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TechnoratiQuestion of the day- who and what is determining the price of oil and your gasoline and home heating bills? Don't ask Uncle Sam, because George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are running a regime marinated in oil that does not issue reports which explain the real determinants of petroleum pricing beyond the conventional supply-demand curves.
First, let us create a historical framework to provide some background. In the good 'ole oil days, before the producer-countries' cartel in the Third World gained pricing power, there were seven giant oil companies called the 'seven sisters' led by Standard Oil (now Exxon) and Shell. As chronicled in Robert Engler's classic book, The Brotherhood of Oil, they were able to affect pricing through extra-market means. Economists called them a tight oligopoly.
OPEC later took their place at the table in the mid to late Seventies and set the price of crude oil at highly publicized meetings of the various member countries representatives from the Middle East, South America and Africa. Adjusting, 'seven sisters' concentrated their pricing and supply power downstream at the refining, pipeline and marketing levels.
Pricing power was never total but it was always complex, occurring in the interstices of an industry few outsiders understood, and fewer regulators could affect. Besides, natural gas was de-regulated between 1978 and 1993, after which its prices really took off.
Today, a third party has moved to the table-the New York Mercantile Exchange, a similar operates in London and a new one in Dubai. There, boisterous traders buy and sell futures contracts on the delivery of oil. But as Ben Mezrich, the author of the new book Rigged said recently, the dollar amounts of these futures contracts are far far larger than the actual oil deliveries they represent as they turn over and over at the Mercantile Exchange.
So now the critical resource of oil is driven by speculation at ever higher abstract electronic levels of futures trading. Increasingly, the distance becomes greater and greater between this abstract trading (fueled by rumors of storms in the Gulf of Mexico, or some possible political turmoil in a region of the world, or some other frightful excuse for bidding up) and the physical supply and demand for oil and its refined products.
These oil gamblers in New York and London try to justify their frenetic daily bidding by saying that these futures markets provide liquidity, and a clear price for oil. Alright, but who benefits when, how and where?
Certainly, the strain between physical supply and demand in recent years does not explain such extreme volatility. With OPEC countries down to supplying only 40 percent of the world production, Chinese demand for oil growing fast, and the expansion of production by Saudi Arabia and others to meet this demand, crude oil supplies are not tight enough to explain such pricing behavior.
Old factors like inadequate oil company investment in refinery capacity, longer down times for repairs than some observers believe necessary, and the slumping dollar are factors that western governments, especially the Bush regime, have not wanted to investigate. After all, with consumers paying sky-high prices for these fuels, free market theorists are supposed to expect expanded supplies from recoverable reserves to grow. But, of course, the global market for oil is anything but a free market from the producers- both corporate and governmental- toward the downstream companies to the consumers.
In recent days, the price of crude oil escalated to over $90 a barrel, fluctuating up to a high of $96 a barrel. Yet the average price of gasoline in the United States-around $3.00 per gallon-is about what it was earlier this year when the price of crude oil was around $60 a barrel. Why the disconnect?
"It's a big gambling hall," The Washington Post quotes Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer. "This time it's just speculation," Peter C. Fusaro, chairman of Global Change Associates, told the Post, adding, "There's a large bet out there that prices will continue to trend higher. But it's detached from fundamentals because there's no shortage of oil."
Meanwhile, the government of Big Oil runs Washington, D.C. It thumbed its nose at pleas from then Chairman of the powerful Finance Committee, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) who asked the major companies, swimming in massive profits, to contribute some charitable dollars to help the poor pay for their winter home heating bills, and has smugly watched the major Presidential candidates avoid the subject in their debates and declarations.
Oil companies seem to spend more executive effort looking for oil by merging with other companies (note the unchallenged merger of Exxon and Mobil under the Clinton administration) than with developing efficient oil-producing and consuming technology or expanding their solar energy subsidiaries.
So long as the price of crude oil is set by speculators on trading floors, so long as the oil-indentured politicians are not challenged by new candidates standing tall for people and environments, so long as we do not protest for change and press ourselves to prevent wasteful habits and uses, get ready for higher oil prices.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.
57 Comments so far
Show AllGreginLA...Still waiting...................
#
Daniel David November 12th, 2007 1:35 pm
"Democratic IS the better way. That's why I tout it."
In your opinion Daniel, an opinion that many here disagree with.
"That's also why I get whacked regularly here from the "looking for a better way" folks"
You get whacked regularly because people here tell you that they disagree with you and you ignore it. You continue to drone on and on about your "better way"
Lobo Gris
"Supply and demand…no?"
Like Gravity, a natural law. You can't break it but you can be broken against it.
Jakenewton..11/12..7:45 AM...Supply and demand...no?
Lobo Gris,
Democratic IS the better way. That's why I tout it.
That's also why I get whacked regularly here from the "looking for a better way" folks, some of whom are talking more than looking for anything in particular.
What I really appreciate is that apparently "just in case" the governments of the rich nations don't manage to get serious about global warming in the foreseeable future, they've gotten awfully busy competing for oil exploration sites around the Arctic as it melts (aren't we still supposed to be a form of "intelligent life?") and unearthing major new oil fields around the world, the latest in Brazil.
G-ass was three dollars before election day.
Now it's up 10 %!
Funny how it always goes down in October?
And up in November.
Every year like clock work!
Too bad America has such a short memory.
Are the Reptilians ever going to take credit for there Golden Child,
The Shrub, simple George?
Impeach him!
Who is going to stop this monster?
Everyone's Taxes are going up!
Except for George and his constituency,
Billionaires-R-Us!
It is a gross injustice that our media is controlled by so few. They constantly limit information and the news creating a grand delusion.
