Thread: What about the oil crisis?

  1. #1
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    This is funny. Not two months ago the world was running out of oil and if we did not stop what we were doing and make a complete reversal of our oil economy we were doomed.

    Two months later oil has dropped nearly 50% from it's $147 high. Gas is down an average of $1.00 and as soon as the futures that were purchased at higher prices are delivered and sold gas prices at the pump will fall even more. OPEC is talking about cutting production (IE: we are pumping too much oil) to raise prices, etc, etc.

    So to all the 'ivy league' all-knowing investors who said it wasn't an oil bubble either they need a huge lesson in economics or were saying it wasn't a bubble just to cash in. It's these same kind of people who over inflated the housing market and when it burst everything came down fast and then they begged the American taxpayer for a bailout. So when their ideas screwed everything up they used taxpayer's money to fix it. Nice.
    These people need to be put in jail. They are obviously obtaining wealth through fraudelent means.

    I was told by some, not on this board, I was an idiot if I didn't think oil was scarce or that it would ever come down in price. Here's to being an idiot. And here's to CNN and MSNBC who had it all wrong, 100% completely wrong, and fabricated ridiculous shows around a fake oil crisis and quoted tons of people who had a vested interest in oil and thus obviously wanted it to be scarce so they could cash in. News is all about what stories bring in the most viewers and the most cash. Truth is completely irrelevant. After all they know the world will believe what they say and they are right. Here's to the oil industry who obviously made no effort in a time of crisis to get the prices down and who were running their rigs at 80% capacity during the crisis.

    Lesson learned
    The next time someone makes a dire prediction about some resource or commodity and threatens horrible consquences if we don't all get on the bandwagon - remember to follow the money trail and it will lead you to the true source of the problem. Hindsight is 20/20.

    Sad thing is it sounds like a horrible conspiracy theory you would find on a website somewhere. Even scarier is that this 'theory' is actually true.

    But one saving grace is even though you can fool human beings you can't fool the math and economics forever. Eventually it does come around and reveal your schemes.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 10-20-2008 at 05:59 PM.

  2. #2
    and the Hat of Clumsiness GanglyLamb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba View Post
    I was told by some, not on this board, I was an idiot if I didn't think oil was scarce or that it would ever come down in price. Here's to being an idiot.
    You can add me to the idiot list as well.

    I feel backstabbed in a lot of ways for instance:

    The interest I get on my bank saving accounts was a mere 2%. Which felt ok to me at the time (before 6 months ago), because in the end, I'm not taking any chances by putting my money in the bank onto a savings account. So I dont complain because we all know, risc ++ => possible revenu ++ . Anyhow, 5 months ago my bank announces like every other major bank here that the interest will now be 5%.

    So , whats this ? I've been getting 2% for the past years and now all of a sudden I can get 5% , does this mean you have been taking 3% into your own pocket in the meanwhile? (and I bet alot of people started putting money onto saving accounts since it was a very attractive alternative to stock market with capital protection). I lost some confidence in my bank at the time... no biggie , then this whole thing comes down, now all of a sudden the government has to make sure that people who merely put their money on a savings account are assured that they will at least get up to 100 000 € back in case the bank would go bankrupt ?!?
    Whats happening, I though I was on the safe side with my savings account, its not like im trading stocks where there's always the risk of losing money but also the chance of getting a higher revenu...

    Same thing with the oil, who are these people living off the hard earned money from average joe? For the last year I had to listen to the news telling me that people had less money to buy things and that everything was getting more expensive (especially oil based products). I went on holiday and at that time fuel costed 1.48 €/litre ?!? I can remember I even took a detour to luxemburg (in total 300 km detour) just to fill some jerrycans, and the whole fuel tank because there it was only 1,25€/litre...

    </rant>
    Time to stow away my money under the bed once again!
    Last edited by GanglyLamb; 10-20-2008 at 06:14 PM.

  3. #3
    Banned master5001's Avatar
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    The prospect of running out is a very realistic threat. It will happen. Its a matter of how soon. We have a few years to go yet, but even then we will still be subject to the woes of being duped by policy and scare tactics. Its an effective tool. If someone needs a war, why not make all of the citizens shout "Nuke those towel heads!" If you want to join a world war, make the country-side scream "Kill whitey!" Its a cycle.

  4. #4
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    The prospect of running out is a very realistic threat. It will happen. Its a matter of how soon. We have a few years to go yet, but even then we will still be subject to the woes of being duped by policy and scare tactics. Its an effective tool. If someone needs a war, why not make all of the citizens shout "Nuke those towel heads!" If you want to join a world war, make the country-side scream "Kill whitey!" Its a cycle.
    I don't for one minute believe war had anything to do with this. We are still at war and yet the price is bottoming out. If war was raising the price as some said for so long it should be still inflating the price and yet the price of gas falls as the market price falls. There does not seem to be any sustaining factor except the delay between high price shipments being used up and low priced ones starting to get used.

