Posted on 06/26/2005 2:38:47 PM PDT by M. Espinola
How much are they going to raise the cost of soda pop?
And how did the frog get 'fully cooked', in your opinion?
Let's face it, the airlines are either in bankruptcy or close to it. General Motors is down to junk bond status, with little hope of recovery. So yes, I agree with your scenario.
The problem is...back in 1950...the U.S. agriculture department began promoting the "green revolution". It emphasized chemical fertilizers and pesticides, specialized cultivars, and mechanized agriculture. Because of the large increases in harvests, global population was able to expand from 2 billion to 6.5 billion.
So, what happens when agriculture ceases to be mechanized? What do 4.5 billion starving people do? Try going where they can to survive, right? Does that sound like swamping the lifeboats?
Unfortunately, we continue walking along, oblivious to the cliff ahead of us.
you have no answer I see. you will never get private sector investment in alternate energy on any large scale, so long as the oil based energy industry we have now functions as it does.
the fluctuations in the price of oil over the last 2 years is not explainable by market forces.
and we can expect the same hyped stories in the financial news this week to drive the price higher. "political instaility" in iraq, in nigeria, in iran. "tight refining capacity" in the US, but no so tight to somehow cause actual shortages, its producing 2% more refined products then last year at this time when they were screaming about the same "tight capacity", how did they manage that?
its the same endless drumbeat, its like what you heard tuning into CNBC about tech stocks in the 1999/2000. I now hear radio ads for oil trading software systems that home based day traders can use on their PCs to trade oil futures.
And how did the frog get 'fully cooked', in your opinion?
Well, the recent SC decision sparked the tag-line, but one other way to tell is when FR "conservatives" who are supposed to be supporting conservative positions take the opposite side and are still accepted as conservatives. It's a new definition of the term, and the frog is cooked.
oh and lets not forget - any hurricanes or tropical storms moving to shut down production in the gulf? that was another good one from last year. and we are sure as hell due for some refinery fires in the US again, that's always good for another 40 cents per bbl. we should see some refinery fires shortly.
only in this industry, because it manipulated.
if you want to talk free market, let's talk about cars or computers or coffee or beef or chickens or something else.
When the market makes the development of new energy sources cost efficent, they will be developed. Not on your timetable.
the fluctuations in the price of oil over the last 2 years is not explainable by market forces.
It is not understood by you, which is different than unexplainable.
I would consider trading oil futures if I owned a couple pipelines and a railroad already. But I would not try to get the leases to the National Strategic Oil Reserves through my contacts at the White House; that might not go over well.
The Chinese holding many dollars as a result of the trade deficit are intern buying US T. Notes. If China becomes strapped for case and they want to turn in the bonds the US would have to A Default or B Devalue the dollar. If the US goes with Option A. The Dollar will be worthless since the Dollar is only backed by the "Faith and Credit of the US Government."
If the US goes with Option B. The Dollar will be devalued by 50-75% meaning the dollar in you pocket will be only worth twenty five cents overnight.
Option B would be the only choose since A would be Complete Disaster.
In other words the Budget Defect and Trade deficit are Very Important Issues.
Too bad we cannot kick Dick Nixon around any more for taking us off the Gold Standard.
I agree that the budget deficit and trade defict are a problem.
where I dont agree is the dollar. The US govt doesnt set a value to the dollar and therefore cant devalue it.
as for it being worth 25-50%, that is wrong too. It would be only with respect to traveling abroad or buying foreign goods. Not with trespect to american goods which are priced in dollars.
we were taken off the gold standard in 1971 presicely becasue we were running a trade defcit and other countres kept cashing in for gold
No need to. The law of supply and demand does not change from one commodity to another.
Which makes it convenient. 1+1=2. Cows, chickens, coffee, oil.
Government intervention in markets has always been and will always be, a failure.
Whether it's rent control, minimum wage, price caps on oil and gasoline, or price floors, or any other liberal scheme, it cannot work.
It's a fools errand to send a group of geniuses to set artificial prices.
Incorrect. Have them print up a few trillion a week for a while and see if it gets devalued.
T notes are not demand notes. In other words, they are not callable. They mature when they mature, no matter who owns them.
"cost efficient" implies that the new entrants into the marketplace can accurately gauge the price that the established players must charge for their products - its a pretty basic part of any business plan, you have to know your price point. for oil, its all over the map.
so oil is at $60 now. is it going to $100? $40? $20? what price point should these new competitors use as their benchmark? do you know? no, and neither do they, that's why they don't invest.
let's take a dumb but illustrative example - I want to invest to develop a new genetically engineered form of beef for steaks to compete against Outback. Could I do that if I didn't know whether the price of traditional cattle that Outback uses for their steak was going to be $6 a pound, or $18, by the time I got my business off the ground? of course not, my business plan is DOA from the start unless I can assess my price point within some kind of reasonably accurate range. if the cattle example, I know what the fixed costs of the cattle ranchers are, their profit margins etc, and that gives me some reasonably accurate price point projection into the future. do we have that with oil? obviously not. its currently a speculative market, fear driven, manipulated by hyped news stories - that has to be driven out of the system before any large scale private sector alternative energy development can take place.
I'm hoping for $1000.00 a barrel.
It will take that high a figure before the idiots in Washngton decide nuclear energy is good for America, and that hydrogen power needs to be put on a fast track so we can thumb our nose at the Middle-East.
Too bad we have braindeads in Washington.
soon you say? I am not so sure about "soon" - they will ride this wave as long as they can.
that wont make a difference.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.