Ed Harges writes:

“..For all I know, I’m more liberal/left then you, Aegrus! I hardly ever meet anyone more liberal than myself…”

Well, you’ve met me. I won’t say I’m MORE liberal than you are…but we definitely agree on the list that you provided here…

“...I favor universal health care, a graduated income tax, social security, gay marriage rights, gun control laws, abortion rights, free drug treatment for addicts, public education, sex education in the schools, complete freedom of speech, absolute separation of religion and state, habeas corpus rights for all, including non-citizens, market regulation, and a foreign policy that borders on pacifism!...”

Now the only thing you and Aegrus seem to be arguing about (at least in the topic posts) has been the REASONS why OIL has jumped from $20.00 a barrel in 2000 to as high as $135.00 a barrel now. (just read that $135.00 figure a couple of days ago, though I pretty much stopped keeping track at $80.00).

I think there are muliple reasons, though I also believe they can all be tracked to the actions of the Cabal that high jacked America in 2000. We know what the SAME Cabal did to Californians, even before that..in conjunction with Enron. So, that’s already been worth a few trillion pounds of spilled ink. We KNOW the complicity of the US Oil Industry in that whole thing.

The relationship between the Neo Con Cabal and Israel is obviously part of it as well. How many of them hold dual citizenship for the US and Israel? Well, I know that I. Scooter Libby (used to be Liebowitz) is one of them, and I’m sure there are dozens and dozens of others that have yet to be formally identified…including Cheney’s still secret staff that we pay for.) Yep, we’ve been financing our own demise for ages. (CY has constantly expounded on this).

But, that’s really the only place I see you all in disagreement, and it’s more of a superficial or periphery disagreement, since you basically hold the same principles.

I think you two (Ed and Aegrus) got side tracked by the shit starters…JBlack and Russ7777. Wasn’t it one of them who came up with the Blame America BS.

Yep…watch out for the O’Reilly Trolls guys.

I’m just sayin’...

Conservative Yankee:

I agree with the above, BUT this poses a great conundrum for the US citizen who wants “change” ... What politician…. who in Washington….doesn’t display the self same qualities?  From Ted Kennedy & Hill the business-shill to Orin Hatch and Ted Stevens, the horizon is teeming with sociopathic, power-hungry, frat-boys who would step over your long dead stinking body while conversing with other self-sames on their way to lunch.

This cynical approach is akin to saying there is no difference in candidates—that they are all corrupt.

Before Bush was appointed president, I heard many make this statement. The corrupt BushCo quickly dispelled that disingenuous argument. The degree of his corruption even outstrips that of Nixon before him when you consider harm done to millions of people.

New Merriam-Webster Dictionary entry:
Bush \bŭsh\ n. 1: one who exploits or uses others for self or friends, 2: demonstrating no conscience, 3: one who claims sanctimony. Adj. 1: sociopathic tendencies revealed by lack of concern for others. 2: sophomoric, frat-boy demeanor unencumbered by accountability.

Rus, AegRus & JBlack…
Are you really so allergic to admitting one’s own responsibilities?  Damned sad.

re: By Aegrus, June 20 at 12:48 pm:

Oh God, Aegrus, you are so simplistic: I am NOT saying that the oil companies are “America”!! I’m saying that JBlack would think blaming such entities constitutes “blaming America”, because he’s a right-winger. He also thinks blaming Bush or the Republicans is “blaming America”. That’s the way he thinks.

Ideologically, I am to the left of just about anybody, you dufus! I favor universal health care, a graduated income tax, social security, gay marriage rights, gun control laws, abortion rights, free drug treatment for addicts, public education, sex education in the schools, complete freedom of speech, absolute separation of religion and state, habeas corpus rights for all, including non-citizens, market regulation, and a foreign policy that borders on pacifism!

For all I know, I’m more liberal/left then you, Aegrus! I hardly ever meet anyone more liberal than myself.

You DO NOT understand me, because you are simply too simplistic, too black-and-white in your thinking!

“And by the way, Rus7355, Aegrus is also “blaming America” (though not Israel). He’s blaming the oil companies, oil traders, the oil lobby, the evil Bush oil family, and greedy US capitalists in general.”

I beg your pardon, Ed? The oil companies are not America. This energy cartel of protectionist, subsidized, politically powerful robber barons don’t represent me or any other true American.

It is, however, good that you have actually shed light on your ideology. Blaming America? Pfft, I blame people like you who distract people with skewed information that doesn’t really mean anything at all. Just a lot of empty rhetoric about Israel causing problems when it was president Bush who put them in his “Axis of Evil” in the first place. Did oil prices skyrocket then? No? How about when our military off the coast of Iran got into that confrontation?

It is really sad, the way you think and behave. However, your ilk will be overcome by pragmatic American citizens in the near future when we finally take back our media from talking points and distractions. Responsible journalism will endure.

And by the way, Rus7355, Aegrus is also “blaming America” (though not Israel). He’s blaming the oil companies, oil traders, the oil lobby, the evil Bush oil family, and greedy US capitalists in general. So he’s definitely not on your side. He just has a big blind spot when it comes to Israel’s role in causing the price spikes. (Or perhaps, Rus, maybe you don’t mind if people “blame America”, as long as they hold Israel to be innocent? )

re: By Rus7355, June 20 at 1:24 pm:

Rus, to anyone who knows the truth about Israel and its role in American politics, a deep distrust of Israel and its US partisans is the only reasonable response. Your generalized attempt to smear those of us who tell the truth does nothing to counter that. We substantiate, you deny.

I can’t help replying one last time.

Aegrus writes, I don’t understand why you won’t accept there are other factors in this equation and realize speculators are part (NOT THE ONLY) of the formula.”

(1) Aegrus, I never denied that speculators are not part of the problem, just as in my shark analogy, the sharks are definitely part of the problem;

(2) You deny any connection of Israel to the problem, going so far as to say that the oil lobby’s influence over the Israel lobby is why they are threatening war against Iran! You finally concede delicately that “instability in the Middle East” is part of the problem, but you still have to blame even that entirely on evil oil people and deny Israel any responsibility.

