There is a new drive by the Bush administration to drill off-shore of coastal states. It is like a mindless propaganda drive, and it is working well.

But there is very little in the news about the fact that while this big push for drilling offshore is going on....our US oil companies are shipping records amounts to other countries.

It is shocking that the media is not covering this.

From CNBC:

As Oil Firms Seek Drilling Access, Exports Set Record



Up 33% since 2007...amazing.

Maybe the Democrats will see this is happening and speak up strongly on it. Or...maybe not.

Some House Dems team with Republicans...do not count out off shore drilling.



The Use it or Lose it plan is the one supported by Barack Obama. I have to wonder why Democrats would do this.



The CNBC article points out that "the biggest share of U.S. oil products exported went to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Singapore and Brazil." It also points out that "U.S. consumers are paying record prices for gasoline and diesel fuel, which the Bush administration blames in part on tight supplies."

The arguments are right there and ready-made for our Democrats. All they need to do is speak out.

And it needs reporting tomorrow. And our Democrats need to use it, by golly.

Great catch MF! I missed it the first time around. I'm forwarding that CNBC article to everyone I know. Especially the remaining Bushbots.

Capitalism at it's finest!

Just like the "Great Hunger" in Ireland. There was plenty of food for export. There just wasn't any food for the Irish.


And How much has the price of gas gone up this year? In the vicinity of 33%? If anybody knows any truck drivers or Teamsters Reps, they should forward this to them. It seems they're the only ones with the balls to take any action.

:kick:

and that drilling was in Alaska and the pipeline was born to push it south to the main part of our country. It was to relieve our energy needs, but in fact it was being exported to the same places mentioned and none being consumed here. It is one big corporate farce as we have speculators driving the price up as there isn't a shortage at present and they cry as if there is a shortage so as to open up new areas to drill in order to export more to other countries at a high premium. They profit while snowballing the American people. IMHO the greed of the oil industry and other factors such as what the housing loan industry has created may trigger a depression. That is the definition of a resession or depression as being too much wealth going to too few with one being a higher degree than the other without defineable transition points making a depression being allowed to be coined as a recession to the advantage of those few.

Will they be fairly taxed on their profits? Will the oil be sold in the US for US consumers?

It's federal land,right? So we own the land. Does Bush have the right to give away our oil rights to big business?Does he own those rights?

Thievery! Embezzlement! Tyranny! Didn't we rid ourselves from King George?

on a national scale. Why do you think Cheney has fought so hard to keep his energy task force meeting notes secret?

of oil. Offshore somewhere. Yes we're being Enronned. Again. Again. Again...What do you expect when there's a duo of BigOilMen in our White House?

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007.
==============

So, they get a new market, China or India, and they raise the price on Americans to make up for the difference in price if were sold to American consumers. Just think of how much they could sell on foreign markets if it were $8.00 per gallon??

than their own consumers will. If, on the other hand, they will pay more for our refined petroleum products than our consumers will (I assume we are exporting more of these products because other countries will pay more, not because we are nice guys), why shouldn't we sell to them?

Or would it be better if Chinese factories only sold to Chinese and American oil companies only sold to Americans? (Of course, I am not urging Canada to only sell their oil to Canadians and not to us. And I am not urging all of Boeing's international customers to stop buying American airplanes and just buy from their own manufacturers.)

For 60 years the US market has set the standard for the rest of the world, mainly because our consumers had much more money to spend than any where else. Consumers in other countries were effected by the fact that much of their manufacturing was geared for export rather than the domestic market. The result for these consumers was fewer products available domestically and higher prices.

Now that the parts of the rest of the world are becoming wealthy enough to affect our domestic markets by attracting away US goods that previously would have been sold domestically, we are waking up to a reality that has affected the rest of the world for many decades.

AKA, Bush Inc.

Aren't products that can be shipped gonna be shipped to where they bring the most money regardless of where they are produced?

As our candidate and the leaders of the "party" argue that globalization is here to stay, I think it's pointless to expect otherwise.

Period, bottom line.

Our party should be standing up against this, and not caving in again.

