High oil prices: Who's to blame?

Waterbury Republican-American ^ | January 6, 2008 | Editorial

[SAJ]

Amazing! You'd rather have that Venezuelan sludge and Arabian sour, AND pay the transport bills, than develop production of what amounts to already partially-refined sweet crude? AND keep the price of crude north of $80/bbl for an indeterminate time? Gee-zus.

Un-effing-believeable. No offense, m'friend, but stick to whatever industry you're now in. Crazy people in the awl bidness only go broke.

[Larry Lucido]

I blame the oil, for not being more plentiful, and for being so hard to get to.

[Mogger]

It's a bidding war right now.

Land Rover sold over 3200 Range Rovers and Discoverys in China in a recent 9 month period.

Considering those and all the other vehicles being sold in China, that means a LOT of gas they want to consume.

The price then gets bid up.

[SAJ]

Having been a trader for 35+ years, that old 'yardfull of wheat' business ceased being funny for me in about 1976. Sorry.

Love Dave Berry, but 'silly' isn't at all the same as 'funny'.

[ChessExpert]

Agreed. I’m no fan of ethanol.

I believe Bush wanted to give oil companies the freedom to drill in ANWR. +1 for Bush. I believe he was fully supportive of ethanol subsidies, - 1 for Bush. There. My objectivity on Bush has been demonstrated. But what I really wish is that politicians would keep their dirty hands off of free markets.

[Pelham]

Who’s to blame? Hubbert’s Peak along with China and India industrializing.

[Kickass Conservative]

I live in Orange County, California. When I was out shopping, I saw a Full Size Mitsubishi SUV with a bumper sticker that read “No War For Oil”.
And this is in Republican O.C.
I am amazed by the complete ignorance of people.

My idea for a bumper sticker?

Don’t want to drill? Then get the hell out of your car and start walking you ignorant libtard!

I know, kind of wordy...

[RightWhale]

The policy since the 50s has been to use ME and other foreign oil and keep domestic oil on reserve in case of a serious problem, and even so the domestic production is about the same as Russia or Saudi.

[RightWhale]

Oil is still cheap and plentiful. Keep the domestic in the ground until it is really needed and this isn’t that time of need. Time of need is when foreign oil goes offline and the enemy is at the gate; this inconvenience to private wallets is nothing in comparison to mere survival.

[Pelham]

So many houses owned by the elderly were designed and built during the era of cheap energy. They didn’t or couldn’t afford to retrofit. In California we have had rebate programs to encourage adding insulation, double pane windows, and attic fans.

[RightWhale]

In summer my Alaska house rarely gets over 70 indoors even when it is 80 outdoors. Insulation works this way, too.

[Pelham]

We used to be Republican OC. That appears to be history, at least in north county, land of graffiti tagging and other innovations.

[trane250]

Clean-burning anthracite coal supplied heating and cooking fuel for New England, the mid-atlantic states, parts of Canada and as far west as Chicago. Cheap oil put the anthracite industry out of business.

If you are interested, click below to see 5 pages of photos of the magnificent mines that were put out of business.

http://home.epix.net/~captclint/breakers.html

[elkfersupper]

If slick willy hadn’t held us up, we WOULD have ANWAR oil today.

Slick willy has been gone for nigh on 8 years.

[RussP]

What I find absolutely frightening is how many Americans apparently don’t understand the basic principle of supply and demand. The democrats are constantly trying to cut or stop growth in the supply of oil, then they have the audacity to blame Bush for high prices. The fact that they are taken seriously by nearly half the population does not bode well for the future of democracy.

[RightWhale]

The democrats are constantly trying to cut or stop growth in the supply of oil

Democrats have little to say about most world oil production.

[grey_whiskers]

'Silly' vs. 'Funny' depends a great deal on how familiar you are with the topic going in.

E.g. his slams at science and mathematics (not to mention his older anti-Reagan columns) leave *me* cold.

My apologies.

But back to the original topic of the thread, I *still* think that at least $10 - $20 per barrel of current oil prices are due to speculation, as opposed to demand. For example, the rumors of violence in Nigeria this week did not affect either supply or *consumer* demand enough to whipsaw the price but (say) $5 in a single day.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Amazing! You'd rather have that Venezuelan sludge and Arabian sour, AND pay the transport bills, than develop production of what amounts to already partially-refined sweet crude? AND keep the price of crude north of $80/bbl for an indeterminate time? Gee-zus.

Well, I'd rather use up the rest of the world's natural resources first, and then leave the US / Canada /Mexico as the world's sole suppliers. :-)

:-) ...I admit this is not my specialty, and there may be other considerations.

Cheers!

[Pelham]

We had some stretches of 90-100 degrees with high humidity last summer that were a bit unpleasant. The house will stay comfortable until we string a few of those days together and then the a/c has to come to the rescue. Shooting foam between the wall studs is something I’m considering, I’ve done most of the easier upgrades already.

[OregonRancher]

It might meet Alaska's need for 25 years.

Let's see...we'll round off our daily usage to 20mbd which is roughly 7+ billion bpy. 25 years is 175 bbo...I don't think so...