Frankly, who (besides the upper middle class and wealthy) will be able to afford to drive on the roads for much more than short trips when oil hits $150 a barrel this year, as T. Boone Pickens predicted today? How will truckers be able to afford long hauls? How will Wal-Mart afford the 10,000 mile supply chain? That's reality.
Yep. The Democraps need to let us reopen refineries and drill in ANWR. The gas price inflation is all their fault.
Anonymous, while I agree with your sentiment about ANWR (heck, let's drill it until it's leaking like a sieve) it's really misinformed and short-sighted to say that gas "inflation" is the Democrats' fault.
First, it's not "inflation" per se. It's basic supply and demand. The near $130 per barrel price of oil today reflects that there's more demand than supply. As T. Boone Pickens pointed out today, you're not gonna fix that by drilling in ANWR or wearing ruby slippers and wishing it all away.
You can start to fix it by kicking the oil habit. Do you like paying for both sides of the War on Terror? I personally don't like filling up my tank at the pump knowing that a good portion of that money is going to fund madrassas and wild-eyed mullahs paid for by decadent Saudi princes.
Second, I'm not a Democrat, and I'd dare say it's all of our "fault" for thinking we could wallow in the cheap oil bonanza forever. Think about that the next time you see a clownish, cartoonish, asinine Hummer driving by (probably with someone inside who has a bit a of a size complex). ANWR should be drilled, but it's a mere quick street fix for the oil-addicted nation we've become.
As I said before, It's not speculation, it's not the dollar, it's not an oil company conspiracy, it's not a lack of refineries, it's not because we haven't drilled in ANWR.
Its the economy, stupid? No. It's the global production capacity, stupid.
Don't fall into the trap of sleepwalking and magical thinking. Don't fantasize that ANWR will solve our problems, or for that matter that we'll be able stick solar panels in our roof in some imaginary hippy fantasyland.
This is a much more intractable problem than either party would like to admit. This is reality. And reality is about to get a lot more real.
As I've said, reality is about to bite America in the butt. $130 a barrel? Try $140 on for size:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c29556...?
nclick_check=1
"Veteran traders said they had never seen such a jump and said investors were increasingly betting that oil production would soon peak because of geopolitical and geological constraints."
The airy-fairy fantasyland for both the Democrats and Republicans is about to end.
Anonymous, it's not about ANWR. Don't get me wrong, drill ANWR until it's full of holes. We'll need it. But don't engage in magical thinking, either. This isn't "inflation." It's the reality of supply and demand. It's not about refineries or ANWR or mean nasty oil companies or hippies who think we can run America on patchouli.
It's about global production capacity. It's about reaching the peak of how much oil we can pump out of the ground, while demand remains high.
T. Boone Pickens nailed it today. We produce about 85 million barrels a day worldwide. And demand is about 87 million barrels a day. Do the math.
And don't engage in wishful fairy dust thinking about ANWR or biofuels or wind power. Look reality in the face. There's one way to confront this - get this nation off its oil addiction! That means no more clownish size-challenged Hummer drivers. That means suck it up, quit whining and quit finger-pointing.
I don't know about you, but I'm sick of paying for both sides of the War on Terror. Every time I fill up at the pump I think about all that money going to decadent Saudi princes funding madrassas and wild-eyed mullahs preaching death.
That means all options on the table - not just your pet options. Deal with it.
Let's hear candidates like Loveless give us their "plan" for dealing with $10 a gallon gas? Hmmm. What's that? Nothing, you say? Hello, anyone there?
We can either pull together as Americans -- all Americans regardless of party or political stripe -- or we can seethe and glare at each other in the gas lines when the shortages start. And they will start soon.
On CNBC today:
---
HOST: Dr. Hirsch, there are a lot of people when we talk about peak oil who say there are going to be technologies that are always developed. There will be new ways to get oil, whether it's from coal, whether it's from the oil shales, and they say that means we will never actually hit peak oil. What do you say to those people?
HIRSCH: They're incorrect, and the reason that they're incorrect is that they don't understand the magnitude of the problem and how long it's going to take to bring substitute liquid fuels on and to introduce energy efficiency on a massive scale. That's something that we analyzed and it takes decades. And the reason, simply, is that the magnitude of the problem is enormous.
[McTeer says we should drill more.]
HOST: Dr. Hirsch, what do you say to that--the idea that we should be drilling in places like ANWR and drilling offshore. Would that solve this problem of a plateau in oil production?
HIRSCH: There's no single thing that's going to solve this problem because it's as massive as one can possibly imagine. And the prices that we're paying at the pump today I think are going to be the good old days because others who watch this very closely forecast that we are going to be hitting $12 and $15 per gallon. And then, after that, when world oil production goes into decline, we're going to talk about rationing. In other words, not only are we going to be paying high prices and have considerable economic problems, in addition to that, we're not going to be able to get the fuel when we want it.