Look Aegrus: the threat of war is the cause of the ACUTE problem.; the threat of war is being pushed primarily by Israel; and the Israel lobby is certainly not threatening war with Iran to please the oil lobby! This last suggestion of yours - that even when Israel does bad things, it’s only because of the power the oil lobby has over them, is completely idiotic on its face!

You put too much faith in your sources.

Aegrus wrote earlier, in denying the connection between the Mofaz remark and the highest one-day oil price spike ever (a connection acknowledged by virtually every serious observer at the time it happened, including economic journalists at the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post):

“I filled up my tank and wore combat boots on the day Mofaz said war was unavoidable. How do you know my angry combat boots and buying gas didn’t suddenly cause the market to jump in price?”

As I reread this post, it strikes me that I have been wasting my time arguing with a person capable of such an inane reply.

That’s pretty illogical, Ed. I show you multiple reasons why a barrel of crude is priced as high as it is, acknowledge and accept Middle-East instability plays a part but am completely wrong because I don’t think threats against Iran are 100%, bar none, absolutely, without doubt the only factor?

I’m not sure what kind of Kool-Aide you drink, but when someone acknowledges your point and adds another… you can’t really keep insisting your point without seeming like an ideological tool. Now, I’m not trying to insult you, but I don’t understand why you won’t accept there are other factors in this equation and realize speculators are part (NOT THE ONLY) of the formula.

What gives? Why would you hold tunnel-vision on this subject?

Suppose I dump blood into the water at a beach full of swimmers, and sharks suddenly swarm to attack.

YOU are saying things like:

“Hey, don’t blame him! There has been a steady increase of blood in this water for years! Besides, why didn’t we long ago fix the sharks so that they can’t smell blood?...”

Well, Ed, again you are neglecting the multiple reasons I’ve pointed to, and focusing on my, rightful, attributes to speculators as having a hand in the price of oil. Why you want to defend them so much is beyond me. The free-market is not infallible.

I think you’re wrong to point to one reason for gas prices when we have two emerging energy players(China and India), devalued dollars, black market speculation, record profits by oil companies despite of gas prices surging and a drop in consumption.

There is something inherently suspicious when there is no supply crisis, high demand world-wide and yet constant price increases.

Personally, I think oil companies are imposing a tax on citizens until they can effectively convince citizens and government officials to back off with the lawsuits and give even more drilling leases.

Look, Aegrus, don’t talk to me about “conspiracy theories”. Your attribution of the whole problem to evil speculators is just as much a “conspiracy theory” as any other explanation.

And why is it that only explanations that reflect unflatteringly on Israel are pejoratively labeled “conspiracy theories”?

Besides, my theory is NOT a conspiracy theory at all. I certainly do not believe that the Israelis and their fanatical “American” partisans WANT an oil price spike to happen! I just think that they are causing it to happen, OPENLY, with their threats.

I believe they are indifferent to the acute oil crisis which they are inducing, for at least two reasons:

(1) Ideology: they simply want the US to destroy Iran as a rival more than they care about any consequences, including economic consequences; and

(2) They are confident, because of invariable past success, that they can get the US to do the deed for them, and then get enough additional money from the US Congress, in the form of “emergency aid”, to offset any economic consequences to Israel.

It is a mistake to think the way you do, Ed. Do you spend a lot of time reading impotent journalism that is partnered with the Wall-Street Journal (and thus attached to News Corps’ owner Rupert Murdoch)? Global Research isn’t much better seeing how there is a whole lot of Bilderberg conspiracy theories floating around their “independent journalism.” The National Review is independent too, but they are hardly trustworthy in most cases.

Just because someone says something, doesn’t make it so. Especially, in this age of out-right propaganda and misinformation, you have to look at actual facts because what journalists often say is inaccurate or falsified.

More evidence of the flipping obvious, from the Jerusalem Post, no less:

“Rumors of war with Iran, Mr. Gleichmann said, have often led to a spike of several dollars in the price of oil….”

“The Iranian risk premium, which had left the market for some time, is likely to return and hover over the market in the next few weeks,’ said Antoine Halff, head of energy research at Newedge USA LLC in New York.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212659691029&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Ed, those two things can be a coincidence. That’s not evidence. Those are too completely separate happenstances, and you have no way of linking them together. I filled up my tank and wore combat boots on the day Mofaz said war was unavoidable. How do you know my angry combat boots and buying gas didn’t suddenly cause the market to jump in price?

Cause and effect is not so arbitrary.

That’s essentially the pint, JS.

The only problem is people don’t always equate our lives with petro-products, when it does affect many, many areas of the average person’s day-to-day.

You’re also very right how the devaluing dollar is very much part of why oil prices seem so high, but (as I understand it) if you check prices in terms of real worth the EU is paying less for oil than we are on average even though many places show 6-9 dollar gasoline.

Aegrus, you said I offered no evidence of a connection between the war threats and the price spike.

That is a lie.

I gave the example of how a single remark, from Israeli minister Mofaz, saying war with Iran was “unavoidable”, caused the SINGLE HIGHEST ONE-DAY OIL PRICE RISE EVER.

You ignored it.

So why should I take you seriously?

Wait a minute…there’s no question that speculation is rife; it’s happening with all the commodities.  There is also no question that destabilization in the ME is a factor in rising oil prices.  That has always been the case: if there is violence or political upheaval in any oil exporting nation, the price tends to rise on fears of decreased supply.

In this, the haranguing for war with Iran by Israel and the Bush administration is not helping the price of oil.  But that’s less about what would happen to Iranian oil flow than what would happen if the Iranians plowed a silkworm into a ship or two in the Straits of Hormuz.

