Drill Oil NOW

[Dryburn]

I started reading your first paragraph, and was like, oh no here we go again! I have to say tho' that pretty much everything you say makes sense, a lot of sense. Could you run for office in the near future?

LOL......uh.....no....thanks, but not interested. I know....I start out sounding like someone who just wants the oil, but my whole point is it is just not that simple. We need to do a lot of things to solve this problem, and all the politicians just want to make it something they can get votes on. They could care less about solving the problem. Dems blame Bush and oil companies, GOP blames tree-huggers for stopping development. Neither are completely wrong, or completely right. Somewhere in the middle is something that might work.

 

[Dryburn]

Impossible. Even if you banned speculation in this country (highly unlikely), speculators in other countries would still drive up the price of oil.

As for the rest of your post, nothing is going to lower the demand for oil better than high prices. We can educate, give tax breaks, and offer direct government funding, but nothing will lower America's demand better than gas at $4/gal, $5/gal, $6/gal...

I don't think I suggested banning speculation just in this country. This is a thing that would have to be done globally. It probably can't be banned, but it most certainly can be regulated. What does it tell us when some of the most active and largest speculators are the very countries and their governments that are producing the oil, such as the royal family of Saudi Arabia?

Yes, a high price will lower demand. But so will reducing consumption by any means, whether that be education, conservation, alternative sources, or alternative forms of energy. A high price is not the only way to curb demand. Most first-year economic majors will tell you that.

 

[CyCy]

Exxon Mobil financials for 2007. Revenues $389.3B, after tax profit $42.22B for a net rate of 10.85%.

The federal gas tax is $.184 per gallon or 4.6% based on $4 gas. I think much of that goes to highway construction.

 

[cyclonewino]

MONEY - ANWR has oil reserves that are easy to recover and therefore very profitable to drill, some people believe all would be exported to asia.

We are drilling in the Dakotas now and planning to build a refinery in South Dakota to utilize the Bakken reserve.

 

[Dryburn]

Exxon Mobil financials for 2007. Revenues $389.3B, after tax profit $42.22B for a net rate of 10.85%.

The federal gas tax is $.184 per gallon or 4.6% based on $4 gas. I think much of that goes to highway construction.

The average rate of return for oil companies, I believe, is only about 9 per cent. Many other businesses have a much higher rate of return, but you don't hear anyone wanting a "windfalls" profit tax on them. The windfalls profit tax would simply be passed on to consumers one way or another, and there is no justification for it. Oil companies have large gross incomes, so when we hear their profit, we get upset, but as a percentage it is no larger than other companies.

Speaking of taxes, taxes on fuel in Europe are much higher than here in the U.S. as a percentage of the total price. In some countries, the tax is nearly 50 per cent of the total price.

 

[isugcs]

You are only safer in the Expedition if you don't try to make any evasive manuevers. The cars will stop shorter, turn faster without rolling over and have crumple zones/airbags/ABS etc to help reduce the severity of an accident if collision is unavoidable. In the Expedition you are almost better off to just keep driving straight and hope the other guy misses you.

Yeah, you go ahead and convince yourself your honda accord will withstand the crunch of a semi on I-35.

 

[Gink]

Assuming you drive 10,000 a year, and get 20 mpg, and spend $4 a gallon, you are spending $2000 a year. At $3 a gallon you were spending $1500. The difference is only $500. Most people can find $500 over the course of year.

Most people spend that individually on cell phones, cable, alcohol, coffee, fast food a year.

I agree with you in principal, but you are going to hurt many people with this strategy in the short term.

 

[wartknight]

Yeah, you go ahead and convince yourself your honda accord will withstand the crunch of a semi on I-35.

Is anything going to withstand the crunch of a semi?

 

[drmwevr08]

Is anything going to withstand the crunch of a semi?

Well of course my big bad SUV will knock it right off the road...


:biglaugh:

 

[anticyclonic]

Its my money and I want it NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[snowcraig2.0]

Like I said, the problem was the Canadian strike!

I'm not you friend, buddy!!!!

 

[wartknight]

Its my money and I want it NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Call JG Wentworth. You won't find it here.

 

[Fatsow]

We have kids and drive a minivan that still gets 20+ mpg. I am not complaining about people that need trucks, or larger cars, I am complaining about the trophy wife driving the tahoe with no kids. Or the guy that has an F150 that never hauls anything.

Why do you care what people do with their money? Hell, it's the people with $ that are still consuming that is keeping this economy alive. If you feel great about driving a compact car or a minivan, great. However, don't hate on the people that are out spending THEIR $ on the things that are important to them.

 

[ajk4st8]

Investing in Exxon 3 years ago when this gas increase happened would have been a great idea for all those worried about gas prices.

 

[besserheimerphat]

Yeah, you go ahead and convince yourself your honda accord will withstand the crunch of a semi on I-35.

