Energy Prices

In the mid-nineties, Osama bin Laden in his tirade/fatwa's against the west in general and US in particular complained that the Arab countries were being 'raped' of resources by means of cheap oil prices. He claimed that middle eastern oil should be paid at $144 a barrel. At the time, it was about $20 a bbl, IIRC.

Now a little over ten years later, we're approaching that price, albeit at a cheaper {housing debacle?} dollar.
At about the same time, congress reaffirmed that there would be little or no new drilling leases let on federal lands... including Anwar.

Yesterday we had a Democratic dog and pony show raking oil companies over the coals for 'obscene profiteering'... AGAIN! And do you note that the obscene profits are always denoted in absolute dollar numbers? Did you notice them saying the profit margins/markups were too high? No you didnt.

It's all the NUMBERS. So who's making this money? And how?

Here's the bottom line:
Oil prices are being largely driven by propaganda machines and manipulation by the rogue producer states.
While India and China are indeed growing so fast that they have put a strain on supply, there is no shortage of crude for the supply lines. There are other factors including national conspiracies on the part of Iran and Venezuela.

Brzezinski was just on his daughter's MSNBC show claiming that US threats on Iran were to blame, at risk - HUGE untapped reserves in Iran.Yet Iran has just leased another large tanker to STORE crude, not ship it.

While the reasons given are based on Iran oil being 'heavy, high sulfur', thus more difficult to refine, especially given mandates of diesel and jet reduced sulfur content; but that is not the ONLY factor:
Tying up tankers is ALSO an issue

We know that Chavez and Ach-mini-jihad are chummy. That they've met and talked on energy issues. And that it's to their own interest to manipulate the price, considering they are at a disadvantage, Iran for their quality, Venezuela for its incompetence in production management.

Now there are many speculators jumping on the wagon.. presumably to take short term positions, for profit-taking, counting on it going ever higher. And the best we can hope for is that Iran and Venezuela plus arab players have planned on taking 'short' positions, meaning they profit by the bottom falling out of the market.

One thing we know for sure... we wouldnt be in this position if we could use our own oil. But you'll never get a Democrat, or the liberal enviro-asskisser media, to admit that.

Here, by the way, is the actual situation most oil companies are in:

Chevron reports $5.17 billion profit in Q1

I know the Congressional Dem's are out of control... in your heart, you know it too. Yet you keep electing these schmucks.
touchy-feely-emotion driven politicians, not limited to Dems, btw, can all go to Lawyer Hell as far as I'm concerned.

You keep electing Lawyers, you'll keep getting Liars.

 

For the record, I'm a registered Democrat and have no problem at all with us drilling for oil where we know it is. Yes, let's take some steps to ensure we don't make any species go instinct, but that should be a constraint on how we do it, not if we do it.

 

Listen.. this is not a litmus test on party registration. I know plenty of Dems who feel the same way. But it's like the Abortion or Gay Marriage amendments, it's too much a party plank.

The tie between Tree-hugger/antiwar/entitlement groups are just too much for the party to ignore.

But you can damn betcha, if the government nationalized those evil oil corps, the 'national Interest would come WAY before Fuzzy the Tundra Gopher.

Pettyfog the Prescient:

Just as I was writing this, or a little after, Maxine Waters, well known California Marxist threatened to nationalize - except she said 'Socialize'... FREUDIAN! - the oil companies if gas prices continued to rise.


Clip of her threat, the REAL mask comes off and the agenda revealed.

You all must be so proud.. 'damn the evidence the fact is the crime!'

 

I hope the cost of gas keeps going up. . . maybe that will stop all this urban sprawl. It will become too expensive to build your McMansion in the ourskirts and people will come back into the cities. I'm tired of this "throw stuff away and build something cheap and new because of the I want it now mentality". How about just maintaining the houses, cities, and infrastructure that already exists.

 

You think that's bad.... In my neck of the woods, far suburbia to Dayton/Columbus, it's those older factory worker/service company self employed that are getting hit hard.

Driving through rural areas that have been semi-developed into 4 to 5 acre mini-farms, the number of 'For Sale' signs are depressing... though this was foreseeable. Note that parked in the driveways are inevitable full size Pickup / large SUV.

Typical they might have to drive 5 miles to even get to the nearest gas pump, let alone Grocery.

By the way... while Iran ties up tankers, Brazil's Petrobas has leased a full 80% of all deepwater drilling rigs.