A Step in the Right Direction

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
101

[quote]bald eagle wrote:
100meters wrote:
bald eagle wrote:
100meters wrote:
bigflamer wrote:

With his willingness to respond to the gas price crisis with bold measures, McCain shows himself to be a pragmatist while Obama comes off as an ideologue to puts climate change ahead of making it possible for the average American to get to work.

Funny how stupid they pretend to be. “Bold Measures” is known as pandering to stupid voters (the Micks, Bigflamers, and Zaps of the world).

No mention of how the pennies saved a decade from now is going to help get Americans to work. (wouldn’t want to educate clueless voters don’t ya know!)

Pennies??? You really are clueless. Did someone dump somem dirty oil on you as a child? You really seem to hate the stuff.

What you were thinking dollars!!?? What a fool!
But damn! If a barrel goes down $.75 from ANWR how much do you think gas goes down? Good lord! Are there any serious republicans in here?

I might as well talk to my dog. I would get much more sense out of him. You are on the same wave length as Alan Colmes.
[/quote]

Typically, you duck the question.
So again how much does the price of gas go down per gallon if the price per barrel of oil goes down $.75?

Because you were outraged by my factual answer “pennies” so enlighten me…how much?

102

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
bald eagle wrote:
…

I might as well talk to my dog. I would get much more sense out of him. You are on the same wave length as Alan Colmes.

It really is amazing isn’t it? it is like a pipeline to the DNC.[/quote]

Funny!

Bush’s energy dept. not actually connected to the DNC. Really, does everything you guys say have to be made up?

103

[quote]100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
…“Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to McCain�??s campaign, acknowledged in a conference call to reporters that new offshore drilling would have no immediate effect on supplies or prices.”

I guess he too is a POS.

or you’re still just a total lying sham.

You keep coming back to this strawman argument. No one expects an immediate price reduction if we start new drilling today.

You ignore the economic reality that more drilling = more supply = better prices = more money staying in the US instead of lining Hugo Chavez’s pockets.

I just don’t know how to deal with idiots like you. Dude! are you retarded? the point is not enough supply to cause a significant reduction.

Bush’s energy agency says ANWR reduces the price of oil by 75 cents a barrel. 75 cents!. Thats’ pennies on a gallon of gas. And that happens 3 presidential terms from now! It’s a fake solution! Get it?

They are fake numbers. People cannot explain why the price of oil is what it is right now and we are expected to believe that a politically motivated study can accurately predict more than a decade in the future?

The reality is that it is money and jobs staying in the US plus more supply on the market. Good news for all except the whackos.

Oh, the numbers are fake. Glenn Beck must have the real ones.
God, you just make it up as you go…[/quote]

Of course the numbers are fake. Only a fool would think otherwise. They have a remarkably poor history of predicting the price of oil, how could they possibly look in the future and claim the oil from ANWR will change the price by $ 0.75/bbl?

And what fucking difference does it make anyway? No one is claiming opening ANWR will drop the price of gas to what it was 5 years ago.

We need to drill for oil domestically because it is the sensible thing to do when oil prices skyrocket. It will be much better for our economy than spending that money overseas.

104

[quote]100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
bald eagle wrote:
…

I might as well talk to my dog. I would get much more sense out of him. You are on the same wave length as Alan Colmes.

It really is amazing isn’t it? it is like a pipeline to the DNC.

Funny!
Bush’s energy dept. not actually connected to the DNC.
Really, does everything you guys say have to be made up?[/quote]

lol @ Bush’s energy department. Aren’t these the same clowns that faked the caribou mating study to bring public opinion against ANWR? These guys don’t take marching orders from Bush.

105

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
…“Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to McCain�??s campaign, acknowledged in a conference call to reporters that new offshore drilling would have no immediate effect on supplies or prices.”

I guess he too is a POS.

or you’re still just a total lying sham.

You keep coming back to this strawman argument. No one expects an immediate price reduction if we start new drilling today.

