Gas prices won’t be going down any time soon…
…if OPEC has anything to say about it:
PEC talks broke down in acrimony Wednesday without an agreement to raise output after Saudi Arabia failed to convince the oil cartel to lift production.
“We were unable to reach an agreement — this is one of the worst meetings we have ever had,” said Ali al-Naimi, oil minister for Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest producer…
The United States had put pressure on Saudi to deliver a credible deal to cap crude prices and underpin faltering economic growth.
Note, by the way, the list of countries opposing the Saudis and the three other Gulf states wanting the raise: Libya, Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Venezuela, Iraq and Iran.
Iraq says no: the ingrates. Why does it seem all the countries we liberate or protect seem to piss on us? Another reason to elect Conservatives to increase domestic drilling and nuclear.
Imagine that. We’ve groveled, apologised profusely and even made NASA an outreach program to these people and they still don’t love us. How can that be? Hmmmm
I wouldn’t worry. All the opposition countries will probably be cheating by this time tomorrow. I claim no expertise but when prices go up more people drill and pump driving prices down.
BTW, factoid, corrected for inflation oil prices were at there max in the 1890s.
also
Barry Rubin summed Obama’s Israel peace program in 200 words at the Rubin Report today.
1. To those brilliant practitioners of grand strategy, George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama:
Thanks a lot, Chimpy! Thanks a lot, Chumpy!
2. Here’s a crazy idea: let’s fight wars on the basis of our national interest: enlightened national interest on occasion, but national interest.
3. If Teddy Roosevelt were President, there’d be a production increase and no nonsense about it.
4. The OPEC meeting ended in a split between our intelligent enemies, led by the Saudis, and our stupid enemies. Maybe an intelligent game plan is overly cautious and unnecessary when the Obama administration is your adversary.
5. Hong Says: Iraq says no: the ingrates. Why does it seem all the countries we liberate or protect seem to piss on us?
Don’t ask about Kuwait.
Opportunists really cant be blamed when their opportunity is the result of stupidity of someone else’s
ie.. dont blame them for grabbing a ring presented to them, blame the presenter.
Why does it seem all the countries we liberate or protect seem to piss on us?
for the same reason a teenager pisses on mom and dad to show they are not under mom and dad any more.
How can that be?
we resent needing…
This has little to do with geopolitics, and everything to do with economic policy.
Oil producers don’t want to cap prices because they figure Obama’s policies are inflationary, and they don’t want to be paid in cocktail napkins. They figure that Obama will use the remaining stimulus funds to try to buy the election with false temporary prosperity, and then inflate his way out of the problem later. They know that the only reason interest rates haven’t shot northwards is that we’re buying our own debt now that foreign investors, like OPEC, are skittish, and for the same reason.
In a way, their resistance is good. OPEC isn’t willing to pretend our currency is now (or in the near future, will be) worth more than it really is, as Obama would like in the run up to the election. Ramped up oil prices will hurt the economy, but they are realistic, and will also hurt Obama’s chances of re-election.
As always, reality bats last.
“Reality bats last.”
That’s likely to be true on a whole bunch of subjest very soon, Occam.
It has always struck me as strange that we expect other countries to drill and produce more oil for us when we are unwilling to drill our own oil.
It’s a shame there’s no oil available here in the USA that can be drilled or that can be extracted from oil shale… There’s always Brazil’s offshore oil to purchase, right?
And while we’re at it, let’s send a few tens of billions to Greece, as BHO said today. Why not? We don’t have our own debt to pay, so we’ll pay someone else’s. /sarc off
Obama is in the process of being hoist on his own ideological petard. Many of the things he could do or support to give the economy a boost are off limits to the left. He could open oil and gas exploration without restriction. He could allow the repatriation of overseas profits without penalty. He could eliminate capital gains taxes on houses bought for investment. He could lower corporate income taxes to European levels.
He’s shot his wad with that political stimulus bill, and now he is twisting in the wind.
Excerpt from Jewel Fern’s “Deep Planet Six:”
In a little wadi of Saudi Arabia, Mr. Hope-and-Change sat down with Mr. John Holdren to discuss what went wrong.
Mr. Hope-and-Change frowned at the sun.
“Well,” he sighed, we just didn’t communicate enough. If I could just have given that last speech. . .” His voice trailed off; he raised a cigarette to his mouth but his turban had dislodged and needed re-fastening. Mr. Hope-and-Change hadn’t quite acquired the necessary turban tying skills. He seized the turban strand and attempted to rip it off his head but only succeeded in throwing himself onto the sand.
Mr. Holdren was unperturbed. “Next time we’ll use more science.”
Mr. Hope-and-Change twitched his cigarette and ran his hands through the sand. A small pile emerged. “Did you ever actually know what the hell you were doing? he asked.”
“Never have,” said Mr. Holdren, “but that’s not the method of science. We’ve learned how to make our own reality. You don’t actually have to know anything.”
He would have gone on. It was his favorite subject. But Mr. Hope-and-Change had heard it all before and had fallen asleep chewing on his turban. Mr. Holdren was unperturbed.
There is plenty of untapped sources natural gas and oil in the US. If I were a Republican presidential candidate I would be hammering Obama for his handling of energy policy and making clear that fuel costs can be much lower with different management.
Mr. Frank,
You are so spot on.
Instead, just yesterday Obama and his helpers did this:
EPA demanded more environmental studies on Keystyone XL pipeline to be built from the oil sands area of Alberta, Canada to Houston, Texas. The construction would probvide 20,000 jobs, much new investment (Canadian investment), and an improvement in our oil infratsructure. Read about it here:
http://www.thirdage.com/news/oil-sands-pipeline-epa-seeks-extended-review_06-07-2011
The Wildlife Sertvice is going to list the Sand Dune Lizard of West Texas and eastern New Mexico as an endangered species. This has been on th=eir to-do list for some years now. Now that oil is getting scarcer isn’t this just the best time to do this? If successful, it will end oil production in the two most prolific oil producing counties in the continental U.S. It will also destroy many thousands of good jobs in Texas and New Mexico.
Read about it here:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/West-Texas-oil-industry-suffers-case-of-reptile-1408757.php
Can it get any worse? The answer, unfortunately, is, “YES!”
“He’s shot his wad with that political stimulus bill, and now he is twisting in the wind.”
After QE2 ends there will be a brief pause and then QE3, after QE3 there will be QE4, and so on until 11/6/12. The only question is will they be able to kick the can down the road before the road ends.
“If successful, it will end oil production in the two most prolific oil producing counties in the continental U.S. It will also destroy many thousands of good jobs in Texas and New Mexico.”
The progressives of the ruling class could care less about jobs, its all about their agenda. Let ’em eat food stamps.
All the middle east has is oil. When that is gone, what? Greece has history and old buildings, that’s it. And if the rest of the “free world” doesn’t have the disposable income necessary to visit Greece and see those old buildings, well….
The rhetorical question: How can a whole nation go broke? Alas, now we know how. Run our nation like we have to run our households. It ain’t rocket science. It’s “have to”.
“”All the middle east has is oil.””
br549
And some pretty nice rugs & baskets.
Way late to this discussion, but the U.S. doesn’t really buy that much oil from the middle east. It’s a signicant portion- about 17%- but this group seems to carry more weight from a perception standpoint than actual sales.