"The truth, underneath all the rationalizations, seemed to be that S.U.V. buyers thought of big, heavy vehicles as safe: they found comfort in being surrounded by so much rubber and steel. To the engineers, of course, that didn't make any sense, either: if consumers really wanted something that was big and heavy and comforting, they ought to buy minivans, since minivans, with their unit-body construction, do much better in accidents than S.U.V.s. (In a thirty-five m.p.h. crash test, for instance, the driver of a Cadillac Escalade—the G.M. counterpart to the Lincoln Navigator—has a sixteen-per-cent chance of a life-threatening head injury, a twenty-per-cent chance of a life-threatening chest injury, and a thirty-five-per-cent chance of a leg injury. The same numbers in a Ford Windstar minivan—a vehicle engineered from the ground up, as opposed to simply being bolted onto a pickup-truck frame—are, respectively, two per cent, four per cent, and one per cent. ) But this desire for safety wasn't a rational calculation. It was a feeling."

gladwell dot com - big and bad

I will grant you that 24s look much better under an Escalade than a Windstar. . .

 

[HawkHater]

I think it is not only an environmental issue. Quite frankly our government has put us in this situation. The Democratic Party is mostly (but not entirely) beholden to the environmentalist nutjobs. Now I am talking about the new face of socialist environmentalist that use the love of the earth to squash capitalism, not the folks driving around in a Prius and feeling good about themselves. I am talking about the hard core folks that have been banging on our politicians for years.
We are in a situation where we cannot touch our own resources and we will not allow any feasible (nuclear) alternative. This is a mess. We will go to war for oil. The same peace loving tree huggers don't want war but also don't want us to develop our own resources. This is a paradox with no escape because they are not about the environment at all, they are about socialism and they have a candidate right now that will suit them just fine.
Drill now, open the pipe and tell OPEC to eat sand for 10 years. Make them compete with somebody. After living without their best customer for a while then close our pipes and buy it from them for 20 bucks a barrel.

 

[Phaedrus]

"The truth, underneath all the rationalizations, seemed to be that S.U.V. buyers thought of big, heavy vehicles as safe: they found comfort in being surrounded by so much rubber and steel. To the engineers, of course, that didn't make any sense, either: if consumers really wanted something that was big and heavy and comforting, they ought to buy minivans, since minivans, with their unit-body construction, do much better in accidents than S.U.V.s. (In a thirty-five m.p.h. crash test, for instance, the driver of a Cadillac Escalade—the G.M. counterpart to the Lincoln Navigator—has a sixteen-per-cent chance of a life-threatening head injury, a twenty-per-cent chance of a life-threatening chest injury, and a thirty-five-per-cent chance of a leg injury. The same numbers in a Ford Windstar minivan—a vehicle engineered from the ground up, as opposed to simply being bolted onto a pickup-truck frame—are, respectively, two per cent, four per cent, and one per cent. ) But this desire for safety wasn't a rational calculation. It was a feeling."

gladwell dot com - big and bad

I will grant you that 24s look much better under an Escalade than a Windstar. . .

Good point. And the Escalade is much, much, MUCH more likely to roll over because the idiot driving it is going to fast, making too sharp of turns on underinflated tires, because they are a complete slob who doesn't understand maintenance.

 

[aeroclone]

I think it is not only an environmental issue. Quite frankly our government has put us in this situation. The Democratic Party is mostly (but not entirely) beholden to the environmentalist nutjobs. Now I am talking about the new face of socialist environmentalist that use the love of the earth to squash capitalism, not the folks driving around in a Prius and feeling good about themselves. I am talking about the hard core folks that have been banging on our politicians for years.
We are in a situation where we cannot touch our own resources and we will not allow any feasible (nuclear) alternative. This is a mess. We will go to war for oil. The same peace loving tree huggers don't want war but also don't want us to develop our own resources. This is a paradox with no escape because they are not about the environment at all, they are about socialism and they have a candidate right now that will suit them just fine.
Drill now, open the pipe and tell OPEC to eat sand for 10 years. Make them compete with somebody. After living without their best customer for a while then close our pipes and buy it from them for 20 bucks a barrel.

Great points all over on this one. The environmental lobby can take a great deal of the blame for this. We can't drill here because of some animals, we can't drill offshore because there could be oil spills. Instead, we will just sit back while other nations drill in the gulf and take all the oil, and we will gladly send all of our money to middle-eastern countries that hate us so the carribou have a pretty view. We also can't build any more refineries to keep up with demand.

They do this will calling for alternatives, but then they oppose nuclear because there is the whole waste issue. And they oppose wind because the turbines can kill birds. Really? Can it get much more environmentally friendly than wind? For once I would actually like to hear a comprehensive plan from these clowns instead of just opposition. And it better be something a whole lot better than living by candlelight, growing all of my own food, and riding a horse to work. Because based on their position on issues, this seems like about the only solution they may have.

Though in all fairness, it isn't just leftist environmental wackos to blame on this one. I don't know that the Republican party has done much to address this problem up to this point either.