Gas prices.....LONG

[Sithquisitor]

This was a veryitneresting post. But oil prices and OPEC aren't simply a supply and demand sort of business. Unfortunately, it's a very political one. Though many people who are environmentally centered can only see that aspect of it. Please allow me to explain.

As it is well known, oil is a futures market , aka commodity. Prices for oil are traded daily in cash prices and "futures" meaning people bid on a contract by paying a certain price now for delivery at a later date. It is this industry in commodities, and this process which makes oil rise and fall. Now it seems simple at first until you start getting into trader psychology. Commodity trading is based on two different types of trading. Technical, and fundamentals. Technicals are just based on graphs and charts, while fundamentals are based on news such as weather patterns, war, bumper crops, etc. Now since we just freed up 20% of the world's oil suply, technically oil shoudl drop considerably.

Now let's step into the political side of this. Most of America's oil is not actually brought in from the mideast. However because of this clearing house of oil (commodity trading) those prices can be shot up worldwide. It is no secret we have enough oil to continue for another 500 years or so despite what greens say. So let's look at the political implications of what has been going on due to American policy right now.

We just invaded a country that posed no threat to us under the guise of lies of which all have been proven false. And now we're starting the same rhetoric to other countries in the mid-east (Syria and Iran). War always makes prices go up. And so does occupation, like we are in now. While the mid-eastearn countries are pretty blatant about their stand on American policy in the mid-east as it never favors them and seeks to change the region based on our customs and not theirs, Opec can easily turn down the output of oil which shoots up prices. Also, every time Dubya gets on the news and starts talking about invading Syria or Iran, traders get nervous and start bidding up the prices to make sure they receive oil when the contracts come around, even if it is inflated prices. Now that we have that covered let's move onto some other influencing factors.

The U.S. dollar has been the leading single pricing measure of oil for more than 60 years. With the US economy in decline, the dollar doesnt buy as much. When the dollar doesnt buy as much, the people producing the oil say we have to pay them more dollars to make up for it. Can't blame them there, after all its not their fault our government has no clue to fiscal responsibility. In fact, the Dollar has dropped so low Europe and people in the mid east want to start pricing oil in Euros.

Which brings us to Europe. The last nations on earth I would want America modelled after is Europe. Europe is so left of center they are eagerly transforming their native lands into third world countries just so they can relieve whatever liberal white guilt syndrome they have going on. What Europeans dont understand (its definitely a white thing) is that you cant bring totally divergent cultures together en masse inmillions and then expect them to adopt your ways after you give them handouts. Secondly, Europe isn't the bastion of of freedom we think it is. How can you call anything free when you can imprison people for merely disagreeing or asking for facts to be looked into? A nazi salute in america gets you frowned upon. In Europe it gets you jail time. Do you really want to be on the wrong side of the government line in a country like that? I know I don't.

As for Americans and oil shooting up to three bucks a agallon. Sad news here. If it does, expect everything else in America to shoot up with it. Oil is the basic common denominator of oil products in america due to shipping, harvesting, travel, and storage. If oil shootsup three bucks expect all consumer products to go up to meet with the prices of transporting those goods.

While I agree that better technology and lesser dependance on foreign oil production is efinitely the way to go, I also know that it is highly unlikely to change anytime soon. The real way to get to the heart of the matter is not to blame just consumerism, but to blame government policies and the insane people we put into power. The war on terror isnt going ot be paid in just blood, its being paid n and waged in oil. Welcome to the nightmare of lies and the hosue of cards we have carefully constructed and continue to hold onto.