But the biggest factor is the tanking dollar.  Look, Berneke talked tough about monetary policy the other day; the dollar rose against the Euro; and the price of oil/gasoline declined somewhat.  Unfortunately, it was just talk.  Real interest rates in America will remain negative (interest rates being less than the rate of inflation).  Investors will see that he’s not willing to walk the monetary walk and the dollar will again slide…pushing oil back up.

There is no supply crises.  Offshore drilling in the States will not significantly change world oil output.  And it will still sell at market prices. 

Simply put: it’s time to start thinking differently about how we power our lives.  Obviously, we should have been thinking about this during the 90’s when oil was cheap and we were flush…before our debt load killed the petrodollar goose that laid the golden eggs.  I suppose that we were too enamored with “peace and prosperity” to bother with extending either beyond tomorrow.

Ed, I don’t know what instills this lack of comprehension, but you’re completely off-base as to my point.

This is a time-line of oil prices. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Oil_Prices_1861_2007.svg

The last six months have seen soaring prices, but the inflated price of oil began well before 2007. This fact also negates your silly Israel’s war threats with Iran created the market instability for speculators to raise prices. I call bullshit.

It’s really amusing how you can believe your Bilderberger conspiracies and anti-Israel rhetoric while ignoring whole concepts I’m trying to convey to you. };> This is not an isolated event. The people in these oil corporations are on the ship of a protectionist cartel that attempts to self-regulate and force people to rubber-stamp their priorities. OPEC is today’s East India Trading Company as far as I’m concerned.

What we’re dealing with now with energy is a bubble, and I’m sure there is another ready to be acted upon after oil has busted. Probably Gold since everyone hounding me to invest in that these days. Any attempt to defend or mitigate the responsibility speculators and corrupt investing practices have in the price of gasoline exhibits only ignorance.

Do you also deny how the FED’s increasing inflation has nothing to do with the price of oil in dollars?

Do you also deny how crude has only marginally increased in price in places like the European Union?

Do you also deny how oil companies are sitting on at least 10,000 drilling leases in the United States and off-shore?

Do you also deny how corporate oil execs are paid based on the price of oil and their company’s net-worth, which garnished by reserves of oil not refined for public use?

Do you also deny there is an exchange market outside of United States regulation where hedge fund managers, speculators, oil executives in a group of some 2000 individuals have invested in 50% of the crude oil futures markets?

Hmm

So, Israel’s saber-rattling against Iran in the past month is the SOLE and ONLY reason for gas prices. Yeah, I buy that, Mr. Bilderberg. Pfft.

By Aegrus, June 20 at 4:57 am:

First of all, your reasoning is inherently bad. Even if you argue that the crisis is not “sudden” but of a six-month duration, you still cannot claim either:

(1) that during the past 6 months, or even a year, oil traders became much more greedy than before; or

(2) that during that time frame, some crucial constraints on oil traders - such as regulations, for example - have been removed or relaxed - allowing freer reign to greedy speculation.

You cannot show either of these things to be true, because they patently are not. Therefore your entire argument is a priori inadequate, and based on little else than some sort of emotional need to demonize oil traders.

Ed!

You offer no evidence on how this crisis is being manufactured by Israel or their belligerence towards Iran! I also understand our government wants to put forth harsher sanctions against Iran, limiting their oil output even more.

However, the price of oil has been raising and jumping for months. Ever since the real-estate balloon began to deflate. There were speculators involved in that crisis too! It’s why several people have been arrested in relation to sub-prime mortgages in the last week.

When you find me some proof Israel started this crisis, which has been happening for over six months, feel free to show me or explain. Until that time, you’re just quoting happenstances, coincidences and hearsay conspiracy theories with scant validity. I’m very open to listen and learn, but you’re making your case very poorly, Ed.

By Aegrus, June 20 at 4:42 am:

Aegrus: you are failing to distinguish between:

(a) the creation of acrisis, and

(b) the taking advantage of a crisis by speculators.

Because I point out what has created the crisis, and that it wasn’t the speculators who created the crisis, you think I am “pro-speculator”!

I don’t know how to answer this simplistic thinking any better than I have.

dihey, off-shore drilling is a load of bull. We should be trying to mitigate our use of oil in every aspect of our life, not investing in the future of a fast diminishing, non-renewable resource. It would only take two years to get us off oil.

Ed, while I appreciate your discussion, it is in hoping that you are actually against war with Iran instead of just using this rhetoric to distract people.

This crisis is nothing new. Speculators are playing a big hand in the price of gas as well as the FED raising inflation by devaluing our currency.

You’re pointing to a media story while allowing and protecting these Speculators to be free from blame in their drive to push the price of oil skyward. Not only this, but you don’t give any real evidence to support your one-dimensional claim. There are many reasons a spike could happen in a day, and they aren’t all just because Israel is acting belligerently towards Iran. Two things happening at the same time does not a conspiracy make. It’s called coincidence.

Meanwhile, there is a long track record of energy companies manipulating markets. This happened with ENRON. In fact, it’s very similar. Since several execs from Bear Stearns have been arrested in the last 48 hours due to conspiracy and fraud, it really isn’t as far-fetched to believe the oil companies, which have been guilty of these actions before, aren’t manipulating markets for profit.

Ed, where are your proofs? Do you have any? Once again: blind opposition to off-shore drilling is just that: dangerous blindness to our future.

Uh, folks ... there is no present crisis. Well except for republican fiscal policy and working Americas pocket book.

Did anyone ask dubya what the oil guys think about rushing to drill in the gulf? Seems to me they don’t have the boats, the rigs, the platforms, the whatever the heck else they need to get to this right away. And given start up costs, are they really that anxious to do it? And even if they were, just how quickly will that oil come rushing to a pump near us, and does anyone really believe it’s going to cost less? And please dear friends and neighbors, lets remember the key word here. Estimate. That’s right, until they actually go get it ... everything is an estimate. Could be natural gas. Or water and that has happened before.

