Posted on 07/11/2008 3:34:35 AM PDT by plenipotentiary
OPEC is a cartel that rigs the market to extort money from the rest. Isn't it about time that the Cartel was outlawed and dismantled? It's not in the world interest to have vast summs of money transferred to people who have done nothing to deserve it, and do nothing good with the proceeds.
Dismantle the cartel. Use force if necessary.
Then what? DeBeers?
“Use force if necessary” or “if necessary, use The Force”?
I agree, Wal-Mart should take over.
Sounds OK to me.
Use force if necessary.
I'm all ears if you want to explain to me how this can be done....without or *with* force.
Confiscate the assets of the Criminal Cartel, and/or remove the Saudi etc by force unless they comply. Just need the will and the PR motivation to do it.
DeBeers would be on them. Ho Ho. Seriously, Diamonds are not an essential.
Nonsense. Its their oil. Its called sovereignty. They can pump it or not pump it.
What will you propose next? Perhaps forcing the Japanese to make more Camrys to bring the price down?
Are you really proposing killing people to force them to pump oil, when we won't even pump the oil we've got?
If you are Russian, try to persuade your government to stop threatening Europe with Gas price hikes and threats to cut off supply. At other times that sort of behaviour has led to war.
Free market price, not extortion.
Who's being forced or even coerced to buy oil? No one. Car manufacturers cut back production to keep up the price all the time(as does every other manufacturer) should we nationalize them?
OPEC coordinates their production, but they are hardly a monopoly. If we pumped the oil we have, it wouldn't be a problem, except for them.
What would happen if all foreign auto makers cut back production to force up costs, but Ford and GM decided to produce more? Ford and GM would make billions.
Should this apply to intellectual property as well? Can Iran demand that Americans sell their engineering knowledge to them at prices they dictate?
Considering the amount of oil that gets imported to the USA by non-OPEC nations like Canada and Mexico, it seems pretty clear that OPEC is not the problem - or at least not the ONLY problem...
What would be next? Annexation or invasion of the USA’s closest neighbours and largest trading partners?
I suppose that with the NAU and SPP, it’s pretty much happening already, anyway.
There's the rub ... how about it potent, what's your plan
Sir. First of all I am not Russian, but the main thing is that before one gets their ire all worked up due to a post it is prudent to look at what was actually posted. If you look at my post, I actually included the excerpt I was responding to (namely, the part where you say the following: 'It's not in the world interest to have vast summs of money transferred to people who have done nothing to deserve it, and do nothing good with the proceeds.')
I found that PART interesting, because you were referencing people who have done nothing to deserve it, and who do nothing good with the proceeds. This is why I responded as follows: 'Hmmmm ....I'd say at least half the people in the US would also fall under the above. Luck of the draw in terms of where they got born.'
I still stand by that. Half of the people (maybe more) are Democrats (although there are Republicans who also firmly fall here), and many people take what the US offers (opportunity to be what you can be, whereby if you commit yourself and put in sweat equity you can really bear great returns) for granted. Yet, because of the way the nation is, they are LUCKY enough to get Government aid (courtesy of Mr and Mrs Tax Payer) who gives them funding that they DO NOT DESERVE. Thus, to use your words, 'vast sums of money are being transferred to people who do not deserve it.'
Furthermore, when such people get those proceeds, they do not use it as a hand-up. Rather, most of it gets spent on vaporous things, which (guess what) brings the other thing you said: '....do nothing good with the proceeds.'
Now, I know as a proud American you probably took umbrage at what I said, and in a reflex action had to lash back. I understand that. However, I still stand by what I said ....more than half of the people fall firmly into the category you named, and hey get vast sums of money that they do not deserve, and they spend it on useless things. It is just that the US is rich enough to support them, and they were fortunate enough to be born in the Us rather than in Guatamela (where they would actually realize that sitting on your ar$e waiting for the Government to put food on your table does not work as well).
Oh, and as for the extortion ....every time your tax dollars go to take care of them, they are extorting the good people who work very hard for each and every Dollar.
As for the Russian comments ....well, if I was Russian I would probably try to pass along your advice, although even if I were Russian I doubt I would be given the opportunity to do so.
Maybe I rubbed you off the wrong way, but what I said (based on that PART of your post) still stands and is very true. If you doubt me, the November results may very well prove what I say.
Guatamela = Guatemala
I got what you said the first time and it made perfect sense. Reality is often like that.
How ‘bout a civil suit? I’ll get the papers worked up and you can go to any OPEC member you wish with a summons and you may, if necessary, throw a big citizen’s arrest on someone. Be firm, but use any force you need.
I’ll be waiting at the local gas station to see the results of your efforts.
