High Gas Prices? Blame the Tree Huggers!

Mottleydude said:
Dixie, you really need to do more homework before you post on a topic that you're not really well informed on. You have these blinders on that the USA exists in an isolated bubble and that oil companies owe some sort of loyalty to this country when most of them are foreign owned.
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I think I am well enough educated on economics to understand the basic principles of supply and demand, and how it effects price. Apparently, you are not so fortunate as to have this wisdom, but if you study economics very long, it is bound to come up.

I do not think the USA exists in an isolated bubble, I wasn't the one assuming our oil consumption in the next 20 years would be increasing at the same inefficiency of the past 20 years, that was Solitary. I have never said that ANY corporation "owed loyalty" to this country or ANY country, the function of a corporation is not to devote loyalty to the government, and unless there is some tangible and profitable reason for them to "devote loyalty" they generally won't.

The price of gas has absolutely nothing to do with whether the oil company is US or foreign owned, they all buy their oil from the same foreign source. We have been through your litany of excuses and criticisms, but we keep coming back to the very simple principle of economics, supply and demand. We have stopped drilling our own oil, and haven't built a new refinery in 20 years, and we now import more oil than ever in our history. This has created a lack of supply and our demand has not decreased. At the same time, the source of our import oil has decided to cut production, which creates even more of a lack of supply, and demand continues to increase. The economic result is higher gas prices. This will continue as long as the conditions continue. A Democrat president will not change this, releasing our strategic reserve will not change this, price freezes or regulation will not change this.

There is only one way to change the dynamic causing high gas prices, and that is to increase supply. The only way for us to do this, is drill for oil and refine it, as soon as we can. I have no problem adopting a strategy that also lessens our dependency on oil, through alternative fuels, etc., but the immediate problem is a simple economic principle, which has to be addressed before we see any relief from higher and higher gas prices. At a certain point, funding research becomes irrelevant because your society has already collapsed and you have much greater concerns. How will someone buy a hydrogen car 20 years from now, if their entire pay check is going to pay for much higher goods and services due to the increase in fuel costs?

You know, you guys want to make me out as the extremist right-winger, but here I am offering a double-sided solution, a "moderate" solution, to drill for new oil while becoming more energy efficient. You are the ones who are obfuscating, making excuses, trying to turn the discussion into a philosophical debate or finger-pointing session. Who's more extreme?
 
Dixie said:
I think I am well enough educated on economics to understand the basic principles of supply and demand, and how it effects price. Apparently, you are not so fortunate as to have this wisdom, but if you study economics very long, it is bound to come up.

I do not think the USA exists in an isolated bubble, I wasn't the one assuming our oil consumption in the next 20 years would be increasing at the same inefficiency of the past 20 years, that was Solitary. I have never said that ANY corporation "owed loyalty" to this country or ANY country, the function of a corporation is not to devote loyalty to the government, and unless there is some tangible and profitable reason for them to "devote loyalty" they generally won't.

The price of gas has absolutely nothing to do with whether the oil company is US or foreign owned, they all buy their oil from the same foreign source. We have been through your litany of excuses and criticisms, but we keep coming back to the very simple principle of economics, supply and demand. We have stopped drilling our own oil, and haven't built a new refinery in 20 years, and we now import more oil than ever in our history. This has created a lack of supply and our demand has not decreased. At the same time, the source of our import oil has decided to cut production, which creates even more of a lack of supply, and demand continues to increase. The economic result is higher gas prices. This will continue as long as the conditions continue. A Democrat president will not change this, releasing our strategic reserve will not change this, price freezes or regulation will not change this.

There is only one way to change the dynamic causing high gas prices, and that is to increase supply. The only way for us to do this, is drill for oil and refine it, as soon as we can. I have no problem adopting a strategy that also lessens our dependency on oil, through alternative fuels, etc., but the immediate problem is a simple economic principle, which has to be addressed before we see any relief from higher and higher gas prices. At a certain point, funding research becomes irrelevant because your society has already collapsed and you have much greater concerns. How will someone buy a hydrogen car 20 years from now, if their entire pay check is going to pay for much higher goods and services due to the increase in fuel costs?

You know, you guys want to make me out as the extremist right-winger, but here I am offering a double-sided solution, a "moderate" solution, to drill for new oil while becoming more energy efficient. You are the ones who are obfuscating, making excuses, trying to turn the discussion into a philosophical debate or finger-pointing session. Who's more extreme?
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Dixie, how many times do we have to tell you, beat you with it, pound it up your ass. Drilling for more oil alone is not neccesarrily going to make us more energy independent nor will refining more petroleum products in this country create a greater supply when the only incentive the oil companies have to not export it is if domestic prices are high.

You're solution is simple minded. It won't work alone. I don't care if you're an extremist right winger or left winger. This is not a solution at least not by itself. One of the big false premises you have is trusting the oil companies to do what is in the best interest of US domestic energy policy when they have no such incentive or obligation to do so.

Keep in mind to $4/gallon gas is probably a blessing is disguise. The debasement of the US dollar, which is the biggest reason for higher gas/oil prices is not neccessarilly a bad thing. It means that foreign nations can now afford to import US manufactured products and will help to lower the US trade deficit creating more jobs in the manufacturing sector. It's also an incentive to conserve more fuel and to dump gas guzzling SUV's and trucks and to require higher fuel efficiency standards. It will also mean less cars on the roads and lower cost in maintaining the roads and less CO2 emissions and pollutants. It's also creates the incentive for developing alternative energy sources.
 