And yes, there is a shortage of refineries, but that’s mostly cause the industry has been shutting them down for years. Comes back to that cost thing.

Chuanyou Guanghan Honghua Co., Ltd., engages in researching, designing, and manufacturing petroleum drilling rigs. Its products include digital control VF, mechanical rotary table, electromechanical, DC, mechanical, and trailer drilling rigs. They are not in the business of drilling!

In other words, some wildcatter’s in Colorado have leased or bought drilling equipment from a private corporation, Honghua Co., Ltd. based in Sichuan, China.

[We buy toys from China too.]

And speaking of wildcatters they’re all over the place, hunting for oil and hunting for someone to bankroll them. The big guys will patiently wait while the little guy gets the permitting, builds the access roads, ties up the oil rights, does the exploring, finds the oil and then ... if there’s enough oil there to make it worth their overhead they’ll move in, but there usually isn’t so it gets capped.

Please note the dems aren’t screaming about shortages. They’re screaming about price manipulation.

The repubs are screaming about shortages and screaming AT the dems for mentioning price manipulation.

Big clue here. Overhead prevents oil CO’s from exploratory drilling unless ... drum roll please ... There’s guaranteed overhead cost offsets!

Did the light go on?

Right behind the repubs successfully convincing us we must relax the rules and let these guys go where current law forbids, they’ll break the news that to get them there and to offset the gambling cost, [See they don’t really know exactly where it is] they’ll need massive subsidies. And We Are At War. God Bless America. Support The Troops, Drill For Oil!
[And meet repub Joes campaign payoff promise]

Don’t ya just love it? These repubs are so shallow if they didn’t make noise we’d probably step in them!

By the way, can we recover hydrocarbons from the billions of tons of plastic we throw away every day?

Bush the decider guy makes a decision. Maybe down the road he thinks about why he made it, but I doubt it.

Important to remember in the mind of the decider guy there really doesn’t need to be a reason for, or consequence of anything ... just the decider guy deciding. Didn’t someone post here he needs to go lay down and shut up? Yeh that’s a good idea. Much better than watching the media wonks ask meaningless questions and dutifully reporting his meaningless answers, proving they are about as comical as he is.

I don’t know, it’s getting to where its almost as hard listening to a sober faced media wonk without cracking up as it is listening to a sober faced dubya without cracking up!

Like, just getting a mental image of Brian Williams doing “Meet The Press” sets me to chuckling and I haven’t even read the article yet!

Media, lift the ban on impeaching the criminal Bush regime.

The sooner we admit to brass tacks our cowardice, the better.  Our “culture” is one long parade of ticker tape parades for nothings.  Politically, we jump to side with the sissy-bullies, pretending that there is some measure of courage in siding with an illegitimate “authority.”  We flatter ourselves that these sleeze bags, with armies of lawyers, need us to defend them.  Are we kidding ourselves?  If so, we could learn a lot from W.C.  We could learn a lot if we could stand to look ourselves in the mirror for one minute without cringing.  It’s high time to reclaim the revolutionary spirit we sacrificed to the glass teat.  Ready?  Go!

The long-term gradual rise in oil prices is a separate issue. As for the acute crisis, that is caused by Israeli/US threats of war against Iran, and that projected war is entirely for Israel’s benefit.

The Exxon Valdez oil transport accident was catastrophic for local commercial fishing and related businesses - with a small number of peoples’ lives ruined in an isolated place, so it slipped the national attention.

one wonders what an accident like that would do to American energy policy - if it was near Malibu, California or Naples Florida - when much larger numbers of Americans would be directly affected

Spot on, Cyrena. Moreover, the whole reason Israel is the way it is today stems from Reaganesque neo-conservatism, whose main charter lists Israel as one of the most important objectives to defend. Mostly because there is a huge social-conservative branch to the Republican party who feels Israel has to be safe for the rapture to happen, or something very similar to that idea. Frankly, I start to drift out when reading or listening to Protestant Evangelicals’ feelings about Armageddon. It’s just so silly.

Israel is being used by other powers, and they just happen to hold sway in America because of Neo-Conservatism placing such a high importance on “Israel Can Do No Wrong!” logic. At least, that’s how I understand the situation.

By Aegrus, June 19 at 6:58 am #
•  “…Harges, Israel is just part of this whole mess, and the government of Israel, along with their lobbyists, is being influenced by the oil lobby. ..”
I’m actually very much inclined to agree with this, in part because of the obvious..it’s not ONLY Israel. They are in fact only a part of it. The reality is that the OIL lobby has been around (and far more influential) for a lot longer than AIPAC has had its overwhelming influence. It actually makes more sense, (based on the history) that the OIL INDUSTRY hijacked AIPAC in the form of the neo-cons, and have used them to accomplish their own ends. That has been a theory put forth by someone whose name temporarily escapes me. But my point is that AIPAC and the Israeli government have not ALWAYS maintained this measure of influence in our own business. The oil industry has been the binding cement there, and the bush dynasty, (as well as the Cheney’s and the neo-cons and the neo-liberals) ARE the oil industry.

Eddie, you’ve bought into hype. That’s all I have to say. What’s happening with the oil prices is exactly what happened with the Enron scandal in 2002. All these other things you’re reading about are distractions. I’m not a fan or ardent defender of the policies of Israel’s government, but they are not as big of a player in this instance as you believe them to be.

re: Ed Harges ” Even if your analysis were correct..” So that is your discussion style! Do not prove, just sneakily suggest that I am wrong. Now prove if you can that the published estimated reserves of off-shore oil and gas are totally wrong. Prove that the chemical and pharmaceutical industries will not need gobs of hydrocarbons for many decades to come. Tell us with numbers, not hot air, where and how these industries can get their hydrocarbons from if not, at least in part, from natural gas and oil. I am absolutely certain that you cannot produce any rational and satisfactory answers but I ask you to try anyway.

