WARNING -- NOT SOCCER RELATED BUT RAISED EARLIER -- AND ABSOLUTELY ONLY MY OPINION -- WHEN/WHERE I'M WRONG -- I'M THRILLED IF SOMEONE WILL EXPLAIN IT TO ME
KEVIN/KYLE -- IF I'VE SCREWED UP BY PUTTING THIS ON THE SOCCER MESSAGE BOARD, PLEASE DELETE WITH MALICE -- I WAS JUST RESPONDING (my typical excuse!
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>>[Jim Morrison] what is illegal about the american way is that free enterprise monopoly that the oil gods have on us. i bet the gas price will be more of a factor on where kids play rather than the name of the club.
i watch a group of so called experts on tv last and they said nothing has changed as far as the demand for oil since last year.they all said a barrel of oil should be 80 to 90 dollars a barrel.they all agreed there is no reason for the high price.BUSH!!!!<<I put this in its own thread because I figured the SSC thread has everything and the kitchen sink in it.
Here's a chart from an analyst I trust, that jibes with what the vast majority of economists believe, regarding oil demand.
Here's a more recent chart from an oil-industry analyst-related group that includes projections for the next decade+:
Unfortunately, demand is shown as substantially increasing. Supply has been artificially constrained for two reasons: first because a cartel (OPEC) knows that it can increase its profits that way and secondly because one of the top oil producing nations (the United States) has drastically limited exploration for decades while not pursuing viable alternative energy sources (e.g., nuclear or even greatly increasing coal plants -- both due to environmental and financial concerns.)
Regardless of your political leanings, the solution isn't to demonize Bush (at least for this particular issue -- lots of other issues I'm sure are fair game to demonize Bush on!
) And the solution isn't a repeal of the gas tax since the impact on prices would be next to nothing given increased demand. The solution is either to allow prices to keep increasing so that demand is severely decreased (either naturally due to market forces or artificially through a higher tax rate) and/or to drill more oil domestically and/or to build more alternative energy solutions to increase energy supply exclusive of oil.
I guess what I'm saying is that regardless of your political affiliation or leanings, that you want your person running for office and their party to pursue policies that are a bit deeper than tax holidays, "energy independence" (never been sure what that practically means in a world-wide commodity market), or whatever. Either you want policies that will drive energy prices much higher so that there will be conservation and less energy produced -- or you want policies to produce much more energy. I realize that this is a bit less nuanced than the "solutions" on which our politicians like to try to sell us, but in the end that's pretty much it.
P.S. I do a good bit of business with folks in third-world countries and I invest in energy as well as other sectors. I can tell you that if the United States chooses to decrease its energy consumpion, that China, India, and others will be thrilled -- because it will lower their cost of energy while they are building the capital and intellectual infrastructure to better compete with us. That doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't, but it does mean that people should understand that as our share of worldwide gross revenue and intellectual property shrinks, so will our relative standard of living.
