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Extracting more oil wouldn’t bring down gas prices, no matter how much Limbaugh and his friends want it to

This man displays a stunning ignorance of the simplest principle in economics - the law of supply and demand.

Nah, I used to be a "Drill, Baby, Drill!" kinda guy myself, but if it's all going on the global market, what's in it for us? If we drill all-out, the price will come down and the producers will reduce production since the price is dropping. And how much WILL the price come down, if we're increasing supply by what? 5 percent? 10 percent? The big shale gas boom is already slowing because of dropping natural gas prices.

Don't forget the other simple principle in economics...price equilibrium. Although I wish it were, it's probably not at 25 cents/gallon.

Nah, I used to be a "Drill, Baby, Drill!" kinda guy myself, but if it's all going on the global market, what's in it for us? If we drill all-out, the price will come down and the producers will reduce production since the price is dropping. And how much WILL the price come down, if we're increasing supply by what? 5 percent? 10 percent? The big shale gas boom is already slowing because of dropping natural gas prices.

I'm not an expert (but I stayed at a...). Anyway, OPEC manipulates production. But not just for the money. 1) Opec has a pact that is equivalent to price fixing. They do this in order to dissallow a competitive environment and drive costs down. It sounds like the same thing as keeping costs inflated. It is. But not to get rich, it's more to maintain consistent revenue. Their economies depend on it so they all stick to their agreements. In the US, this is illegal. They call it collusion. But international law is so much nicer (sarc). 2) American and European companies are private and are thus driven by profit and wealth. They'll produce as much as they can and lowball the competition to increase sales. Guess what that does to the members of Opec? In order to have an impact and break Opec, we actually have to start taking business from them, you know like private companies in the USA. 3) The cost of shipping is a part of the expense associated with bringing gas to market. Their is little to no shipping cost from Alaska (pipe). The shipping from the gulf is negiligable. Trucking is cheap (comparitively). Americans become an attractive customer for oil companies because they can sell at the same rate and make more profit. Those buyers switch suppliers and OPEC starts losing customers. Here's the problem with our current situation. We have to produce A LOT MORE OIL to make the difference. And we have the capacity and resources to do so. It's our government that has the plug stuck in our economic engine that is stopping us. The regulations and legal BS won't allow us to move. Drill Baby, Drill! The key is actually profit. Private companies aren't going to have some 2-bit OPEC jackwagon tell them how much to produce and who to sell it to. Suddenly, OPEC will have to start competing for customers. Either they will compete as a group and continue to collude by increasing production and brining prices down, or they will split and compete against each other. Supply and demand works. We just need the millstone cut loose and to let the horse run.