Bush and McCain promote off-shore drilling for the absolutely wrong reason but that does not mean that this source of hydrocarbons must remain untapped forever. I have presented the overriding justification why these wells must eventually be drilled. You have only presented insinuations against.

I fully agree with you that the saber-rattling against Iran and Venezuela has driven up the prices of natural gas and oil. Both Obama and McCain must end their open and veiled military and economic threats against these countries.

re:desertdude, June 19 at 1:02 pm:

Listen up: the present crisis is due to US-Israeli threats of war against Iran.

Drop the wars and threats of wars of aggression for Israel, and oil prices will drop dramatically and fast.

Even if we could drill tomorrow and we had a well in
a week where would we refine it? No new refineries in thirty years. Bush speaks now because his plan of cheap oil in Iraq went down the tube. His policy for 7 1/2 years have been to drive the oil price up. But we didn’t get the oil in Iraq. Now we have to have a new policy. The man dose not know what he is talkig about.

By Aegrus, June 19 at 12:44 pm:

That may be a fact; but if so, it’s also completely irrelevant and immaterial. China is not stealing our oil. If a Chinese company is drilling in Colorado, how on earth would that be causing us to pay drastically higher prices all of a sudden or even in the long run?

A more obvious cause of the crisis is, oh, for example, the fact that AIPAC just pushed through “our” House of Representatives a bill calling for a NAVAL BLOCKADE OF IRAN IN THE STRAITS OF HORMUZ, which is THE MOST VITAL OIL SUPPLY CHOKE-POINT ON THE PLANET.

By the way, a naval blockade is by international law an ACT OF WAR.

Now, tell me, Einstein: if you were an oil trader, how could you possibly avoid the conclusion that oil is about to become astronomically more expensive, and bid for it sell it accordingly?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleI d=9377

Conservative Yankee,

Funny that you mention Colorado and selling oil to foreign countries. China is, via HongHua Co.ltd., obtaining oil with their multiple oil rigs in Colorado.

That’s another non-Israel Lobby Conspiracy fact.

re:By dihey, June 19 at 12:37 pm:

Even if your analysis were correct, a better solution to the acute crisis would be to stop threatening war against Iran.

The critique that it will take years before off-shore wells come on stream is a gigantic red herring. As I have pointed out, the chemical and pharmaceutical industries will continue to need hydrocarbons even after all cars, planes, and ships are off natural hydrocarbons.
Another piece of misleading nonsense is that off-shore oil is a “drop in the bucket”. The estimated total oil reserves for off-shore oil are 165 billion barrels and peak production is anticipated to be near 400,000 barrels per day. If that was a single well it would be a so-called “super-field”.

re: Conservative Yankee, June 19 at 11:31 am:

Fine, but that’s also a long-term project, not a solution or even a partial solution to the present acute crisis. See my post June 19 at 11:26 am.

As GA and Rowdy make clear, offshore drilling is laughable as a solution to our present acute oil price crisis. Whatever tiny difference they’d make in oil supply wouldn’t even begin to happen for years.

But hey, listen, GA and Rowdy:

Guess how you could drastically lower the price of oil worldwide RIGHT NOW?

The leaders of the US and Israel could hold a joint news conference announcing that they will not, absolutely will not bomb or attack Iran, ever (unless Iran attacks first), and that they recognize Iran’s “inalienable right”, under the NPT agreement, to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, subject to all necessary IAEA inspections and safeguards.

Oil prices would plummet phenomenally in about two seconds. End of price crisis.

Considering that it will take a few years to even get the ships and other infrastructure to only begin to start drilling off-shore, Bush, and the GOP and the Right Wing pundits, again, are simply fear-mongering. But that is what they do best, isn’t it? In fact, that is all they do (besides starting wars, of course).

Should the federal government end the moratorium on offshore drilling?
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i live in florida, this is one of those silly polls, that tv stations like to do. this particular station is owned by “clearchannel”. locally, this right wing conglomerate owns 2 other tv stations,plus radio. just who does the FCC serve?

try reading; mccain and bush, drilling us into a deeper hole. this is on huffpo and written by senator bob menendez. from “drudge” a link to “international herald tribune”; a shortage of drilling ships. both of these show how laughable it is to hope for any relief from offshore drilling. what fools the american people are.

Aegrus writes:

“It’s not a sudden change.”

Oh really? The price went up nearly ten dollars in a SINGLE day, the highest one-day increase EVER - the day after Israeli minister Mofaz said that war with Iran was “inevitable”! How flipping sudden does it have to be for you to get it? How closely must cause lead to effect before you will take off your pro-Israel blinders?

Your position is absurd.

And the Israel lobby is far and away more powerful than the oil lobby. McCain, the GOP candidate, railed against windfall oil profits in New York only recently. He’s the REPUBLICAN. The Democratic candidates feel even more politically safe in denouncing Big Oil.

But have you noticed ANY of the candidates daring to criticize Israel?

The fact that our candidates feel free to bad-mouth Big Oil, but feel compelled — whether they are Republican or Democrat — to gush nothing but praise of Israel, and hardly dare voice a syllable of sympathy for the Palestinians - makes it crystal clear to any but the most obtuse: the Israel lobby is far more powerful than Big Oil and has a bipartisan stranglehold on US Middle East policy.

It’s not a sudden change. There has been a group of investors, speculators and hedge fund managers hopping from bubble to bubble for years. Dot coms, sub-prime mortgage and now commodities.

Additionally, it was not my intention to paint the Israel lobby as being owned by the oil lobby. It was my intention to say the big oil crew has hands in manipulating media against Iran. Not to mention, Bush goes over there a week before Israel begins to step up it’s rhetoric against Iran? It’s a strange coincidence.

Saying Israel owns the Congress is just ridiculous. There are more hands in our government than just Israel. The anti-Zionist rhetoric gets a little old in the eyes of new CBS reports about 50% of oil futures trading is done by ICE, and is supposedly monitored by the United Kingdom’s watchdogs outside of US regulation. It’s NOT just Israel.