Perhaps if our education system put more free thinkers out there instead of sheep kow towing to the party line, we wouldn;t be in this mess. But we are. And every time you see gas go up a nickel overnight, it isnt because Jimmy Sixpack bought a new SUV. So until we take into consideration all the factors involved, hugging a tree, rubbing a crystal, and being tolerant and diverse isn;t going to make the texas tea or black gold drop a bit. Anyone thinking otherwise is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[StudlyCamaro]

^ excellent points, welcome to the site

however i do believe that if we were all to drive cars that got decent MPG, then we would not have nearly the issue we have today, yes the gas would be going up due to other factors however if we all drove cars taht got 80 MPG we wouldnt be nearly as reliant on gasoline which would make it much less of a commidity that is essential to our society

[OldSkoolGP]

Sith, those are some excellent points. And I do have a lot of the same feelings you do when it comes to the politics of oil. I must admit I was afraid to throw my hat into the political side of it for fear that it would spark the old dems vs. reps fights I have seen on so many other forums. I have this same thread going on ClubGP right now, and it didn't take long for the right-wingers over there to accuse me of tring to trample their right to buy whatever vehicle they choose, and they completely missed my point, which has been that we need to be more responsible with energy. You're right, we'll all be dead before we use up all the crude, and tapping Alaska in the hopes of lowering oil prices would not help anything. And we do get a lot fo our oil from Mexico, Venezuela, and Canada, so the Saudi oil isn't as big a deal is it comes up short. But, the fact that the Saudis have so much money invested in this country, and the fact that we keep occupying country after country over there, will eventuallly come back to bite us in the butt.

One thing remains true, though. We do use a lot more oil than we should. The "We're American's and we can do what we want atttude that affect the Majority (approx. 51%)" of Americans will eventually turn us into a country of isolationists. The rest of the world will adapt to change with the times and we will fall behind. Our expors will decline, the deficit will skyrocket, and if Bush gets his way, everything will be sacrificed in the name of mlitary supremacy. He says he's a war president, but he has no idea where the battle is. I wonder if he just lays all the mideastern countries out in a circle and spins a ketchup bottle. BTW, if you haven't seen Fahrenheit 9/11 yet, watch it at least once. Sure, the points M.M. makes are scattered, and there is an anti-republican bias, but it also has a lot of good information, and things that will make you think, and make you question.

How Bush ever got re-elected I'll never know, and that fact that what's done is done means there's not much point getting into it. I just hope we can make it to 2008 without too much fiscal baggage.

[Sithquisitor]

Well no fear of starting a republican v/s democrat debate with me as I am a liberatarian. But since you mentioned Michael Moore and his fat worthless ass and conspiracy theories, I'd like to mention a few that didn't get into the news but maybe once or twice and then were covered up by the news media.

Michael Moore paints a good conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, it's a smokescreen to cover real events that happened. There is no way I will ever believe the US Government would be so brazen as to attack its own citizens in an event like that. The cover up would be too massive, not to ention the planning, etc. Having spent time int he intelligence community in my former profession, dealing specifically with anti-terrorism, I have no doubt that intelligence was passed on warning the upper echelons of government authority that an attack would occur. Unfiortunately, I also believe that lack of information left it very vague. Would the government have done anything? If it were a specific threat, yes. The threat of planes being used as missiles has been brought up before COngress many times since the early 90's by intelligence officers. Congress, however, thought it owuld be unwise to post military orheavily armed guards in our airports as it would send a message of a police state. Ironically, they had no problem voting the patriot bills 1 and 2 into existence. But before we get off the subject, let's go back to where the real conspiracy lies.

Two hours before the first plane hit the WTC, an anonymous IM was received by an employee of Odigo saying to get out of the building it was going to be attacked. Two ours. Odigo is/was a small internet messaging service based out of Israel. Instead of contacting local authorities, they contacted Israeli authoprities who passed onthe info to the FBI,albeit a bit too late as the planes had already struck. In NYC, 5 men were noticed taping the planes (yes even the first one) on top of a moving van. As the planes hit these men of Middle Eastern origin were seen hi-fiving, dancing and celebrating as the strikes hit. Residents of the neighborhood called the authorities and the men were placed under arrest. The men were found out to be Israeli "students" working for a "moving company". They were held for a week then released, upon which time they disappeared back to Israel. The "company" they worked for also disappeared when they did.

