Our nation is dependent on oil, yet price gouging continues unabated. Other services and products within our nation and that our citizens must have are regulated (medicine, banking, food, utilities, etc.) Should our government regulate oil prices?
Regulating prices will do one thing- run oil refiners out of the US. Guess what that will do, raise prices further.
When people conserve demand goes down lowering the price. Remember Adam Smith? He didn’t drive an SUV either….
The US government could create its own refineries and sell it to us at a discount. This would ease the pressure on the American public until oil alternatives are up and running.
I do.
For decades, politicians, corporate leaders and the media have subjected the world’s people to the self-serving claim that the capitalist market is the most rational means of allocating society’s resources. What is now being revealed is the basic conflict between the needs of a modern mass society and anarchy of the profit system.
At the heart of the crisis is the breakdown of the global economic system. For decades, politicians, corporate leaders and the media have subjected the world’s people to the self-serving claim that the capitalist market is the most rational means of allocating society’s resources. What is now being revealed is the basic conflict between the needs of a modern mass society and the anarchy of the profit system.
It is impossible to ascertain any truthful estimates of remaining global supplies, because the oil producing countries and energy conglomerates have vested interests in concealing their “business secrets” from the people. Entrenched corporate and political opposition has also largely squelched large-scale development of environmentally safe and sustainable alternatives, although the technology has existed, in some cases, for decades.
Supposed solutions produced within the framework of the capitalist system have only worsened the crisis. The development of bio-fuels is a case in point. Even if one were to accept the widely disputed claims that bio-fuels are a means of reducing carbon emissions, their production has only led to a massive increase in the price of corn and other crops, wreaking havoc throughout the world. The entire project has been tied to the interests of agri-business monopolies, such as ADM and Cargill, which have an overriding concern, not in ending global warming, but boosting their bottom lines.
The rational use of remaining petroleum resources and the development of genuine alternatives require an unprecedented level of international cooperation and the marshalling of the world’s technological, material and human resources. This is not possible as long as capitalism divides the globe into competing nation states, each vying for advantage over the other.
The mad scramble to control the world’s remaining oil supplies has led to a violent struggle, in which the bloody US invasion and occupation of Iraq is but one episode. All of the major powers—from the US, to China, Europe, and Japan—are vying for control of the Middle East, the Caspian region, the Arctic and Antarctica and even the sea-beds of the world’s oceans. The struggle for resources is once again threatening the world with the eruption of a new round of imperialist wars, which could threaten the very survival of humanity.
people always talk about Global warming this and pollution that
Gas ran engines produce some of the most CLEAN breathable air on Earth
every time I smell an exhaust pipe of a GAS ran car
it reminds me of fresh air sprinkled with daisy’s
Voters why do people pick on the good and kind Oil industry?
And our good friends in the coal industry, too! And the chemical industry, worldwide!
Yuppers, our loyal pals and good buddies!
You’ll notice, by GOD, none of the good ol’ boys of semi-literate right wing hate, the ones called
"the three stooges"–they NEVER have a bad word about those folks, even when gas hits, say, $3.85 a gallon. Nope…that was Obama’s fault. So what if he wasn’t elected yet?
And we need more spokespeople for the insurance industry, too. Well, never mind. We already have the Republican Party.
Next week: Goose stepping to the oldies! That’ll be more the more athletic neo-Nazis.
did not tap the nations oil reserve to control oil price spikes. Any truth in that ?
Is there credible evidence that Bush was more concerned withmaximizing the profits of big oil than he was with acting in the best interest of America ?
Hmmm speculators "get out" when the future runs out, or they have to actually deliver or buy physical oil, so it cant be just the speculatours.
Depends on who you ask.
ask a democrat and they’ll say "yes that was his only concern-no more war for oil"
ask an American and we’ll simply regard that question the way it should be regarded. as nothing more than tabloid slander.
I mean we used to give the USSR a hard time about this sort of behavior and worked to break the USSR up for it and now we are doing it here. I remember in the 70’s when friends of mine spoke of the USSR and said they had noe freedom of religion and that is true here also.