Yes there is plenty of gossip but, where's the facts?
While America is asleep at the wheel the Cor'pirates' are pulling the rug right out from under them.
What rug?
That's a good question since there's very little left and they are tugging pretty hard.
Jobs, Health care, Privatization, Benefits and salaries are all going down while everything else is skyrocketing.
Like,
Taxes, Fuel, Education and the National Debt.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are shrinking while; Torture, War, Lying and spying are going up!
Bush has increased the national debt by more than all the past Presidents combined.
Nice job.
Job 1 well done.
Destroy America.
Destroy America's Middle class!
Please save us from some foreigner while you destroy us at home and Bankrupt the country.
That's what I call creative financing!!
Mean while all the poor people are fighting amongst themselves.
The Rich get Richer!
Things are so bad that the Fauxtians are looking for the easy way out.
Destroy the Garden!
They want to go to heaven now whether you like it or not.
Religion and patriotism are the cloths of scoundrels.
Divide and conquer works better today then it ever did before.
FAUX Media is spewing so much hate and Propaganda that the people are cutting each other throats fighting for a place in front of the indoctrination set.
While the wealthy are getting away with murder, torture, corruption, theft, lying and Spying
And I mean you!
Disinformation agents are just doing their job.
The Nazi's were saying the same thing at Nuremburg about turning on the ovens.
Stop fighting.
Stop blaming each other for all of the problems created by the ZIO-FASCIST-Cor- Pirates.
There're the Capital appendages of the Super Rich.
Hit men for the Wealthy.
Lobbyists are Us.
They Rape and pillage the world while you foot the bill.
Forget about your tomorrow! They are getting theirs today.
How do you change it?
Dismantle this corrupt System?
The Super Conglomerate that rules The World?
The Corpirate Empire?
First shut of it's voice.
Free The Media.
Take it back.
End the Oil Addiction.
Stop the Hali-Carlye Con-Glom-Pirates from selling us any more fossil fuel junk.
It is a dead system pushed beyond its necessity by special interests.
Dead Eye Dick.
Big Money.
The Top One.
% that is!
I thought generally the article to be good until I read this as part of the wrap up:
"So long as the price of crude oil is set by speculators on trading floors, "
What's the alternative that he or anyone would prefer?
"What catostrofic event could oil traders be privy to?"
You aren't actually claiming that lowly pit traders have information the rest of us don't have? What *evidence* do you have of this?
Democrats love to blame others for the miserable failures that they are. They blame Bush for stealing 2000 but also blame Nader for running, as if Katherine Harris would not have found a way to steal the election even if Nader were not on the ballot. Republicans stole Ohio in 2004 even more blatantly than Florida and Nader wasn't a factor in 2004, was he?
Now Democrats blame voters for not electing more Democrats in 2006. They blame not having 67 votes! Blame, blame, blame. Historically, they have been a party of failure and surrender. A party of cowards. A vote for a Democrat in 2008 is vote for Bush. STOP VOTING FOR THESE MOBSTERS.
Daniel David November 11th, 2007 9:31 pm
"starofthesea, If you indeed were looking for a better way, you would have found it."
If you truly believed that Daniel you wouldn't spend so much time here trying to convert everyone with your Democratic drivel.
Lobo Gris
commander_n_chimp:
All I can say is, you little bitch. You're more a bitch than a bitch.
Ok, right then. Never can have a comment thread to a post by Ralph without some small-minded ignorance that avoid the bigger problems at hand, ie two-party corruption, election theft, and on and on.
Why don't people ever call Pat Buchanan a spoiler from 2000, too? That would just be too sane...
starofthesea to Daniel David:
"The game you continue to play is " Yes,but." It gets old very fast for those of us looking for a better way."
starofthesea, If you indeed were looking for a better way, you would have found it.
It's legalized insider trading.
Ask yourself: What catostrofic event could oil traders be privy to?
Duh ! maybe the upcoming destrution of Iran......
There like a bunch of fucking spioled rich kids that can't possibly be made to wait until X-mas to open there presents,so they snuck into the closet.
Of course this is nothing new either.(remember the assholes that cashed in on 911)
Must agree that blaming things on Nader seems just as childish.
Kerry stood and watched police tazzer a kid for asking the wrong question.
"This comment is to start and increases a boycott "
Boycotts like this never work. Oil and gasoline are *fungible* commodities.
At the risk of having Daniel David lecture me about my warped sense of humor, I found Bob K's analogy of the I-35 bridge collapse quite funny. But Daniel David, not because of the collapse of the bridge itself, of course. ( Just in case you might think THAT is what I found amusing),SHEESH!
And not that I expect you to ackowledge this DD, because I could run around all day chasing you as you're posting, and still you would not respond to my direct question, but here goes anyway:
Sometimes it helps to laugh when it all seems so hopeless. Your lecturing ( condemning) me about what I find or do not find funny tells me that you either have no sense of humor at all, or you think that what you may find funny is all that is legitimately funny. Somehow, I suspect it is the latter, since you also seem to think that your take on the Dems as our salvation is the only way to address the sorry state we're in.
Your holier-than-thou comments aimed at me, reveal you for what you are---rigid and intolerant. Now I know why you won't address anything that challenges your closely hels assumptions. You refuse to be confused by the facts. It's your right, but how futile of so many of us to try to engage you in a serious discussion.
The game you continue to play is " Yes,but." It gets old very fast for those of us looking for a better way.
GreginLA..Simple, staight request...Please produce concrete evidence of Mr. Nader's connection to and influence by Wall Street.