It was in these few months that followed over 120 Israeli "students" were gathered and arrested in America on charges of spying in an elaborate ring aimed at top military, intelligence, law enforcement and government officials. All 120 were never charged, but merely deported by Michael Chertoff, and Israeli sympathizer who owes more allegiance to his religious convictions than to this country. Among those 120 "students" arrested were two who lived two houses down from two of the 911 hijackers in Florida...

Fox news did a 4 part series on the spy ring, which was promptly removed from their website due to "anti-semitism" concerns. However it has been archived for viewing here.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7545.htm

Now that 4 part series puts anything Michael "I hate white people" Moore makes to shame.

So who really benefitted from 911? It wasn;t the american governemtn as the people have lost all faith in the security they provide. Only one country on th is planet benefitted from such an unhoy act. Ournation "ally" Israel. By such an attack, Israel could get the hand it needed to commit genocide against the 8 yr old "errorists"in the occupied land it stole from Palestinians. Israel could get America to attack its enemies in the Mid-East, under the guise of a war on terrorism. It could gain sympathy just by saying they were the victims of terrorists in their own nation. Anyone who knows anything about warfare knows that first its always a political stance, thencomes action. Remember Bush talking about his axis of evil? North korea, Syria, then Iran? The we invaded Afghanistan, then Iraq. Now we keep trying to find ways to take military action against Syria, and soon Iran. Time to stop beeing spoonfed people, and start taking notice of whats going on in the world.

This war on terror is actually a war to secure Israel from all its neighbors it bullies into submission using US weapons and technology giuven to them free of charge, which they gladly sell to China and in the past to the Soviet Union. What sort of ally is that? I say its one we can do without considering they hold absolutely nothig of value for the US.

[OldSkoolGP]

That may be true, but if the government admonishes Israel as an ally, the religious right will be crying bloody murder. Another group that benefitted from 9/11 was definitely religion. Even with all the scandals and bad things that spawn from religion, people still willingly give in and believe everything religion feeds them. I think it was said best in the movie Dogma by Chris Rock's character:

"Mankind has got it all wrong by taking a good idea and putting a belief structure on it. I just think it's better to have ideas, you know? You can change and idea. Changing a belief is a lot harder. People kill for it, people die for it."

The muslim terrorists of Al Queda and in Iraq all believe that sacrificing themselves and killing the infidels will earn them passage to heaven. Many of the major religions in this country have seated in the beliefs that Israel is a holy land because some Jewish carpenter supposedly lived there a couple millenia back. So turning our backs on Israel is not even an option, unless you want to tell the religious right that there are more important things in this world than helping a country push around people they stole land from after WWII while at the same time selling secrets and weapons we gave to them in confidence to other countries.

And this next statement may piss some people off, but religion is holding us back in this country. The seperation of church and state no longer exists, and they want to opine on everything political without having to pay the entry fee (a.k.a. taxes). Think about the problems religion imposes on a society that is crying out for improvement:

A woman does not have the right to abort a child, but it okay to kill several varieties of God's creatures in the interest of population control to make our lives easier.

It is wrong to use the stem cells from human embryos and fetuses that were going to be discarded anyway for research to help people, but it's ok for people to suffer from debilitating illnesses that destroy lives, so long as they believe in God.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that it is a sin to give your blood to another person, yet blood transfusions save countless people every year, and Jehovah's Witnesses profess helping others.

The teachings of Jesus are peace and prosperity, and the Crusades sure proved that by killing millions in the name of God.

Everything about religion contradicts itself when you get right down to it. But now I'm getting off the topic. I wish we would just pack up everything we have overseas and just come one home. But that won't happen. And we can thank World War II for most of the problems we have to put up with today in the Middle East.

[bud36light]

wow, you guys really must like to type. I just want cheap gas!

