Why did it take Bush 8 years to say this?

Gee, I wish I could speak on every topic with a bunch of long winded platitudes.

It should be a priority.

And who pays to make it a priority? Who is affected by policy changes that make it a priority? What new costs, taxes, regulations etc can make it a priority?

This is, quite frankly, some of the most regressive thinking I have ever come across. We intervene in Iran in 53, which is just one of many interventions in the region over the last 60 years, as well as ally closely with muslim enemy state Israel, and then when it culminates in a war to control the Taliban (because they won't play nice with our pipeline plans) and Iraq (because they seceded from the dollar hegemony) now the answer is to punish the domestic market to reform government interference and moral hazard.

As Reagan once said,

I realize wannabe ideological centrists (standing for nothing and everything simultaneously) get into trouble when they try to construct an argument, but surely solving intervention with more intervention has to be one of the most silly arguments ever proposed.

Of course it stunned you. You do not understand monetary policy. We've covered it dozens of times. Again, the answer is always more platitudes. The art of banal generalities.

This whole conversation is so frustrating, because like the earmark vs. spending argument, people have such narrow focus.

NOW, our foreign policy has NOTHING to do with terrorism.

It's all because we use too much oil.

How totally, completely and absolutely RETARDED.

The supposition being, if we keep our enemies poor, they can't kill us. Now THIS, is almost GWB logic.

 

Guerilla:


I guess that means you encourage the US to keep buying oil in huge quantitites from Saudi Arabia

Check out our trade imbalance http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5170.html#2006

 

Being a person that prefers to stand on my own two feet (sometimes to my own demise, when I should be asking for help), I would like to see our country be less reliant on the resources of other countries.

We have many directions that we could take as far as renewable energies are concerned. I think creating more incentives for businesses and schools to R&D and improve on these technologies would be acting in a more forward thinking way than we are now. Creating scholarships, research grants, and reimbursements for the public, schools, and cities/states would be really helpful. Even holding contests, like we did with that X-rocket, could be cool. I'd love to see some of our inventors rewarded for their ingenuity and persistence. I'd also love to see the US or North America take the lead in this.

Along with creating incentives, we could create dis-incentives for using polluting, gas-guzzling, inefficient energy uses.

 

Hemp instead of corn for biofuels. Hemp produces 10 times more fuel than corn does. Can be grow anywhere up to 3 times per year instead of 1 harvest and does not require pesticides. We could grow hemp along side of every US highway for the nation's fuel. - http://www.hempcar.org/hempfacts.shtml

When they come out... electric cars or at least hybrid plug-in cars that run on the battery for the first 40 or so miles of use.

Get more solar, wind, and hydro in our electric grid since more and more cars will be running on a battery charge from the grid.

More trains instead of highways for commuting and for shipping goods. As we work on our infrastructure through the coming years we need to think this way IMO.

 

What about Switch Grass?

And it's native, which is really nice.

Here's a picture. It grows quite well!

 

In fact if you want to get a good picture of the impact of rising oil prices and who benefits from US purchases,take a look at this information extracted from the US census bureau. http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5170.html

It represents total trade balances between US and Saudi Arabia. I only inputted the US Import information and trade balance information: I doubt if we are importing much of significant value besides oil

Calandar Year total Imports ($billion) US trade balance ($billion


2007 $35.6 -$25.2
2006 31.7 -24.0
2005 27.2 -20.4
2004 21.0 -15.7
2003 18.1 -13.5
2002 13.1 -8.4
2001 13.3 -7.3
2000 . 14.4 -8.1
1999 8.3 -0.3
1998 6.2 +.4

I took it back to the last time there was a positive trade balance between Saudi Arabia and the US.

As fuel energy costs are going up around the world and in America, here is a graphic look at who is getting rich by rising fuel costs.

I have no doubt some that money distributed among the very vast Saudi families goes back to terrorists.

 

Sure it's better than corn

It's on par with hemp.

From your wikipedia source

The more solutions the better. I figure we'll find one that's best for cars, one for heating, etc.

 

The problem is, the government interfered initially when it introduced price controls. Price controls do not allow the market to dictate price. If the market dictated price, there would be more competition and lower prices.

Do you realize it is illegal for a gas station to sell their gas at or below cost?

It costs about $4 a barrel to refine gas. I would imagine that the costs associated with getting that barrel do not nearly account for the other $100 that is being charged.

Gas is a commodity and a drug no different than cigarettes, both of which are price controlled, highly regulated and overly taxed.

It cost 6 cents to make a pack of cigarettes, yet they sell for $8 in many places in the US. Let's keep in mind that aside from the mean nasty arabs controlling price, and the US controlling price, there are federal, and state taxes that are also adding to the overall costs of oil, not unlike cigarettes.

The state governments are just as much too blame for price rape, as the fed, and OPEC.

When the fed stops seeing the revenue coming in, they will have to act too!

One has to ask the question, if cigarettes are so bad, why are they legal? Same reason gas prices stay where they are... Everyone is making money off them, from the producers to the taxers. If our government really cared about these rising costs, wouldn't they offer some type of tax relief on the gas price state wide? Perhaps do something useful with the money like fix roads? I've seen no substantial increase in infrastructure spending, though there are record profits coming in from increased tax revenues from gas.

I've also seen no investment in alternative energy, more fuel efficient or cleaner fuel, nor any noticeable increase in exploration for new oil or refineries, even though the oil companies are making record profits.

