Posted on 01/15/2008 2:42:56 PM PST by Virginia Ridgerunner
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - President Bush warned Tuesday that surging oil prices threaten the U.S. economy and urged OPEC nations to boost their output. His plea drew little sympathy from oil-rich Saudi Arabia, which said production levels appear normal.
(snip)
As economic anxiety grows in the U.S. and dominates the presidential campaign, Bush is under increasing pressure.
(snip)
He promised to tell Saudi King Abdullah that American families are being hurt by oil prices that have topped $100 a barrel, more than three times what they were when he took office.
"These are times of economic uncertainty but I have confidence in the future — immediate future," Bush said when asked if the U.S. was sliding toward a recession, as some economists fear.
In public, the same Bush whose early career was in the Texas oilfields and who said during his 2000 presidential campaign that the president must "jawbone" oil-producing nations to drop rates had been silent about the issue on this eight-day trip until Tuesday.
He raised the subject here, in the country with the world's largest supply of oil, during a morning meeting with Saudi business leaders, saying oil prices were very high and "tough on our economy." He spoke more directly, but still gently, in an afternoon meeting with reporters who were unexpectedly summoned to the guest palace where he stayed one of his two nights.
"I hope that OPEC, if possible, understands that if they could put more supply on the market it would be helpful," he said.
(snip)
In a chilly response to Bush, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali Naimi, told reporters the kingdom would raise production levels only when the market justifies it and that today's inventory seems normal.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
In the meantime, Congress does nothing about the stupid environmental laws that are strangling exploration and extraction of our own enormous oil supplies, such as those in Alaska and offshore, thereby keeping the caribou, polar bears, sea gulls, and enviro-wackos happy.
Hardly news since the earlier threads. But, the comment about our own domestic supply is out of date by 35 years. It isn’t happening and won’t be happening.
If Clinton the first had opened ANWR, we would be importing 1 million less bbl’s a day of oil, which is $100Mil. If you open the gulf and coastal Alaska, that number would be much higher. Envirowackos and our enemies are conspiring to strangle our country.
The only thing stopping us is ourselves. Seems Brazil just hit the largest discovery in decades off their coast, but off most of ours, we can’t even look. Also Chuhcki and Beaufort Seas hold vast reserves, why do you think the Russians are planting flags under the Arctic?
It is standard policy for the US to ask the Saudis to increase supply as needed, they usually comply. So all this upset over it here is unwarranted.
The upset over our refusal to increase our own oil supply is warranted. In fact, we are committing national insanity.
It seems they want us by the bal$s. Well , they’re getting it because we’re too stupid to put up with it. Nothing is going to change until the next revolution.
Who provides, food, medicine, basic essentials of life to the Saudi’s?
that’s the real problem right there, not the Saudis who as detestable as they are, are right to try to get as much money for their oil as they can, but the fringe wacko left who think people would rather look at a tundra or swamp than not sit in their homes shivering or take the bus because they cannot afford to fuel either.
During the 1973 Oil Crisis, I was on my way to Alaska to develop Prudhoe. We did that and it didn’t make a drop of difference. The USA has had no reserve capacity since 1970 and it is over. The Arabs with oil have been fair and reasonable and intelligent, the Iranians somewhat off in dreamland. Nasser was not fair and reasonable and he also had no oil. The oil shale has been known since 1905 and it has been a chimera all along. This is the Peak, take a look around.
The United States exported oil until WW2, and we have more BTUs locked up in coal than Saudi Arabia has in oil. Which we can't get to, out of environmental concerns.
Bush has lead us down the wrong path on oil for 8 years. He never made drilling a national defense priority and let the dems slap him down. He puts the future in hydrogen, when it should be in electric plug-ins including nuclear power.
When the author talked to the WH, Mosbacher told him, "We don't do mandates." Of course, they do, MPG, seat belts, and on and on. But no mandates to free us from sending $200 bill to Saudi Arabia annually, so they can build schools around the world to preach hatred of non-moslem culture.
The cost of flex-fuel vehicles is $1 mill per engine for governmental approval. Times 150 engines. Within 3-4 years we would greatly reduce oil imports as the market makes it feasible for alternative fuels.
vote for a democrat, break out your bicycle and tell the world to go to hades,
Being fed up with the left wing lunatics is not good enough anymore!! we literally are going to hell in a handbasket and the politicians are playing with your life.
The President is begging and the lunatics in the US congress are determined to strangle the country and they literally don’t give a da** if you like it or not.
Bush is in the Middle East right now for more reasons than “pumping up” oil supplies. He’s there to bail out the big banks with their petro-fiat dollars. When is this going to end? Where’s Paulson and Helicopter Ben Bernanke? Sucking up to Nancy Pelosi? Good grief.