It is their job to point out the lies.

If we expect nothing, we will get nothing.

hoist the Jolly Roger and sing the pirate's gospel until we all get it. That they need the boot too.

Criminality can't even pretend to be mainstream anymore, and we've had just about enough.

I don't feel anything we do or say matters to them.

:rofl:

RepDemGroup would be more appropriate.

Slightly slowing the decline in US oil production will affect the US economy only to the extent that it affects global oil prices.

:hippie:

deregulation. The laws left are those that protect the ruling class.

"Free Market" is language that would be good to delete from my vocabulary.

agreements have been signed. The oil companies are war profiteering anal retentive whores. Sell to the high bidder.

But nothing surprises me. We are in some serious trouble in this country.

worth less than the oil sold to America. And how do we do that? A windfall profits tax. A tax that would make it less profitable to sell to the Chinese than to sell to Americans...

Chinese government officials were in UAE and Iran to discuss the sale of oil from the middle east (including Iraq) to China. The article indicated that China's demand for oil will far outpace the US, Japan and other nations in 3-5 years. the Chinese government subsidizes oil, so teh big oil companies would make a win fall profit from sales to 1.5 billion drivers in China.

I suppose we on the left could argue that the war was fought for oil, so we intend to obtain the spoils of that war in the form of cheap oil whether Iraqis like it or not.

Of course, they will sell their oil to whomever will pay the most for it. When I sell my car that is the the criteria that I will use to decide whom to sell it to. When Boeing sells its jets that's whom they sell to.

I am not sure what is ahead for Iraq, but I can't envision a construct where we are forever telling them whom to sell their oil to. Our troops would have to stay there forever to maintain our clout in running their oil industry.

No locked down gas stations..no lines around the block,..no rationing..

All this is, is a smash & grab looting operation. Speculators are playing Las Vegas, and are gaming the oil market..and everyone's just letting them,.:grr:

Last week, an "expert" on CNBC said that "upwards of $75 a barrel" was "speculative trading"...

Also, there IS no "our oil-their oil".. ANY oil found, is part of the "global market", so finding more here (or anywhere) only enriches the ones who sell it, tranport it, and gamble on it.. The end-line consumer just has to pay whatever all those costs have added to the price....or walk..

Some oil-producing companies probably hold back enough to allow their own citizens to have cheap gas (Venezuela's 25¢ a gallon gas or cheap gas in Saudi Arabia), but most of the oil ends up on the open market, no matter where it came from..

All the idiots who think they can get cheaper gas by drilling offshore , are deluding themselves..

"All the idiots who think they can get cheaper gas by drilling offshore , are deluding themselves.."

People are feeling very patriotic and superior now that they are saying ok to more drilling. A feel good kind of thing for our country.

It boggles my mind

when the oil slick moves it's way into Tampa Bay and up into the canals. Of course the east coast probably will not suffer much, as their oil slicks will be washing up on the shores from Georgia to Long Island.

drop at the pumps? Seems there is some magical thinking by some folks.

it's resources and energy from developing alternatives.

What marketing, that gets us to eagerly dig our own graves searching for oil. Reprehensibly brilliant, or at least easy to accomplish if you own the media and public debate.

Well put, about the speculators. Will Congress ever catch on?
:dunce:

They're in on it.

it's not what's causing these prices. It's a demand problem: people use too much damn energy. That $75 a barrel is the 'real price' of oil seems quite fishy, do you have a link or any more information about it? Oil prices have risen steadily for ten years or so, in a manner consistent with Hubbert's predictions about peak oil. Throw in the fact that our dollars are worth quite a bit less than ten years ago too..

You're absolutely right about the global oil market and the fact that no amount of offshore drilling will lower gas prices. People don't say that often enough in this debate.

It is still a sham that we are exporting this much oil at great short-term expense to the domestic economy, but of course if you do the math we still have a looming (the first stages are already here) collapse/crisis regardless. Might buy us a few months or conceivably slightly longer, but a drop in the bottomless pit fundamentally.

i think that all of the political talk about gas prices, heating costs, and the like is missing the bigger picture, which is that we have likely already passed the world's peak production of oil and are about to see the end of the oil age and quite likely the end of the energy age.

