Lindsey Williams Author of "The Energy Non-Crisis"

I heard him on Coast to Coast. His knowledge is from the 1970’s and his understanding is imbued with populist conspiracy thinking. This is not unusual.

The world of business and much else besides is ruled by the laws of economics. These are a form of abstract knowledge that is beyond the understanding of most itinerant Baptist preachers -- and most other people as well. Believing in conspiracies is a lot easier than learning economics and the facts applicable to a particular line of business.

As far as I can tell, the single hard fact he relies on from his experience in Alaska is that an oil company capped a successful exploratory well instead of pumping the field. Conspiracy? No. It can be readily explained as a matter of reserves and economic return.

As standard practice, many oil deposits are explored but not put into production immediately, being instead booked as reserves intended for future production. If this were not done, oil companies (and oil producing countries) could not assure themselves and their customers of a future supply of oil.

In addition, development costs for oil fields are immense, and in the 1970’s, high interest rates made borrowing especially painful. Capping wells made sense, and I am old enough to recall that this was often done at the time because of high interest rates and wage and price controls.

The allegation as to a Kissinger oil deal with the Arabs to allow high prices in the 1970’s deal is an old and much disputed story. In any event, even if there was such a Kissinger deal in the 1970's, it was superseded by later deals and events.

Specifically, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Reagan got the Saudis to pump oil so as to drop the price and hammer Russia's hard currency earnings. This helped precipitate the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The real problem for the US is that since the 1970's, Texas no longer has the level of oil production needed for the US to act as the world reserve capacity producer. The Saudis now perform that role.

In addition, western oil companies lost their dominant position as oil producers in the 1970's as country after country expropriated them. Today, the oil majors rarely own oil fields, and since the 1970's, the Saudis, not the US, is the world's reserve capacity producer with the whip hand over prices.

If one looks at the facts of geology and economically recoverable oil reserves, the world will one day run out of oil as our prime form of cheap energy. With free markets and the benefit of technological advances, we will have the energy we need, if at a higher cost and in other forms.

In the meantime, oil markets will go through booms and busts as supply, demand, and financial and political considerations affect prices. Among the public, painful spikes in price will produce new conspiracy theories instead of a recourse to economics and business texts.

I do not know this person, and I have NO clue about his allegations.

HOWEVER, liberals in this nation for supposed dirtworshiping lobbyists have denied this nation to produce its own energy. Populace conspiracy thinking, NO, it is a fact that liberals by law refuse to allow US to drill and/or even explore for potential energy sources.

People dumber than Itinerant Baptist preachers, know darn well that it was not DEMAND for oil that caused the oil price to skyrocket. Most especially when there have been articles posted here regarding the high seas being dotted with supertankers filled will oil holding out for the price of oil to once again rise.

Because markets work, I am disinclined to suspect manipulation when prices spike or collapse painfully. However, manipulation is often attempted, always possible in concept, and sometimes accomplished profitably in the short run. Markets can panic not because of demand rising but because future supply seems inadequate or major players get squeezed.

The oil tankers offshore claim always surfaces during price spikes. Keep in mind that gas prices at the pump, the spot crude oil market, and the markets and actual sale prices for wholesale crude are not the same, do not always move in sync, and rarely settle at the same price.

As it happens, there are always tankers offshore, often waiting for slots at terminals, for sale contracts to close, or for demand to firm up. Suppliers acting alone are ordinarily not prohibited by law from withholding supply for those reasons or to wait for better prices. Usually, after a price spike, prices fall when demand falls, and tankers (or fishing boats) dawdling offshore more than normal would be a sign that demand is faltering and that prices are about to fall.

Worst of all is our failure to develop domestic supplies. Even by their own ideology, the Democrats and liberals are idiots in that dirty, CO2 spewing coal is the electric generating substitute for oil and natural gas when oil gets too expensive.

The better course is to diminish coal use by turning to nuclear for electric power, using oil for transportation, and developing domestic oil and natural gas supplies to lessen our balance of payments problem and vulnerability to supply disruptions.

Of course, since liberals hate not just pollution and CO2 but also oil and cars, their hatreds collide and work at cross purposes. Because liberals hate freedom most of all, what liberals really want is for Americans to live like North Koreans, with themselves living like the Kim family.

Do you remember Hillary Clinton screeching to a bunch of Connecticut investor class donors before election 2004? She was not running for president and I doubt she expected the nation at large to be informed of her hysterics. She told her supporters that Bush economy equaled a Hoover economy.

I remember the screech getting air time because of her shrill voice made her sound like she had gone off the cliff. To me she was sending a warning, a signal to her supporters of what was going to unfold. NO I am not saying she pulled this off, what I am saying she knew darn well what the ‘housing’ bubble was going to cause. And she expected it to happen sooner than later.

Then there was another episode out of JFKerry’s mouth accusing Bush of ‘controlling’ the price of oil so he would win election 2004. Both of these people were elected officials so they personally were not doing the speculating, but as Senators they both sure would have the ability to discover what the numbers were and who was playing the numbers.

And liberals around this globe are united in doing whatever it takes to ‘equalize’ all nations. Equalizing all nations was the Clintons public stated policy, and so stated by Maddie Albright.

For decades, the Dems have been used the line that “the (INSERT NAME OF REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT) economy is the worst since Hoover.” The point of this was that there was a reliable chunk of Depression era voters and unionist who would get the vapors when they heard such a reference to Hoover.

There were many warnings about the housing bubble, and just the bare possibility that the timing of the crisis was calculated to help the Dems. Evidence is lacking though.

Like sea slugs and protozoa, Liberals have simple reflexes. Guilt about race, class, and wealth animates much of their thinking, with equality their goal and coercion their means. The pursuit of such equality is a malignant fantasy.

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