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I think we should sue them for not being US citizens, and therefore not being subject to the Sherman Anti-trust Act. 
I think your attitude is very unhelpful towards those of us who are trying to satisfy the American public's deeply felt need to sue somebody. Another thing: supposedly politicians resort to economic pandering because the real causes of things are too complicated for the general public to understand. So how is explaining cartels and alleged deliberate curtailment of supply and so forth supposed to be simpler than just saying: "We're running out of oil. That's why it's getting more expensive."?
I WANT MY FLYING CAR!!!!!
She doesn't want to sue OPEC, she wants to give the appearance that she will "do something" about high oil prices if elected, because apparently the control of oil prices is yet another thing that falls under the auspices of the Presidency. Even the quality of pandering keeps getting worse and worse.
Ooooh, can I sue Kraft for not making food in pill form like in the Jetsons? I like to turn things around on people. The problem isn't that OPEC doesn't produce enough. It is that you consume too much. Don't like high gas prices? Stop driving. Solves that problem doesn't it? Or I say hey, we have a monopoly on nuclear weapons. How unfair. OPEC nations should barter. We give them nukes, they give us cheap oil. Don't like that? Okay, then aren't countries free to do what they like with their resources? Or should Saudi Arabia demand that we cut down all the forests in Alaska to send cheap lumber to the desert.
I want my jet pack!! This gets to something you mentioned before in your post about oil and fertilizer. I believe you used the phrase "temporary inelasticity in natural gas supply" (apologies if I just mangled what you said) I fear that petroleum products in general may be approaching the point where they are more permanently inelastic than we might like.
It's also worth pointing out the absurdity of Mrs. Clinton's energy policy. She wants to cut the gasoline tax and somehow also reduce demand for gasoline (as does John McCain, much to his discredit). She also wants to impose a windfall profits tax, and opposes new drilling, and yet somehow intends to bring the price down (all the while reducing supply and increasing demand). Barak Obama deserves credit for refusing to endorse the stupid and demagogic McCain/Clinton gas tax holiday. On the other hand, Obama too promises to bring oil prices down without allowing more drilling--which is voodoo economics if anything is. All of this makes me think that economics ought to be a required course in high schools. Perhaps if people knew a little more about the subject, they wouldn't get duped by snake oil salesmen promising to abolish the laws of supply and demand.
On the other hand, Obama too promises to bring oil prices down without allowing more drilling--which is voodoo economics if anything is. Well, you could sharply decrease demand. To illustrate the principle, say you raised gasoline taxes to 1000 per cent. That might not actually bring world oil prices down, given that the taxes would only affect US demand and not rising Chinese and Indian demand, but it would put significant downward pressure on the price of oil. And increased drilling isn't going to be anywhere near enough to compensate for rising Chinese and Indian demand either, so saying that would "bring oil prices down" is just as voodoo-economicky as saying decreased demand would.
"You know you're going to bankrupt the country with your healthcare plan." Just an amicable discussion between two people who both see the American people as sheep to be led. They're both rich - why should they care if the country is bankrupt? It is disconcerting to me to continue to see political discussion progressively don the shit-eating grins normally reserved for the D-listers spilling gossip on Access Hollywood.
brooksfoe, of course one way to bring the price of oil down would be to decrease demand by imposing large gasoline taxes. But I haven't heard Obama proposing that (though again he deserves praise for rejecting the gas tax holiday). As for supply, of course increasing domestic production would not have a huge effect, but it would have some effect. Noone who knows anything about economics can deny that increasing supply will, ceteris paribus, bring prices down. Drilling in ANWR and offshore would certainly help. The more we drill, the more it will help. Moreover, we will certainly be using up a lot of oil for decades to come, so it makes sense to produce more of it ourselves and reap the benefits, rather than sending the profits abroad. It's just foolish to allow environmental fanaticism to prevent sensible energy policy, and increased domestic production is an important part of sensible energy policy. So I'm for increased gas taxes (or carbon emissions taxes) and for increased domestic production. The case for both policies is strong.
Take a chill pill, Megan, for cryin' out loud. Sue the pharmas for not giving us immortality yet. If they'd done that then the wait for the flying car would've been, in perspective, brief.
As an Alaskan, can I sue Hillary for not supporting drilling in ANWR? Perhaps we should maximize our production before criticizing others. (Before I'm mobbed for suggesting this, do you realize 45% of our vast state is in National Parks, wildlife reserves, and wilderness areas.)
Moreover, we will certainly be using up a lot of oil for decades to come, so it makes sense to produce more of it ourselves and reap the benefits, rather than sending the profits abroad. Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps ANWR is functioning as an (unintended) extension of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. If you really believe other countries are running out of oil, and further that we will continue to need oil for years to come, it makes sense to defer tapping our own reserves while oil remains readily available from elsewhere. Not that I think this is in any way an explicitly considered policy, but it's not necessarily a bad outcome.
"If you really believe other countries are running out of oil, and further that we will continue to need oil for years to come, it makes sense to defer tapping our own reserves while oil remains readily available from elsewhere." But I want ANWR oil now!
rwe, Drilling in ANWR and offshore would certainly help. The more we drill, the more it will help. ...So I'm for increased gas taxes (or carbon emissions taxes) and for increased domestic production. The case for both policies is strong. Perhaps this would help a little, but with the price of oil skyrocketing and many saying peak oil has been reached, then the longer we can hold off on drilling the ANWR reserves, the more valuable those reserves become. I mean I know Americans and America aren't big on the whole notion of saving for a rainy day, but this oil seems to me to be one of the most valuable assets we now own. Let it appreciate significantly enough and, down the road, perhaps China will forgive all our debts for a few barrels. Just a thought from the idiot who thought yesterday was Thursday and that 2.6 X 2 = 4.2!
Can we sue Obama, Hillary and McCain for banning drilling for new oil in America?
Of course Hillary's reasoning on gas tax it silly. In an earlier time, it was the kind of thing that would have been written into Gracie Allen's script and the style of reasoning would have been called 'female', or 'womanish', or 'just the thing a woman would say'. My, how far we have come! McCain was the originator of this idea. New conspiracy theory: he said it in order to entrap Hillary into displaying her 'true nature'. Could McCain be that smart and devious? I don't think so. On producing from ANWAR: to do this is crazy. That resource should be reserved from production until AFTER global warming has made northern Alaska an environment already devastated by climate change, and until a substantial fraction of American population has moved there to avoid the heat in the lower 40.
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Well, but maybe we could sue them for being a cartel that could, in principle, have gotten together to restrict output and charge higher prices at some point in the '90s if they had been slightly less fractious and more competent, and hadn't been so busy pumping as much as they could and charging low prices.
Posted by brooksfoe | May 1, 2008 10:13 AM