This seemed a little distrubing: the dems are pushing to start depleting our oil reserves to pull down gas prices: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040517/pl_nm/energy_congress_dc_3 This strikes me as short sighted and as essentially foregoing important long term goals to override market forces in the short term. But I have to admit I know almost nothing about the oil reserves and their importance. Do these reserves matter? Should Bush be increasing oil reserves when crude is at a record high?
times like this i wish to sweet baby jesus that i was a commodities trader. i think commodities traders are smarter than stock traders. incidentally, what stocks are you guys buyin'? duh! ps - i don't know anything about it either, but i sure as shit hate it when the govt intervenes in free markets. Record oil prices cause concern http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,1218872,00.html
Look at the price of a barrel of crude oil the day Bush came into office, and look at that same barrel and the price today. Who has profited from Bush? Texas oil men. Arabs. Exxon Mobil. So, in our national interests, Bush and company helped drive up the price of oil, which made the Saudis and their buddies more money, which flows into funding terrorism. What is wrong with this picture?
The last part of the article was the most interesting: KLM charging a fuel surcharge. Now isn't that interesting? A corporation passing on the risk of energy inflation to its customers. I've flown KLM and loved it, but my question for them is: are you going to give us a refund when the price of oil tanks?!
Are you suggesting that Bush instigated the war to disrupt oil supplies leading to higher prices, etc.? I ask then why did we attack Afghanistan?
Good grief Shoeboy, don't you know that all that 9.11 hullaballoo was just a ruse and the real reason was to secure a pipeline route through Afghanistan?
The problem with that picture is that it is simply wrong. If you think Bush purposely pushed the price of oil higher in an election year, then you don't know a thing about politics -- much less oil pricing dynamics in a global market.
Come on aphie, you know you can't let a small matter like 'truth' get in the way of a good conspiracy.
If you are really naive enough to think wars are not about profit, then why don't we have windfall profit laws in the books to prevent the type of profiteering we see from the oil producers and oil services companies? Young American men are sacrificing their lives, and oil executives are making a killing. Bush began unnecessarily buying oil AT THE MARKET to fill the reserves. He didn't negotiate price, he just spent our money at the market, helping to drive the prices up even before the war. Do you see the oil men giving some of their windfall profits back to the families of the slain? Where the hell is Saudi Arabia putting all the billions they are making from rich prices of oil? Our stock market? Our bonds? Or privately funding terrorism? Now that oil is above 40, they can short oil in the futures and lock in the very profitable price. It costs them less than 10 bucks a barrel to produce oil. War has always been about profiteering. To the victor go the spoils.
Yeah, how about a "windfall profits law" to stop all those restaurants and cafes making a killing from lunch hour. Seriously, what did you expect? The oil companies to say, "oh shit, there's a war on, we dare not make any profits now!"?