Reducing demand is the only way to send a wake up call to all involved.

 

One can make the argument that the terror will increase with low oil price (less vibrant economies in the middle east, more people poor and hungry and more willing to use terrorism as a way of venting out)

In Fact 9-11 was formed, funded and planned in the days when oil was at $10 a barrel.

As for Bush saying that we need to get off of oil, I believe he said that two years ago in the state of the Union, but the best way for us to get off oil is through market prices which prices increase to a point where people change their behavior not through government mandates.

Just look at corn and wheat prices, They took off right around the time congress forced companies to switch from MTBE (Fuel additive) To Ethanol.

You mean like Canada?

Our trade imbalance with Canada (Our largest supplies of oil) is almost double what it is with Saudi Arabia.

 

Because the level of thinking of a Man and DOG is big. Man will think before things happen. And dog will learn when all had happend. So big difference in thinking. Understand it.

 

Considering that the Germans are renowned for not having a sense of humour that's a classic clip!

 

Soniqhost:

I am aware that Canada is the largest exporter of oil to the US. I am not aware of the current trade imbalance. I'll take a look at that. Clearly Canada is the largest trading partner of the US.

But Canada is not where Islamic terrorists are being born and Canada is not where Islamic terrorists are being trained and supported.

My point has less to do with trade imbalance then rising costs of importing oil and where that wealth is going, ostensibly to nations that foster the development of Islamic terrorism.

Of interest this website has very thorough data on oil production, oil consumption, oil importing and oil exporting nations.

The US is currently the world's 3rd largest producer of oil trailing Saudi Arabia and Russia.

The US is also the world's largest oil importer by far. Our imports are roughly equal to the totals of the next 4 largest importers directly behind us.

By far the US is the worlds largest user of oil. We roughly use more or the same as the next 5 largest users of oil combined.

From a strategic perspective the largest oil producing portion of the world is the middle east where terrorism reigns supreme. As Mia suggested it would be wise to sponsor movement from a need and dependance on oil to mitigate against dependence on this part of the world even as it is the center for Islamic terrorism, financially supports it, and has no effective internal mechanisms to mitigate against it.

I agree with Mia when he suggested that buying oil helps support terrorism.

Of interest, referencing the website above, Japan, the world's second largest economy has essentially reduced its usage of oil over time by about 10% from its peak usage, even as its economy has grown. US usage of oil has increased during that period, not in a crazy way, but it has increased. Clearly if Japan could reduce usage so could the US. Exactly how is a function of decisions to be made.

Mia: There is no doubt that pricing is one way to effect usage. Whatever problems you have with state and federal taxes on oil, one point is that they do add to the price and in that regard they limit usage. European nations tax the dickens out of oil far worse than we do. As a consumer, living on border states I'm aware of which states tax more or less, and being the cheapskate that I am I try in always fill up in states with lower taxes and lower costs. Moreover as someone who drives through several Northeastern states on occaision to visit relatives I'm aware of the different costs and try to fill up the gas tank so as to avoid the higher oil tax states.

The other aspect of state and federal taxes on oil is that they are used for road and highway repair. To the extent that a gas tax is closely akin to a user tax it is far closer to the "ideal" of the most conservative libertarians out there, in that gas taxes/ or essentially user fees on driving are used to support repair of roads.

Of course you could go without roads and repairs and absolutely strangle and f*ck up the economy...but I doubt you'd want that.

Over the last decade US internal production of oil has dropped slightly and US consumption of oil has increased, though not dramatically. What has happened though is that the price of oil has risen so dramatically that as the world's largest importer of oil by a huge margin it has dramatically moved US funds outside of the nation to other nations.

Of final note, again relative to the website referenced above, over the last 10 years there has been no dramatic increase in US reserves of oil. Its a relatively small number. Drilling in these reserves everywhere, and finding oil and producing it would have a negligible impact on the negative cash balance that is caused by the huge and enormous price increase in the cost of oil.

 

The US needs to cut its dependane on all oil foreign and domestic. It's not just about cars but the cost of heating and air conditioning bigger homes that are built farther away from cities.

 

Bush is a 100% war maker.I hop Obama will win the election and end the war.

 

Even if you got rid of evey car in the US there wouldn't be enough US oil production. Heating oil alone accounts for about 25% of the use of crude oil.

 

Great post, Mia...

I love seeing huge SUVs with those silly yellow "I Support Our Troops" ribbons; those people crack me up... They support our troops until it comes to a little personal sacrifice...

And you don't think the decrease in demand would drive costs down a little until we could find a viable substitute?

 

great clip

explains alot

 

How are you going to get rid of 5% of the cars in United States? The only way the problem is going to resolve itself is with the 'law of supply and demand'

America needs to stop building suburbs and spreading out.

We need to start building more trains to haul freight and bullet trains to replace air travel.

 

the things you are talking is almost impossible to do, even in 8 years time.

The market in EU and China is not much lower than US one, so the prices will likely drop only around 30 %. Is it worth it? I think no, cos you will spend much more to migrate from oil to something else. But in 50 years time (im not sure the exact date when the oil resource will finish) something has to be done....SUV's will struggle for sure

 

The US has to start doing something. We are using 26 million barrels of oil a day. US oil consumption exceeds the combinded total of the next 5 largest consumers - China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India.