still have one job.

Quit complaining, stop making excuses, and get ‘er done.

Or get out of the way so the rest of us can clean up your mess.