What I wonder about the Futures Trdaing of Oil, is where is the money really coming from. There are rouge leaders out there that would just love to see the US and all of our allies economies shatter and crumble like glass! Chavez, of Venezuala, even stated that he would support oil going to $200. a barrel just to bring the US to its knees's. That was in a speech he gave while visiting Iran!
It is not likely that Congress will, or can, put regulations of the Futures Trading, other than what is done on US soil. However, there are trading markets all over the world and our regulations would have no effect on them.
We were warned in 1972 and di little to nothing to prepare for what we are facing today and in the future. We were caught with our hands in our pockets just as we were on 911!
I'm sure glad I live one mile from work. Diesel here is 4.25 and 3.51 for gas. I remember that not to long ago, diesel was less than gas. Does anyone have a theory on why diesel is .74 more per gallon?
Part of it is the sulphur-removal process. A guy who works in a big refinery in Houston told me it's expensive and complicated and adds substantially to the price.
This problem has many root causes - not necessarily in this order:
- Speculation and greed
- Environmental Regs
- Falling US dollar
- Unfriendly govts in producing countries
- Civil chaos, war and terrorism in parts of the world
- Economic expansion in developing countries
- Dwindling domestic reserves
- Expensive production costs in deep-sea and arctic environments
- Our own inability to break our addiction to cheap fuel
- Etc, etc, etc
This is going to be a fact-of-life from now on. The days of cheap fuel will never return until some new, environmentally safe technology replaces petroleum. Nuclear power and electric vehicles seems like the only realistic solution. Atomic fusion - which is clean and safe - along with new battery technology - is going to be the next great challenge for America, IMHO.
We, as a proud, united, industrious and free people have met every challenge in the past and have always come-out stronger than before. Do we still have it in us? Can we get to work as one people and whip this thing - or will we fight among ourselves, like Easter Islanders, while China replaces us - as we replaced Britain a century ago?
I don't know. I have my doubts - we've grown soft, fat and lethargic, hopelessly spoiled by affluence, and culturally/politically divided as never before. Our time could be over. Maybe it's China's turn now.
We have been awakened from our American Dream, and the prosperity of our children, as we ourselves have known it, could well hang on how we deal with this single crisis.
I made an historical error in the above post. I'm surprised nobody has caught it yet. We are not "culturally/politically divided as never before". There was one five year period when political differences reached the point of armed conflict.
I disagree, Jack. You were right the first time. We are divided as never before. The key difference between then and now is that too few are willing to actually fight for a cause. I believe that not only the Civil War but also The Revolutionary War would not take place in today's cultural environment. Faced with similar circumstances today, we would continue to be colonial subjects of the Queen and maybe end up speaking French or German. We're already forced to speak Spanish (or press 1 for English).
2006 Dodge Ram Quad Cab, HO Cummins, 4x4
2000 Sunnybrook 26FK
2006 Stock Trailer
1996 Car Hauler
$4.49 a few blocks from or house. Why should the Saudis increase pumping when we refuse to pump or refine our own? To get out of this mess we have to: drill more, pump more, explore more, refine more, build many nuclear power plants and concurrently develop alternate energy sources - NOT stop all the above and start a development program that will take two generations to complete. If we built two nuclear plants in each state and had electric vehicles with decent batteries the nuclear would take care of the electricity to run millions of cars at no use of fossil fuels.
2001 Dolphin 5332 towing 2002 Honda
CRV, Goleta, CA
And, of course, the world's second largest reserves of light sweet crude oil (the best type) is trapped in Iraq due to a war--the trapped oil being the oil companies dream come true with their existing reserves skyrocketing in value.
Just a point here. Iraq is pumping oil at near its pre-war levels. I've visited the Iraqi oil platforms a couple of times about 19 miles off the Iraq coast, connected by an underwater pipeline. The platforms pump oil into super tankers 24/7.
Here's a salute to my fellow Coastguardsmen, Navy Sailors and our coalition partners that patrol these platforms around the clock in all kinds of weather to keep them safe and online to help the Iraqi reconstruction.
Best Regards!
Paul D
2007 Winnebago Journey 39K, Cat C7 350 HP
(aka "R SANITY III ")
2003 Honda Element 4WD Toad
Offline
Online
