The DNC has left town, and this blogger, who lives in the ‘Yellow’ zone, is relieved to see it go. To be sure, it was exciting to have so many people enjoying the LoDo neighborhood. For a few days, the eyes of the world were on the few city blocks Denver so routinely ignores.

The first thing to disappear from and later return to LoDo was its homeless population. These gruff addicts and bums were a constant part of LoDo life until the day before the convention, and they returned the day after. One gets to know their faces, and in some cases their names. Where did they go? The City enticed them to stay away so as not to antagonize the conventioneers. Denver has always been a fully Democrat city, so unless the homeless are to blame for their own situations (impossible), it must be the Democrats. True to collectivist form, the Democrats hid the problem rather than admit that decades of great society politics have only made things worse. In parallel, China built walls to obstruct the view of Beijing’s slums from Olympic passers by.

Lodo has poorly maintained sidewalks and streets. Even though about 10 years ago, LoDo was essentially a slum, and Denver has received exploding tax revenues from the neighborhood since then, Denver spends nothing on its streets. That is, until the DNC. Every pothole was patched just in time for the convention. Piles of broken street lamp parts and guard rails that had littered LoDo for months or years were removed and sometimes repaired. Why the City can’t take care of its property until the second largest convention of 2008 came to town, is a mystery (or not so much). As if by spite, the potholes were patched with a temporary material that is already breaking down into dust.

LoDo is sometimes dangerous. Over the past 4 years, 11 people have been shot in the streets of this small neighborhood, 4 fatally. Dangerous gangs filmed videos of themselves brutalizing strangers. Aside from the one person shot fatally by the Denver Police, nobody has been arrested for these crimes. Just prior to the convention, surveillance cameras were installed on every street. Privacy aside, if multiple shootings, sexual assaults, robberies, and general mayhem aren’t enough to protect the streets of LoDo, why should some well connected out-of-towners do the trick?

LoDo is a Mecca for graffiti vandals. Denver has a anemic graffiti removal program, but during the DNC, they were out in force. LoDo was, for the first time ever, clean and graffiti free. Most graffiti is a simple nuisance, but a fair amount is dangerous gang communication, such as the ’13′ scrawled into this blogger’s front window. Denver needs to take this issue seriously the other 361 days of the year.

In short, LoDo is returning to its pre DNC state, Denver’s playground where vandalism, violence, decay, and filth are the norm and tolerated by the City for some inexplicable reason. LoDo is not an established neighborhood in that it can easily revert to the slum it was a decade ago if the City takes it for granted. LoDo’s immense tax base should be used for cleanliness, security, and reasonably well maintained infrastructure. The City of Denver lied to the world about itself, or perhaps it just put its best foot forward. Either way, let’s hope the City chooses to maintain at least some of the shine it put on LoDo for 4 days in 2008.

Aside from the self-satisfaction from saving the world with other people’s money, the primary reason to lean left is their lock on the beautiful people of the world. The entertainment culture is so profoundly left wing that the shock of finding out that Rush Limbaugh was among it’s top earners required an effort to outlaw him.

Why should Hollywood be so extremely left wing, with Martin Sheen and Rob Reiner safely in the middle of their pack? After all, there are nearly as many Republicans as Democrats in the US. In cable news, an upstart called Fox took the top spot very quickly by appealing to this under served demographic. Why doesn’t the rest of the entertainment industry follow suit? What is the appeal of socialism to Hollywood?

To answer the first question, Hollywood does not appeal to the right because it does not know how. On the rare occasion Hollywood makes a movie that appeals to traditional views, it cannot grasp why and repeat the feat. Sometimes Hollywood feels compelled to kill the career of traditional messengers. The Passion of The Christ took in about $370MM, but it was all over when Mel Gibson made some drunken and unsavory comments about Jews. He is now poison. By comparison, all of Roman Polanski’s movies put together don’t add up to $370MM, yet he could only receive his Oscar by video link because he is a fugitive convicted of drugging and raping a 13 year old girl. Hollywood is replete with low forms of life, yet Mel is the one who was expelled from the club.

Hollywood simply can’t stand to be around Republicans long enough to understand them and make movies they might like. Bill Mahr, a particularly bitter leftist, is stumping his latest movie who’s sole theme is that atheism is the only acceptable belief system. Since that goes against the general view of 95% of the US, one might wonder why this idea got a green light. If 95% of the US believes in God in one way or another, why not a movie about the good things religion and faith have done? The sad answer is that Hollywood has so ostracized the traditional that nobody in that industry is capable of making such a movie. If Hollywood can make lawyers, an extremely boring profession, sexy, with similar effort they could make Christians look heroic.