“Who’s being forced or even coerced to buy oil?”
THey are not supplying at free market prices. Apply standard US anti Trust policy. If this were US based activity they would be in Court in a second.
Just confiscate there assets here. No need to go to Saudi. Use some imagination man.
1. Look up "extort" you are misusing the word. No one is extorting us to purchase oil. An example of extortion would be to demand oil from people at a price we want to pay and threaten violence if they don't comply. That is extortion.
2. France was given to the the French after WWII, do we get to dictate wine and cheese prices? Poland was carved out of Germany and Russia and given to the Poles, must they produce the Pirogi or die? This is silly stuff.
3. "Sovereignty" is another word to check out. When you have it, you don't have to ask permission.
Nancy Pelosi, is that you?
What isn't free about the oil market? They are free to produce or not produce and we are free to buy or not to buy. Couldn't be freer. On the other hand you propose to force them to sell at the point of a gun in order to make it free.
Add "free" to the list of words that you need to look up.
This is silly! Why blame them on providing us with the commodity that we have plenty of but refuse to get for ourselves? Its like saying outlaw the store for selling bottled water because I’m too damn lazy to go to the well to get my own! You want to fix this mess? THROW THE BUMS IN CONGRESS OUT OF A JOB! DON’T RE-ELECT ANYONE!
Do you understand that OPEC has no ability to set prices at all? They just decide what they will pump, if they decide on a number that is too small it hurts them and helps other oil producers. Saudi Arabia is the only OPEC country with excess capability at this point and no one wants more Saudi Oil. It is heavy tarry stuff that is very expensive to turn into gasoline. In any event, they are smart to husband their only resource.
We have the capacity to produce far more grain than we currently are. Is a foreign power morally entitled to invade and force our farmers to grow more corn, so that they can have it at the price they desire?
Telling that your idea of a free market only becomes free after you force the seller to dump more product on the market to hit your target price.
And what assets does the U.S. have in Saudi that could be confiscated in retaliation? My question doesn’t require much imagination.
If you want to dismantle it, give oil a serious competitor.
And how do you outlaw and dismantle an international cartel? Are we going to declare war on the majority of oil producing nations? Yeah that’ll go well.
Tough talk is easy, actually DOING the tough talk is, most of the time, impossible.
money transferred to people who have done nothing to deserve it, and do nothing good with the proceeds.”
Sounds pretty much like the Demonazis to me. Once started down the road of deciding who ‘deserves’ money and whether they use it for ‘good’, then you’ve given a toehold to massive government control by the ‘do-gooders.’
So instead of that argument, let’s just get down to basics and take it away from them.
Its as if they were operating completely outside of U.S. law! How, outrageous! You're really onto something here.
I bet they are in gross violation of OSHA, EPA and Equal Opportunity requirements too! Add those your your law suit.
But wait, there are many U.S. oil and coal companies that could be forced to produce more right? Because its not a free market until you're free to get it at the price you want, right?
“Do you understand that OPEC has no ability to set prices at all..”
They set the price by regulating supply, as a cartel. That woyuld be illegal in the US.
“A cartel is a formal (explicit) agreement among firms. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there are a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products. Cartel members may agree on such matters as price fixing, total industry output, market shares, allocation of customers, allocation of territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies, and the division of profits or combination of these. The aim of such collusion is to increase individual member’s profits by reducing competition. Competition laws forbid cartels. Identifying and breaking up cartels is an important part of the competition policy in most countries, although proving the existence of a cartel is rarely easy, as firms are usually not so careless as to put agreements to collude on paper.[1][2]
Several economic studies and legal decisions of antitrust authorities have found that the median price increase achieved by cartels in the last 200 years is around 25%. Private international cartels (those with participants from two or more nations) had an average price increase of 28%, whereas domestic cartels averaged 18%. Less than 10% of all cartels in the sample failed to raise market prices.”
I’m shocked how keen you are to play the cartels rigged game, and be price gouged by them. Don’t complain about the price of gas, the answer is obvious.
anti Cartel enforcement
OPEC doesn’t answer to U.S. law. OPEC cannot set price. They can only suggest a restriction on the sale of their property. Memberships is open and voluntary.
Whenever price has shot up in the past, OPEC members have cheated big time driving down prices. Why haven’t they cheated this time? Because they aren’t limiting production.
The United States is the only country I can think of which is limiting production. Perhaps we should be invaded and forced to increase production as you suggest?
They aren't a monopoly. We could pump twice as much if we chose.
And you would be beheaded in Iran under their law and thrown into a gulag in NK under their law. You should have looked up "sovereignty" like I told you to. You don't get the fact that you have no moral right to force another country to hand over its natural resources at the price you dictate. What's next a demand for Lebensraum?