==
on edit : added this link for further details on the changing world http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

His comment was that upwards of $75 was being ADDED to the real price, due to all the shifty "trading" back and forth.. It's just like the sub-prime issue..every transaction generates money for the seller, and adds cost every time it's sold.. His premise was that all they were doing was skimming money for themselves all down the line, without adding any actual oil, since only the final "buyer" actually ever takes possession ..

with current oil prices. That is 143-75 = just over 75 being the real price. It's hard to believe that the speculation could account for half of the current run-up with demand exponentially outpacing the world's supply as it is.

i understand that the changing of hands adds to the price every time, and that there have never been so many useless and harmful middlemen, but it seems like optimism to think that we could have cheap oil again if we could just rein in speculators.

Who even knows what the "real price" should be? Here in CA, before Enron gamed our energy system, we were doing fine, but republicans in office decided for us that we could do "better" if only the private companies could run things for us.. Well they did indeed, run things..right into the toilet..and even after Enron imploded, and we all know it was a scam, our prices never returned to "normal"..

Remember how we have had hurricanes forever? and how we have had offshore platforms for a very long time?? Yet for all those past years, fuel prices never USED to be so "sensitive" to every summer storm..It was just a part of doing the oil business, and storm losses were all factored into the business plan.. Now , it's "OMG a storm"..and gasoline prices go up astronomically, in advance, and then stay up after the storm...onlt to be ratcheted up further from the "new" high"..

We are being scammed....big-time..

I have no doubt that emerging countries are putting pressure on the supplies, BUT that only shows how piss-poor the planning has been for DECADES.. We knew it was coming, and did nothing to mitigate the stress on the market..

Necessary commodities and service should be public, not private. This includes basic health care, oil, police, fire, education, and the like. The Enron thing is a good example of the cost of privatization.

The hurricane argument is interesting. i could see either side of it, though: if demand has outstripped/is outstripping supply so much that there really is barely enough to fulfill the demand, a hurricane would have an actual impact on price in that case. Emerging markets and unnecessarily high consumption in existing markets are combining to put some real pressure on.

i actually think the planning has been perfect for the goals set by the large energy corporations. The oil/gas companies have been killing alternative energies for decades, buying up patents and sitting on them where necessary. My father worked for a company involved with early stages of fuel cells. In a presentation to the department of energy, they described the benefits and details of their approach to the issue. A department official took them aside after the presentation and told them that although he personally thought the idea was excellent and viable, the department was funded by specific oil companies and it was going nowhere. There are countless examples of this same behavior, on and off the record.

Demand always drops in a recession. Also demand has fallen as these prices discourage driving.

Oil prices have almost doubled in 1 year. Now way on earth demand has doubled. No way at all!

The problem is bigger than our recession. The insatiable world demand for energy is the problem here, not the supply/demand curve within our tanking economy backed by our falling dollar. Rising gas prices discourage driving but aren't doing much to stop it.. at best we're at 2006 driving levels from the numbers i've seen. i realize that i have to dig up the link to support that claim and will do it.

Just because oil prices doubled this year does not mean demand has doubled, exponential processes are not always 1:1.

There is very little oil in the reserve compared to our actual needs. But releasing a large amount from the reserve may be enough to burst the oil bubble and send oil prices crashing.

> releasing a large amount from the reserve

The whole SPR isn't a large amount, compared to global consumption. And oil prices are determined globally.

Long-term demand dwarfs all the world's strategic reserves combined. It could conceivably provide a (very) temporary drop in price, but it would go right back up and we'd have nothing in reserve. If this were a bubble and not a peak that would make a lot of sense though.

> No locked down gas stations..no lines around the block,..no rationing..

Not yet, anyway...

Fortunately, we don't have to wait for the hole in the hull to know that there's an iceberg ahead. We have production and consumption stats, for starters.