Hollywood fails to profit from traditional issues because it is hyper-insulated from the views of most Americans. OK, but why are extreme lefties so attracted to Hollywood? What is the underlying cause? A few theories for your consideration:

The world of left wing politics relies on the same make-believe as does Hollywood. Hollywood creates a Utopian city from plywood and paint. The city exists because the camera does not look behind the set, and the lights hit everything just right. This same view applies to socialism. Everyone will have everything if the government just wishes it so. Food, housing, health care, education, all fall like manna from the heavens when the government dictates that everything will be free. Hollywood creates an illusion without harsh reality, so leftists might be naturally attracted to this world to avoid facing the disastrous record of their politics around the real world.

Hollywood appears to have no financial controls. As Art Buchwald learned bitterly, Hollywood movies apparently never make money. How could any business survive when the financial controls are so weak that nobody knows what makes money or how? The other institution where waste and fraud is customary is, of course government. A typical government program like Medicare or Food Stamps wastes between 30 and 50% of its budget on fraud and misallocation of resources. Only someone comfortable with such fraud and waste would choose Hollywood.

The left appeals to group-think, as does Hollywood. The left has its core, consisting of unions and lawyers, but its secondary constituents come and go with fashion. For a while, feminists wanted to stamp out porn, but now they embrace it as liberating. Environmentalists are celebrities now, but their favor within the Democratic Party comes and goes. By contrast, when Republicans turned their backs on their core values of smaller government and lower taxes, they were punished like never before. The Republican base has little tolerance for fads. Hollywood’s foundation is fads. Scientology, Kabbalah, macro-biotic foods, whatever. People prone to believe anything dumped in the feed bag of pop culture should like Hollywood just fine.

Another reason for the left’s affinity for Hollywood is guilt. Hollywood is, in reality, a bastion of extreme and cruel capitalism. As it should be, unappealing actors earn essentially nothing, while those with whatever skills are required make $20MM or more per picture. The disparity between the successful and the ordinary in this industry hasn’t been seen elsewhere since John Rockefeller. Just as the Kennedys feel guilt from their gangster related fortune, Hollywood knows their mansions and Bentleys are a bit over the top. The best way to exorcise such guilt is through left wing politics. Milton Friedman would say “good for you” to those who prosper. The right generally embraces success, but the guilt remains when Jim Carey makes $20MM for a few weeks of fart noises and imbecile remarks. The left is a church that offers absolution for these sins.

Finally, nepotism. People tend to vote like their parents, and Hollywood’s family tree is narrow. Considering the extreme competition for work and money in the industry, it is no surprise that favors are traded back and forth among a few family names. Circular logic, true, but Hollywood is left wing today because it was left wing yesterday.

So, the next time you wonder why Hollywood makes two versions of the same movie at the same time each Summer, remain calm. The next time you wonder why there are so many Rocky and Die Hard sequels, relax. The next time you consider the movies only to find there is nothing remotely original or creative on the menu, just realize that Hollywood is only hurting itself by being a narrow minded, insular, nepotistic cesspool of waste and corruption. Still, nobody can doubt the best parties will be in Denver, not Minneapolis, this year.

Like subatomic particles, far left politicians appear to be be in two places at the same time. The Iraq war is to blame for high oil prices, while at the same time Bush went to war for cheap oil. Big Oil engineered high oil prices, yet domestic oil production is evil and must be banned. They feel the common man’s pain at the pump, but also want to outlaw gas cars in 10 years by overhauling the US economy. Interestingly, the combined events of high oil prices, the Iraq war and Democratic insistence on oil production being done outside of the US have increased knowledge of what drives oil prices. The evidence shows that the solution to high oil prices is well at hand.

With a few spikes, the real price of oil has stayed around $25 per barrel for nearly a century, only recently exploding to about five times that amount. Prior to the US becoming substantially dependent on foreign oil sources in the early 70′s, the price of oil was amazingly steady. What portion of its oil the US needed from foreign sources was provided by relatively friendly countries like Iran and Venezuela. In short, the world supply of oil was in reliable hands. Of course the oil crises of 1973 and 1980, along with hostilities from Iran, Iraq, and later Venezuela shattered this regime. The volatility of oil prices sharply increased thereafter. On top of that, domestic oil production topped out due to environmentalist blocks.

