sr71plt
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Posts
- 51,872
Isn't he talking to Jacquelope?![]()
Thanks, I'll have to go back and see what I missed. Of course the thread's flown off topic now.
Last edited:
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Isn't he talking to Jacquelope?![]()
I can only proceed on what you offer on this forum, but it seems to tend towards a command type economy in which private enterprise is highly controlled and regulated.
Actually, Einstein, if you had taken the time to read my other threads on here, I have a whole thread talking about oil speculation's effects on oil prices.I answered all of that way up the line too. They are manipulating SUPPLY, which is much broader than manipulating price. And they are doing what every other intelligent government is doing--just like the United States. It's practically the Saudi's only cash crop; there is nothing sinister about them controlling it to their best advantage (global economics 101)--and to make theirs last as long as possible. Your "sinister" is self-centered Jingoism based on your own self-centered concept of what you need and are entitled to--and you brush aside any pointing to the United States doing exactly the same thing. And you understand nothing about national sovereignty. It's their oil; they don't have to either make any of it available to you or play to your preferred "rules" of global economy. (and the United States imports a whole hell of a lot more food than it exports by the way--to pick up on another loose string you dropped).
Again you are engaging in avoidance of reality and logic. The United States has reserves and it hasn't dipped into them at all--while putting all of its efforts into using everyone else's reserves. Like, Duh, on the reality charts.
And you are pissing in the wind, anyway. When the Saudis do sell, they now have much more lucrative and solid markets than the United States--China and India. Their managing of their oil no longer has much to do with the United States. Unless we invade them, as Rox notes, it's no longer oil coming exclusively to the United States. (And the United States can't even make that work--we've taken over Iraq, but we're not getting their oil--certainly not at any better price than from anywhere else.)
And, as I already noted. the control on the availability of gasoline is refineries, not oil supply--at any price. And the United States hasn't bothered to up its refinery capacity along with demand.
And all of this is irrelevant to whatever point you thought you were trying to make in the first place. The factor in the price of oil that is making havoc at the moment has little to do with the availability of oil or price manipulation by the oil suppliers. It's mostly a function of the stock market paper speculators who don't actually handle a drop of oil. Have you been under a rock that you haven't absorbed this?
I said the Government subsidized the internet in the beginning. It's far less subsidized now. The internet would not have even existed without DARPA funding.Which government subsidizes the internet? And what does it (the net) need a subsidy to do?
Oh look, Bronzeage is following me around again.
Hey dude, notice how nobody here hurls racial slurs or death threats at me like you people do on the General Board?
Go away.
Okay, now that all of you have had your piece to say about how environmentalists are behind the lack of new refineries, allow me to dash this myth back to the pieces it came from.The United States, as though it's a national plan not to use the supplies it has. Who opposes the drilling off the coasts of the United States, both coasts? Is it the Oil Companies? No, it's the Environmentalist Nuts who scream we'll be destroy millions of baby seals if we drill. They predict and promise huge environmental disasters if we allow drilling, utterly ignoring the modern technology which is now going into that activity. Katrina wiped out New Orleans, shut down how many oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, and how much oil was lost and caused what environmental disaster? Oh that's right NONE.
Yet it's the socialists like yourself who demand we not drill because it's bad for the environment and we'll all die if we drill. Throw the money at alternative energy sources, which is of course, how we have always created new energy sources right?
I mean, at first, it was sail power that propelled man across the seas, wind and wooden ships. Then it was coal fired steamers. More reliable than wind. It quickly became the standard, and what do you know, would be in use today as the international standard except one thing. Oil fired steam propulsion was more efficient, and faster. From there we went to Diesel engines, and then Gas Turbine engines. Nuclear is very efficient, requiring fuel only once every twenty years or so, but that is just so horrible isn't it?
So now, we're screaming about the costs versus the profit for the little guy, the little truckers who take the cargo from the dock to the desitination. What about them you say? Well, most of them have the option of saying NO, I won't carry cargo for that price. You see, as a Trucker myself, with experience driving over the road, kind of how I ended up running heavy equipment. I can tell you that every trucker knows that his or her truck is going to get six to seven miles to the gallon of Diesel. Knowing also the cost of a gallon of Diesel, any trucker with a pencil and a piece of paper, and most of them are actually smart enough and experienced enough to do these calculations in their head on the fly, they know the difference between a profitable load, and a loss load. They calculate out the cost of fuel versus the miles traveled and the costs you don't know anything about as a ranting socialist like road use taxes, tolls, harassment stops by the police every single state has in place to keep truckers in line. Truckers are the only group in our society where every single state, plus the Federal Government, have a police force dedicated to them. Truckers call these cops Diesel Cops, or just DOT, for Department of Transportation. Having been through inspections in Ohio, Kansas, New York, California, and let's not forget my own Georgia, I can tell you that they really are harassing the truckers.
So the independent trucker looks at a load, and knows that the price offered is not enough to make any profit, and he passes it up. That happens all the time by the way. Larger companies have contracts which includes the diesel offset clauses, which allows the company to increase the fee on the load based upon fuel costs.