You ignore the economic reality that more drilling = more supply = better prices = more money staying in the US instead of lining Hugo Chavez’s pockets.

I just don’t know how to deal with idiots like you.
Dude! are you retarded? the point is not enough supply to cause a significant reduction.

Bush’s energy agency says ANWR reduces the price of oil by 75 cents a barrel. 75 cents!. Thats’ pennies on a gallon of gas. And that happens 3 presidential terms from now! It’s a fake solution! Get it?

They are fake numbers. People cannot explain why the price of oil is what it is right now and we are expected to believe that a politically motivated study can accurately predict more than a decade in the future?

The reality is that it is money and jobs staying in the US plus more supply on the market. Good news for all except the whackos.

Oh, the numbers are fake. Glenn Beck must have the real ones.
God, you just make it up as you go…

Of course the numbers are fake. Only a fool would think otherwise. They have a remarkably poor history of predicting the price of oil, how could they possibly look in the future and claim the oil from ANWR will change the price by $ 0.75/bbl?

And what fucking difference does it make anyway? No one is claiming opening ANWR will drop the price of gas to what it was 5 years ago.

We need to drill for oil domestically because it is the sensible thing to do when oil prices skyrocket. It will be much better for our economy than spending that money overseas.
[/quote]

Your argument (ironically) now down to:
“It’s the sensible thing to do”

I suppose marking on the calendar “June 20, 2018 gas to go down a nickel” might seem sensible to a lot of folks…but I’d prefer something a wee bit more beneficial.

Also, while there may indeed be some benefits for those oil companies, the biggest beneficiaries during (and after) the decade or so delay to get our oil out will clearly be Arabian oil sheiks (not U.S. taxpayers).

106

[quote]100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
…“Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to McCain�??s campaign, acknowledged in a conference call to reporters that new offshore drilling would have no immediate effect on supplies or prices.”

I guess he too is a POS.

or you’re still just a total lying sham.

You keep coming back to this strawman argument. No one expects an immediate price reduction if we start new drilling today.

You ignore the economic reality that more drilling = more supply = better prices = more money staying in the US instead of lining Hugo Chavez’s pockets.

I just don’t know how to deal with idiots like you.
Dude! are you retarded? the point is not enough supply to cause a significant reduction.

Bush’s energy agency says ANWR reduces the price of oil by 75 cents a barrel. 75 cents!. Thats’ pennies on a gallon of gas. And that happens 3 presidential terms from now! It’s a fake solution! Get it?

They are fake numbers. People cannot explain why the price of oil is what it is right now and we are expected to believe that a politically motivated study can accurately predict more than a decade in the future?

The reality is that it is money and jobs staying in the US plus more supply on the market. Good news for all except the whackos.

Oh, the numbers are fake. Glenn Beck must have the real ones.
God, you just make it up as you go…

Of course the numbers are fake. Only a fool would think otherwise. They have a remarkably poor history of predicting the price of oil, how could they possibly look in the future and claim the oil from ANWR will change the price by $ 0.75/bbl?

And what fucking difference does it make anyway? No one is claiming opening ANWR will drop the price of gas to what it was 5 years ago.

We need to drill for oil domestically because it is the sensible thing to do when oil prices skyrocket. It will be much better for our economy than spending that money overseas.

Your argument (ironically) now down to:
“It’s the sensible thing to do”

I suppose marking on the calendar “June 20, 2018 gas to go down a nickel” might seem sensible to a lot of folks…but I’d prefer something a wee bit more beneficial.

Also, while there may indeed be some benefits for those oil companies, the biggest beneficiaries during (and after) the decade or so delay to get our oil out will clearly be Arabian oil sheiks (not U.S. taxpayers).[/quote]

I agree with a lot of what you said. But how are ARAB oil sheiks going to benefit?

107

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
wirewound wrote:
Capitalism is creating problems it cannot solve.

Example? [/quote]

Seriously?

