Off topic -- energy issue

It seems to me that one of the biggest causes of the currently high oil prices is the threat of predatory pricing by the Saudis. In the late 70s and early 80s when the price of oil spiked, a lot of money was invested in alternatives. Then the investors lost their investments when the price of oil plummeted. The Saudis claim to still have lots of oil. So who's going to invest hundreds of millions in, for example, a coal to oil plant, only to have the market cut out from under them and loose their investment?

The only solution I can think of is a tariff on oil. That would ease investors worry of being undercut by dropping oil prices. It might be sellable to the public if it was fully offset by true tax breaks in other areas. While the retail price of oil products would go up, the wholesale price of oil would probably go down. Thus since we would be getting the tax back in the form of credits elsewhere, we would effectively be paying LESS at the pump for gas. We would also be spurring investment in alternatives and sending less money to our enemies.

wind farms are a joke, anyways. we ought to go nuclear, we ought to drill offshore and in ANWR. we could recover in maybe a decade, cutting spending at the same time, getting out of everyone else's political business, and trading openly with them.

as it stands...

Of course they're being bribed. Nobody spends millions for a job that pay a tenth or less of the cost of getting the job. And they sure as Hell don't get rich at it. Know any poor Congresscritters?

Just don't know for sure who is buying them.

Dems, as a party, are in thrall to the Enviro Movement. And, as Michael Barone recently pointed out, the Enviro Movement has to keep yelling about the sky falling in order to keep the direct mail contributions coming in so that they can keep their activist jobs and be able to eat.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/a_step_back_from_enviro_lunacy.html

Add to that these facts: The Enviro Movement wants gasoline to be even more expensive. They don't like cars. They don't like the internal combustion engine. They don't like power plants of any kind. They don't like oil and energy companies (most of them don't even like companies and capitalism). They don't like hydro-electric dams. They claim to like solar, but they don't like covering up acres of desert with the panels. Many Enviros don't like wind because they kill migratory birds, and more importantly, the wind generators are ugly.

Harken back if you will to old films of China where you see thousands of people going down the street on bicycles. That is what the Enviro Movement wants for the United States and everywhere else. Of course, like in China, our dear leaders would continue to have armored Suburbans constantly idling outside their offices in case they need to get to a press conference.

It isn't rational. It doesn't make sense. But the appeals of the Enviro Movement are almost always based upon emotion rather than logic, economics, and physics.

> So who's going to invest hundreds of millions in, for example, a coal to oil plant, only to have the market cut out from under them and loose their investment?

No one invests with perfect foresight.

I note that people do invest, so it's a little curious to claim that they need protections.

It's a good thing when the Saudi's react with predatory pricing. It's a gift to us. And, if you believe that their supplies are reasonably finite, it hastens the day when they become irrelevant.

Meanwhile, each cycle gets us closer to being able to do without them, thanks to folks who bet that this time will be different.

There will still be some investors of course, just a much smaller number. And for large investments it may mean that not a single investor will take the risk. If they do take the risk they may delay it, leaving us in a bad position in the mean time. And if they do take the risk, the Saudis may ruin them. When the investors get ruined it hurts us as well as the investors. Predatory pricing is a small gift with a high hidden cost. It saves you a little bit for a little while but costs you a lot more in the long run because it reduces competition. Predatory pricing allows the producer to keep the price higher on average, therefore consumption will be lower on average and the day they become irrelevant will be farther off, not closer.

The simple answer is that the Dems WANT high energy prices so that energy demand goes down. They cannot say this out loud because they know how unpopular this idea is with the American people.

"Harken back if you will to old films of China where you see thousands of people going down the street on bicycles."

hah, yeah. and a lot of chinese still do this.

but today, those bikes are shipped around the country in huge, gas-guzzling, 18-wheelers which clog the chinese freeways every single day, idling and spouting their offensive CO2. whoops!

"green" is just a new way to sell all the same old stuff to a new niche of the market, because in the end, nothing will really change. we'll start drilling as soon as we figure out we have to.

meanwhile, i don't believe that oil is finite. it's not really dependent on there being fossils in the ground. fossils might have all the right stuff, but it's a chemical process, reducible to a synthetic process. oil is renewable whether they like it or not; it's just a question of technology, whether the renewal process can ever be economically feasible or not. place your bets on whether we'll ever do that R&D. i don't have my hopes up.

How about pooling energy from all sources to ensure availability.....Or would this just mess up profitability...

Meanwhile, looney environmentalism is stopping us from exploiting the resources we have.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

David, you and I have been in contact in the past, trust me.
Frankly, you rock in my book and I can email you in such a way you will know who I am.
Is the web-site above on target? Pretty darn close.
Do we have a problem as citizens of this country with the oil, on the international situation? Oh yea!
Keep in mind that 95 percent of the oil on the international market is "nationalized" oil. Kind of damning to think of "big oil" being 5 percent. But hey, hate WalMart, Big oil and anyone who has a nicer car than you do.

How about we just have 535 inert idiots (and we put them there) running around wiht no conscious idea of what is going on? What else can one believe about people who vote passage on a multitude of laws they have never read, on laws that blatantly violate the authority delegated to them by the People, who pass the buck using broad language that delegates previously delegated authority (breach of trust) to unelected bureaucrats? Check out _The_Cult_of_the_Presidency_ by Gene Healy.

Anybody that goes along with the thinking that a gallon of gasoline should be 4 or 5 dollars a gallon can be considered nieve. Something is definitely wrong here folks! This problem is overriding many other problems that we may have let slide by the wayside.

The Seven Sisters of Oil have morphed from greedy corporations intent on profit into greed state-run enterprises intent on control. OK, so there's not a lot of difference, except for the fact that state-run enterprises have state run militaries and nukes and things like that to coerce even more money out of the general public. The new Seven Sisters of Oil are:

1. Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia)
2. Gazprom (Russia)
3. CNPC (China)
4. NIOC (Iran)
5. PDVSA/Citgo (Venezuela)
6. Petrobas (Brazil)
7. Petronis (Malaysia)

Not a libertarian capitalist among 'em. I'm open to ways that to compete against them without going to war. My point being, that going to war is the only remaining way to compete with them.

This needs to make the news. These fascist pigs must be removed from power. To avoid violence, we must do it through the ballot box. In order for that to work, the people must know the truth. If the ballot box fails...

> Predatory pricing is a small gift with a high hidden cost. It saves you a little bit for a little while but costs you a lot more in the long run because it reduces competition.

You're assuming that one round of predatory pricing is adequate. It isn't - they have to keep doing it. As soon as they stop, the investments become viable.

Moreover, as the early ones were written off and sold cheap, subsequent ones cost less, which makes investment more likely, increasing its frequency.