The "speculation" meme is downright harmful, because it encourages denial about the fundamental decline of oil production worldwide. That decline wouldn't be reversed even if the entire US continental shelf went under the drill.

Any commodity trading is speculative. It's certainly adding a premium to the price, but claiming that speculation accounts for half of it is just wishful thinking. Two-digit oil prices are a part of history now. Time to start dealing with it.

We're still importing the majority of the crude oil we use. So, this story punctures a hole in the notion that gasoline shortages result from a lack of refinery capacity. Clearly, we're shipping to nations that don't have the refinery capacity ... possibly due to THEIR environmental constraints??

Every which way it becomes more obvious that * is an actual incarnate the duplicate agenda of the oil titans themselves. The oil companies and their bo were running out of storage space in the strategic reserve so now they are sending the finished product overseas. If they cut down on the purchase of the crude then the price of it would go down. Hording to keep the price high almost always fails and a multi-gross of crude could probably be even worse

supply" that might drive down prices. Just like any self-interested oligopoly. The domestic oil industry is THE model for self-interested industries, after all.

Time to break up the trusts, again.

I think we're exporting the crappier oil that is harder to refine to our own environmental standards. Conversely, we're importing the better stuff.

that allows them to not pay royalty's on the oil from the gulf. How long will that last? Why should we let them have more places to drill, when they don't pay for what they have.

Our party has a tailor made issue all ready to go, and they need to take advantage of it.

This tactic has the potential of backfiring on them in a big way. This run-up in the cost of gasoline has shaken Americans to the very core, and in particular the ones who most needed to be shaken--out in the rural areas.

And yes, there is a shortsightedness that leads some people to think allowing offshore drilling is a patriotic thing to do. But that simpleminded thinking works both ways--they also directly blame George Bush.

It so much reminds me of the pharmaceutical companies, who make Americans pay more for prescription drugs because they are among the few in the world who can afford to pay for them.



Cher

not every country has refining facilities- the u.s. does, and it makes gasoline for other countries. and as populations increase in those countries, so does demand- so it only makes sense that they would be refining more and shipping out to those countries.

i don't see the big deal- it's not like there's a shortage of gasoline in the u.s.

One of the Repukes excuses for high gas prices is that it's not really the lack of crude, but that we don't have the refineries to process it into gas.
So if we can't process it, why drill it if not for profit?

As if
1) The oil companies need more excessive profit, and
2) We should deplete our own natural reserves (while harming our environment!)


Just more bullshit. It is beyond sickening.

I'll see if I can locate the d0cuments and article again and post the link

their sources seem pretty thin this time around.

purely a function of the weak dollar.

US produced goods are cheaper to buy here and sold over there.

I work for a multinational and the pricing for one of our products works like this:

we sell in the US for $4995 (list price) which works out to be €3149.

We sell the exact same product for €3602 (list price) in Europe.

this works out to be a 12% advantage for a European company buying here and transporting there.

As if it isn't already.

Yesterday I heard a teacher talking about where will the school district get the money to buy gas to operate the buses. I guess they'll cut somewhere else.

People will travel less, which will make tourism suffer. Which means less tax revenue for areas that rely heavily on tourism.

Because people are spending more for gas and everything else, due to the ripple effect, they'll spend less money on "wants"--which will hurt small businesses, from plant nurseries to pet groomers.

The few at the top of the pyramid will benefit, but what about the other 98%? This is like a farmer who doesn't care if all his chickens die, doesn't think about he won't have any more eggs or fried chicken.

This is what has to happen as the economic landscape changes in America. That's indicated, but not directly stated, in my post upthread. There have been big changes already in America because of the rise in the price of gasoline--SUVs are being abandoned by automakers, GM might be ready to go under because of its past foolishness with vehicles like the Tahoe, but best of all, people now really understand what life is going to be like with peak oil. In addition, automakers are racing to make more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Change is difficult--very hard for some people. There are plenty of alternatives to a vacation other than travel. Areas that rely on tourism may have to look at another economic base--what's so terrible about it? Any town in America that's had its economic base removed will be able to tell them about that.



Cher

the supply of it in the US relative to what it would be if we prevented all exporting.