The lack of perspective you’re showing smacks of ideological paranoia in place of fact. Merely saying the Israel lobby owns our Congress doesn’t make it so when you don’t have facts to back up your claim. The fact oil executives have hedge funds on oil futures in an exchange outside of US regulation IS a fact that cannot be ignored, and one which shows corruption at the fault of speculators.

Once again, this is not the sole problem. Part of it is the inflation of our currency too. Also, there is the fact oil companies are using their reserves as currency when they are making record profits, and could use a lot of the oil they have capped and reserved in America to bring down the price. They don’t want to, and this whole Israel lobby nonsense you’re spouting is a distraction from the major players in our energy crisis.

Aegrus:

To understand the SUDDEN, SPECTACULAR spike in oil prices, you have to look beyond speculators.:

• Have speculators SUDDENLY become spectacularly more greedy? No; that’s obviously a stupid notion.

• Have speculators SUDDENLY been unleashed by the relaxation of some previously restraining rules or regulations? No; the regulations are unchanged.

• What is the acute, short-term event that explains this mega-spike? One single thing: the loud crescendo of threats of war against Iran by Israel and the US, which threatens to compromise world oil supplies dramatically in the very near future.

And the Israel-lobby-driven drive for a US assault against Iran is for Israel and NOBODY else, my dear.

But don’t worry about catastrophically high fuel prices hurting dear little Israel, Aegrus; Israel will simply push through our Israel-owned Congress another big “aid” increase for Israel. As always, we will pay, and pay, and pay - and Israel will take, and take, and take.

No, Aegrus, it is you who comically oversimplify matters. The idea that the oil lobby dictates to the Israel lobby is completely, outrageously asinine.

No more funny than only looking at one side of a multi-dimensional issue, bringing out the Israel bogyman paranoia and completely absolving speculators from any blame when there are oil companies registered with ICE bidding on the price of crude oil.

I’m in good humor today. };>

when the gubmint STOPPED research into alternative[solar/nuclear]or other energy sources.After all-THEY owned shares in OIL COMPANIES and the stock market is fueled by OUR NEEDS….SO..Make us dependant on what THEY have shares of…and WE MAKE THEM RICH….BUT….WHY ARE WE EVEN LISTENING TO “BULLSH*T”?-HE WILL BE GONE IN A COUPLE MONTHS[if it all goes RIGHT]-Let’s just tell him to LAY DOWN AND SHUT UP-And let’s MAKE SURE HE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING ELSE BEHIND OUR BACKS…..He is a HAS BEEN-ON THE WAY OUT-and he STILL SHOULD BE TRIED-IN A COURT OF LAW-FOR MULTIPLE CRIMES AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE[and others].......

Aegrus: writes:

“...Harges, Israel is just part of this whole mess, and the government of Israel, along with their lobbyists, is being influenced by the oil lobby.”

Wow. That is really, really too funny.

Harges, Israel is just part of this whole mess, and the government of Israel, along with their lobbyists, is being influenced by the oil lobby. The chaos caused by our presence in the middle east hasn’t affected global crude oil output or the millions of barrels of capped oil reserves owned by, leased and accessible to oil companies.

Speculators are part of the problem too, and why anyone wouldn’t acknowledge all sides to a complex issue of greed, corruption and maligned political agendas is beyond me. There is no oil shortage, but creating a whole lot of ‘to-do’ in the corporate media gives speculators a real convenient scapegoat for their impractical greediness and market manipulation.

Additionally, there are also a myriad of reasons why Bush wants to open up drilling all over American coastlines, off-shore oil sites and Alaska. You’ve already correctly identified how these drilling sites won’t change gas prices (of course, giving in to the oil lobby might lead them to decrease their corporate tax on American citizens at the pump). Still, it gives more profit to the oil companies because it is raw crude in their private possession, and they use the acquiescence of these contracts and leases to increase the value of their companies. It’s all about the dividends, taxed at 15% of normal tax payers.

The U.S. accounts for 25% of the world’s oil use. It imports more than half its oil, and the amount is increasing every day.

The U.S. holds, inland and on its coasts, including ANWR, 2% of the oil on the planet. If it drills and sucks out every last drop it STILL couldn’t supply its energy use at the present rate of consumption.

It just doesn’t add up, no matter how you look at it.

re:By Aegrus, June 19 at 5:06 am:

Aegrus: You are blaming the oil markets, instead of putting the blame on our Israel-lobby-driven threats against Iran, where it belongs.  Why can’t you see this?  Why WON’T you see this?

JBlack, June 19 at 4:48 am #

“Some of you people here are amazing. Why must everything be a wild eyed conspiracy?”

“The liberal set in the U.S. cried foul in the 70’s and 80’s and railed against exploration drilling and building up our refining capabilities. They railed against nuclear power. Now we find ourselves with an inability to produce enough power or refine enough oil. Just as we had been told would happen.”

