During the recent presidential debate, Vice President Joe Biden inadvertently spoke the truth about the commitment of the Democratic Party to "phase out" oil and replace it with renewable energies, eliminating fracking in the process.  Donald Trump immediately seized upon it: "Basically what he is saying is he is going to destroy the oil industry."  "Will you remember that, Texas?  Pennsylvania?  Oklahoma?  Ohio?"

Trying to clean up the fracking mess he just created, Biden recited the Democratic Party's poetry of dreams — "They're not going to lose their jobs, and besides, they're gonna — there's a lot more jobs that are going to be created in other alternatives" — unaware of prose of reality.

The prose of reality was eloquently observed by American historian Ralph Raico: "The audacity of the Marxists' dream was matched only by the depth of their economic ignorance." It may come as a surprise to Biden and his economically ignorant supporters that job creation is not the purpose of capitalism per se.  The purpose of the capitalist economy is to create wealth.  Employment and the subsequent distribution of the spoils of an economy are A byproducts of capitalism and come about as an economic necessity.

The Green New Deal is not new and is not a deal.

It is not a deal because there is no economic necessity for the green jobs.  Those government- sponsored artificial jobs are not intended to create wealth.  The Green New Deal is the latest Marxist scheme of putting the harness of socialism around the necks of the American people by replacement of a capitalist market economy with a government-controlled political economy.

The alternative energies are not competitive and are not self-sustaining (they require gas-fired backups).  Taxes and the cost of energy need to be raised significantly to pay for them.  They are, rather, an instrument of wealth destruction aimed at achieving the utopian dream of economic equality in poverty.

This is not new.  Those who believe in this socialist nonsense or suffer amnesia or were too young to remember need to be reminded that in 2008, the Obama-Biden administration enacted a comprehensive "New Energy for America" plan, a precursor of the current insanity, at a cost of $150 billion, promising "an ocean of tomorrows."  Among other great things, it promised to create five million new green jobs as well as to put one million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2015.  This "ocean of tomorrows"  never reached the American beaches and proved to be a colossal failure.  Nearly all of the alternative energy generation companies subsidized by the government, such as the infamous Solyndra, went bankrupt and fewer than 300,000 electric cars were on the road by 2015.

Those of us who have been educated in engineering, not in law or performing arts, recognize the undeniable fact that we still live in the nuclear/hydrocarbon age, and 80% of our $20-trillion economy relies on hydrocarbons.  Any attempt to constrain oil, coal, and gas production will have a devastating impact on our way of life.

Energy is the lifeblood of the economy.  Without a cheap and reliable energy supply, the country will face profound and grievous vulnerabilities.

Trump's advent marked one of the greatest advances in the history of this nation.  Prior to achieving energy independence, this country had experienced a sense of impotence in foreign and industrial affairs.  The foreign policies were greatly influenced by the Arab oil-producers and industrial policies in many instances were dictated by China.  Overall, it tilted the balance of power away from the United States.  It has taken Donald Trump, who possessed the necessary skill and daring, to reverse America's decline.  In terms of principles of statecraft, economy, and foreign policy, Trump has proven that he offers far the better argument over Biden.

It is not to say that we will always rely on hydrocarbons.  As legendary Sheikh Yamani, former OPEC oil minister, said, "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones; it ended because we invented bronze tools, which were more productive."  And the Hydrocarbon Age will not end because we ran out of oil.  One thing for sure is that it will not be accomplished by geniuses like Joe Biden, who aspire to change the tempo of history, but rather by non-politicians like Elon Musk.

Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a conservative think-tank hosted at King's College, New York City, which examines national security, energy, risk analysis, and other public policy issues.  He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It.  He is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC.  He can be reached at info@litwinms.com.