Global warming and its attendant natural disasters, the rising gap between the rich and poor, health care, the energy crisis, war, and famine, to name a few.

108

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
wirewound wrote:
flyboy51v wrote:
Sue OPEC … nationalize the refineries … put an extra tax on the oil companies.

I think we can safely assume that any pretense that these guys are NOT marxists has been officially dropped at this point. The mask is off …

Socialism is the future. How long it takes to get here is the only question.

I will agree with you in that we are on the path to a more socialist government, however I’m not nearly as excited about it as you seem to be. Collectivism has failed wherever it has been used. What is driving the US towards collectivism is the weakening of the individual.

The loss of rugged individualism. Lazy, unthinking people who can’t do for themselves, are willingly giving up individual liberty for the false security of government. Sad really.
[/quote]

If a chlorine molecule could talk, it would probably say the same thing about ‘NaCl-ism’.

109

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
wirewound wrote:
Capitalism is creating problems it cannot solve.

Example?

Socialism creates problems socialism cannot fix. You cannot tax your way to prosperity.

It’s hard to believe that anyone believes otherwise.

Capitalism does have its problems, not much incentive to take care of the environment for example.

Yeah, externalities are a problem - though I’d say we need to extend towards these resources, not retract it. If no one owns it, people dump on it. “Tragedy of the Commons,” etc. Which is why the worst environmental catastrophes take place anywhere resources are “commonly”/state owned: China, Russia, former soviet states, etc.
[/quote]

Why is it always the China and the former Soviet Union that are mentioned and never the Democratic Socialist countries of Scandinavia?

Taxes do remove a modicum of free will - but the people in these countries have determined that it’s a fair trade.

Personally, I think you will find more people developing voluntarily collectivist situations. Car-sharing, vacuum-sharing, local group-contributing agriculture. Of course, there should probably be single-payer health-care.

I don’t see how arguing on a phone with a government bureaucrat is that much different than arguing with an insurance company. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to force your insurance company to pay for something you BOTH know they’re supposed to pay. Hell, all of some sorts of claims are denied at first, just to wear the customer down.

At least with government healthcare, you can vote in people who can fix it. Government healthcare’s budget would be highly controlled - so it couldn’t bribe or lobby congress or the executive branch for control.

110

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
100meters wrote:
…“Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to McCain�??s campaign, acknowledged in a conference call to reporters that new offshore drilling would have no immediate effect on supplies or prices.”

I guess he too is a POS.

or you’re still just a total lying sham.

You keep coming back to this strawman argument. No one expects an immediate price reduction if we start new drilling today.

You ignore the economic reality that more drilling = more supply = better prices = more money staying in the US instead of lining Hugo Chavez’s pockets.

I just don’t know how to deal with idiots like you. Dude! are you retarded? the point is not enough supply to cause a significant reduction.

Bush’s energy agency says ANWR reduces the price of oil by 75 cents a barrel. 75 cents!. Thats’ pennies on a gallon of gas. And that happens 3 presidential terms from now! It’s a fake solution! Get it?

They are fake numbers. People cannot explain why the price of oil is what it is right now and we are expected to believe that a politically motivated study can accurately predict more than a decade in the future?

The reality is that it is money and jobs staying in the US plus more supply on the market. Good news for all except the whackos.

Oh, the numbers are fake. Glenn Beck must have the real ones. God, you just make it up as you go…

Of course the numbers are fake. Only a fool would think otherwise. They have a remarkably poor history of predicting the price of oil, how could they possibly look in the future and claim the oil from ANWR will change the price by $ 0.75/bbl?

And what fucking difference does it make anyway? No one is claiming opening ANWR will drop the price of gas to what it was 5 years ago.

We need to drill for oil domestically because it is the sensible thing to do when oil prices skyrocket. It will be much better for our economy than spending that money overseas.

