what should be obvious
June 29, 2008
This sounds like it should be a no-brainer to me.
As to oil prices, there is this thing called Supply and Demand. Demand (including speculator demand) is high. The speculator part of demand falls dramatically when there is even a glimmer of an increased supply.
Five years ago we were told that increased refinery and oil pumping capability in the US would do no good because it would take five years for those to affect gas pump prices. Query: if we had greatly increased supply over the past five years, would not oil be at about $75/bbl, still high, but not headed to $200? And if we do nothing to increase supply now, where will oil go?
What will happen to the US economy in a time of $7/gallon gasoline and diesel fuel? And how long can we continue to send trillions to the Near East where it is used to buy the most profitable parts of the United States?
Are any politicians actually addressing these problems? Obama would hit the oil companies with new taxes. I do not recall a time when increasing a tax on a business caused a lowering of prices for that business’s goods.
The US does not need to be crippled. We have enormous energy resources in the US. We need to develop them: or we will soon have a very green, very clean, US — only we won’t own much of it. And as energy prices rise, we won’t commute and we can’t afford to change jobs. Like peasants.