Again, if you really wanted to help the truckers, then you would be screaming for the Government and the Environmentalist nuts to stop blocking drilling. Only with a greater supply will the truckers have a lower cost, and thus more profit. Yet for some reason, you aren't calling for drilling. If Gas and Diesel go up another dollar here in the US, there are a lot of people who would be willing to drill in Babies if that meant gas would go down.
There isn't a secret shadowy figure somewhere that controls these things just to screw the people. While that makes a good movie, and I admit, one of my own stories, it doesn't happen. I know how much that upsets you, but it's true I'm sad to say.
Again, if you really wanted to help the truckers, then you would be screaming for the Government and the Environmentalist nuts to stop blocking drilling. Only with a greater supply will the truckers have a lower cost, and thus more profit. Yet for some reason, you aren't calling for drilling. If Gas and Diesel go up another dollar here in the US, there are a lot of people who would be willing to drill in Babies if that meant gas would go down.
Woah woah woah wait a minute there. Oil is an infinite resource. Only socialists say otherwise!Drilling for oil is not a one-dimensional cost/profit issue. The more oil we use, the more we hasten global warming, and the sooner we get to the bottom of the oil supply. What do we do then, when there's no more oil? Until we have a plan, wouldn't it be prudent to conserve what's left?
This conservation thing is not whacky socialism, it's common sense. I realize common sense can sometimes fly in the face of a preferred ideology, but eventually, every ideology will have to pass the common-sense test if it's going to survive.
Anybody who states that petroleum refining technology isn't complex displays a profound ignorance and immediately loses all credibility.
Yes, light sweet crude is not easy to find anymore.As the average barrel of petroleum has gotten heavier (i.e., more viscous) over time, refining complexity has grown.
That statement is a myth. I pointed you to documentation - a Congressional committee report - refuting that already. I also showed you a CNN article about it.There's a simple reason there haven't been any "greenfield" refineries built in over twenty years; it is absolutely and utterly impossible to get permits.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/05/news/economy/refining_investments/index.htm?postversion=2007060517
...But it's not like oil companies are the only ones who could build refineries. After all, the technology isn't particularly complex...
Where did I say it was not complex? I certainly did not say that.
Anybody who states that petroleum refining technology isn't complex displays a profound ignorance and immediately loses all credibility.
Okay, that one statement he made was wrong.
You're right. You didn't say that refining wasn't complex. You simply found someone else who said it and then went on to post an article full of misinformation written by a bozo "journalist" who clearly doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground— the article itself is a half-right, half-wrong mishmash.
It'll be a cold day in hell when I (or anyone with a grain of sense) accept anything emanating out of CNN as authoritative. The particular article was the normal assemblage of filler, pap and gossip slapdashed together by a half-wit on deadline— in other words, standard CNN fare specifically prepared for consumption by morons.
[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/B]
Increasing production to manipulate prices (by manipulating supply) is still market manipulation (unless you're willing to argue that the supply isn't a factor in a market equation).Oh those greedy Saudi market manipiulat... what? Increasing production? Oh, nevermind then.
Every business desicion from every actor on the market, will orf course affect the market. And any good businessman on takes into account how it will affect the market and in turn how the affected market will affect him. Anything else is amateur work.Increasing production to manipulate prices (by manipulating supply) is still market manipulation (unless you're willing to argue that the supply isn't a factor in a market equation).
You tell me.Every business desicion from every actor on the market, will orf course affect the market. And any good businessman on takes into account how it will affect the market and in turn how the affected market will affect him. Anything else is amateur work.
Does that make it market "manipulation"?
Ok.You tell me.
Wasn't that an illegal cartel thing? It wasn't that just one company closed down its own plant and raised its own prices, was it?Energy companies in California were convicted for shutting down plants to drive up the price of electricity. Supply manipulation, basically.
I am speaking with the backing of legal precedent here.
Well, let's put it this way, if some American oil company decided to all but shut down in order to get better prices per barrel of oil, they'd get their ever loving asses kicked in court. Congress would be all up in their asses. Ain't no cartel there, but you betcha there'd be quite an ass kicking handed to them by the time it's over. Or a lot of execs would be swinging from trees for real. We're closer to Wild West vigilante action over this than you think.Ok.
No.
Wasn't that an illegal cartel thing? It wasn't that just one company closed down its own plant and raised its own prices, was it?
The saudi state is one actor making its own business desicions, and looks at long term market effects. Big shrug.
Actually, I see the question of how much crap we're willing to tolerate from environmentalists, while our economy is sinking deeper and deeper. Right now anyone can drill off our coasts but us.The problem is how much manipulation will we tolerate.
Manipulation is happening all over the place - the question is, how much will we accept?
1. If one company acted alone, shut down their production and hiked their price, would anyone buy their oil? Not unless all the other oil companies immediately followed suit. And if they do, we have at least cartel-like behavior.Well, let's put it this way, if some American oil company decided to all but shut down in order to get better prices per barrel of oil, they'd get their ever loving asses kicked in court.