"All of you Nader supporters need to understand that Nader has sold out to Wall Street and corporate interests. He was a Republican tool in 2000 and you were fools who voted for him."
Another member from The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight shooting himself in the foot.
You know, I really don't want the Democrats to self destruct, but they are doing a wonderful job at it anyway.
11/11/07
OPPORTUNITY TO BENEFIT FROM HIGHER GASOLINE PRICES
The rising costs of gasoline from the current crude oil price increases are incidental annoyances compared to the disastrous effects of over consumption on our environment, global warming, and our dangerous dependance on foreign oil & related trade deficits. These price increases now present an opportunity to promote meaningful conservation measures.
Past experiences show that increases in gasoline prices encourage fuel conservation & alternative energy development--while decreasing gas prices have opposite effects. An meaningful increase to the gasoline tax (ie an additional $1.00 per gallon) would discourage the rising prices of crude and refining by reducing the demand, which would partially offset the price increases at the pump.
Contrary to claims by this administration, the energy cartel & U S automakers; an increase in gas tax would benefit, rather than damage, our economy, by mitigating trade imbalances & dangerous dependancies on foreign oil, carbon warming, air pollution, etc. If necessary, it could be offset by eliminating punitive taxes such as the telephone, drugs, etc.
Unless Americans compel our legislators to reject the intimidation tactics of this administration and force the necessary reforms to our dreadful energy policies now, they must share blame for the disastrous results.
GregInLA:
"Nader should have realized that he would split the vote in enough states to push the election in favor of Bush."
Here's how it works. After design deficiencies, 14 years of neglect, and the weight of all the other vehicles and machinery on the I-35W bridge are taken into account, the bridge could only withstand another 2000 lbs. of stress before failing. Nader's car weighed 3500 lbs.
Nader should have realized the weight of his car would put the total stress over the limit. Therefor, when Ralph Nader drove onto the bridge he caused it to collapse. The math is undeniable!
GregInLA,
What vote was "split"? The two-party (actually single party) system can't possibly represent everyone from a Green, Socialist, Libertarian, Progressive Populist up to, and including, the multi-millionaire/billionaire neocon/banking/m.i.c. establishemnt elite. Anyone who thinks that Nader split some foregone unity of political sentiment embodied by Gore/Liebermann is smoking serious drugs. Or taking a lot of money to speak untruths. The DLC picked Liebermann. He turned out to be so far off his rocker that he couldn't even regain his own party's endorsement last time around in CT.
As I recall, the number of people who didn't vote at all in '00 outnumbered the Nader voters by like 4:1.
Green values are Green, not Democrat. The Green Party Ten Key Values are consistent. The Democratic Party Platform generally is not. Hunt down a version of it -- there's no consistent/coherrent ideology to it.
All of you Nader supporters need to understand that Nader has sold out to Wall Street and corporate interests. He was a Republican tool in 2000 and you were fools who voted for him. Nader should have realized that he would split the vote in enough states to push the election in favor of Bush. And he should have known that a Bush election win would be Corporate America's greatest wet dream. Corporations and big oil won because Nader ran. (Gore certainly was not anti-corporation, but he would have reigned them in and not let them take over all of government as they have in the past 7 years.)
On the price of oil: Nader is actually saying exactly what the Oil giants say - that there is no shortage of oil. This is what Nader said in his article: "Peter C. Fusaro, chairman of Global Change Associates, told the Post, adding, "There's a large bet out there that prices will continue to trend higher. But it's detached from fundamentals because there's no shortage of oil.""
Nader quotes Fusano who, after reading his website, appears to be as tied to Wall Street as the hedge funds he manages and advises. Come on guys, Nader's in Wall Street's pocket and you still believe him?
You need to get with the program. The world has hit peak oil. Google peak oil and read some of the respected sites on the issue. The oil companies don't want the word on peak oil to get out because politicians might push alternative energy.
Nader's opinion that there is plenty of oil actually works in big oil's favor since politicians will just push for more oil production (that is not there by the way) and end tax breaks for alternative energy sources. Take a look at recent proposed legislation that does just that, eliminate tax breaks for alternative energy. That's what big oil wants and that's what Nader wants. Coincidence?
commander_n_chimp:
"Hey Ralphie boy. You directly enabled the election of George Warmonger Bush. The blood of innocent people is on your hands. The blood of over one million Iraqis is on your hands. I sincerely hope you share the same fate as Dr. David Kelly, and I hope this happens soon."
It's a good thing that Nader wasn't on the I-35W bridge when it collapsed, or chump would have blamed that on him too. Vehicle N (Nader), not Vehicle A, Vehicle B, Vehicle C, etc., would have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
In the 2000 election, Gore's loss wasn't because:
a) The U.S. Supreme Court forced Florida to stop the recount
b) Florida's voter suppression of African-Americans
c) Florida's intentionally defective paper ballots
d) Electronic vote count fraud
e) Gore's failure to carry his home state
f) Gore's failure to carry Arkansas, because he didn't have Bill Clinton campaign for him there
No, no, no. Gore lost only because Ralph Nader was on the ballot in Florida. According to chump, and other chumps like him/her.
Bottom line, such comments are shameful, anti-democracy, anti-American and unpatriotic.
Ramsay,
While I was actually supporting your point, I make no apologies for my tirade. I felt it appropriate and may very well do it again should I be moved to do so.
I no longer feel that those who support the Democratic Party are my allies. We may share some beliefs, but their unbending belief that there is a major difference between themselves and the Republican Party is false. From my perspective, they will carry their beliefs to the end...of us all.
You stated, "I understand and share, your frustration and anger, many people feel the same sense of powerlessness. It's hard to watch something you love get destroyed by a dime store cowboy and his evil sidekick."