The worldwide oil industry has lasted decades longer than they thoiught it would, so we are in a grace perios. Do the oil producers have us by the short hairs? Consult the 1973 Watergate/Oil Embargo/Yom Kippur War and the resulting DefCon 3. Yes, that all happened at once.
I just might be tempted to tell them that with the price of oil being so high now that our military has to make some significant cuts, and the first place will be that can no longer provide security for their oil shipments down through the Straits and right along the shores of Iran! Wish ‘em luck and tell them to give us a call when they decide oil should not be this expensive, at least for their best friends in the world!
The author of Energy Victory is right, not for the first time.
If what you say is true, then why all the fuss about ANWR and prohibited offshore drilling?
Didn’t President Bush also sign a $15,000,000,000.00 agreement to sell them “Arms” to protect themselves?
Saudis are somewhat over the barrel since they are having trouble increasing production. This is not a new problem.
Will somebody please invent a way to make a car run on Caribou!
As we get the battery technology over 200+ MPH, and start building some nuke power plants, we can expect to see mass demand for electric plug-ins. That should take us into the next century.
Not everybody is so excited about ANWR. Offshore drilling might be more productive and for sure cheaper. There is no way the USA can be self-sufficient again in oil as it was up to 1970. This is the Peak, and it is a much broader Peak than some have seen in their nightmares, but we’re still long past the worldwide oil glut.
That's not all that surprising. What is disgusting is that Congress dropped the zipper and gave the first few turns of the vise for them.
Drill ANWR. Drill offshore. Drill in $(#*@*@* Lafayette Park if there is any oil there.
Yes, when the gold standard was dropped by Nixon, that’s when the short hairs became long hairs. That decision was as bad as anything from 1913 ( almost )
I like the idea of electric cars and nuclear power. When this was proposed to the King of Saudi back in 1960 to counter his grandiose oil schemes, he just laughed. Oil is still the cheapest thing around.
How about:
PUMP MORE OIL, OR WE’LL PUMP OUR OWN AND SHUT YOU OUT.
“Didn’t President Bush also sign a $15,000,000,000.00 agreement to sell them “Arms” to protect themselves?”
BINGO I wondered how long it would take to bring this up.
My prediction, Saudi’s will increase oil production,
but not because, Bush the Power All Mighty asked them.
It will be because of the “Arms” deal.
The big complaint in the OPEC countries back then in 1970 was the devaluation of the dollar. It’s an old problem.
Damn it he’s the President.Why does’nt he lead.The United States needs energy.
“This is the Peak, take a look around.”
Enjoy it’s fleeting, but beautiful image, it’s a long way down, and it’s coming fast.
It’s not coming fast. It’s been here for decades and will hang on a while so we can get used to lowered expectations over a considerable time.
How do we generate the electricty to “plug in” our vehicles? It’s called COAL. We have so much that the enviro nazis are rolling around in their own vomit. I’m so tired of this crap. No new nuke plants, no new coal plants, no off-shore drilling, no NOTHING!! Dems are in control of Congress. What the hell have they done? NOTHING!! Gourmet food for them, though. Give me a break.
Hmmmm, an oil minister just put the president of the world's most powerful nation in his place. Not a comforting feeling, not at all.
nuclear
Absurd map.
yes he did, which surprises me that we didn’t say you want weapons, give us a deal on oil... Simple.
After that, it is going to get interesting - really interesting.
Really?
The Fed chairman meets with the Speaker of the House and this is automatically "sucking up"?
If our masters can avoid n-war it probably won’t be all that interesting, just kind of a gradual descent into the economic ice age.
It is indeed pathetic. Especially because, 6 years ago Bush could have used his 90% approval rating to push through ANWR, but caved in instead. We would only be 3 years away from flowing oil there.
The first thing we should have done after 9/11 was a drastic program to reduce dependence on foreign oil by any means necessary - a massive program to develop alternative energy sources, combined with domestic drilling and much higher taxes on imported oil.
I’m sure our new arab masters will be kind to us infidels and treat our women respectably.
That dependence on imported oil was noted in 1970 but didn’t matter until 1973 when it mattered a lot. But we produced Prudhoe and used that all up and are still in the same place except we don’t have Prudhoe available in case of dire emergency.
That list is old, Brazil has found a lot in the last year. I believe it’s around 28 billion in 2 major sites.
Oil shale is not reserves, not as far as the major oil companies are concerned.
Only if you believe the Associated Press.
I'm willing to bet the AP characterization of the private meetings is approximately 180 degrees out.
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