Posted on 09/02/2005 5:44:37 AM PDT by Herosmith
WASHINGTON — The United States has an oil reserve at least three times that of Saudi Arabia locked in oil-shale deposits beneath federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, according to a study released yesterday.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Excise tax on imported oil. 50%
Please name the manipulators and the methods they are using to get the result they desire.
Government intervention in the market is doomed to failure and has never worked long term. It is folly. Not to mention anti freedom.
Poor ideas abound on both sides of the political spectrum.
Steve Forbes just talked about this in lecture this week, I believe he had a column, or has a column coming out as well. Look at the raw data, oil reserves are HIGHER then they have been in years... yet the price of OIL is $70 a bbl? SW Airlines is paying < $30 a bbl because they bought long term futures contracts before the speculating got insane, American West is paying $40ish a bbl for the same reason.
Just like the late 90s and tech stocks, right now nearly every HEDGE FUND IN AMERICA has put huge money into oil futures, as long as the bigger fool keeps coming along willing to pay more on speculation, the price will keep climbing (just like tech stocks)... eventually however the bigger fool no longer shows up, and the price returns to its true market value.
The true market value of a bbl or oil, based on historical numbers, production, consumption and reserves is about 30-40bbl. THere is NOTHING going on right now in the marketplace to justify it at $70 a bbl, other than speculators... just like Amazon, and Webvan and Covad weren't worth 100's of dollars a share either.
That's what's going on with Crude, pure and simple.
By setting the price at $50, rather than having it fluctuate between $20/30 to $70+ per barrel other alternate non mideast fuels will be profitable and become available.
Government set prices are a communist tenet. Not to mention idiotic. Amazing suggestion on this site. Common however on DU.
The oil shale will cost $30 a barrel to produce. The price of oil has to be $60 or more to make the business gamble pay. At $70 it is a possibility, but not if oil falls back to $40. Price support is not the American Way, but Excise Tax is at least legal.
BTW, reserves are not production. Demand for oil at current rates of production has outstripped supply during the recent price increase.
THere is NOTHING going on right now in the marketplace to justify it at $70 a bbl, other than speculators...
So no increased demand from emerging markets like China and India?
You talk about Forbes because you agree with what he said and SEEMS to support your contention, but have you heard T Boone Pickens on Fox news for the last two weeks? His math is different.
Price manipulation by government, either by caps or supports or other device is folly and certainly not the American way. But it would become so under your proposal.
but Excise Tax is at least legal.
So is abortion.
The same Jimmy Carter who signed an executive order prohibiting the reprocessing of fuel rods to extract unburnt fissile material.
Want the oil shale developed? Go ahead, get some funding from an investment banker somewhere and have at it.
That is after you build the facility to extract it. Somehow those costs are always amortized into nothingness...
Thanks for the ping. Even if there was (or is) an inexpensive way to get the oil out of oil shale, the environmentalists wouldn't let us build any new refineries. The last new refinery built in this country was in 1974.
Thanks! The fast-breeder reactor is the key to a nuclear-powered future.
It is cost effective now. The issue has been taking on the envirowhackos.
That'll be easier in the coming months.
Production has not been outstripped by demand... might want to check things out. India and China while emerging, their additional demand has NOT outstripped production.
Demand has increased, and production has increased, increased more than demand, which is how you wind up with RESERVES in the first place.. if you can't produce more than demand you don't get reserves you get deficites.
Demand has not oustripped supply or production, the oil price is a bunch of people making paper profits off the backs of bigger fools.
Oil is being played just like tech stocks, lots of people jumping on the bandwagon ignoring the fundamentals, being the bigger fool.... When that next bigger fool doesn't show up... POP goes the weasel.
Not a matter of if, just a matter of when. We are not at the "tipping point" for oil, and all this doom and gloom nonsense is just that.
Got a feeling the enviruses are about out of ammo.
I don't want it developed. I never indicated such a thing.
If it ever becomes economically feasible and profitable, it will be developed. That is how the market works. The market wasn't designed, (by anyone of this earth) it is merely observed.
You can bet that much of the cost was related to environmental concerns.
I advocated a tarrif on imported oil in 1984, in a letter to my congressman, with the goal of stimulating domestic oil production. Still OK by me. That twit just wanted to raise the gasoline tax, which would have done nothing for the country's energy capability.
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