“It’s not another wild conspiracy. It’s called short-sightedness. And today some of you have the gall to complain as if it’s a small group of evil people at fault?”

~~~

OK JB. Lets for just a moment assume you are correct and the problem is short-sightedness. Lets assume back in the 70’s and 80’s exploration drilling and building up refineries did happen. Then lets assume we developed and used that oil. Lets assume by 1980, all these resources were being put on the market and all the necessary refineries were sending the product across the country.

Given the off shore resources are estimated to be enough to satisfy us for roughly eight years, and all the oil that could be extracted from ANWR would satisfy us for roughly ten years [I am being generous by the way] and all the oil that could be extracted from our private lands would satisfy us for another ten years, and you come up with a total of twenty eight years.

Lets see ... 1980 + 28 = 2008. Well I’ll be darned, we just ran out of oil! Now what?

Well, we can always crawl, hat in hand back to OPEC and beg them to start selling to us again. Bet that supply would cost three times what we pay now.

Of course that didn’t happen and there’s a very good reason why. And it’s not because of short-sightedness. In fact quite the opposite! The oil people realized domestic supply would be gone very quickly and there was ample supply coming from other nations. And to develop now, a very costly investment, would be to compete with that foreign supply, driving profit down. So from a business point of view, sitting on it until demand allowed a huge profit made a lot more sense. That decision was not made by we the people. It was made by they the oil producers.

Now, their far-sightedness may very well pay off. The republican pack in D.C. obediently tells us we have a crises. A crises that demands we allow exploration, drilling and refining in those areas that have not yet been turned into oil wastelands. Not only that, they’ll manage to convince us we need to relax all rules, and even better, we need to come up with the money to pay for that exploration, drilling and refining. After all, this will be a very expensive undertaking and if we want this oil that we need immediately at a price we can afford, we need to give tax breaks and subsidy’s and anything else these oil people need to make developing these oil fields profitable. And given nobody really has or does or will pay attention, we’ll say ok.

Then we’ll wait for a few more years while they get the oil “up and running” and maybe, just maybe, someone will mention, “Oh, It’s costing even more!” But then that really is the whole point to sitting on reserves. Wait till it can cost more.

That is NOT a wild-eyed conspiracy. That’s just a fact.

Now on that nuclear power thing. You mean like the nuclear power Iran is trying to develop? How quickly enablers and apologists can find themselves in a circle. Well we did get nuclear power on line. We also had a few nasty accidents. So wiser minds decided maybe we better figure out “how” a little better before we focus on the “why” at any cost. But that’s another story.

Personally, if I was forced to chose between the two, I’d rather have an oil well in my back yard than a nuclear plant. Over decades, the damage done by oil exploration and development can be reversed. But nuclear is forever.

Harges, seeing how the speculators are working in an unregulated, publicly traded commodity market by the name of the InterContinental Exchange, I hardly think it is ethical regardless of the dubious legality of such market manipulation forces. Rational? Maybe it is rational in a society where we encourage the wealthiest oligarchs to line their pocketbooks at the expense of not just Americans but most of the world’s poorest countries who cannot afford to feed themselves anymore because of the surge in cost of energy.

Senators Obama and McCain, their campaigns and supporters inexplicably continue to ignore the full role of natural oil/gas in contemporary society. Here is why. Even after the last oil/gas consuming cars, planes, and ships are off the roads, skies, and seas the chemical and pharmaceutical industries will continue to need prodigious quantities of hydrocarbons to make drugs, homes, cars, planes, ships, air-conditioning, refrigerators, telephones, computers, TV sets, electrical insulation, plastic water bottles and infinitely more products.

In my opinion we have the choice of two extreme futures or something in-between.

Future 1. Plastics and drugs are still produced from hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are obtained either from natural oil/gas or from synthetics made from coal and water. If natural gas/oil is still important in a mix of these, then the minimum production needed must come from the largest number of oil and gas wells. Why? The lifetime of a well increases dramatically with decrease of its production rate, a fact that has long been known. In this future “energy independence” is dangerous nonsense. What will be needed is hydrocarbon interdependence via an international oil/gas Commission which sets and controls the rate of production of every well on Earth and the transshipment of oil and gas.

Future 2. Return to the world before the US civil war.

An intermediate would be to return to pre WW2 conditions when only the well-to-do could afford these luxuries.

If our candidates do not soon begin to understand this, our future is absolutely certain to be number two. The shrill cry of “do not drill off-shore” will only speed that up.

In the context of Future 1 or something close, McCain is correct (but for the wrong reasons) that the maximum number of wells must be drilled and eventually brought into production. He errs on energy independence and the role of oil companies and governments of oil-producing states which, as I have stated is dangerous nonsense.

Obama is right on pushing hard for alternative energy production and government oversight but his opposition to drilling offshore is questionable for reasons given above. He is also wrong on making the price of natural oil/gas and the time-lag between drilling and production an important issue against the McCain proposal. People will want to have drugs, homes, cars, planes, ships, air-conditioning, refrigerators, telephones, computers, TV sets, electrical insulation, plastic water bottles and infinitely more products regardless of cost. Natural oil/gas are likely to continue to be needed for many decades to make these.

With regards to oil/gas/hydrocarbon issues neither candidate deserves to become our next president because they still seem to be blind to a reality that is much harsher than the price of gas at the pump.

Thank you, Mr. Harges, for pointing out that more supply from US coastal locations will not dramatically reduce oil prices.  Moreover, whatever oil is found will not come on-line for several years at least.

Go out and read something besides US based news and you’ll find OPEC ministers and oil analysts saying that there is no supply problem.  Several oil producers are actually holding the stuff in tanks right now.

The speculators are correct to worry that Dear Leader is going to do something even more stupid than that which he has already done.

Wall Street is also pouring money into commodities like oil and grain because the old favorite (the credit market) is frozen.  They did this with real estate when the tech bubble popped, and now that the real estate bubble has popped they’ve moved on to commodities.

And all this is above and beyond the neo-con plan (already pointed out) to bankrupt the nation.  We’ve asked for it four elections in a row now…we’re getting it.

It is Outrageous- but not surprising- the Oil Pres (and Candidate)want to lift the Offshore Oil Drilling Ban.
More Flawed BS-
first it will take years to get it started and set up
Second it will only push the problem of limited supply forward to future generations