Your argument (ironically) now down to:
“It’s the sensible thing to do”

I suppose marking on the calendar “June 20, 2018 gas to go down a nickel” might seem sensible to a lot of folks…but I’d prefer something a wee bit more beneficial.

Also, while there may indeed be some benefits for those oil companies, the biggest beneficiaries during (and after) the decade or so delay to get our oil out will clearly be Arabian oil sheiks (not U.S. taxpayers).

I agree with a lot of what you said. But how are ARAB oil sheiks going to benefit? [/quote]
They reap the largest benefits ($$$$) of the increase demand which will grow over the next 10 years (assuming the strategy here is waiting for coastal/ANWR drilling) at which point the minuscule amount we add to the supply doesn’t bring the price per barrel down in any significant way. So they continue to make mad money.

The better solution in my opinion is to aggressively curb demand now, with better CAFE standards, cap and trade, etc. This would put more money in the American treasury (which could be recycled, rebated, etc.) and less in Saudi pockets. As a side effect, the price of oil goes down.

111

[quote]wirewound wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
wirewound wrote:
Capitalism is creating problems it cannot solve.

Example?

Seriously?

Global warming and its attendant natural disasters, the rising gap between the rich and poor, health care, the energy crisis, war, and famine, to name a few.[/quote]

Really?

How did capitalism raise the temperatures of Mares and Jupiter?

And you know that the countries that had the most amount of pollution were communist countries right? Google Bitterfeld.

The gap between the poor and rich is rising? And here I thought that hundreds of millions of dirt poor Indians and Chinese had improved their lifes tremendously? What you are trying to say is that the gap between the rich and super rich may be widening.

Who cares?

Health care is better than ever in history and certainly better than in communist countries, there is no energy crises but a speculation bubble caused by monetary inflation and war and famine existed long before capitalism.

When did the last famine happen in a capitalist country?

So, you are flat out wrong.

112

Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol
Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’

113

Just read yesterday in Investors Business Daily that if all the nuclear reactors that were planned in the US before the Three Mile Island panic had been actually built we’d already be way under the Kyoto targets without even trying.

In fact those never-built reactors would be now reducing our emissions by the sum total of ALL our car exhaust EVERY year …

So now we can safely say that liberals are to blame for Anthropomorphic Global Warming as well.

(not that I believe in AGW anyway … but just for arguments sake)

114

I’m still fascinated by the argument that increasing supply doesn’t reduce cost.

And then some of these folks realize deep down that this IS a ridiculous position so they switch to the “yea … but not by much” argument as if they have a clue what adding billions and billions of barrels will do to a market in 5 years time?

Of course it will reduce cost and it will do so in direct proportion to how significant the new supply is compared to the total supply.

What I’ve read from multiple sources is that we have enough oil on the arctic shelf and off our coasts to provide all of our own oil needs for 22 years without taking another drop of foreign oil.

22 years!!!

And that’s not including the 1.8 trillion barrels that are estimated to be in oil shale deposits in the rockies.

115

[quote]wirewound wrote:
GreenMountains wrote:
wirewound wrote:
bigflamer wrote:
wirewound wrote:
…
I have an iPod that puts all of my music in a tiny box with room to spare, but we’re still getting around on dead dinosaur juice? WTF?

Your iPod is made from petroleum based products. Shipped to you using transport burning petroleum products. Stored in warehouses and retail stores heated, cooled, and built from items using petroleum based products.

Totally missed the point. The point wasn’t that my iPod was petroleum free. My point is, we’ve made so much more progress with electronics than we have with alternative energy sources.

[/quote]

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

Look on the bright side. Now that oil is expensive serious effort will go into alternative technology.

116

someone on this thread said that capitalism does a lousy job with the environment … well here’s a picture from China this morning. I offer it up as an example of what a wonderful job the marxist/planned economy model is doing with the environment …

117

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
wirewound wrote:
GreenMountains wrote:
100meters wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Obama is such a piece of shit. Nothing but attack attack attack from him.

