Oil and War and OPEC.. Oh MY!

[Scary Guy]

Genocide tastes strangely like turkey! I thought everything tasted like chicken...

HA! good one

Next stolen land target, IRAQ (oh wait, that's oil)

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

What oil? Come on. Get a new flag to wave... that one has so many holes in it that it can't flap anymore.

[ttogreh]

Actually Gaf... think about this for a moment.... we went in with enough troops to take out the regime, but not enough to ensure order. The first year after invasion could accurately be described in the one word "clusterfuck".

This war was not about GETTING oil, it was about ELIMINATING oil. Iraqi oil in the ground is worth more than Iraqi oil on the market... if you own oil pumps in Texas, Wyoming, or the Panhandle.

Louisiana has oil. San Diego doesn't. Which had the better federal response?

Scarcity is good for business.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Except oil companys don't make money selling finished product. 80% of profits from refined petroleum goes to state and federal government in the form of taxes. Oil companys make thier big dollars trading crude oil.

I do admit, we needed a better plan and more troops are first. I've always said that. We had enough for the invasion but not to rebuild. Yet, look at things now. We are winning. Osama bin-fucking-sheep has even released a video trying to give his troops moral(keep in mind one his vids from two years ago called Iraq Al-quidas most important battle field). Iraqi's are turning on the al-quida groups in Iraq (which account for most of the insurgents) Analysts from all over the world agree that Al-quida may just be crippled to the point of collapse all over the world because thier fighters all went to Iraq and got killed. Road side bomb attacks and suicide attacks are down 70% since the surge started. Groups that were fighting us are joining us.

Now, if we can get the Iraqi government to get some stuff done things would be really cool.

In honesty, I believe this was the plan all along. Bush has always said Iraq was important to the war against Osama and his followers. I have said before that I think we went into Iraq to draw Al-quida there so we did not have to fight them here. What better way than make it look like you are an easy target?

Drives me crazy that so many people are so invested in the beleif that we are loosing that they wont accept any proof that we are not.

[ttogreh]

Oil pump... not gas pump. Your point about finished product not being al that profitable... is pointless.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Yes, it does but I soppose I should have explained things better.

People are under the impression that crude oil supply directly affects fuel price at the pump. It doesn't.

Oil prices are affected more by the futures market than by supply. Crude prices dont directly affect the pump for about 6 months. Why do you think OPEC limits crude production? if we pumped at full capacity oil prices would drop like a rock. We couldn't refine it into fuel as fast as we can pump it out of the ground. If Iraq had all of it's pumps working at full capacity, OPEC would shut down pumps in other regions to keep the production at a levels that meets demand and keeps the prices where they want them. OPEC controls the Crude markets. Not the USA.

My point is, what you think is happening, cant. The USA doesn't control enough of the worlds Crude supply to affect price. It's way more complicated than your simplified conspiracy.

[ttogreh]

Gaf....

OPEC WANTS HIGHER OIL PRICES JUST AS MUCH AS ANY OILMEN IN WYOMING OR TEXAS. The Iraq war was a blessing to OPEC. Remember, OPEC is a cartel, not an economic community.

It's not that hard to figure out, and the more you protest, the more ammunition you give to my argument.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

OPEC wants reasonable oil prices. Currently, OPEC has two member states doing everything they can to drive the price up... they would be Iran and Venezuela. the other members of OPEC are doing everything they can to stop that. They just had a full meeting, only the third time ever, last week to talk about whats going on with oil prices and what they can do to control them. Iran and Venezuela pushed for higher prices and were mostly ignored.

You know, I am going to stop talking. All I am doing is feeding you more information to base your conspiracy theory's on. I am am edging closer to and closer to telling you exactly what I think of your "ideas". Beyond just saying I think they are ill-formed and woefully incompatible with reality.

[phee]

OPEC wants reasonable oil prices. Currently, OPEC has two member states doing everything they can to drive the price up... they would be Iran and Venezuela. the other members of OPEC are doing everything they can to stop that. They just had a full meeting, only the third time ever, last week to talk about whats going on with oil prices and what they can do to control them. Iran and Venezuela pushed for higher prices and were mostly ignored.

You know, I am going to stop talking. All I am doing is feeding you more information to base your conspiracy theory's on. I am am edging closer to and closer to telling you exactly what I think of your "ideas". Beyond just saying I think they are ill-formed and woefully incompatible with reality.

I know enough to know that I don't know

[Destroit]

OPEC wants reasonable oil prices. Currently, OPEC has two member states doing everything they can to drive the price up... they would be Iran and Venezuela. the other members of OPEC are doing everything they can to stop that. They just had a full meeting, only the third time ever, last week to talk about whats going on with oil prices and what they can do to control them. Iran and Venezuela pushed for higher prices and were mostly ignored.

You know, I am going to stop talking. All I am doing is feeding you more information to base your conspiracy theory's on. I am am edging closer to and closer to telling you exactly what I think of your "ideas". Beyond just saying I think they are ill-formed and woefully incompatible with reality.