One could make the argument that if we stopped all exports (and we are the world's third largest exporter after Germany and China), domestic supplies of these goods that used to go to other countries would increase dramatically and prices would decline accordingly.

If we stopped food exports, the domestic food supply would increase and prices would be lowered. If we stopped aircraft exports, the supply of airplanes would increase and their prices (and that of air travel?) would be lowered. If we stopped computer exports, the domestic supply would skyrocket and prices would drop dramatically. The same is true of any good that the US export.

While it is true that exports do create jobs in the exporting country (see China as a prime example of this), it is also true that a good exported is no longer available to domestic consumers and, thus, does not benefit the consumers in the producing country but those in the importing country. Consumers in the importing country wouldn't buy the good unless it was superior in some way (price, quality, style, some combination of these). Now imports from China are cheaper. In earlier days, imports from Japan were deemed to be of superior quality in cars and electronics. Fashion imports from some European countries are desired because of their style.

pampango,
you make a few good points. Remember, though, there is a difference between trading a resource and a finished good. Right now, China buys our natural resources, turns them into finished goods and sells them back to us at a huge profit (just like we did to Europe for ~170 years).

Food exports are different from airplanes. We want to make and sell as many airplanes (finished goods) as possible to the world because that means good jobs. If we stopped exporting airplanes, domestic supply would increase. But global demand for airplanes will not go away just because we stop selling them. Someone else will step in and fill that demand. Besides, plane prices do not determine air fares (jet fuel does).

We should not cut ourselves off from the world market. We should be the world leader in every market (or at least competitive). This will only get worse in the years to come. Unfortunately, our politicians are too busy http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/22/politics/main1740900.shtml">figuring out how to profit from pork projects to worry about that.

Oil is a natural resource, as is coal, iron ore, timber and so on. I'm not sure that I would put food in that category, though is is surely different from manufactured goods. Farmers put a lot of effort and money into producing food from seeds, soil, water, etc. I'm not sure they would look at food as a resource nature has provided.

If Germany can be the world leader in exports with their high wage, high social safety net economy, I don't see why it is impossible for the US to do the same. It would mean, among other things, that our politicians would have to do things other than provide pork barrel projects.

This wingnut said so (scroll down to the bottom, if you can stomach it):

http://theautonomist.com/home/?/ind_ind/article/evil_incarnate/

When he was on opposite the CEO of Chevron. I don't think RFK was allowed to get his point across as some confusion ensued and/or Larry interrupted to take one of his convenient commercial breaks to sell sunglasses or something.

When will people wake up and realize there is no such thing as breaking our dependence on foreign oil. Any politician who claims to have such a plan is ignorant or deceiving us. Oil is a global commodity. Oil companies are global corporations. News flash: we live on a globe!

America makes goods for export and buys goods from other countries. Oil is just another resource (like iron, fish, corn, etc.) that we trade on the global market. And high prices will simply open the door for other competing energy technologies to emerge.

So when you see the price of oil go up, don't complain. Be happy that its another nail in the coffin of the oil industry energy monopoly. They are in their death throes. Let them moan.

OPEC was asking that .... "when the times comes when they have to suspend or STOP oil

production because of Global Warming" . . . that they be SUBSIDIZED... !!!

This was more than a dozen years ago in the NY Times. . .

We should move now to NATIONALIZE all of our natural resources ---

and get Electric Cars on the roads immediately ---

i posted some of this upthread, but there is no substitute for oil that meets energy demand. The demand is too high to maintain, no matter what combination of other energy sources we're discussing. Electric cars take massive amounts of oil (and a huge amount of oil-mined metals, refined using oil or sometimes coal, and shipped about from place to place on oil-run vehicles). The whole age of cheap energy is over, as it should be. We've blown through billions of years of stored energy in a couple hundred years, and it should come as no surprise.

We should probably still nationalize our natural resources, but it'll cause some serious problems. It's shocking how much American water is owned by corporations in France and Germany, for example.