You’re being facetious… right? …right?

Have you been paying attention? His campaign is built on empty words about change and attacks on his opponents.

He should have taken the opportunity to clarify his position that he supports high energy prices but he would rather not for obvious reasons.

Oh, the irony! You’re voting for McCain who stands for…uh who knows!? Against drilling, for drilling, what will tomorrow bring?

Stop trying to use the flip flopper spin the Republicans used on Kerry in 2004. Come up with your own original ideas cause it isn�??t sticking.

It fits! I respected the McCain of 2000. I don’t respect the McCain of 2008. He used to bitch-slap the religious right, now he panders. I don’t trust him.

Yeah, but the alternative is far worse. And, if McCain gets in office I don’t think he’ll give the religious right another thought. And they know it. Which is part of his problem.
[/quote]

Once again the two wings of the big business party have provided the American public a choice between shit and suck. Then people wonder why half the country doesn�??t even bother to vote.

katzenjammer has a point. McCain can�??t energize the religious right to vote for him because they know he isn�??t one of them but his weak efforts at pandering are turning off the moderates and independents and giving Obama lots of material to spin and launch attacks.

118

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:

  1. If oil companies have 68 million acres alloted for exploring/drilling, and they haven’t touched it, how can they claim they need more oil fields? or that a democratic congress has prevented oil exploration, etc. What do you think about this?

Because the oil companies have a better idea of where they want to drill than Congress or you or I. If they think ANWR or coastal drilling is more productive than somewhere else then they should get a crack at it.

I’m perfectly willing to believe this is true.

However: have oil companies actually argued that the 68 million acres are not going to be productive? Have they actually explored there? Or do they have some other reason to believe that these acres will not be productive?

As far as I can tell, this really hasn’t been discussed and debated yet. I think it should be.

[/quote]
Don’t know anything about the quality, size, or expense involved in finding oil on already allotted acres so hard to answer. I’m guessing it wasn’t profitable back when oil was $10 - 20 a barrel.

No guarantee ANWAR oil won’t end up in Asia as much of Alaska’s oil already does (fact check?) but since it is a globally priced commodity doesn’t matter much.

119

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
wirewound wrote:
Capitalism is creating problems it cannot solve.

Example?

Socialism creates problems socialism cannot fix. You cannot tax your way to prosperity.

It’s hard to believe that anyone believes otherwise.

Capitalism does have its problems, not much incentive to take care of the environment for example.

Yeah, externalities are a problem - though I’d say we need to extend towards these resources, not retract it. If no one owns it, people dump on it. “Tragedy of the Commons,” etc. Which is why the worst environmental catastrophes take place anywhere resources are “commonly”/state owned: China, Russia, former soviet states, etc.
[/quote]

The US government is by far the largest and worst polluter in US history. Even a lot of private industry pollution is a result of misguided or heavy handed government policies. Harry Browne (former Libertarian Presidential candidate) wrote an interesting book on the whole Love Canal fiasco.

America is far from a capitalist society already. Capital is valued far more than labor. Capital has free movement but labor does not. Capital�??s profits are taxed much lower than labor profits. Some government bonds are tax exempt. Short term capital gains are one rate and long term another.

Government should not be playing favorites using the tax code in a true capitalist society. It is none of their fucking business how I or anyone else makes money.

Another problem is in the modern quasi-capitalism when times are good in an industry they think they shouldn�??t be taxed and when times are bad they think the government should socialize their losses in the form of tax breaks and bail outs.

And I don�??t even want to get started on social order laws, for profit religion, and abuse of eminent domain.

Socialism is here but it is masked in capitalist rhetoric.

120

[quote]flyboy51v wrote:
someone on this thread said that capitalism does a lousy job with the environment … well here’s a picture from China this morning. I offer it up as an example of what a wonderful job the marxist/planned economy model is doing with the environment …

[/quote]

To call the China of today a planned economy must be a joke?

Right?