Dixie said:
Back during the Gerald Ford days, our Congress had a great debate about our gasoline problems. The country was in the midst of a gas shortage like we had never seen before. People waited for hours in line for a small amount of gas, and the government had to implement rationing. At the time, the biggest problem was not being able to get a reliable supply of oil from the OPEC nations. Because of 'supply and demand' the price was high, but nothing compared to today's prices. The main problem was supply.

It was suggested at that time, that we may need to build more domestic oil infrastructure. American oil companies had surveyed the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of California, and most notably, the Northern Slope of Alaska. What they discovered was, the US has oil reserves to rival those of the Middle East. Certainly enough to insure our independence of foreign oil for many generations. This seemed to be the logical solution, but Environmentalists stopped it from happening. The election of Jimmy Carter sealed the deal, the Leftist Liberal Tree Huggers had won a major victory!
So... Here we are, gas is quickly approaching $5 a gallon. Had we invested in new oil infrastructure in 1977, we would be completely independent of any foreign oil today. Perhaps that phrase doesn't sink in... let me explain what it means to be "completely independent of any foreign oil" ...Gas is $0.78 gallon in Saudi Arabia.

Once again, the subject has come up, and once again, the Tree Huggers stand in the way, obstructing any attempts to tap into our own natural resources. In spite of having absolutely no answers for the immediate future, the Tree Huggers cling to 'Conservation and Exploring Alternative Fuels', as the only acceptable solutions... no more drilling, no more refining.

.........
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I can't get past your first intelectually dishonest statement in this post to even discuss it further....

Dixie, Alaskan oil was found in Pruedoe Bay, northern slopes of Alaska in 1968, by 1977 the Alaskan Oil Pipeline was complete and we started drawing on the multiple oil companies that drew the oil out of this area...

15 billion barrels of oil have been drawn from this area i believe, which reached it's peak in 1988 but is still putting out around 750,000 barrels of oil a day...

Drilling in ANWR, will not give us Energy independance, it puts this oil on the Global Market and does nothing for us individually.....unless you want to Nationalize our Oil....

Conservation does more to control the rising cost of oil than drilling smidgeons of oil here and there....

If we can conserve world wide, hundreds of millions of gallons of oil byproducts such as gas, then it would be like "finding and drilling and pulling out of the ground" millions of barrels of oil... without one penny being spent on the drilling and extracting and transporting and refining of the product.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_System

Care
 
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so lets hear how the argument of billions and billions of more barrells doesn't make a difference. I need a laugh.
 
In other words Dixie, Carter had it right...we drew on our own oil AND WE CONSERVED, conservation being what helped us the MOST, with the new CAFE standards for cars being put in place....and putting our, up until that point taken for granted casual energy use, on the table for examination.
 
Dixie, how many times do we have to tell you, beat you with it, pound it up your ass. Drilling for more oil alone is not necessarily going to make us more energy independent nor will refining more petroleum products in this country create a greater supply when the only incentive the oil companies have to not export it is if domestic prices are high.
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I don't know how many times you are going to have to tell me something irrelevant. I haven't stated that drilling for more oil alone is necessarily going to make us anything. I have suggested it will help, along with conservation and research into alternative fuels. You see, in your myopic head, you are only reading one of my suggestions, then you are turning it into "alone" and pretending I didn't say anything else. This is patently absurd to anyone who bothers to read my post, but apparently you don't care that you are being absurd.

You're solution is simple minded. It won't work alone. I don't care if you're an extremist right winger or left winger. This is not a solution at least not by itself. One of the big false premises you have is trusting the oil companies to do what is in the best interest of US domestic energy policy when they have no such incentive or obligation to do so.
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Again, I have not suggested anything as a sole answer to the problem, I have offered a multi-level approach, which follows known principles of economics and has been proven to work before. Nothing I've suggested is relying on "trusting" a corporation, they are in business to make profits. And yes, I agree, it is a simple minded solution, increasing supply always causes lower price. I'm sorry it's not more complicated than that.

In other words Dixie, Carter had it right...
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And you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty?
 
Drilling in ANWR, will not give us Energy independance, it puts this oil on the Global Market and does nothing for us individually.....unless you want to Nationalize our Oil....
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Care, let's have an analogy here... If you and I both make widgets... and you currently make and sell 90% of all widgets on the market, and I make less than 10% of the widgets on the world market, it is safe to say, you control the price, not me. I can certainly sell my widgets for less, and you can simply buy them up as I put them on the market. As long as the dynamic remains unchanged, you will control the price of a widget on the world market. However, if I increase my production of widgets, and suddenly I am producing 50% of the widgets on the market, well... we have a different dynamic! I can now effect the price of widgets because you simply can't buy up all of my cheap offers, and if you expect to compete, you must lower your price, which means the price of widgets is lower on the world market, thanks to my efforts.

The same is true with crude oil. If the US produced more (supply), and required less from foreign sources (demand), the price on the world market would decline considerably. It is a very simple economic principle.
 
Well dixie since the USA uses about 75% of the oil and our demand has been about flat for the last year, why has the price zoomed upwards ?
 
Topspin said:
55 would save billions of gallons, no way people are ready for that pain.
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I do the limit in the right hand lane. EVERYONE is STILL passing me. The simplest thing in the world to do - leave early and get off the accelerator - but Americans are too lazy to do even that.
 
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