Replies

Interesting stuff, thanks for posting it. I am not any sort of an Economist, nor do I know a lot about the physical distribution of petroleum products.

I do know, that radical Islamics have declared war on our American Economy, and I also believe that they have seriously miscalculated.

I do not care what the Libs say about the war being about oil. Of course it is. What we have here now is an opportunity to elevate these Iraqi people who have been under oppression for so long to a new age and a new paradigm.

The media whack jobs seem to think that there is something wrong with that agenda. I am not trying to be seen as a Nazi here, nor am I interested in establishing a new world order. The fact is that America has been a pioneer in every way for achieving the objective of the Freedom of Man.

I can't say just when the establishment media decided to oppose that objective with their incredibly irresponsible biases, and slanted reporting. The reality is, they are by and large subversive. They are contrary to things American, and that is a difficult thing to comprehend, at least from here it is.

Getting the Iraq oil flowing, and improving their Economy, is a worthy objective. The French, and certain other of our so called allies have been collaborating with Terrorists Regimes for decades now. Finally, we have an Administration, that has the sack to deal with the realities of this harsh World.

Screw the French, and screw the New York Times, et al. They are attempting to steer us down a road to certain perdition, and it is time to stop them. That is what we are doing!

Thanks. It's from an essay I worked up just before the Iraq war to refute the "war for oil" argument that was being trotted around.

My main point was that that argument did not make sense from an economic perspective, but I briefly treat the security of supply aspects at the end.

You can read the rest here. You may like the comparisons between US states and OPEC GDP :-)

Incidentally Radix, as regards the distribution of oil reserves, you make like this article about unconventional oil reserves, and this one which goes into a little more detail about the Orinoco heavy oil reserves - Venezuela has more heavy oil than the entire Middle East has conventional oil reserves. After I had read that, I stopped worrying about the world running out of oil :-) And don't even get me started about gas hydrates:

Worldwide, estimates of the natural gas potential of methane hydrates approach 400 million trillion cubic feet -- a staggering figure compared to the 5,000 trillion cubic feet that make up the world's currently known gas reserves.