---
Hoo, boy. And meanwhile, we have "lawmakers" at the state Capitol arguing about Nick's law, and Loveless taking pot shots from the sidelines about roads and bridges, and Congress threatening to sue OPEC. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny.
Incidentally, the twin crises of the mortgage meltdown and the credit crunch are far from over:
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/
super...id=yahoofinance
"We believe the real harrowing days of the credit crisis are still in front of us and will prove more widespread in effect than anything yet seen."
Get that? Harrowing days. It's not fear-mongering. It's reality.
He does realize there are 148 other guys that have to agree with him right? His opponent could just as easily criticize him for not having a plan for prison overcrowding or school lunches. This is pretty much pandering in its finest form.
Oil jumped past the $130 mark this morning. I remember when National Review laughably claimed that $50 a barrel was surely the peak price. It's been disconcerting to watch how the American media and public keep resetting the psychological "ceiling" for what we'll tolerate. First it was $60, then $70, then $80, then $90, then $100 (and surely it would stop at $100, except it didn't). When a nation keeps telling itself it'll be okay and keeps driving the elephant-hunting SUV's and keeps throwing away enough food to feed several smaller nations -- then I think "addicted to oil" is a very apt phrase. And by the way, there's nothing conservative about such behavior.
In 2003, oil was somewhere in the range of $25-$30 a barrel - in other words the price has increased fivefold in five years. Still think it's "speculation" or a weak dollar driving the price spike? Hey, I have some great swamp land in Florida to sell you.
You've got Ron Black over on his blog today getting at least part of the picture. He understands what a bunch of asshattery it is for Congress to "sue" OPEC. But Black has unfortunately bought into the "let's just drill ANWR" meme. ANWR - the miracle solution to all of our problems! Except that it will take 5 years to get online, and is a mere drop in the bucket for global supply. Meanwhile, Ron's media dominatrix, Denise Bode, was on the radio this morning trying to defend biofuels, saying that they had nothing to do with the run up in food prices. Well, true enough, as far as that goes. The food price spike is because of the oil spike. We run everything on petroleum products, including food fertilization, irrigation, harvesting, processing and shipment. But to say biofuels has nothing to do with it also reveals a deep misunderstanding about what we face. Biofuels are a net energy loss. They require more petroleum input than the energy you get out of burning the end product. And the run on biofuels has been in part due to the wake-up call everyone is getting about oil. But biofuels, as a net energy loser, are a scam.
Again, I ask: Let's hear Loveless or any other candidate step forward with a plan on how the American economy keeps running along smoothly at $10 a gallon gas (or even $6 a gallon gas - which is in closer range, and very realistic). The idea that we're going to keep humming along on the highways at that price is just laughable. It's interesting that none of these transportation "plans" mention things like rail - which will be the only affordable option in this new era. Pretty soon, flying will be reserved for the wealthiest among us. "Coach" will go for first class prices, otherwise airlines will go bankrupt. One other thing: the "lawmakers" at the state Capitol have killed very simple energy legislation the past several years (like tax credits for individuals or LEED standards for public buildings).
Oil - $132 a barrel and counting today... Meanwhile, American Airlines announces layoffs and cuts domestic flights to deal with fuel costs:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080521/a...tions.html?
.v=5
What was that about a transportation "plan"?
A lot of that tag fee money goes to schools. The tag fees were never intended to go to only roads, that is simply inaccurate.
Loveless and his road and ridge lobby buddies want to raid our school funds to pad their own pockets.
No thanks.
I just spent the better part of the afternoon traveling around the greater OKC area - from Piedmont to Baptist Medical Center to Midwest City to Norman. And I can honestly conclude that we're toast when oil keeps climbing, and it will. The exurban developments with names like "Prairie View" and 5 car garages built in the middle of cow pastures, miles and miles away from the closest store or gas station, the bone-jarring road surfaces, the big box chain stores requiring just in time deliveries from massive semi rigs that clog the highways. This Loveless thing is a moot discussion in the face of $133 bbl oil.
LOL
This sentiment despite the fact that a majority of the world's oil supply is controlled by an oligopoly and there's less than a year's worth of oil in ANWR. You can't refer to your partisan playbook on this issue - it's more complex than that. When a monopoly controls a commodity, the traditional rules associated with supply and demand no longer apply.
We're going to have to change our consumption habits, and that's all there is to it. Unfortunately, Oklahoma is ill-equipped for this reality - particularly OKC, a large and sparsely populated metropolitan area which has wasted incomparable amounts of land and resources through suburban sprawl.
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