How good are the odds our gas prices will level off once Haliburton's biggest supporters leave the white house?
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How good are the odds our gas prices will level off once Haliburton's biggest supporters leave the white house?
PP : it has little to do with Bush or Cheeney/Haliburton in or out of the White House.Quote:
Originally Posted by purplewings
We are encountering shortages of oil supply. Permanent shortages. Worldwide shortages.
The best one can do is decrease oil/energy consumption : drive smaller cars, drive less, use less electricity.
Remember that the average American uses double the energy of the average European with a similar lifestyle.
So it can be done!
Remember that you gringo's are not too bad off at all : we pay here in the EU over 2 US$ for one single liter of gasoline. Americans should pay the same : with 1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liter that means 7.6 US$ for one single gallon of gasoline! Not the current 3.2 to 3.5 US$ that you pay at this moment. That will teach them to reduce energy consumption and conserve natural resources!!
:)
Oil supplies are running out... some estimates are as short as 50 years.
I think it's much more likely that the prices will level off once we find a cheap and efficient means of alternate energy. As easy as it is to blame the government, the prices of oil are dictated more by competition with countries like China and India than anyone at the White House. Both of those nations have emerging economies and are consuming more and more oil. If you think gas prices are high, please take a trip overseas... in the UK gas is over $8/gal Ireland gas is over $7/gal.
The truth is that gas prices are rising because of futures market speculators. Possibly the price will drop under them and they will take a beating but the reality is that there is a growing world wide demand for petroleum.
I think prices will rise with a Democrat in office ;at least on a temporary basis. Why ? They want a drastic increase in the pump tax... up to 50 cents a gal. They like Credendovidis think that would reduce consuption ;and maybe they are right on that . You see already that the major auto dealers are featuring some kind of hybrid vehicle... responding to market realities . Freemarketers know that rising prices increases incentives to invest in emerging technologies .
The vicious cycle is that if they were successful there would be a glut of oil;the price of crude would again drop ;and most likely we would return to some form of gas guzzling.
I agree with Tom, but those who think that they are going "green" by buying hybrids are not properly informed. The mining, processing, manufacturing, and disposal of those batteries produces pollution. Add to that the expense of replacing those batteries. I expect to see a high percentage of these hybrids in the salvage yards at an early mileage when the owners find that it costs less cash to replace the vehicle than to replace the batteries.
That's what we're being told. However, the gasoline prices jump upward steadily even when they are stable in the middle east - so it's more than just that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Credendovidis
I think if Cheney had such an influence on things we would be drilling for oil in ANWR already .Quote:
Tom, I think if Cheney and Haliburton weren't so tight, we would have allowed alternate fuel exploration many years ago.
Galveston you are probably correct about the hybrids. Even if they were reliable I would wait a few generations of vehicles for the manufacturers to iron out defects.
As for alternate fuels I have my doubts about ever finding a subsititute for oil that is as reliable. Ethanol has many negatives as has been explored in other postings and you make a excellent point about the drawbacks to electric power. Most people are not educated about even the proper disposal of the AA s in their cameras .
Purplewings
My point about alternatives is that no one is going to put the resources into developing them until it is economically viable to compete with the existing means of power (oil) . Government mandates in things like ethanol production has been an unmitigated disaster full of unintended consequences .
I know I am right on the biggest cause of the price hike is commotities speculation. Here is what is happening . Investors do not want to put their dollars into the stock market and interest rates are so low that it is not worth investing in tresuries or even putting the money in the bank. So commodities like oil ;gold etc. are the investment option they choose. That is driving up the cost of all related commodities .
Ok Tom. The commodities idea makes sense too.
Did you know that Ford Motor Co was going to come out with ethanol ready cars a couple years ago and the government prevented them from doing it?
I'm really bugged that every quarter we have to watch Exxon gloat about their huge profits. It's coming from our pockets and at the worst time possible.
BTW since Cheney was CEO of Haliburton, why would you think he didn't use some influence for and with them?
*************
Halliburton, Cheney, and Wartime Spoils
By Lee Drutman and Charlie Cray - 2003
Excerpts...
However, of all the administration members with potential conflicts of interest, none seems more troubling than Vice President Cheney. Cheney is former CEO of Halliburton, an oil-services company that also provides construction and military support services - a triple-header of wartime spoils.
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers awarded a no-bid contract to extinguish oil well fires in Iraq to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton. The contract was granted under a January Bush administration waiver that, according to the Washington Post, allowed "government agencies to handpick companies for Iraqi reconstruction projects."
Do you know that most bids awarded by Bill Clinton in the Kosovo campaign was also to Haliburton's KBR even though DynCorp out bid them? That is because they provide a service that is pretty unique . They have in fact divested themselves from their Kellogg Brown Division because it is jusrt not profitable . Now what service do they provide ? It used to be in the past that the military did a lot of things like cooking and trasport for themselves . Now most of that type of work has been outsourced to private companies. But there just aren't too many of them willing to send in cooks and truck drivers to a war zone . Hence KBR provides that service. It has nothing to do with the price of oil.
I didn't know that about Bill Clinton but at this point I'm so thoroughly discouraged with our government that I can only see red. Every one we've had in office in the past several years and all those who've made it onto the ballot have been suspect. Before they do anything for our country, they fill their own coffers. I'm pretty sure if Clinton used Halliburton, he got something in return... just as I believe of Cheney/Bush. We've gotten to pay the bills while watching our jobs go to other countries. Not exactly as I've viewed my government in the not-so-far past.