Hmmm something else I have to add, if I may. I've always been curious why the people who think OPEC is only out to raise prices and fuck us over would have left out the fact that this has only been happening recently (a few years). What I want to know, is if this is true, why couldn't they have just been doing it all along? Why raise it ridiculously now? To me the whole Iran/Venezula thing seems more feasable than having OPEC all of a sudden in the past few years hike up prices after decades of having decent prices (not to mention that if memory serves, the same sort of shortage happened in 70s, they could have easily kept the prices hiked up, but they lowered them in the 80s - 90s). Just a thought, I could be wrong though.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

You know whats funny about the whole thing? Chavez, that fucking moron... half of the oil pumped in Venezuela can only only be refined at certain refinery's that are equipped for it's odd physical propertys... and all of the refinery's that can do it, are in the USA.

Venezuela needs the USA to buy it's oil more than the USA needs thier oil.

[ttogreh]

The Oil crash of the 1980s was manufactured by OPEC, or more accurately, Saudi Arabia and OAPEC. America was well on its way to becoming energy independent. This is all well documented. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were only two real consumers of petroleum; the United States and Europe. After the 1973 shock, energy conservation was the order of the day.

Saudi Arabia flooded the markets. So much so, that Mexico, Nigeria, and Venezuela all teetered towards bankruptcy.

Ronald Reagan was elected president, and alternative energy research almost completely stopped. Oil prices started to slowly creep back up. Bush was elected, and he essentially lied to Saddam Hussein about the Kuwait invasion. Iraq was left in ruins, and oil continued its marginal climb. He was defeated in 1992. Clinton jump-started alternative energy research. Oil suddenly became a little cheaper.

Bush's son was elected. China and India were emerging petroleum consumers. The hydrogen car, an emissions-free vehicle powered with second hand natural gas and a PLATINUM catalyst, was touted by the administration. 9/11 happened. Americans were frightened out of their minds. Afghanistan doesn't have much oil or natural gas, and sure as hell doesn't have any infrastructure to speak of, was invaded. Afghanistan is bordered by Iran. Oil prices started rising quite noticeably.

Iraq was invaded, and any oil production it had was SEVERELY curbed. Iraq is bordered by Iran. BUSH WAS RE-ELECTED! Oil prices kept rising. Katrina happened. The federal response was quite eloquently described as "a clusterfuck" by many of my peers.

Gaf, I am NOT some crystal-gripping tree hugging hippie, nor do I think that 9/11 was any more than a crime committed by a bunch of evil bastards.

I AM, however, someone that knows that national energy policy is connected to the events that happened decades earlier, and I also know that electing a Texas oilman and his Wyoming lieutenant has played itself out on the oil markets as predictably as the chiming of a Swiss clock.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Thats some fine revisionist history. Completly ignores the USSR and it use of Petroleum. Ignores the "oil shortage" of the 70's when OPEC stopped production to try to raise prices and it all bit them in the ass... and somehow paints that as OPEC flooding the market... Mexico wasn;t even a player in the Oil industry until the 80's. What lie did Bush sr. tell Hussain about the invasion of Kuwait? first I have heard about this.

Also, the whole crap about alternative energy not being research is total crap or we would not have half the stuff we do have. (though I do admit we need far more to be done on this front)

You may know that our national energy policys are lacking... but your ignoring everything else that affects oil prices. The biggest factor in the rise of crude price are Chavez and Iran, at least the fear they create in oil traders.

[nilhil_glory]

The future of cars will be hamster powerd ...

28 hamsters

two rows of 14 ratwheels and a homemade tourq converter along with some belts

[freydis]

The future of cars will be hamster powerd ...

28 hamsters

two rows of 14 ratwheels and a homemade tourq converter along with some belts

GO, HAMSTER, GO!!!

[ttogreh]

The OAPEC, Gaf. The OAPEC. Read closely. As for the lie, it was perpetrated by April Glaspie. Google her, eh? The 1973 Oil shock was what caused the 1979 oil crisis to be so disastrous for OPEC. Not so disastrous for Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was able to flood the market, cause the oil crash of the 1980s, and essentially buy thirty more years of petroleum intensive economies.

Bush and Cheney know their history, and they know their economics. I am foreseeing an increase of one dollar a gallon on gasoline per year for the next five years. By then, enough electric vehicles, wind farms, biofuel distilliries, and the like, will be able to drive the price of oil down... from perhaps 300 dollars a barrel.

[Hellion]

All I can say is,Fuck EXXON,fuck OPEC,and fuck everything they stand for,they are trying to cripple the worlds economy,enough ranting

[Scary Guy]

The future of cars will be hamster powerd ...

28 hamsters

two rows of 14 ratwheels and a homemade tourq converter along with some belts

Careful or they'll start killing off hamsters too.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

So, you think Bush and Cheney are responsible for oil prices all over the world and totally discount China's bullish oil market tactics and the fact that Iran and Venezuela are pushing the price as high as it will go?

April Glaspie, what flavor of Kool-aide will wash that down the best? I thought you were staying away from the tinhat subjects?

[ttogreh]

No, Gaf. I am not saying that Cheney and Bush CONTROL oil prices. They don't. However, they can INFLUENCE them, and it is in their PERSONAL interests to influence the price of oil UP. As for April Glaspie, Sadam did not get much grief with his military policy with Iran from Ronald Reagan, and George Bush WAS his vice president.

Saddam took the hook. I am almost certain of it.