WATER. Water is the energy source of the future. The oil companies, the government, and the auto industry are in collusion to keep this technology from being widely used or adopted. How do I know? Well, lookup HHO /browns gas on Google. People are currently using HHO gas to mix with their gasoline to improve gas mileage by up to %300 . Average seems to be close to %50 improvement. IT's not a scam, it does work, and the technology is more than a century old.

This simple to use technology could not have escaped the attention of the three culprits mentioned above.

THe way it works is you use electrolysis to release the HHO gas. (I had no idea that you could burn water). THis HHO gas that is released is 3 times more combustible than gasoline. Those that are using it in their automobiles implement a system that creates this HHO gas on demand, and MIX it with their gasoline, which allows the gasoline to burn more efficiently. This is what increases the gas mileage. This technology is here and ready today to be used now.

As this is FACT, it doesn't take long to see how we could adapt our current technology to burn this HHO gas instead of OIL at some point in the future. Virtually all emissions are also eliminated by mixing HHO with gasoline!!

I see it as a potential for "free" energy. Get a solar panel, charge up a battery, then use the energy from the battery to get electrolysis going and generate the burnable HHO gas as you need it.

There are a number of user forums that discuss putting this in your vehicle... check out www.fuel-saver.org where there are dozens and dozens of people across the country that are experimenting with this technology. Look specifically at the "results" forum, and the HHO/Brown's gas forum.

Hydrogen burns great, way better than gas as you say. Unfortunately, to get it to come out of water you use quite a bit of energy. Then there is the storage (hydrogen is highly volatile and notoriously hard to store for long periods of time or over long distances), transportation (lots of energy here), even disregarding the safety concerns attached to something as explosive as hydrogen being all over the place. Think Hindenburg.

http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net has a good section on the inadequacy of hydrogen to solve our problems. i wish it weren't so, but it seems to be.

that helps us --

We could raise a corporation and have electric cars on the roads in months ---

in 3-5 years we could replace every gas-guzzler on our highways.


See the movie "Who Killed The Electric Car?" --

there were 4,000/5,000 on the roads in California from the late 1990's into 2000's . . .

all recalled and crushed --- those who leased them loved them and wanted to buy them.


Evidently, they didn't call you as a consultant . . . ???

:eyes:


There's a 50 year delay in Global Warming . . . which means we're only up to 1958

and I'm sure you can imagine how much more pressure is going to be piled on this

situation every year.

i did see "Who Killed The Electric Car," and i liked it a lot. It's a great example of the evils of the oil companies. They (neither the makers of the movie nor the oil giants) didn't call me as an expert.. excellent point. As i wasn't an expert in the movie, everything i say must be invalid. Roll the eyes as needed.

Electric cars are _far_ better than oil-run cars, but they won't save us. Some facts from lifeaftertheoilcrash.net (sorry to quote this website so often, but it is one of the most solid and most honestly sourced i have found).

==== begin quote of lifeaftertheoilcrash page 2 ====

... the construction of an average car consumes the energy equivalent of approximately 27-54 barrels (1,110-2,200 gallons) of oil. Thus, a crash program to replace the 700 million internal combustion vehicles currently on the road with super fuel-efficient or alternative fuel-powered vehicles would consume the energy equivalent of approximately 18-36 billion barrels of oil, which is the amount of oil the world currently consumes in six-to-twelve months. Consequently, such a program (while well-intentioned) would actually bring the collapse upon us even sooner.

Electric vehicles are incapable of replacing more than a small fraction (5 or maybe 10%) of the 700 million internal combustion engine powered cars on the road due to the limits of battery technology. Dr. Walter Youngquist explains:

(source: http://www.hubbertpeak.com/youngquist/altenergy.htm )

" . . . a gallon of gasoline weighing about 8 pounds has the same
energy as one ton of conventional lead-acid storage batteries.
Fifteen gallons of gasoline in a car's tank are the energy equal of
15 tons of storage batteries.

Even if much improved storage batteries were devised, they
cannot compete with gasoline or diesel fuel in energy density.
Also, storage batteries become almost useless in very cold
weather, storage capacity is limited, and batteries need to be
replaced after a few years use at large cost.

