My poiints were pure economics fellas.
If consumption rises, and supply does not immediately follow, prices rise.
When prices rise in the oil market 2 things happen.
Companies go out and find more oil. To do so and bring that oil on-line and turn it into supply at the gas pump takes about 10 years.
In the meantime, prices stay high. High prices lead to increased efficiency, because the technology necessary to becomes cost effective.
Then, couple that increased efficiency (also about a 10-year process) with a sudden surge in supply and you get $10 a barrel oil.
But, during those 10 years, you transfer a very large amount of revenue into the treasuries of the oil exporters.
If a tax were placed on gas to mimic $65 a barrel (easily calculated) then people would make technilogical decisions based on that price information. Thus, efficiency would increase, without a commensurate rise in real oil prices.
This is a very overt and logical market manipulation for a resource that is critical to national security.
I would never advocate the same scenario with any other resource which was not a fundamental key to our economy and where the largest reserves of which were located in a geographic region generally hostile to the United States.
The point is, you are going to get $80 a barrel anyway. Why not have the money stay in the country?
Now, if those are anyone's talking points, please feel free to refute the logic.
You belong in Europe not here!
Shut up the enviros and tap Californias oil, there is over an 800 year supply waiting to be used!
You are portraying US "energy enemies" as foreign, which is missing the boat.
Make believe all of the stupid ewacko concerns could be resolved before drilling in ANWAR, offshore, or building new refineries. Why do you think the liberals would then approve?
Your plan caves to the foreigners who whose biggest audience is the liberals.
If speculators are driving the price based on futures then it's no longer a matter of supply and demand but a matter of speculating on future prices where neither supply nor demand is known.
I don't know what school of economics you went to, but you are full of crap. Put a big tax on it and that will take care of it. Did you make that up all on your own?
Where are they going to find all this oil? The best you can do outside of the Middle East costs 8 to 10 dollars a barrel to produce (deep wells, north sea). Texas crude costs around 18 bucks a barrel. Venezuela around 12 bucks.
Compare that to Saudi Arabia, where it costs about a buck a barrel. There are huge reserves in Saudi that have yet to be tapped. Same thing with Iraq. Iraq could put out 4 times what they are now in fairly short order. Don't think for a minute that that isn't going to happen. You just try and compete with the Middle East. You will get your nuts handed to you in a plastic baggie.
This is a spike. I don't know how high it will go, but it is not going to last. Oil is a commodity and it's going to behave like one. The Opecers will begin cheating soon, if they aren't already. By December oil will be down to around 35 dollars a barrel, if not lower.
You seem to be proposing higher gas taxes to go along with higher oil prices. Sounds like a double-screw job on the economy.
Tax-induced efficiency improvement in the US is not going to appreciably lower the global oil price via reduced demand. Raising taxes to further jack the effective price just increases the pain. And sending off more money to the federal treasury is generally akin to tossing it down a rathole.
If prices are going through the roof, those price signals alone should be enough to alter behavior and incentivize new solutions. If you want to talk cutting oil subsidies so that that the price signals are clearer, I can see that, but raising taxes is rarely a sound answer to an economic problem.