    There is also oil shale and quite a few people are getting rich in Northern America b/c they found huge oil fields there. I believe the new U.S. oil boom is North Dakota and some are becoming millionaires overnight.

    The thing that most of you forget who use the legendary Shell engineer's bell curve as a mantra is that he did not account for new discoveries in his equations. According to him we should have run out in 2002. Not out as in scarce...out as in completely 100&#37; out. It just did not happen.

    Also as we have found out we do not have an alternate energy source that gives us as much bang for the buck as oil currently does. Any attempts to create such a source have ended in economic failure. It's so funny how in a time of crisis all this green agenda just gets flushed down the toilet as if it doesn't matter. The green agenda is just completely flawed and while I agree we need to find some alternate energy source just so we reduce pollution (which is never a bad thing) I don't believe we should do it in a knee jerk reaction to some fake crisis.

    Sorry greenies but you tried and failed. Now with the economy in a mess your little agenda just gets flushed.

    Oh and I sure wish some of you would start driving more and idling your cars. It's getting cold out here. Bah!! Greenies, The Weather Channel, and the IPCC - take your whiny dying earth stories with no scientific basis elsewhere b/c they are getting a bit old.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 10-20-2008 at 06:26 PM.

  5. #5
    Banned master5001's Avatar
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    Now wait a second. It isn't like the crux of economic failure has been that we tried to rely too heavily on alternate fuels.

    Also, I am not saying "The war made prices skyrocket." I am taking a slightly more conspiracy-esque stance of the forced rise in prices made the war seem like a reasonable solution. Surely its not merely coincidental that prices went up at key political times when the public backing of the war effort was needed, or when there was a posibility of losing Bush as president mid-stream. Now that there is a potential loss coming up for the Republican party, there may not be enough control to keep the public interest in anything but the economy. Thus all the sudden prices dropped down.

  6. #6
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    It's a fairytale made up by the oil companies... for the past 30 or so years they've said we've had less than 20 years of oil left... meanwhile we've increased usage and yet that number has not gone down at all.

    We won't run out of oil unless we really choose to... alternative sources are completely viable not excluding nuclear energy which I think we should have switched to five years ago. Chances are the oil companies will still control the market until they really do run out... but it seems like we've been getting less and less dependent on the stuff lately.
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  7. #7
    Banned master5001's Avatar
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    Exactly. And we may live long enough to see the "actually running out" day. Meanwhile, I am not dismissing the fact that it is a long way off. But that doesn't mean its a big sham either.

  8. #8
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by master5001 View Post
    Exactly. And we may live long enough to see the "actually running out" day. Meanwhile, I am not dismissing the fact that it is a long way off. But that doesn't mean its a big sham either.
    Of course not... but neither is the concept that with our current reproduction rate that we will some day run out of space on this planet. However... with the rise in long-distance communication technology and the increased job markets for technical and financial jobs in less developed areas... suddenly it seems like the space crisis isn't as bad as all that.

    The fact is... just because it's true doesn't mean it's urgent and we shouldn't really be concerning ourselves with it so much. Rather, we should be concerning ourselves with why the oil market is so clearly manipulated and who we can point our fingers at for the ridiculous oil prices for the past few years.
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  9. #9
    Banned master5001's Avatar
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    Well put. I would be a simpleton and a fool to argue with that argument.

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    um, what... explain why I'm paying over a dollar at the pumps again? Because oil is an abundant resource? Afraid not.
    The physical amount of fossil fuel (though I know not the amount, is obviously finite and becoming "more so" each day) left in the bowels of the earth doesn't matter. We're not "running out" of diamonds or Escalades or Houses, yet it's enough for the cost of the resource to make it scarce and housing market to tumble.

    As far as I'm concerned, whether oil is scarce because it's existence is rare, or drilling for it in the Middle East has become too expensive, or just because some Saudi Prince and the oil conglomerates of NA are in cohorts, matters little: it's still scarce. And that's more than justification to seek out a better alternative.

    I agree that the "greenies"'s agenda may have falsely planted its roots in the "oil crisis", but only so to say that it shouldn't have needed to dig roots at all, because the majority of it (well at least that which pertains to gas/oil) aligns with common sense. How many years did it take us to figure out asbestos? Smoking? CFCs? The number for gas and oil still yet needs writing in the history books.