There is no battery pack which can effectively move heavy farm
machinery over miles of farm fields, and no electric battery
system seems even remotely able to propel a Boeing 747 14 hours
nonstop at 600 miles an hour . . . "

Some promising research into new battery technologies using lithium is being performed, but even the scientists at the forefront of this research admit, "We've got a long way to go." http://www.technologyreview.com/NanoTech/wtr_15920,318,p2.html

See also:

Prius Batteries Creating Massive Environmental "Dead Zone" http://clubs.ccsu.edu/Recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188

Assumming these problems away, the construction of an average car also consumes 120,000 gallons of fresh water. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/091704_beyond_peak.shtml

Unfortunately, the world is in the midst of a severe water crisis that is only going to get worse in the years to come. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2000/world_water_crisis/default.stm

Thus, the only way for us to replace our current fleet of gas-guzzling SUVs with fuel-efficient hybrids or electric vehicles is to seize control of the world's reserves of both oil and fresh water and then divert those resources away from the billions of people who already rely on them.

==== end quote of lifeaftertheoilcrash page 2 ====

See the problem? It's the insatiable demand for energy. No alternative energy or combination of alternative energies will solve this problem.

We've understood for more than 100 years, at least, that patriarchal/capitalistic concepts

are suicidal ---

Certainly, this was all clear in the late 1950's . . .

and we can certainly not afford to burn any more fossil fuels --- it has to be stopped.

This is the beginning of alternative energies --- as was quite clear in the movie.

This also needs to be addressed in cultural change . . .

It's the insatiable demand for energy.

No -- the problem is the insatiable demand for profit which keeps all those cars sitting

at our railroad stations every day in every town. Trolleys and small buses could wipe

those out in two weeks.

they are not enough. As the cited information / links show, alternative energies are in fact derivative energies. It takes a lot of oil to produce electric cars, small cars, trolleys, small buses, etc. Let alone the fresh water. There is no viable or effective substitute in place for oil when it comes to liquid fuels, meaning fuels for vehicles. Not hydrogen, not batteries, not biodiesel, not cold fusion.

One can make the argument that public transportation can be run on electricity and not on a liquid fuel, which is true but ignores the massive input of (petroleum) energy to build a national public transportation network (which should have been in place in the 50's as you point out). Then there is the problem that the energy to make the necessary electricity comes from somewhere:

If it's coal then there's a major problem as peak coal is not so far away, and coal burned on such a scale is extremely bad news for climate change. It takes energy to find, mine, and transport coal, and it's all in the form of oil. To change this coal extraction paradigm on an industrial scale will take 5-25 years by most estimates i can find.

If it's nuclear power then we'll have to find a place to put the radioactive waste which will be active for countless generations to come. Meanwhile there is the cost of discovering, delicately refining, shipping, protecting, and transporting away for disposal the uranium. By the way, uranium is finite and will be peaking in the near future.. especially as oil and coal get more and more expensive and impractical to find and extract.

If it's hydrogen, then there is the electricity to produce it by electrolysis of water, or liquefaction of air. Massive energy input, and generally more input than output. Following this is the pesky problem of storage of a volatile, hyperflammable gas, and its transportation on a national/global scale.

etc, etc. You get my point obviously. It's too late for any solution that assumes our current way of life can continue with some other energy input replacing or even partially replacing oil. The profit motive has exacerbated the situation and especially its impact on the U.S. economy, but it is not the biggest of problems.

You seem like you probably realize this type of issue exists if you call the concepts driving this patriarchal / capitalistic, but i don't know if it's carrying over to your analysis of the big energy picture. The demand, though fueled by greedy industry and its wage slaves, would cause this problem with or without speculation and with or without 'alternative' energies. The profit is no longer the whole story.

When are we putting these people in jail . . ???

which assassinated JFK to get where they are today --

stealing a couple of million elections in between ---

As for further explanations . . . with the death of Bill Buckley a few documents came

floating out which say that the CIA was financing Republican campaigns using the

Howard Hughes' front companies set up for the CIA as a way to get money to them . . .