Why is none of this being reported in the NEWS especially the COmmunistic threat of stealing assets from one group the oil company and owners to the Government?
You’re kidding, right? The mainstream media agrees with this; hence, they have a biased interest in not reporting it more.
that he abused his presidency to push oil/gasoline prices, to benefit the oil companies and only the oil companies, with total disregard for the best interest of America and its citizens ?
Plumber rock, they are the lowest in years now that he is in his 2 last months of office and they are still a lot higher than before he took office.
Did you know Bush once owned an oil company? He bought an oil company, but couldn’t find any oil in Texas; the company went bankrupt shortly after he sold all his stock in it.
My husband works for the oil industry so naturally Im concerned.
People seriously want to vote for this guy? OMG!
Very simple. He’s going to spend $125 trillion billion to erect a windmill in every backyard in America, which he’ll fund by raising the top marginal tax rate to 300% on all income above the minimum wage and eliminating the Department of Defense.
Soon enough everyone but trial lawyers, college professors, government bureaucrats, union organizers, and those with an IQ below 70 will move to Costa Rica. That will leave a population of about 50 million registered Democrats. At this point the country will be small enough that they can shut down the windmills and power the country with the oil in Chuck Schumer’s hair.
OIMF
wont to start work in the offshore oil industry
your local job centre will have all the information you need, good luck.
the oil companies point out oil is about 40.00 a barrell , not 140.00
where it used to be. last time taxes were raised on big oil it made
america more dependent upon opec. the oil industry will air commercials fighting new taxes on oil, bit in your opinion, do you think
he will get the tax increases in and how do you feel it will effect
the oil industry, thank you.
So far every indication is that the Obama administrations stance on the oil industry is a pretty big paradox. He wants us to be less dependent on foreign oil, but he won’t work to open up exploration and production activities in the outer continental shelf. It looks like he wants to impose punitive taxes on oil companies, which in the end will only discourage investment in domestic production. Why drill here when it’s cheaper to drill somewhere else, or you don’t believe you’ll make a decent return on your investment.
To give you an idea of the kinds of decisions and risks oil companies are already faced with, Chevron and it’s partners will have spent somewhere between 4 and 6 billion dollars on developing one of their fields in deepwater gulf of mexico before they extract one drop of oil out of the ground. Obama’s taxes would tax a project like that every step of the way.
Right now other countries like China, Canada, Brazil etc.. are working to secure energy supplies for the future in their outer continental shelfs. Russia is reported to begin drilling in cuba this summer, only 60 miles off the coast of florida. But our politicians are instead going for cheap political gain and grandstanding against oil companies who are currently unpopular.
It is certainly true that we need to invest in renewables, but our own departement of energy’s most aggressive models predict that oil will still make up 80% of our energy mix by the year 2030.
Oil prices are low right now, but within a few years they’ll be back up to 70 to 80 dollars a barrel. By 2018 we could see 100/barrel again. It would be very arrogant of us to demand that other countries produce more oil while we prohibit and discourage domestic production with moratoriums and punitive taxation. This however, is what we’ve been doing so far.
Additional info: if you have any more questions feel free to email me. As you can see I can talk about this all day long.
Additional info2: The oil industry already pay the highest tax rate of ANY industry. I think that already qualifies as fair share. Is it fair to make them pay even more (especially when we know the real reason is that most people don’t like them)?
additional info3: I forgot to mention that the person Obama appointed as his energy secretary looks like a total douche. Steven Chu. So it doesn’t look good.
I keep hearing that big oil gets all kinds of governmental subsidies. Can anybody give any specific examples? Or is this more of a myth that people eventually believe is "truth" because it is repeated again and again? Give me some hard evidence, please, of current subsidies received by specific oil companies, including the dollar value of the subsidy, and a link to the source of your information. Thanks.
this is a Republican point of view talking about the Dem congress cutting oil subsidies…
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=7066
if you want to go digging around in the fed budget for the actual line items… go crazy… but I’m not that bored…
the congress and the president sure do talk about them a lot for something that you don’t think exists though