Powerlessness, yes. We all feel it because we have allowed ourselves to be backed into a corner. My reaction is nothing compared to what is being felt across this country. Actually, it's high-fucking time we start showing our cards and our truth.
My anger with the Republican neocon machine is real, and I don't think I need to show that to anyone here - we all feel it. No, what I am showing is my anger with those who back the status quo of the Democrat/Corporatist machine, those who use the siren song of "change" and "difference" and "progressivism." They are doing no-one a damn bit of good because they are leading us down the same fucking dark garden path. The problems are systemic. While I don't have a clear vision of what is needed, I'm determined to walk into the future with my eyes open.
As far as the dime store cowboy and his evil sidekick - they are merely the enemy we see. The enemy we don't see is the call to do as we've always done.
P.S. Nice web site and job in Costa Rica.
This comment is to start and increases a boycott against Oil Giant Exxon / Mobil the largest Corporation in the world. They are the worst -Exxon Valdez -lying campaign on Global Warming backer of The Oil Wars largest Corporate profits, CEO compensation out of sight, major supported of Bush and his policies which are really their policies, etc. The alternative free of all Exxon and Middle Eastern oil entanglements is
CITGO the outlet for Venezuela Hugo Chavez national and ANTI-Bush Oil. Buy CITGO Gas and you will not be supporting Exxon-American-Arab Sheik Saudi Oil. Stop all other gas purchases except from CITGO. Also if would be good to avoid 7-11 now that for some strange reason they have removed CITGO gas from all their stores. .
Pass the word email all your friends this is almost painless-- and watch for less Exxon sales-more CITGO sales in the coming months.
"Meanwhile, the government of Big Oil runs Washington, D.C. It thumbed its nose at pleas from then Chairman of the powerful Finance Committee, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) who asked the major companies, swimming in massive profits, to contribute some charitable dollars to help the poor pay for their winter home heating bills, and has smugly watched the major Presidential candidates avoid the subject in their debates and declarations."
Chuck Grassley is talking with the wrong people. Seems to me that Hugo Chavez sold home heating fuel at a discount price to the U.S. (in the past) to help out the poor who couldn't get any discounts from American oil companies. I suspect that's one of the reasons why he's on Bush's s#$t list.
I would have voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 if it hadn't been for some bad decisions I made during my late teenage years, making me ineligible to vote in many states. I would have voted for him knowing he would lose because I believe in voting for a candidate who stands up for the people and isn't a corporate puppet. I would never vote "holding my nose" for a candidate who had a true chance of winning. I also think that voting or not voting for Nader would have made little difference in the final percentages – even though it was a very close race. The "Supremes" would have still have walked on to the stage and sang their song, "A World without Love" and handed the presidency to George the Lesser.
I don't understand all the hatred directed at Nader. What is wrong with a man who has dedicated his life to fighting for a better, fairer, world? He is owned by no one and fights the good fight. Fortunately for Ralph Nader, the powers that be can ignore him, as they know he will never become a true threat by gaining real power to make change happen. Those few people who do rise to positions of power where they become a threat to the interests of certain groups always seem to have airplane crashes, or other accidents which stop them from carrying out true reform. You never hear of people such as Rumsfield, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Gonzales … ad nauseum, having such life ending events.
This land obviously needs change now but the truth is that it is going to take years to bring about lasting change. And the change is going to have to begin at the local level, working its way up to a national level before a true third or new party is created. It's going to require all of us who care about making this a better country for the working men and women to get involved and support those who have vision and leadership abilities. By beginning small, we can eventually get to the levels high enough to really bring about positive change for all of us who are carrying more than our fair share of the burden in the US. It's going to be a long road, and hopefully the planet is still at a point where we can begin to mitigate some of the damage we have already caused and do our best to stop it from continuing. Can it happen before it is too late? I hope so.
Finally, and once again: Why all the hate?
Ralph, I don't care if you have been right 9/10ths of the time you have voiced any opinion on any public issue. It's just not enough for me to believe you this time. You may have noticed that a few commodities have kept their prices low despite runaway inflation everywhere else. One of them is gasoline, the other is meat. Despite high crude oil prices and high grain prices the american consumer can still buy a gallon of gasoline for the price of a gallon of milk and a pound chicken for the same price as a pound of potatoes.
Nevermind that the dollar is losing value hand over fist on every other measure. The idiots will not notice until it is too late.
Just to get you back for being correct all of those other times I'm voting for a Republican in the next preseidential election. Somebody whose policies will continue the legacy of George W. Bush.
I'm voting for Hillary.
How completely arrogant of the Democrats that post that if it weren't for Nader, Gore would be President. You don't own those votes. The voters that cast them do. Further you have no facts to back your assertion that if they hadn't cast votes for Nader that they surely would have cast them for Gore. If they were sufficiently disenchanted with the Democrats to cast a vote for Nader they might well have stayed home and not voted at all, or they might have left the Presidential ballot blank. So how many blank ballots or blank Presidential blank slots do you claim? Let's hear it now! If it weren't for the blank ballots and the blank Presidential ballot slots Gore would surely be President. And last, you conveniently forget the role of the Supreme Court in appointing Bush, and the fact that Gore didn't even carry his home state.
Lobo Gris
Bit off topic, but it seems the Nader attackers seem to be engaging in some kind of odd reverse-clairvoyance.
As of this date, seven years ago, Bush was entirely presenting himself as a copy of his father. Meanwhile, Gore :
1. Did not distinguish himself from Bush in any way; and,
2. Didn't distinguish himself from the anti-US worker, pro-corporate, pro-imperialist, Iraqi and Yugoslav-murdering policies of Clinton.