Sure. Go ahead. Check back when you have finished the dismantlement.
Sure. In the meantime, everytime you fill up , give your money to the Saudis.
Only about 40 cents of the $4.79 goes to the Saudi King.
Based on what?
As much goes to Chavez. That is OPEC, too. The radical Canadians get even more.
The International Competition Network
Oh my God, you're really pulling out the big guns .... OPEC is doomed to double secret probation and I was there to see it.
< /sarcasm off (just in case your delusion left you thinking I was serious)
And what of the Western cartel that dictates weapons availability to countries such as Iran and Syria. Shouldn’t they be allowed to invade us and force us to sell them the weapons at a free market price?
The point is that the free world has been in favour of these anti cartel type laws since the 2nd World War. It’s the ex USSR and the Muslims who have been against it.
If you don't like the supplier, go to a different one.
Does a country have the fundamental right to not sell a product to another country? Yes or no?
If the United States were sitting on top of 80% of the world's oil, I'd be the first in line to say that we should avoid selling it at less than the maximum amount that the world were willing to pay and that we should limit production to maximize profit. As is and has been done by every other commodity producer.
“If you don’t like the supplier, go to a different one.”
The price is all the same cos the market is fixed cos it’s a cartel. Should be simple to understand.
“As is and has been done by every other commodity producer.”
Really? Wheat, porkbellies, steel, cement, coffee, coal, natural gas? None of them. The oil cartel is a special case.
Ford and GM could agree to fix the production rate of their cars, but that wouldn't lower prices, it would just give Toyota a greater share of the market. And it certainly wouldn't benefit Ford or GM. That should be simple to understand. Oil is not the only energy source out there and overproduction leads to it replacing coal and natural gas due to it being reletively cheap. If I'm an oil producer I will seek to prevent that.
Oil is not $145 due to OPEC, it is $145 because demand is very high and the threat posed to 40% of supply by Iran is real. That drives people into a bidding war over future deliveries. The bottom line is that people are out bidding each other because they would rather have oil at $145 than have no oil at all. That is referred to as free market price.
Really? Wheat, porkbellies, steel, cement, coffee, coal, natural gas? None of them. The oil cartel is a special case.
Most every Western government pays its farmers to limit production in order to keep grain and livestock prices higher than they would otherwise be. Steel and cement manufacturers absolutely refrain from dumping product on the market and European governments have quite a record of planning production. Ditto for coal and natural gas. Natural gas especially is held back from the market when the price is too low. The owners would rather sell it another day when the price is higher.
And what of fishing? Are we all the victims of the Alaskan fishery cartel that limits the harvest of crabs, both to sustain the resource (also OPECs goal) and to support the price?
Forcing people to sell you something is called stealing, even if its at market prices, but especially if its for less than they could otherwise get.
There are no fuel shortages, so why do you think oil producers should pump more? Foreign countries are free to set their own economic policy and trade rules. We are free to not trade with them. What you are suggesting is a return to colonialism, nothing less.
OPEC members certainly don't need a building in Vienna to set production quotas. They can just use diplomatic pouches and do everything in secret. So will you be setting their production quotas for them or assigning minders to all of their government offices? If you are dictating their production quotas, how will you determine their capacity? More minders perhaps? Nothing short of a total takeover of their oil production may suffice. Will that be put up for bids or all foreigners not to be trusted?
Why limit this OPEC? Other producers might be failing to meet the their maximum capacity as well. Can we really trust Canada?
What will the penalties be for missing production quotas or being found speaking with other producers? Are there any other products that you'd like to get on the cheap by forcing more production? I would like to put in an order for a high end BMW (I think $20k sounds fair, with 25 cent gasoline. Also sign me up for some cheap Czech crystal and 10 cent Guinness stout. And isn't single malt scotch production a monopoly? After all its not like Nigeria can produce it. I've long thought that $40 a bottle was thievery, put me down for 12 crates at $5 a bottle, and shoot them if they refuse to pony up. That about covers it.
Although on the other hand, I would so LOVE to acquire a Bugatti Veyron at the 'fair' price of 10,000 Dollars. After all, I do not think it is 'right' for Bugatti to sell the car for over a million Dollars, and they should immediately ramp up production to make those super-cars more available, and also reduce costs drastically (so what if some of the materials and techniques used as expensive), I still want the car at easily affordable prices.
Why should the vehicles only be bought by the super-rich in Abu Dhabi and London and Moscow and New York!!!!! Why should I wait until I am at that level if I can have the Government 'make' Bugatti to sell the cars for far cheaper?
Maybe we should start bombing tonight.
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