Posted on 06/26/2005 2:38:47 PM PDT by M. Espinola
I am sorry my friend I dont agree, Money sent to the Saudi's ,Venezuela , Canada and other foreign countries and split among oil companies is not money going into the economy.
I dont have any idea why you would assume I live in New England and as for Natural gas, it is higher than fuel oil.
sure, let the "free market" allow the hedge funds and wall street speculators walk away with a percentage of every dollar spent by US consumers at the pump, while at the same time sending the US economy into recession, and causing the political backlash that may put Hillary into the white house.
real great idea, just let the "free market" take care of it and everything will be fine.
People have been looking at new fuels and new types of energy conversion for a long time and will continue to do so. When the price of the fuels we use now rises to the right level, some of those things will become cost effective and will emerge as a result.
Economics never changes. It's like trying to change math, it can't happen.
of course, the money still goes "into the economy" - but now its concentrated into companies providing energy, as opposed to being "spead around" in the form of spending that other corporations need for their survival. so when people have to pay $60 to fill up their cars, Exxon will be a trillion dollar US company, but when those same people can no longer afford to eat at the Outback for dinner, they will fold and fire all their US workers.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I am always amazed at "conservatives" who have no understanding of, and no faith in, free enterprise and freedom in general.
Yeah... I'm just bubbling with enthusiam.
But your love affair with liberal ideas is apparent. Why would it bother you to have Hillary in the White House? Her beliefs are the same as yours.
if someone invested to create a new energy source that had an oil equivalent price of $40/bbl - oil would cost $38/bbl overnight. its a manipulated market. that's why there is no broad scale investment in new energy sources, you can't work a business plan for a new venture when the market price of your competition is a rigged variable.
none of your wonderful "free market" ideals applies to energy, because we aren't dealing with a free market here. Its manipulated. So the normal factors of supply/demand/price and competitive forces that would enter the market in response to those factors, is going to work here.
As to sending out of the country, talk to your elected officials, we have all the oil we need right here, it just needs to be pumped out of the ground.
Then ponder what happens when some country gives us their oil wealth for our fiat paper money.
If you think anyone is big enough to change the long term price of a commodity such as oil, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. Not to mention a liberal viewpoint.
to make hydrogen a reality, the government would have to set a floor on the price of oil. because you can't expect private industry to invest in this, only to wake up 5 years from now and find oil at $20/bbl, destroying their business plan.
you want private industry to do it - good, so do I. then you should support the concept on the government setting a floor on their competitors price to help them get started. because without that, they will be run out of business.
there is plenty of analysis in the financial news about the effects of hedge funds and speculation in the oil markets. its rampant, and its a fact, its not "tin foil".
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the opinions, just enjoying all the "pundits" predictions.
And,,, there is nothing wrong with speculation, in fact, it's desireable. It provides liquidity.
Government control of prices is folly. Everywhere and always.
Not to mention, anti freedom.
Communists like it though. And fascists. And Hillary.
so provide some mechanism that these private sector companies that you want to embark on the massive investment needed to make hydrogen a reality, can compete against the oil based energy industry? they can't - there aren't any real shortages of oil that are affecting the price, the price is being set by other factors, and is too variable to make it economically feasible for alternative energy developers to enter the market.
Oil at $60.40 on overnight futures trading.
Start with incorrect assumptions and inadequate understanding of fundamental economics and you are bound to come to erroneous conclusions.
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