So, why should we have voted for Gore again?
When the traders were on tech stocks and dot-com stocks in the late '90s, the prices of those shares went to the moon. Then in a bust, the ones who got hurt were the late-entering investors in those shares when the prices went back down drastically.
There is a "trading premium" in oil prices these days too. Some say maybe $30-40 "premium" a barrel. So, in a pop-off, maybe some of the last investors in oil get hurt. With political uncertainties, it's hard to say when this might happen.
The tragic difference is that while this game is being played by its "players", the trading price determines how much extra and perhaps unnecessary money is sent from American families' pockets to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Chavez in Venezuela and other miscellaneous foreign sources, not to mention into oil corporations.
If Ralph Nader was president, he'd fix this we presume from his writings. But he is not president, and despite all his insights, he is not going to be president. We can just hope he continues to write good articles to arouse the public ire but does not decide (again) to draw a small but critically needed margin of votes off of the much-maligned-yet-only-credible-hope-for-liberals party, the Democrats.
As for satire like posted and debated in comments above, it may be well-crafted, poignant, telling, prophetic, etc., but it's never really funny or even intended to be funny. The ones who find something dark to be "hysterical" are often the ones later excusing themselves for having a "warped" sense of humor, just as we saw above. Otherwise they'd need to be embarrassed to be laughing at something that is actually creating a hardship for real people.
iammyself: You begin your post by quoting me, then end your post with:
"To those who condemn Nader, and by implication, me and anyone else for having the guts to work for real change - fuck off, you simpletons!"
Uh, excuse me but I voted for Nader in two presidential elections, including the infamous 2000 election, though if I lived in Florida Gore would have gotten my vote. No apologies necessary.
Ralph begins his peice with a question, "Question of the day -", and I answer it with the word - Manipulation.
Simpleton - No, the manipulation is costing American and Iraqi lives, soon Iranian, and in a couple of stock market quarters - a lot of American jobs. It goes beyond wall street gamblers.
Guts to work for real change - Take a look at this and then decide if you've got more guts than me.
http://www.bananatreehotel.com/costarica/about-costa-rica/
The reason I responded, was not to defend myself or to attack you, we're on the same side. But to advise you and others to keep your cool and your powder dry. Also it may be wise not to offend your allies, though I could care less what you say, it doesn't help your cause.
I understand and share, your frustration and anger, many people feel the same sense of powerlessness. It's hard to watch something you love get destroyed by a dime store cowboy and his evil sidekick.
I've noticed a lot of otherwise cool heads, on Common Dreams, take the bait and lose it, resorting to foul language.
Patience and perseverence is what is required in these times. Change does not necessarily come when you want it, and is not necessarily determined by your hard work, but may arrive on it's own time and due to forces greater than yourself. Remember that even St. Cindy momentarily abandoned her quest.
And finally, never, ever, give up hope.
Ramsay
I voted for Nader in 2000 and 2004 and I'd like to see him run again against the Rats. And I love, LOVE, to see how upset Nader makes Democrats.
They are so dumb as to believe the votes in 2000 belonged to Gore before they were even cast! What the f*ck did Clinton/Gore do for progressives to deserve these preordained votes?
Not to mention that Gore behaved cowardly, or should I say, behaved like a Democrat (got it, DUmmies? Democrats = cowards) and allowed Bush to steal the election without a real fight. The Democratic Party MUST be wiped out.
B-Payne Economist is a total pain in the ass jerkwad capitalist shitbag. Cram it up your Wall St. ass you complete elitist asskissing freak. Your days are numbered, or we're all dead thanks to your ideology. Nader is a Nobel Prize winning economist compared to your miserable neocon-tutored undergraduate-level comprehension of economics.
Maybe you'll survive about 10 minutes longer than the rest of us, once your moronic agenda is adopted. I hope you drive off the nearest escarpment in your greed-head Hummer. Have a nice flight! Everyone with half a conscious hopes so. Go suck Karl Rove's tiny dick. But, you've probably been doing that for 8 years.
The solution could have been the Electric car. (If Car and Oil companies had not killed it)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_vehicle
Research says the average driving in a day is 30 miles or less, though the electric car is not for everyone; that is only 90% of all Americans that can use these in their daily commute.
- Early version of the EV-1 could do 60-70 miles between recharge.
- Later models could do better (110 - 160 miles)
- An engineer explains that lithium ion batteries, the same technology available in laptops, would have allowed the EV-1 to be upgraded to a range of 300 miles per charge.
Imagine instead of paying $150 /month on gas - you would have paid less than $20 / month in electricity bill?
Imagine no oil change. No Cooling (Radiator) no gear. Far more reliable engine (With only one moving part)?
Imagine the more reliable regenerative breaks. (That last longer than regular breaks and charge the Battery each time you hit the breaks)
During the (longer) life expectancy of the vehicle - The only parts which need replacement are the Batteries.
Solution exists also for occasional long distance drive. - Add a gas generator which will kicked in only after 300 mile without recharge.
And did I mentioned the pollution factor? (Which is depended on how the Electricity was generated)
Jack37---what a great post! thanks for your very enlightening and articulate analysis. You might be interested in Naomi Klein's piece on this day's posting about how South American is rejecting Friedman's free market robbery. It is very exciting to see so much happening down south as the people come together to shake free of the beast. I pray for the whole continent!