third- Oil consumption is contributing to Green House Gases, Global Warming
Fourth it will only increase the Profits for the Oil incs with the insider Hoard Traders on Wall Street et al. Just More liquid Gold for them.
Fifth, there are no guarantees Spills won’t happen.
Sixth it disturbs the balance of the ocean ecology and life forms.
I’m sure there are more but those are a good start.
As for coal- We know it kills people from th emining process- directly & indirectly, pollutes the air, thus adding to Global Warming
Nuclear has Not been safe. Numerous ‘Accidents’ over th last few decades, Proves that. Plus we still have o way of disposing of the Radio Active Waste- will we be burying it under land that will be used for schools in the future again?
We have been given sources of Energy- Free and without harmful side effects. The Sun generates heat, wind and Water generate Movement. and we already have ways to capture these natural Elements.By god or Nature we have been given the means to creat energy. Not to mention the methane coming from Cow’s & thier Shit!Is it lighter than air where we can capture it in a membrane above the dairy barns? A bit of Tongue in Cheek- but we have been given the Brain capacity to figure this out without sacrificing the future generations qulaity of life or existence. I have Faith in humankind , we just need to get the Profiteers out of the business of Blocking Progess for their own gains.Such Acts ARE Crimes against Humanity.
We are supposed to be ‘Paying it Forward’ Not Pushing it Forward for the Debt & cosequences Burden to be paid by our Descendants.That is Irresponsible Stewardship and a Crime against God/Nature and our duty to those who follow. it is OUR time to carry this load, to rectify the problems and provide better solutions and situations for the Next.
BUCK UP!!

NABNYC, you’re right on the money!

We have to distinguish between the long-term ramping-up of oil prices and the present, outrageously steep, short-term spiking of prices.

(1) Long-term increases are caused by structural changes, mainly the gradual exhaustion of supply while demand, especially from emerging economies China and India, is rising. But this does not explain the present, sudden crisis.

(2) The present, disastrously steep rise in price is due to exactly one thing: the signals come out of Tel Aviv and Washington that the Israelis are ready for America to start a new war, against Iran, to preserve and enhance Israel’s regional hegemony and nuclear monopoly. Don’t blame the speculators. They are bidding for oil correctly and rationally: what the US and Israel are about to do will seriously jeopardize and reduce world oil supplies, and so it makes sense that oil should suddenly become a lot more expensive NOW.

NABNYC…

Thank you for the superior essay…that’s telling it all, exactly like it is. Sadly, we can see it happening, because it already is.

In fact, they’ve pretty much looted us to death. I’m willing to admit that it didn’t start with this latest bush assault. The privatiztion, and the corporate take-overs began long ago, with Regan. These latest thugs have simply finished us off.

Ed, you’re right about the grievous harm to our coasts and beaches, and yet there are those who don’t care at all, because they haven’t a clue to what that damage even involves. They make no connections to all of the destroyed marsh and other protective barriers that have been wiped out, thereby allowing for the likes of Katrina and other similar natural disasters to create the havoc that they do.

Who cares about any of that they say. Or, as Bush says..we’ll all be dead anyway.

Maybe we’ll just have to find a place for old ladies to go between now and next winter, where we won’t freeze.

Gotta look out for each other, because these thugs have been mugging us for so long now, there’s nothing left to save but hopefully the thin skin on our asses.

The president is asking the American people to accept his “pig in a poke” explanation for why oil prices are so high. I don’t think he realizes he now has zero credibility on just about any subject. The American people have not been given satisfactory answers on any number of issues related to oil prices, like factoring in the need for additional refineries, eliminating the “Enron loophole” which allows traders to manipulate oil prices exactly the way Enron did before they were caught, getting the oil companies to explain why they aren’t drilling on the 68 million acres they are already approved for. Bush should be jawboning the oil companies for answers. He needs to start acting more like Teddy Roosevelt and less like Warren Harding.

When Bush took office, it was the intent of the neocons to bankrupt the country—loot the treasury, crush working people by cutting wages, importing millions of workers from other countries to create more job insecurity, eliminating healthcare and pensions, increase prices, encourage borrowing with unrestricted con-job financial arrangements at 25% interest, then when Bush left office, lower the boom. 

This recent radical increase in the price of everything is just part of the plan.  There is no reason for this obscene increase in gas prices except that the oil corporations have conspired with each other, and with the Bush administration, to gouge the public. 

Of course this helps support their last-minute pressure to get Congress (or Bush by Executive Order—just watch) to turn over to the corporations the complete control of all the coasts of this country, including the oceans and everything in them.  But the main purpose is just to steal from the public on a massive level. 

Next up will be the national default in combination with individual defaults, regular double-digit inflation, ominous rumblings about how “the communists” in China are threatening to take over.

Then “our” people, like Gates, like Rubin, like all the boys on wall street, will “rescue” us—by coming up with money to pay off the Chinese, more loans to pay for oil.  And they will take our highways and begin to charge people for every trip.  They will shut down the schools, will take our mines, ores, resources, water, timber—everything we have.  They will take everything.  All public services will be ended, and people can either pay to rent a cop on a monthly basis, or have no police.  Just like they’ve done in third world countries around the world through the IMF and World Bank or, like the Bush and Clintons and Carlysle and bin Ladens call them, their “personal bankers.”

This whole discussion about gas prices, offshore, etc., ignores the fact that we are now having gas gouging.  Of course we need a national commitment to green energy.  But immediately, today, we also need to take 90% of the profits in an emergency tax, make any compensation over $250,000 not a legitimate write-off so also taxed to the corporations, take that money, give it back to the people who are being gouged.  Or at least if we had a Congress that would get off their fat lazy asses, that’s one simple way to end this whole corporate orgy. 

Or, I suppose Congress could just wait till this winter when old ladies start freezing to death.  I wouldn’t want to suggest that Congress postpone their next month-long “recess” or vacation, or whatever they call it.  I know they only will come in for really important things, like idiots fighting over a lady who’s been brain dead for several decades—they’ll show up for that, but not to save the working people of this country.

Bush seems to hope that Americans believe that domestically produced oil will be cheaper than foreign oil.

Are we that stupid? Perhaps.

But the fact is that oil is a commodity sold on the WORLD market, and so American oil will cost us the same as oil from anywhere else, and the total amount of increased world supply resulting from allowing offshore drilling will not decrease the price of oil by more than a tiny, tiny fraction.

And for this, our coasts and beaches will be grievously harmed.