Onboard High-Tech Oil Rig, U.S. Answers to Rising Prices - Noble Clyde Boudreaux Photos - Popular Mechanics
"A typical offshore development in 100 ft. of water costs $100 million; just the test well for Chevron's Jack No. 2 cost $100 million, and the U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates the cost of developing a deepwater field can exceed $1 billion. Shell won't say what the Perdido regional development will cost, but Noble is charging Shell hundreds of thousands of dollars a day for its rig. Shell has already spent $554 million on leases in the gulf—that's just for the right to drill."
IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Our Thorny Oil Patch
"The laws by which CONGRESS hamstrings energy producers have had the lethal effect of slowing down the economy while driving up prices. It's high time for measures that do just the opposite."
Increasing demand [ USA, China, India, developing nations ]
Plus
Limited supply [ Nuclear power? coal regulations, drilling limits - off shore, anwr for example - ? R and D into alternative energy ]
Equal higher prices.
Purple, you give Haliburton way too much credit.
Here is another cause: an oldie but a case in point: nimby hypocrisy
Storm Over Mass. Windmill Plan, Plan For Nantucket Sound Wind Farm Raises Debate - CBS News
" Last year, oil companies paid the federal government $5 billion to drill offshore. "
"The campaign to stop the wind farms was started by Cape Cod merchants and wealthy landowners. It's also opposed by almost every town government. Sen. TED KENNEDY, who has a home overlooking the proposed wind farm, also opposes the project. So does one of Martha's Vineyard most famous residents, former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite"
The only thing that will possibly bring oil prices down is
A. The truckers are claiming they are parking their trucks on April 4th because they can no longer afford to work.
B. The environmentalists will not allow us to get our own oil. They put everything on the 'endangered' list to prevent it from happening
I think the truckers should say they will not go back to work until the environmentalists suffer enough to give up on us not being allowed to access our own oil.
Let's look at this some more. Estimates are that ANWAR would produce as much oil as we now import from Saudi Arabia. This is not taking into consideration any additional drilling offshore. If we were closer to being energy independent, it should bring the price down some, and might scare the futures gamblers into backing off. Since this is election year, let's look at who has been preventing us from getting our own natural resources. It isn't G. Bush. One of his first objectives was to get us energy independent, but it has been congress that has prevented this from happening. Mostly, it has been the Democrats, as the Republicans had only a thin majority. Actually, legislation was passed permitting drilling in ANWAR, but was vetoed by Bill Clinton in 1992, I think. So come voting time, remember who is putting your tail in a crack. Not only is it ANWAR, it is nuclear power, coal (we have technology to clean it up), and offshore, but the Sierra Club has bought too many Senators. I hope they all freeze in the dark!
But let's look a little deeper. Gold, oil, and food have not changed their value, it is the dollar that has shrunk. Why is this so? I believe the answer is usury, money lent on interest, particularly that money that our government borrows into circulation. Our government has been in conflict with the Constitution almost from the beginning. The Constitution calls for the government to issue money. If it did so, we would not have this crushing burden of the national debt that we now have. Example; if you had a very tiny country with a total amount of currency of $10 and someone borrowed that $10 at 10% interest, where is the $1 interest going to come from? Without printing more money (inflation), the only place it can come from is to devalue the $10 turning it into $11, each one being worth less than before. The cycle repeats, and the dollar gets smaller and the bankers get richer. When it becomes impossible to pay the interest on that debt, our economy will collapse, and the dollar will be as worthless as Confederate money.
Now I'm going to irritate some of you. That book that you blow off as nothing more than fiction (The Bible) forbade Israel to charge interest on loans within the country. Seems God knew what would happen, huh?
My best guess, gas will go up to over 4 this year and we will latter see 5 and 6 dollar a gallon gas.
It has nothing to do with who is in the white house, they have no effect on the oil at all. Not really. Congress has restricted every aspect of what the auto industry can do, and they also restrict the building of atomic plants for other energy ( which puts more strain on oil resouses)
There is only *** numbers of barrels of oil available at a given time, places like India, China, russia and Korea are wanting more and more oil and so to get the oil we want, we have to offer more and more money, so what can we do.
1. perhpaps bomb china, korea and russia back to the stone ages so they don't need the oil, ** not sure why bush has not thought of that one
2. drill for more oil in Alaska, offshore all along the eastern sea coast and the gulf
3. take the oil by military force ** not sure why did do not when we had Iraq, everyone though Bush was anyway
4. or just pay more per gallon to get it into the US.
Congress controls every aspect of production so costs are of production are fairly well controlled.
We need to build more refineries. We are no running out of oil. We are running out of refineries. Why can the people of Venezuela buy gas at less than a dollar a gallon?
Our government can afford huge amounts of money for things that serve their purpose...
December 12, 2007
IDB approves US$100 million loan to Mexico for job training and employment -
But the cost of building refineries in this country is just too much money??
Of course our oil companies that make this kind of profit will be paying taxes to the government so I say YES our government is benefited while the citizens pay much more than necessary.
__________________________________________________ _______________________
Exxon Mobil's staggering $40.6 billion earnings for 2007 drive the truth home: There's no business on the planet that gushes forth more profit than selling oil—nothing even close.
__________________________________________________ _______________________
The inflation of the dollar, which lowers it's value, pushes the price of oil up to compensate. The dollar is the world reserve currency used to buy oil. That is all that is pushing the price up. We have plenty of oil right here in the U.S. Thousands of wells capped off.
I posted what I think is causing the dollar to fall. What are your thoughts about it?Quote:
Originally Posted by magprob
I think you are 1000% right. I was reenforcing your stance on the subject. Your explanation of money backed by nothing but interest for the bankers is spot on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Galveston1
As a young man, I worked as a rough neck in the oil fields of Texas and Wyoming. We would drill a well, cap it off and then move on to the next one. Those wells are still capped. We have enough oil in Alaska alone to last us at least 200 years. It's just more money in the bank collecting "intrest" for the Rockefellers.
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