Don't know why people just refuse to begin their analysis from the fundamentals. "Profit" means "advantage" and so is mixed up in history with what the holy patriarchs (meaning liars and criminals) call "progress." Everywhere profit arrived it found a system of barter---something for something. Profit is value never put IN: hence, something for nothing. Hence, profit generically creates the "disadvantaged" (who were doing alright for themselves before). Now without "profit" as a reason for existence, most stupid people assume that we'd be living in a world "where everybody's the same." Really? Instead, we'd be getting up out of bed to face the question of how we're going to truly develop ourselves, rather than facing the present question of how do I beat somebody else and make my daily dose of salt bread subsistence.....Capitalism has so defaced and rewritten the history books that we are raised never knowing the real alternatives of the past/present, or even learning how to actively sneer at ANY other way to live life. But suppose that pulling your weight in the world (average 15 hours/week) earned you a plastic card by which you could walk into a store and take what you need? For 2 weeks Americans would be like dogs eating/having things till they puke. Then we'd wake up out of this needless nightmare called "healthy competition" and start living because it's good to be alive and fun to create things like progress....Sound childish? Don't you think it's more childish to have "dreams" in which you own more than anybody till you're dead? A person who thinks that is life, or who thinks we'll be "all the same" without the profit motive, IS dead....Right where the businessmen want them....
It looks like the United States of Israel will have to invade Brazil as well. I reports are true,and the difficulties of extraction overcome, Brazil may have several billion barrels of off-shore oil reserves to increase the total oil contributions to greenhouse climate change, and the wreck of the planet by human civilization. This is bad news. We need peak oil.
As far as the US dollar price of oil is concerned, the higher the price, the more the USI will have to pay for its "way of life", and the sooner the USI will be bankrupt, and so its way of life will have to change. Ditto for the rest of Fossil Fuel Civilization. Unfortunate that there are billions of people soon to be left in dire circumstances. With chronic water, fuel and food shortages, no one can save them all.
militantliberal--Thanks for your remarks about satire. I got it right away, and assumed everyone else did as well. There were so many giveaway lines. How about the one about how many people have to die from food poisoning and how the market works when the critical number is reached?
Maybe my sense of humor is warped but this sounds like a writer for the Colbert Report! Folks on this site would benefit from a hearty laugh now and then. But perhaps as alienated as so many feel todsy, satire is just too subtle.
Or maybe if Steven Colbert said it out loud on his show, people would see the gallows humor.
Actually what B Payne's remarks reminded me of was the documentary about the Enron debacle, The Smartest Guys in the Room. Course that was no satire, but is ripe for that literary art form.
iammyself I'm with you. I think the best tack is just to ignore the I hate Nadar types who post. They are so blind to the Dems collaboration at every step that none of us are gonna change their minds. Some people just have to have a scapegoat. Weird!
"Ralph and everyone else needs to realize, that the Oil markets, Stock markets, and bond markets, are being completely manipulated. That this manipulation is causing valuations, from Shanghai real estate to the price of gas at the pump, to be incorrectly priced."
I think Ralph realizes this, and this is why the whole oil situation is so complex, as colleen pointed out.
Nothing that has started as a solution to common problems, such as the price of oil or political solutions has ever been allowed to work unfetterd. There has always been those who seek power who have worked assiduously to undo, by whatever means, that which could have worked. Study true history and you'll learn this.
To those who condemn Nader, and by implication, me and anyone else for having the guts to work for real change - fuck off, you simpletons!
Nader in '08!!! I can't believe how many jackasses still blame the Democrats' losses on my man Ralph. This country wasn't set up as a two party system, and in the last fifty years or so, there hasn't been any real choice. Ralph Nader is perhaps the best hope this country has to save it from oblivion. Will we really be any better off with Hillary than President Jackass? I think not. She is now the poster child of the so-called defense industry and the thieves in the pharmaceutical business. Corporatism must be crushed or we're all doomed. Too bad anyone who has any degree of good sense is dead to the Media Monster. You go Ralph! You are loved and admired.
PaulMagillSmith--at first I took B Payne-Economist's post seriously, then I realized it was almost certainly a satire, and Nader is not the target. That's why someone would find it hysterically funny. Look again at this sentence, "It's a good thing you weren't around in the '50s when public transportation was shut down by the car and oil industries. Hell, today we'd be riding around on Totalitarian Metros at 500 miles per gallon per rider with access to everywhere." He's saying that as if 500 mpg and universal access would be a bad thing, when they obviously aren't. It's satire.
I read elsewhere yesterday (not sure where) that China has been selling its people oil & gasoline below the world market price. Their prices are artificially low and their consumption--AND world oil prices--artificially high. They're doing this to keep China's rapid industrialization going and to keep the people from getting upset. It's kind of scary when some country other than the USA can affect the world economy this way. But it can't last forever. Either the Chinese state will borrow and go bankrupt like the Soviet Union or it will have to share the world's pain with China's people. So at some time in the future, prices will come down again...for a while. Meanwhile, I agree with "remember" about the usefulness of high oil prices. I now ride a city bus (not with 500 mpg), so I can look at today's gas prices and pity the poor, poor Hummer owners out there.
RE: starofthesea November 10th, 2007 3:13 pm
"B-Payne-Economist—-a hysterically funny post."
Star, you either have a really tragically warped sense of humor (sometimes the best defense against the ravings of idiots), or are a much nicer & kinder person than me.I prefer to call a spade a spade, so will say to B-Payne-Economist:
"You are the worst kind of greedy un-American un-patriotic scum, and an enemy of people worldwide. If ever there was a case for someone to have been aborted you are the prime example. I hope someone does a good 'key' job on that piece of crap Hummer of yours, and all your selfish friends' cars/trucks, too. Go get a real job and stop mooching off of our society"
"Run in 2008 Ralph!
I am voting for you even if you arent on the ballot.
