quote:
Originally posted by Flatus the Ancient:
Excelman, I was alive during the wonderful Carter years also and I remember the gas lines wrought by the wonders of the punitive Windfall Profits tax. Yes, sending money to the haters of the U.S. is extremely stupid; but really who is most at fault? One can believe that a president is a wizard or fairy and that with one mighty wave of the wand all fuel tanks will overflow with cheap gas, but that is a dream of fools. A person must have been asleep through highschool American Government/Civics classes and Economics classes to believe the Democratic (Socialist) party line.
Anyone with a brain knows that low supply and high demand plus rampant speculation equals high prices. Just what can a president do? Should Bush nuke the producers and exchange houses around the world and take the oil? Should Congress go without blame for not allowing exploration and drilling on our own soil for many years now? One must remember it takes 60 like minded Senators to get bills through the Senate. Even if one can find a majority in the House and 60 Senators with gray matter, it takes time for the oil to get to the refineries. Then there is the problem of the limited refinary capacity. Oh yes, thats just a wave of a Democrat's magic wand away from solution.
What about alternative energy sources? Do we want to wait a couple of decades for the research and then the production/delivery infrastructure to fill our tanks with Wonderwizz fuel? It will take time to find the best processes and construct the plants and delivery infrastucture before the U.S. can kick its addiction to oil. Until the day of self-reliance comes again, all one can do is be frugal with our choices of transportation.
Well, I was certainly around during the Carter years. He got blamed for the gas shortages, and like you say, a president is not totally to blame up or down. However, I believe you have mis-read my intentions on these post. While I am NOT against increasing supply, what I have been saying is that we should be decreasing our use of oil and it's by-products.
Lots of people don't want to face up to the reality that ALL the cheap easy to get at oil has already been exploited and the fields are producing less every year. Iraq still has a lot, maybe more than any other place in the world, but you see what price we are paying right now to try to secure that oil for the Western Oil companies, and when and if they get that oil it will be sold on the world market just like the oil from Alaska that was supposed to make us energy independent.
Well, horsefeathers ! IF we had spent the last 30 years trying to get off of petroleum , and not building and buying bigger and more powerful SUVs , we may have put a real dent in our useage and therefore dependence upon foreign sources.
This fool's mission we have been on to burn the maximum ammount of gasoline we could while sending our military across the globe , pissing off the rest of the world, just so American companies can make those profits , is , well, foolish.
A few more oil fields tapped, and a few more refineries built, - remember, the refineries we have are NOT running at anywhere near capacity now, will not give long term solutions to our personal transportation problem.
Carter DID start some programs to ease the entire energy problems we had then. We should have kept them and continued to improve , and not gone backwards.
If it is supply you are so worried about, one thing that the president COULD do to put about 1/2 million barrels of oil per day on the market tomorrow; he could withdraw from Iraq. Fighting more and more wars so we can continue to drive around in Bushmobiles is just absurd thinking.