  11. #11
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by @nthony View Post
    As far as I'm concerned, whether oil is scarce because it's existence is rare, or drilling for it in the Middle East has become too expensive, or just because some Saudi Prince and the oil conglomerates of NA are in cohorts, matters little: it's still scarce. And that's more than justification to seek out a better alternative.
    Actually, the third reason in your little list there doesn't make it scarce at all. Let's put it this way... if we were camping and I had a big basket full of food behind me and refused to give it to you for free (or even cheap) because I claim it's scarce and we're running out... would you starve for now while you build your own food supply from other sources or would rather see what you can do about the fact that we aren't running out of food and that I'm simply keeping the food from you for my own personal gain? We can get oil... cheaply and easily... we have more than enough in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge ourselves. The price hikes of the past two years are nothing but an industry taking advantage of consumer panic. They've been doing this for a generation now and really I don't think the proper effort has been put out to stop it.
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom View Post
    if we were camping and I had a big basket full of food behind me and refused to give it to you for free (or even cheap) because I claim it's scarce and we're running out... would you starve for now while you build your own food supply from other sources or would rather see what you can do about the fact that we aren't running out of food and that I'm simply keeping the food from you for my own personal gain?
    I'd most certainly build my own food supply so as not to be dependant on someone who is obviously a severe dink, and cares nothing about my well being. It's irrelvent [to an economy] why the prices are high, only that they are, and that in turn makes other methods more cost effective.

    Oh and I sure wish some of you would start driving more and idling your cars. It's getting cold out here. Bah!! Greenies, The Weather Channel, and the IPCC - take your whiny dying earth stories with no scientific basis elsewhere b/c they are getting a bit old.
    This is just inflammatory. I'm no fan of the whining myself, but proactive solutions are by far superior to attemping clean up after a disaster you're totally unprepared for.
    "There's always another way"
    -lightatdawn (lightatdawn.cprogramming.com)

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom
    if we were camping and I had a big basket full of food behind me and refused to give it to you for free (or even cheap) because I claim it's scarce and we're running out... would you starve for now while you build your own food supply from other sources or would rather see what you can do about the fact that we aren't running out of food and that I'm simply keeping the food from you for my own personal gain?
    Let's make the analogy more apt: we've camped mid fertile ground, and I know we are to be camped for years to come. Now I can choose to let you monopolize my food supply indefinitely with your basket, or, with a bit of work and planning, I can grow my own food from the land and fill my own basket.

    Perhaps, if I am a lazy person, it may be to my own good fortune that you restrict the basket from me completely, thus leaving me with no other alternative than the better one.

  14. #14
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    This is just inflammatory. I'm no fan of the whining myself, but proactive solutions are by far superior to attemping clean up after a disaster you're totally unprepared for.
    Seconded. Well, more or less because I think civilization-ending apocalypse stories are a shameful reason to motivate humanity toward anything. Before the end of the world, I want to enjoy my surviving moments selfishly enjoying myself. I'm sure everyone wants this and it's why we are in no hurry.

    Well, that and poor statements like "CO2 is poison!" do nothing to promote the cause amongst the scientifically inclined.

    So let's clean up before the whiners can gloat, because that's worse.

  15. #15
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lightatdawn View Post
    I'd most certainly build my own food supply so as not to be dependant on someone who is obviously a severe dink, and cares nothing about my well being. It's irrelvent [to an economy] why the prices are high, only that they are, and that in turn makes other methods more cost effective.
    Quote Originally Posted by @nthony View Post
    Let's make the analogy more apt: we've camped mid fertile ground, and I know we are to be camped for years to come. Now I can choose to let you monopolize my food supply indefinitely with your basket, or, with a bit of work and planning, I can grow my own food from the land and fill my own basket.

    Perhaps, if I am a lazy person, it may be to my own good fortune that you restrict the basket from me completely, thus leaving me with no other alternative than the better one.
    Yeah great... but what you're not considering is the fact that the money you're spending on my current price of the food is hurting your well being so greatly that its effecting you ability to not only grow your own food supply but to perform many other necessary actions in your camping survival. You're also not considering that with all the excess money I've been making on my food supply that I have been able to gain leverage in other food supplies. Where are you going to plant your food supply if I've already bought up all the land?

    This is what oil companies have done for 30 years. Electric cars were completely viable 15 years ago but the concept disappeared one day when an oil company just bought up the idea. They monopolize the industry because they have so much buying power that any alternative source that threatens the oil industry will be removed from play as it has in the past. Trust me... when all the oil has dried up or has actually become too expensive to drill... Saudi Aramco and Exxon Mobil aren't going to be going anywhere. They'll be pioneering the next big energy source because right now they have all the blueprints that they've bought up in the last 30 years locked up in a desk somewhere.

    You can't simply allow corruption to exist and try to work around it. It will keep kicking out your legs as long as it has its own feet to stand on and the point I've been trying to make with there being a larger supply of oil than they make you believe is that... they're going to be standing on their feet for quite a while.
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