For most markets, if a few suppliers went south, the market would quickly adjust and prices would not change much. The world could easily make do if Pepsi shut down because Coke and Cadbury would take up the slack and provide good substitutes. Even if there was no substitute for Pepsi, people could make do quite well without sugary soda of any kind. Oil is nearly unique in its resistance to the market forces that otherwise quickly correct for disruptions:

• Despite what the environmentalists say, there is no economic substitute for oil. Alternatives like electric vehicles are much more expensive to acquire and operate, and their usefulness is limited by the fact that nothing packs more energy into a confined space than gas.
• The lifespan of a car is quite long, and the cost of switching to a new car is high. Sales taxes alone are several thousand dollars. Even if a better alternative to cars existed, it would take years to transition.
• If substitution is difficult, avoidance is harder still. People will not give up driving because the cost of not driving is still much higher than the cost of operating a car with $4 / gallon gas. Nearly every product for sale is based on some amount of gas consumption, making going without unthinkable.
• When the price of a commodity goes up, the normal result is increased production, thus returning the price to equilibrium. Oil is different because the free market is not fully present. Oil is substantially in the hands of foreign despots and domestic far left loons. No sensible person would invest in Venezuela, Russia, or Iran, because he would rationally expect his assets to be confiscated by a dictatorial thug. Until recently, Iraq was also on that list. Domestically, people like Sen. Reid, Speaker Peolsi, and Sen. Obama want to punish oil producers with windfall profit taxes, a similar disincentive to investment and development.

What all this amounts to is that oil is especially price insensitive. That is, it takes a huge increase in price to create even a modest decrease in consumption or increase in production. The price of gas had to more than double for consumption in the US to fall just 0.5%. The bright side of this, however, is that it takes only a small increase in production to lower prices substantially.

Another universal aspect of markets is that uncertainty raises prices. Without snoozing through too much academia, the more uncertain or variable the expected payout, the higher the return an investor will demand. The oil nations have made supplies uncertain, so investors demand higher returns. The Pelosis and Reids of the world blame speculators, but they are the symptom, not the illness. Speculators are just as willing to bid down oil futures based on well know and immutable principles of the derivatives markets. Those who wish to scapegoat speculators should rather consider inflation, the falling dollar, Chavez, Putin, and Ahmadinejad, all much more potent market forces. Like so many regulatory spirits, Mr. Reid thinks only within his playpen. As soon as rumblings began that speculation in oil would be outlawed in the US, Hong Kong announced plans to open oil futures trading. Fortunately, collectivists like Mr. Reid are quite powerless to prevent free trade, including oil speculation, due to its international nature.

If Iraq has lead to higher oil prices, the swift success of the surge has made them fall. The very week that Iraq announced plans to nearly double its daily oil production through new exploration, oil began its collapse of more than 20%. The initial production increase is expected to be about 1 million barrels per day, which is about the same as the production estimate for ANWR.

Just as important to oil prices as anticipated increased production, stability is the other good news from Iraq. Even long time war skeptics like Sen. Obama have given in and admitted that the surge has worked and Iraq is increasingly stable. This is important, because for the first time in 30 years, Iraq is an attractive investment. Oil companies are flush with billions in profits and are eager to invest in more production. With the US off limits, Iraq is a new option to enable their mission to produce oil. No fool would invest money with Husein, but the new Iraq has at least a fighting chance for stability, thanks to the surge.

If Ms. Pelosi thinks ANWR production will have no impact on oil prices, just consider Iraq. A shift in policy there caused oil to fall 20%, years before any expected increase in production. Domestic oil production bears far less sovereign risk than in Iraq, not for the House Speaker and Mr. Reid’s efforts to the contrary. Their response to the clear need for increased domestic production was to try to take away drilling rights from companies who were too slow for their tastes. Imagine the organization behind the Postal Service and the FAA chiding private industry for being too slow.

The evidence suggests that a little stability and increased production go a long way toward lowering oil prices and calming speculators. The mere announcement of ANWR, shale oil, and offshore oil drilling would likely result in another immediate 20% drop in oil prices, or more. Speaker Pelosi was against drilling, then maybe for it, and now against it again. The poor girl is in quite a bind, pressed between her extreme environmentalist base and the 75% of Americans who demand more domestic production. Perhaps Congress will do her a favor someday by relieving her of this horrible burden.