And keep agitating the democraps.
I love their childish fury with you."
The fury is over the real-world consequences of Nader's running in 2000. The smirk on your face should be wiped off by realizing that you voted Bush into office, but of course none of you Naderites take any responsibility for that. And I know you're ready to elect another Republican again, just to prove your point that you can vote for anyone you can, and not for someone who could actually get elected and help turn this country around. For you it's all or nothing. Either the candidate is "perfect" or you're not participating to HELP us. And God help us all, you're going to do it again.
Thank you so much for splitting the vote and putting Bush into office. From the bottom of my heart I curse all of you. I hope you like the result.
RE: chris6137 November 10th, 2007 2:23 pm
"He has been warning about the price of the dollar and how it is only worth .04 as opposed to 1913, when the fed was started...The Fed is the biggest scam I have ever heard of. President Bush has borrowed more money from the Federal Reserve, than all previous presidents, COMBINED."
Chris, you have that exactly correct, and you can thank the warmonger Zionist Rothschild family for the non-federal agency misnamed the 'Federal' Reserve. They have been intent on getting control of our money system for a couple centuries, and caused the assasination of two US presidents who stood in their way (Lincoln & Kennedy).
On the plane from Dallas to Washington, after Kennedy was shot, Johnson was immediaely sworn in as president (Jackie Kennedy standing beside him still in a blood stained dress), but before the plane even landed in DC what was the first act of the new usurper president? Before the plane even landed he rescinded Kennedy's Presidential Directive #11110, which would have done away with the Fedeal Reserve. With all the trauma of that day doesn't it sound a little suspicious Johnson's over-riding priority would be financial rather than emotional? Study the history of the Rothschilds and you will see for them it was a normal day at the office, and allowed them to currently enrich themselves at $150 billion a year, at our expense, through control of the Fed.
Because of other issues Ron Paul has in his platform I'm not a big fan, and fully understand why he is marginalized by the Zionist controlled MSM, yet fear for his physical safety through talk about killing the 'golden goose' (the Fed) of the Rothschild Zionist mob of financial gangsters. Want to learn more of "Dirty Deeds Done Real Expensive (to us)", to twist an AC/DC lyric? See:
http://iamthewitness.com/doc/RothschildsTimeline-filer/frame.htm
Anyone who trusts large for profit organizations is foolish after what we have seen. I don't know what the solutions are anymore for America. Too many people are lying and taking care of number one..themselves and their immediate families..and sometimes not even their own families.
Americans as a group are mean spirited. How this happened I don't know..because at one time people did seem to care...but was that an illusion? or maybe just a minority of Americans who cared about the lives of others?
Basing a society upon the greed of individuals will doom that society. The smart or ruthless will gain power and money and take from the less clever or less ruthless. (Ex: mortgage debacle and the instability it has caused)
In any case America should not have the power of a lone super power. It will misuse that power as we have seen with Bush and his policy of pre emptive war. Other nations can not allow a nation to have the kind of power the US has and to use it pre-emptively. I think they are forced to hold down or limit US power.
As long as the US worked with other nations they could support the US, but once the US begins to disregard others then they will be forced for self preservation to unite against the US...
I am hoping the next president will reassure other nations that the US can work with others, for all our sakes.
Chuckle, chuckle.
A fine example an "economist" telling the rest of us that we dont understand economics. What ol B Paye calls "economy" is what the rest of us call usery/price manipulation and shell games. Toss your Degree bro, any fool can "make money" in the stock market. But not without it being a fixed game. Which it has always been. If there were laws to protect people like there are to protect companies all that money would go pooff.
What is praticed in wall street is not economics it is simple arithmetic, and all profits are derived from stealing the work(added value) of people who have no way to prevent it; along with a heavy reliance on keeping those same people ignorant of the actual value of the thing being purchased.
Diamonds, Oil, Fish, Trees? No man makes those, yet one man can make a profit from his ability to prevent another from gaining access to them.
You Know? LAND????
Huh Mr. ECONOMIST????"
B-Payne-Economist----a hysterically funny post. God help us all unless the wisdom and passion of Ralph Nadar finally catches fire in the nation's mass consciouness very very soon.
The man has ben so consistently right that it is almost scary. Guess that's why they hate him so.
Commander in chimp---if you can't say anything nice...wait a minute, I should say, ...if you can't say anything new and to the point, spare us the vitriole. It is getting very old and very stale. Hatefulness and scapegoating has no useful place here or anywhere else.
Two presidential candidates, both Democrats, refused to mount serious and effective challenges to their rigged electoral defeats, and that is a fact! If you want to assign blame, please put it exactly where it belongs. There is plenty enough to go around, My GOD! BushCo couldn't do all this damage without a complicit Democratic Party and MSM. Give us a break on the Nadar bashing. It is so juvenile and frankly just plain wrong!
I thought finger pointing and character assasinations were for the likes of Coulter and company. Get over it!!!
Run in 2008 Ralph!
I am voting for you even if you arent on the ballot.
And keep agitating the democraps.
I love their childish fury with you.
:)
don't forget the biggest consumer of oil based fuels is the pentagon.
if you want to tackle oil product prices, contact the house judiciary committee to encourage impeachment. when bush is out, if it can be done, the pentagon should be burning less fuel, because we will get to withdraw troops from iraq.
PINKO RALPH RIDES AGAIN
Hey there Comrade, questioning those markets again, huh. You've come a long ways from the days of destroying jobs for workers that built rear-engine Corvairs and exploding Pintos.
Don't you think consumers are intelligent enough to make choices for themselves? Every time you stand in their way, you're taking away one person's freedom to choose and another's freedom to supply. Communism, plain and simple.