Two of those named were Sen. Strom Thurmond and Rep. Gerald Ford.

I think he was telling us about what was already here. The Texas-American Petroleum Mafia and the MIC are symbiotic entities. They need each other to perpetuate. They need crony politicians to survive. And they need us--you and me--to feed off of. The United States of America will NEVER know peace as long as these factions are allowed to control our governments AND OUR LIVES.

actually acknowledging much of it ---

I think he was also deep into GOP slush fund help from elites ---

I don't think Ike was warning us about what was to come or could come,
I think he was telling us about what was already here.

But . . . of course, Ike was warning us about the future!

Why warn about something if you don't think it's anything but a problem of the moment!???

Additionally, most Americans don't know that Ike was actually warning us also of the "intelligence"

complex . . . he had called it the "MIlitary Industrial Intelligence complex" in drafts of his

speech and it was taken out. Ike put it back in . . . and it was taken out again.

So heed that warning . . . he was then talking about the CIA.

Couple that with Harry Truman's later comments on his big mistake in establishing the CIA . . .

which also forked off into areas he very much didn't intend.

The Texas-American Petroleum Mafia and the MIC are symbiotic entities. They need each other to perpetuate. They need crony politicians to survive. And they need us--you and me--to feed off of. The United States of America will NEVER know peace as long as these factions are allowed to control our governments AND OUR LIVES.

I do agree with you re Texas as a large part of our problem . . .

the outlaw state has bred a lot of problems for us all ---

H. L. Hunt, Murchison, LBJ . . .


On the other hand . . . it would be good news if you can't wage war with solar driven

bombers or tanks with electric batteries ---

It might be the beginning of the end of patriarchal violence --- ???



There has been, obviously, much corrupt assistance given to the right-wing in secret

funding -- CIA using our tax dollars to keep corrupt legislators in power ---

and in stolen elections. And, I think we'd be very NAIVE not to understand that the

CIA has played a role in those stolen elections. Not only in America, of course, but

in keeping the right-wing in power all over the world. See: Operation Gladio


Granted, as well, we are fighting Mafia in the sense that the elites use them to do

their dirty work. The Mafia wouldn't exist without that protection from corrupt

officials.


The corporate-press has a lock down on info, but one way or another the public is

coming to realize what's going on. Too many fear that knowing, however . . .

War, death, recession, job loss, hunger - gee what else can we do to make the our oil companies happy?

Great post! I don't know how Bush and the media continue to lie to people and they believe them. It is so not about supply and Demand, it is about unbridled greed.

I know we have and everyone I know has cut down on our driving considerably.

thieves, all of them. Selling off our natural resources, and laughing all the way to the bank. :grr:

This worries me, and it indicates they might not stand up. Reid and Durbin sound too iffy.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/2355

"Democratic leaders showed varying degrees of interest Wednesday in opening up new areas for oil production, as public opinion veers in favor of drilling. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters that expanded offshore drilling, which the Republicans have long supported, is not off the table. He said he opposes giving the states the right to choose whether to drill off their coasts, but also said Democrats are “taking a look at that.”

“I’m not knee-jerk-opposed to anything,” Reid said. “We’re willing to work; we haven’t shut our minds to anything.”

And the words of Dick Durbin:

"..."Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Wednesday that he wants to “limit offshore drilling if there is any environmental impact.” He added that there are more than 30 million acres leased by oil companies that they should use to explore. “They ought to lose their leases if they aren’t going to use it,” Durbin said.

However, he also stated, “Beyond that, if there is a suggestion of some new area to go into, I’ll look at it.”

It would make George Bush, the Republican party, and huge corporations look bad ... and those are the exact people the US media are there to protect.

I would be shocked if it made more than a blip on the MSM radar.

people that it would take 20 years to actually produce any oil from the off-shore drilling, and once it did become available, its influence on the price of our gasoline would be negligible.
The media has forgotten its true reason for existing, which is supposed to be to inform the public, not to kiss the asses of the big corporations.

:grr:

I feel quite sure they will get their way.