Thread: High oil prices good?

Originally Posted by JMS

I don't know if this will help in understanding the ludicrous notion Gugi sets forth That The U.S. government is purposely affecting fuel prices to be higher and purposely destabilising the world economy! Read, baaad America. poooor innocent rest of the world. but I thought someone might get something useful out of this:
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/p...1028/OPINION02

I have no idea how you read what you read in my posts. I don't care really whether the current US government is trying to increase the prices or not. What I care is what's the net effect of increased oil prices on the US economy. How it's distributed within the economy is a slightly different issue.
As far as the link I read it and didn't find anything particularly interesting as the 'myths' that are being dismantled to me seem very shallow at least the way they are stated and most of the arguments equally shallow. The idea of the article seems to be that we're good the way we are now and there's no reason to look into anything else. I really don't believe in arguments by politicians or political appointees when all they rely on is sentiment instead of backing them up with numbers.

Is this not your post?

Originally Posted by gugi

I've been thinking for a while now that while I may not like the decisions politicians are making I may be looking at it the wrong way, and they may be actually doing what's best for their country.

We all know that the international markets are fairly deregulated, but can be manipulated by powerful governments. So when the US government consistently takes steps that bring insecurity to the market increasing the prices it makes me wonder whether they aren't doing it because it's actually better for the country (we already know it's better for oil companies).

Things that come to mind
- The strength of US is know how and technology. It's more energy efficient than most everybody
- Energy inefficient countries are becoming more competitive with US
- If the energy prices are to go up it will hurt more the energy inefficient manufacturing than the energy efficient one, making the second more competitive
- US has critical influence over one of the largest producers of crude oil and can manipulate the market in the opposite direction it needs to.

After all in a market economy the most valuable players to US are the ones on wall street, who have expertise in complicated financial schemes like nobody else, and are thus in the best position to take advantage of unstable market, and not the 'middle class' who is probably affected negatively 'at the pump' and the 'heating bills'.
Just how the free market works. I always thought the message was 'If the gas prices are too high for you, the best is to find a better job or else deal with it any way you like'.

And how exactly my red colored statements above are to be read:

Originally Posted by JMS

Read, baaad America. poooor innocent rest of the world.

I usually try to avoid using the labels 'good', 'bad', 'evil' as they are fairly simplistic and inapplicable to most common day activities.

And as far as the red emphasis... uhm, are you suggesting that the decision to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization has nothing to do with the oil price increase it correlated in time with? Or other 'saber rattling' declarations/reports... which bring consistency? The standard way to interpret these is that "we do it because it's the right thing to do, even if it costs us". I'm merely wondering about the 'costs us' clause. Why I do it - it's professional deformation, if you will - I get paid to analyze things and look at them in many different ways.

And yes, I agree that any hypothesis can be called ludicrous until there are facts that prove that it is or it that is not. What you call something doesn't affect whether it is correct or incorrect.

I think the red words are the ones that Jesus said.

(I couldn't help myself)

Originally Posted by Nickelking

I think the red words are the ones that Jesus said.

(I couldn't help myself)

Someone had to say it!

oh man... here you go then

thus spaketh I in the day of the great dillusion
woe to uhmm.. you uhmm, i mean thee... who turn a simple man into a prophet... because you have made him sin, but you will be judged for his sins...

here you have it.
how come no serious faces... ah i found a good one

To my understanding there are countries that have gas subsidies to keep it's citizens mobile and (hopefully) move the economy. These subsidies keep the gas prices extremely low, so the citizens most likely don't feel the strain. With less of a strain the citizens would use more gas and travel more freely. Wouldn't this raise demand also?

Originally Posted by custommartini

To my understanding there are countries that have gas subsidies to keep it's citizens mobile and (hopefully) move the economy. These subsidies keep the gas prices extremely low, so the citizens most likely don't feel the strain. With less of a strain the citizens would use more gas and travel more freely. Wouldn't this raise demand also?

And of course these countries who do this need to sell their gas and oil at a much higher rate to the rest of the world to make up for the shortfall that their subsidies created!
Good point brother Brendon, I hadn't considered that!

Hmm maybe, since they U.S produces so much of the worlds food supplies in the form of grains maybe we should show the world and those arab countries and triple or increase by 10 fold the price of a bushel of wheat and corn. Afterall they would have to pay our prices. they have to eat don't they?

You know there is this rumor that many years ago some mad scientist came up with an engine for a car that would run on water and the automakers bought it and in turn sold it to the oil companies who locked it away somewhere.

That's a good idea- at least then we could get our farmers off the subsidies and stick the bill to the people who stick us with high prices.