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 ...
Actually, it was designed, deliberately and on purpose. The transition from the yoeman farmer myth to to integrated conglomerate was a conscious act by a loose collection of industrialists.
But don't tell the paleontologists, the Green River Shale also contains some of the best preserved insects, fish, frogs (rare) and bats (extremely rare) from the Eocene in the world.
No doubt, each chunk would have to be inspected for rare fossils, just like oil well sites must be subjected to a paleontological survey before a rig can be moved in.
As far as demand for futures causing higer prices, that is certainly true. It isn't however manipulation, it is speculation. Speculation is not a dirty word.
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.
That could be described as having a stranglehold on the obvious. I've seen a few bubbles pop in my 38 years in the markets. BTW, I have seen people have the same idea as you at $50 per bbl. So they have been carried out while they watched their shorts get pushed up their rears.
We are not at the "tipping point" for oil, and all this doom and gloom nonsense is just that.
I certainly have never mentioned any doom or gloom.
Please cite the proof for this remarkable claim.
Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman, etc.
Names of business men are proof that the nature of man was designed by a group of them? Try again.
I have never predicted where the top will be before it pops, only that it will pop. The fundamentals do not support $70, hell they don't support $50 a bbl... obviously bigger fools are still out there... where it will top, no one can say that, but it will pop, and when it does, it'll be back in the $30-$40 bbl range.
This isn't an if, its a when.
Fundamentals of the resource do not match pricing, not remotely.
These doom and gloomers out there saying demand for the oil is driving up price are just not paying attention. India and China are growing markets, but production increases more than meet their demand. We aren't running out of oil, and its nowhere near the "tipping point".
If oil were without question on the decline and 70 or $80 a bbl were going to be a given, without question continuing, you'd see the Shale reserve in the US tapped in a heartbeat... but since the companies know its an artificial price, they aren't going to do it, because the price will be back down before they ever get it online.
Paper pushers manipulating markets on the back of the end investor.. just like the tech bubble. Please don't tell me what some talking head on fox says.... You show me one talking head, or advisor who was publishing "SELL" ratings for techs before the bubble burst.. Not a damn one of em, they have a vested interest in keeping the prices high.. commissions are a percentage of the sale price.
Yes there is a great solution. Get rid of the unelected COMMUNIST EPA, Sen. NELSON of Fla. and start drilling for oil and building refineries.
Implementation is an active thing. Other implementations are possible. See France, Zimbabwe, USSR or China for other systems. For a period of time the American system was unique on the planet, which ought to say that it is anything but natural.
Thank you for your prediction. As you know, predictions are very common.
Some actually back up their predictions with their money. I assume you are carrying the largest short position in oil futures that you can possibly can.
Dear Protagoras,
The government has, and does intervene in markets through taxation all the time.
"Government intervention in the market is doomed to failure and has never worked long term."
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "failure," and what you mean by "long term."
Certainly, the mortgage interest tax deduction is an intervention in the market, using the tax code to achieve a specific policy end.
I'd say that one effect of this policy has been to increase the price of housing, but another effect has been to achieve 70% home ownership in the United States.
Another intervention by the government is the treatment of savings put into certain qualified retirement accounts. Here, the government merely foregoes revenue today, in the form of taxation on income put into these accounts, so that it can collect the tax on these moneys, as well as their earnings, down the road. Again, this is an intervention, a very large intervention, in the American economy.
It's also led to half the households in America owning equities.
"Not to mention anti freedom."
Tariffs have been a traditional tool of the federal government since the founding. In fact, it was the favored form of revenue generation up until the income tax was instituted in the first years of the 20th century.
I guess the Founders had a different view of freedom.
sitetest
It is a term that is universally accepted to mean the free exchange of goods and services between people absent force, fraud or coercion.
That was never designed by man, it simply is.
Alternately, God designed it.
Correct, and to the extent that they do, the markets are less efficient. Less is better. More is worse.
If you refer to the free market, I will reference Hieronymus' commentary on the Chicago grain futures market and how much regulation it has taken to make it 'free.'
Tarriffs as used by the founders were a method of tax collection, not meddling in the markets. So it isn't the founders that had a different view, it is liberals and democrats and communists who believe in government control of business.
My use of the word ignore was in past tense as in 20+ years ago.
You may try to change the topic all you like, but the fact remains that no person on this earth designed the system of people buying and selling in their own best interests.
I would share his ideas if I remembered what they were 20+ years ago and I can't ask him now because he's dead.
Dear HamiltonJay,
"If oil were without question on the decline and 70 or $80 a bbl were going to be a given, without question continuing, you'd see the Shale reserve in the US tapped in a heartbeat..."
Well, that's part of the difficulty. Although US companies could approve plans in a heartbeat to move ahead with tapping the shale oil in the US, from what I understand from folks, including from you, is that it would take 10 years or more before we saw significant production from these plans.
But what I've read is that once we get to "peak oil," we might not realize we got there until we're already a bit past it, and then, the supply curve is going to start moving down while the demand curve still wants to move up.
In the meanwhile, from the time the folks running the oil companies figure this out, it will take 10 years or more to actually get oil out of that shale in any great quantities.
Looks to me like 10 years of difficulties.
At least.
Will we get through it? I bet we will.
Will it have been necessary?
I'm not so sure.
sitetest
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