Posted on 08/13/2005 9:44:28 AM PDT by NYorkerInHouston
Raymond J. Learsy has written a book memorable in the special sense that nightmares can be memorable, but also useful. If the nightmare is that you died of an overdose of drugs, and the memory of it causes you when in command to draw back from the marginal dose, then the nightmare has served a purpose. Raymond Learsy writes (his book is called "Over a Barrel: Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel") about what could happen if we continue to go as we are going. The price of gasoline as I write is 60 percent higher than it was a year ago. Such data require extrapolation.
After 200 pages of history and analysis, telling the story of the founding of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), of manipulations and broken promises and extortion and opportunism, Learsy acknowledges OPEC's success. Sixty-dollar-a-barrel oil is certainly a success, but the body on which it feeds does not expand, pari passu, with the successes of OPEC. It does not matter how much you consume, if the supplies are inexhaustible and your capacity insatiable. But here is what we might be facing if oil rose to $100 per barrel.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Conservation Energy self reliance Use of the SPR (a suggestion made by some here) Alternative energy sources Voucher-based gas-distribution system
This last struck me as I had not seen it mentioned before. At first I thought rationing but it isn't that. Any idea how this would work?
It is a form of rationing. Gov't control of distribution will itself cause shortages, and wouldn't be done unless there were also the other attributes of national mobilization for war such as the draft and price/wage controls.
How about we try letting the market set the price in energy as in other commodities. It is efficient and apolitical. Alternative energy gets more interesting as the price of oil goes up doesn't it. It doesn't need tax money to support it when the market will do the job for less. And there are limited opportunities for graft and corruption. Vouchers - bah humbug, they are for socialists.
The feds should put a high tax on gasoline, to encourage conservation.
At the same time, tax monies collected from the gas tax should be used to reduce other tax rates.
But we know they'd never reduce a tax.
Right!
Explore 'pluto' NOW!
:-)
I've heard this before?
/refinery isolationism independence?
I've heard this before?
/refinery isolationism independence?
For the duration of the emergency, gas users will have access to magnetic debit cards in which are embedded a national quarterly target of per-consumer gasoline. Drivers whose allotted amount of gas doesn't meet their needs can buy part or all of someone else's allotment. For the average driver, this distribution plan would not increase gasoline costs. A consumer would pay the same out-of-pocket cash per gallon, and the government wouldn't get its hands on any more of the taxpayers' dollars. It is a more efficient way of distributing energy because it employs market incentives to allow heavier gasoline users to get what they need without increasing overall consumption of energy.
What's your take on his comment that the government would not get more taxes. Is he just saying that the price of gasoline would be less since the government was setting it or is there more to it than that. Perhaps this voucher/rationing suggestion is meant to protect truckers, farmers and the like.
The free market will take care of this problem. Demand exceeds supply, price goes up, new resources become economically feasible the market adjusts, supply goes up, price goes down. On and on it goes.
There is no gov't solution to this problem, except to free up the market, i.e. stop hindering exploration and exploitation of available resources.
I'm no scientist, but couldn't we, as history's greatest nation, figure out how to do the fusion power thing and once and for all free ourselves from these foreign and domestic enemies who have us by the energy cojones?
//and can't I, who normally writes rather well, compose less complex sentences?
At the same time, tax monies collected from the gas tax should be used to reduce other tax rates.
The feds could start by taking the $300 billion in incomes taxes for roads and turning it into a gas tax.
Of course, the price of gas would go up about $2.00/gallon to over $4/gallon.
But at least the price for auto trasportation would be an honest one.
For example, look at what the authors says here...
I paraphrase the author: Commuters suddenly forced to pay double for a gallon of gas begin to brown-bag their lunches, inching away from restaurants and sandwich shops. Americans who can still afford a vacation go on shorter trips, putting a major dent in the tourist industry.
With regard to commuters, think of the savings in time and money that would result from telecommuting. The biggest reason that telecommuting has not been adopted as yet has nothing to do with technology or worker productivity. It has to do with the way managers manage. Up til now, manager managed people. Telecommuting requires a shift to the management of production or output.
I personally have noticed a good many friends, family and acquaintences move to telecommuting in the last couple of years and the difference in the work lives and personal lives is significant. No commute saves time and stress and money. They are more productive in their work and have more time with their families. They have the freedom to live in less congested areas and save money on housing.
Of course, it doesn't work for everyone not even all white collar workers. Yet I have been amazed at the variety of positions that it does work for.
It is an emergency situation where gasoline and heating oil need to be rationed. In rationing they had coupon books. Eggs, meat, whatever was limited, would be purchased only on presentation of a coupon. If I got a ration book for 12 gallons of gasoline and three eggs and didn't need ten gallons and two eggs, I could trade or sell my coupons. If it is done by magnetic cards, the police function of the state could get really nasty. I could see where the police function would estimate the amount of heating oil needed in a region for the winter, and a harsh month sets in and people freeze to death before the central planners can react. If we get into shortages, this is the kind of thing that would probably come about, in fact, the people would demand it.
The current oil production shortage is a result of the monetar deflation caused by the Federal Reserve Board 1996-1999, which increased the dollar's value more than 50%. When the dollar is made more valuable, prices in dollars must be reduced. This caused a commodities price crash, including $10/bbl oil, which stopped any investment in oil production for about three years. Even now, with the Fed running the dollar, the oil industry doesn't know whether it is a safe bet to invest in production because what if the price falls back to $10/bbl in a couple of years?
I'm assuming it would work something like my electricity bill does (and I assume other areas have the same concept.) If I stay below whatever my target electricity usage is, I pay a low price. If I go above the target, I pay successively (and punitively) higher prices. I can use a lot of electricity if I want to, but there is a dramatic savings if I stay within the target.
The debit card is just a way of tracking a user's overall usage during the month vs. the target.
It does lead to having a centralized system controlled by the government for managing the way that all gas stations sell their product, since if one station opted out of it, it would defeat the purpose.
Where this leads (because I saw it happen with electricity) is that the government will set the targets so that they are so low that there is nothing you could possibly do to reach them. So everyone will be paying for some large amount of their gas at the high price. Which will increase tax income to the government, so they have a lot of incentive to do that. I'm not sure that this program has actually led to any conservation of electricity, although I'm sure that in theory it could if the targets were set realistically.
The nuclear bomb went from theory to practice in, what, forty-eight months, right? From there, a workable reactor system was produced in less than two years.
Instead of wasting taxes enriching their campaign contributors, the Republicans need to initiate a new Manhattan Project and really free the economy up.
//will return from nah nah land as soon as the fantasy warmth wears off
Nice take on it. I think you are right. Reliant Energy in Houston works on the model you describe, and as you indicate the target is set too low to be realistically achieved.
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