Just how many people need to die from food poisoning before customers catch on? Several hundred, maybe a thousand? Markets WORK Ralphie Boy if you would just LET them. All those food regulations you talk about just KILL EVEN MORE people by DRIVING UP COST AND PRICE from stupid regulations TILL THEY STARVE you idiot.
And now you're attacking oil for godsake, the lifeblood of this great nation. Look man, those corporations are PEOPLE with INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS OF PERSONS like you and me! They MADE this country. All those stories about the Standard Oil monopoly are bogus. Economists have discovered they brought prices DOWN, not UP.
It's a good thing you weren't around in the '50s when public transportation was shut down by the car and oil industries. Hell, today we'd be riding around on Totalitarian Metros at 500 miles per gallon per rider with access to everywhere.
Like we say in my H1 Hummer Business Tax Break Club, just sittin in 'em at fast food joints for looks from other upscale Bubbas and Billy Bobs gets way more real estate business from welfare cowboys than those cosmopolitan wimps driving Prissies ... I mean Priuses.
By the way Ralphie, I'm one of those Wall Street brokers ... hedge funders ... you despise for driving up oil prices with speculation.
Now I know you know how that works - get in early for a short ride then jump off just before the boat sinks ... you know, fool some of the fools some of the time or something like that. You see, I win whether the market goes up or down, just a little less down than up, while you can lose big time.
Say, why not stop by and let me fix you up with a Call Option on Light Sweet Crude 3 years out for $60 a barrel with a 1 year Put Option on the side and a Costless Collar combined with a Double Straddle if Solar and Wind falls below $.03/kilowatt hour?
I agree with Colleen about the dollar dropping, therefore the price of gas is more. I am a progressive, although lately I have been listening to what Dr. Ron Paul has been saying about foreign policy and especially the Federal Reserve.He has been talking about our economy for 20 some-odd years. He has been warning about the price of the dollar and how it is only worth .04 as opposed to 1913, when the fed was started.
I feel as if we have been so dependent on oil, that they tell us when the price of gas goes up, it cost more to ship things, so the price of imports go up. Im calling a bluff. When you print money, it devalues the money that is in circulation. Its not that items cost more to make or ship, its that our dollar is losing more and more value, so it takes more "dollars" to buy the same items.
The Fed is the biggest scam I have ever heard of. President Bush has borrowed more money from the Federal Reserve, than all previous presidents, COMBINED. Sure our economy might be good.... if your a billionaire. But when you are in the middle class, and your wages are not going up proportionally to the devaluing of the dollar, that good ol Federal Reserve is gonna start catching up to us. And I say president Bush borrowed the money, bc when we need money we BORROW it from the Federal Reserve and pay interest on the PAPER we borrow, via our Federal Income Tax. What a scam.
I hope people wake up to the warnings Our Fathers and Ron Paul has given to us.
Hey Ralphie boy. You directly enabled the election of George Warmonger Bush. The blood of innocent people is on your hands. The blood of over one million Iraqis is on your hands. I sincerely hope you share the same fate as Dr. David Kelly, and I hope this happens soon.
How funny. I just finish writing an article about Oil and Inflation, click onto Common Dreams, and see this article by Ralph.
The article is about how the housing boom in the U.S., combined with low wage Chinese manufacturing, maksked the effect of rising oil prices on inflation.
But now, with the end of the housing boom, the true effect of the price of oil is going to be felt, the U.S. and Chinese economies are going to be hurt, and you are going to lose your jobs. If anyone wants to read it just click on my name at the top.
Ralph and everyone else needs to realize, that the Oil markets, Stock markets, and bond markets, are being completely manipulated. That this manipulation is causing valuations, from Shanghai real estate to the price of gas at the pump, to be incorrectly priced.
There is a "risk" premium, in the current price of oil, due to Bush & Co.'s constant threats against Iran. And one of the Big Oil Companies reported lower earnings, from keeping the price of gas at the pump down, and taking less profits. Why?
All part of the manipulation.
Ramsay
I'm all for higher oil prices. They provide incentive to develop alternatives and forestall some amount of global warming (by reducing co2 emissions) in the meantime. The problem is that the added cost is not in the form of a carbon tax that can be used to research alternatives or build out public transportation or any of a myriad of other uses that would enhance our future. Also missing in all of this is that our actual cost should include that super-sized portion of our federal taxes used to protect oil supplies around the world militarily.
While I don't dispute what Nader has written, the situation with oil is more complex than just some speculators affecting oil prices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
The above link gives a more complete view of why oil costs what it does.
Also imo while oil has gone up in cost per barrel in US dollars, the US dollar has dropped in relation to other currencies.
So for Americans oil is nore expensive, but people using other currencies than the US dollar, will not have much more expensive oil.
"Saudi Arabia's King Abdulla appears to have seen the writing on the wall as early as 1998, telling his subjects, "The oil boom is over and will not return... All of us must get used to a different lifestyle.""
"Commodities trader Raymond Learsy, author of Over a Barrel: Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel, contends that OPEC has trained consumers to believe that oil is a much more finite resource than it in fact is. To back his argument, he points to past false alarms and apparent collaboration.[69] He also believes that Peak Oil analysts are conspiring with OPEC and the oil companies to create a "fabricated drama of peak oil" in order to drive up oil prices and profits."
above quotes from wikipedia
and be sure to read the section "Resource nationalism " at the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
Its very complex and we fought a war over oil in Iraq. Thousands if not millions have died for oil.
Good for you Ralph Nader!
It feels as if nothing is real anymore just the big boys playing games (and very big ones)