Friday, October 10, 2008
Anybody else notice??...
that oil is down over 40% since the President lifted the ban on offshore drilling? It's amazing what happens when you take action to solve a problem and stop talking about it. Now, let's get the rigs up and running.
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3 comments:
What's amazing is that lifting the ban has not yet resulted in any more oil brought into the market. It will take over ten years from the start of new drilling projects before any oil is brought to market even if we start today. So that means that the price of oil was inflated from the beginning. I'm afraid also that you may be seeing what we sociologists (regardless of our madness) call a spurious correlation. The price of oil has dropped, the ban was lifted, therefore the lifting of the ban caused the oil to drop. Of course, that can't be the case for the reason stated above (supply and demand). So what are some other variables that might cause this phenomenon? Perhaps the reduction of risky speculation in our now collapsed market has had an positive impact on oil prices. Could also be that we are closing in on election time and any major reduction in oil will benefit the incumbent party, in this case John McCain, whose campaign is top heavy with major oil executives. Let's see, what happened the last time we elected a president whose campaign was top heavy with major oil executives? Hmmmm! Anyway, I will bet that the drop in oil prices will be made up for in the end. To quote a famous Alaska, "donchu worry...youbetcha."
For all of the talk about not being for either candidate - you sure seem to have the Obama talking points down cold...
I don't really know the Obama talking points, so if they match, that's coincidence. I'm simply pointing out that correlation does not mean causation, which is something that both parties forget very often when they present so called statistical data. In this issue, the best analysis I found is that the reduction of gas is best explained by a reduction in demand. Either way, it is obvious that since the supply of oil hasn't changed much, and the demand hasn't gone down as quickly as the price, that the previous price was heavily inflated. That combined with massive profits for the oil industry lately should ring some bells. The most disappointing thing to me is that neither candidate is addressing this issue. They both have plans for reducing oil prices, and each plan has its merits, but neither of them is really talking about dealing with the corporate greed that is fueling the fuel crisis. The only candidate so far who is is Ralph Nader (and I'm just reporting what I see. I'm not saying I'm voting for Nader)
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