[buick8]

Gas Prices

Sorry to change the topic back: I still submit that the price of gas is roughly the same as it was 30 years ago (or somewhat lower, if the extra taxes are accounted for) in CONSTANT-VALUE Dollars (that is, adjusted for inflation).
If the above is true, why all the griping and whining, and conspiracy theories? If it is not true, tell us why it isn't true.
One thing to keep in mind about conspiracy theories: they always require one or more human beings to keep a secret; the bigger the theory, the bigger the secret. And people can't keep secrets.

[OldSkoolGP]

Well, it's time to get this post back on track. We all heard yesterday that the decision to drill for oil in Alaska passed by a slim margin in the senate. A CNN panel was saying that the supply of oil under Alaska could provide as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day. One of the men on the panel was saying that if demand is high, you increase supply wherever you can. Here is what I see wrong with this idea:

1) The U.S. consumes close to 30 million barrels of oil per DAY. The natonal average gas price is $2.049 per gallon. If you inject another million barrels per day into the supplies, in an optimal situation you could lower the price of gas by 6.83 cents per gallon, bringing you down to $1.9807 cents per gallon. Even if you can drill in Alaska and not hurt the environment there, what have you gained? All you've done is put a very small band-aid on a very large wound.

2) You can increase all the supplies avenues we have to double what they produce now and not cut gas prices by half. You still need to refine it, which we do not have the capacity to do. A major increase in supply may bring prices down in the short term, but once that happens it will create even more demand, and we'll be worse off than we were before! The long term answer is not increasing supply! If supply stays constant and demand decreases, prices goes down, and they stay down. This is the thinking our politicians need to get into if things are going to change.

How do you do it? Well, I have some ideas, many that will not be popular with sport-ute and truck owners, but I'm sorry. Those who consume the most gas are the biggest problem. The "I can drive whatever I want" philosphy has to be replaced with the "I can do better for my country and be more responsible with energy." If that happens, demand goes down. The car companies will finally start to realize that they need to get on board with energy efficient vehicles as a full-time venture, and things will finally start to get better. But it has to start with us. Goverments can enforce rules and limits, but we have to make the consciencious effort first.

[bszopi]

Why would car companies want to spend the R&D money to create a fuel efficient vehicle when they can sell their gas-guzzlers for $35k+?! The fact is, with the SUV trend continuing, car companies are making some serious $$ on their over-priced, must-have vehicles.

As far as the oil supply, I can't remember where I saw it or the exact numbers, but automobiles consume just a small percentage of the total daily usage of oil. So even if all the cars started getting 60mpg, it really wouldn't affect the overall cost that much. All it would do is save people alittle money by not having to fill up as often.

[kanchou]

The hard numbers from every source I have looked at show that there is no shortage of crude coming into the U.S. The problem is we haven't built a new refinery in over 20 years. Ever refinery we have is running at 100% all the time just to fall behind. Of course, the government is in no rush to build a new one, or you think they would have mentoned it by now.

I thought that this has been tried, but environmentalist lobbies keep causing opposition.

If you want to find the main cause for the high price of gas, it's these ridiculous trucks and SUVs.

I thought India and CHina's consuption increasing by orders of magnitiude in the last 10 years contributed more than this.

The size of the vehicle is directly proportional to how fast they drive it.

The ride height, I feel just by judging people i know, creates a sense of detachment from the road and traffic around you in these vehicles. My own mother got in a parked H2 and said "Woah! Get the hell outta my way!"

If we want to save money, then we have to start saving energy. There is no miracle on the horizon that is going to bring gas prices into a freefall.

too bad most people believe that politicians are the only ones who will bring them their magical electric cars. wonder if it ever occurs to them where we get electricity...? ;p

neat stuff, there

[kanchou]

We just invaded a country that posed no threat to us under the guise of lies of which all have been proven false.

Then you don't believe Saddam had weapons he shouldn't have had?

Perhaps if our education system put more free thinkers out there instead of sheep kow towing to the party line, we wouldn;t be in this mess.

That won't happen so long as the government is the primary source of education. Can we really expect an education by the government to reasonably give us the ability to reign in control of said government?