I was wondering if there are any people still out there that believe it's "big oil" that is controlling prices and exploiting we poor Americans or if the cold hard facts and realities of economics is finally starting to permeate into the American psyche and people are starting to look at who really owns the oil, who produces and, and maybe even launched investigations into how these two things called "supply" and "demand" have an effect on the price of oil.
But just in case you're still running into the sophomores in college who with their professor-instilled new-found knowledge are going to continue to tell you that it's all a conspiracy man and the oil companies are working together to keep us down, here is another little tidbit that should help you quelch those little brats up;
May favorite is when you have them dead to rights and they still try to defend their original position.
8 comments:
Yea, people do. Case in point: my chain-mail forwarding part of the family sent out the latest in "Boycotting ExxonMobil will force them to lower prices; lets stick it to them because they stick it to us" emails. I forgot that typically those who forward these things don't tend to think logically, and believe and hope that a complete sustained boycott would drive the price of gasoline down. (I wrote an extremely too long post on my site, something that probably confused more than helped).
So yes, there are a good many people who are "the father of two young boys, who will need a college education when they come of age ... [and you] can afford not
to be concerned about the cost of living."
If these same oil bashers would back off and allow American so drill for oil in and about it's lands and to build some nuclear power plants, the people's republic of Whining would pay a lot less for energy.
This would also help to end the hypocrisy around holding hands with our mortal enemies in the Middle East, the Saudis in particular.
Just thought.
It has long been obvious that China, India and Malaysian Oil demand would pressure petroleum prices upward.
My complaint is that the electric vehicle, the 1993 EV1, was stifled
for several years.
The Nickel Hydride used then is viable today. Used in the Toyota Prius.
Bringing in this huge biofuel expansion is an effort to keep ICE engines on the roads.
Corn juices are Energy and foods impractical but good for employment and taxes revenues. = TG
I'm not saying that you're necessarily wrong, but to me that looks like a graph that shows that as the price of oil has risen, the value of the oil imported by China has increased as well. Do you have a similar graph based strictly on the quantity imported (barrels)? That would more clearly demonstrate that China's demand for oil has been increasing.
They will take one look at the chart and have no idea whatsoever what to make of it other than to see that now there is proof that "they're ALL in on it!". ALL the prices are going UP! Its not just a conspiracy of Big Oil any more. It's bigger than that, it's Big Oil, Big Beans, Big Copper, Big you name it.
I am not questioning that this has an impact, but what we have experienced is a tripling of the price of gas in the last 5 years. You cannot say that world (not China's but WORLD) demand for oil has tripled in that same period of time.
What I do know is my dad is a manager for a major international oil company. He tells me that the biggest driver of increased gas prices at the pump is not the price of oil, but the fact that there have been next to no new refineries built anywhere in the western world in the last 20 years. At the same time, oil companies have been shutting down refining capacity by retiring polluting and inefficient refineries. So you have net decreases in refining capacity that has been going on for a long time in addition to rising demand.
The oil companies are the only reason for ridiculous gas prices, but their decisions have certainly contributed significantly.
Not the EV1 nonsense again!
Listen, far be it for me to stop you from believing in paranoid nonsense, but if you really want to learn about the EV1, you need to look at some of the studies and press releases from GM, and not that idiotic film by Chris Paine. The EV1 conspiracy theories are yet another example of people preferring to believe in paranoid nonsense due to a failure to understand economics.
I watched "who killed the electric car?" (a friday night special at the liberal church I attend once in a while that I call The First Church of Al Gore - An Inconvenient Truth had been shown the week before!)
As soon as Califonia legislators got the idea that the car could be viable they began to aggressivly pass a law that would force the company to sell a minimum of 10 or 15 percent electric cars in California if they wanted to sell any at all. (I beleive that was it, it was something punitive in any case) The company fought the law and junked the car. I don't know if the car truly was viable but if it was, liberal idiot California legislators (almost a quadruple redundancy!) killed the electric car dead.
It was blatantly obvious... to only me. How can you possibly think forcing the first company that comes along with an electric car to suddenly sell it in 10, 15, ANY percentage of their sales volume will encourage the development of electric cars???????????
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