He’s blaming Obama for high gas prices. I love this line:
Obama has focused on alternative energy and other long-term strategies to bring down gas prices by decreasing demand.
Many republicans say prices will drop if we increase the supply.
So Democrats don’t believe that? Only Republicans are familiar with the law of supply and demand?
to bring down gas prices by decreasing demand.
The point in decreasing demand isn’t so much to bring down prices (we can’t reduce demand as fast as other countries will increase it), as to reduce the impact of high prices.
prices will drop if we increase the supply
We have even less control over supply than we do over demand, which is why you don’t see any historic relationship between US oil production and US gas prices (see this, particularly the attached charts). We can’t drill ourselves to a world where the middle class in China and India drives to work, and we still only pay $3/gallon.
Why would we want to reduce the impact of high prices? How else, aside from charging high gas prices, could we fairly discourage people from consuming scarce gas in a supply crisis?
I think Jim would prefer government-issued ration cards. Hey, it worked for FDR!
How else, aside from charging high gas prices, could we fairly discourage people from consuming scarce gas in a supply crisis?
We don’t have an alternative to high gas prices (other than, say, another global recession). We do have an alternative to high gas prices that trigger economic shocks and recessions, and that’s to reduce the share of our income going to gasoline.
Jim, you are becoming increasingly more delusional every day. Sorry that the Obama thing isn’t working out for you.
We can’t drill ourselves to a world where the middle class in China and India drives to work, and we still only pay $3/gallon
Well, we could, if we could drill enough oil internally to provide our needs at that price, and refused to participate in the global market.
It might be practically impossible (I have no idea if our theoretical supplies could produce enough at such a price), and it would be economically ridiculous to subsidize “cheap gas” by refusing to sell oil more profitably to the rest of the world, but it’s not impossible in the way you suggest, on its face.
(Also, is that $3 in current dollars? Future dollars with what level of inflation? Past dollars from what year?)
if we could drill enough oil internally to provide our needs at that price
We can’t.
and refused to participate in the global market
If we’re willing to do that, we might as well just fix the price of gas.
Cheap gas, or a free market: pick one.
So Democrats don’t believe that? Only Republicans are familiar with the law of supply and demand?
Increasingly, yes.
Notice that many Democrats deny the very existence of the Laffer curve, which is essentially the application of the law of supply and demand to taxes. And many deny that subsidizing unemployment, illegitimate children, and spendthrift ways produces more of those things. And also notice just how many will get red in the face pounding their fist on the table insisting that reducing the supply of health care while simultaneously subsidizing it will dramatically lower its price.
None of this is rational, but it is quite common.
We can’t.
So when did you become a renowned petrogeologist Jim?
Feel free to find a renowned petrogeologist to rebut.
To put it another way: US oil consumption has exceeded production for decades, through Republican and Democratic administrations, and today production is far below its historic peak. The burden of proof is on anyone who thinks we can snap our fingers and produce significantly more oil than we ever have, at prices low enough to result in $3/gal gas.
Consumption has exceeded production because it’s been cheaper to buy it than extract it. And the reason for that is environmental regulation here. Snapping fingers isn’t necessary. Sensible regulatory reform is all that is required. You really sound like that scares you. Why?
Consumption has exceeded production because it’s been cheaper to buy it than extract it.
In other words, it hasn’t been possible to extract it at costs that would result in $3/gal gas, which was my point.
Sensible regulatory reform is all that is required.
“Sensible regulatory reform” might as well be “abracadabra”.
I’d love it if the US was as self-sufficient in oil as we are in natural gas and coal. We just aren’t.
In other words, it hasn’t been possible to extract it at costs that would result in $3/gal gas, which was my point.
Those are other words, but they’re not words that follow from what he wrote. We aren’t extracting it in quantity at the requisite price because it hasn’t made economic sense in the past to do so when oil was far below a hundred dollars a barrel. Shale actually can produce oil at prices that allow gas below $3/gallon, but we haven’t yet made the investment to do so (in part because much of it has been fenced off by the federal government, or some western states, or both).
The industry doesn’t invest based on price spikes because they’d lose their shirts as soon as Saudi Arabia turns on the tap and floods the market. Coal to liquids was competitive in Europe until Saudi Arabia obliterated it with cheap oil.
Prices can’t stay at these levels indefinitely because once the industry decides that these levels are remaining, investors will go ahead and take the plunge into new projects like shale oil and coal to liquids (which are competitive with oil at about the $60/bbl price level).
Aside from that, there’s drilling on private land which has seen US production increase. North Dakota has gone from nearly nothing to being the fourth largest US producer in just a couple of years, and they’re just ramping up. California has a field bigger than the Bakken that they haven’t even tapped yet, and the Texas Eagle Ford area is just starting up, too. Eagle Ford, an area 50 miles wide and 400 miles long, produced 1091 barrels of oil in 2007, 4.3 million barrels in 2010, and 30.4 million barrels in 2011. It had 26 drilling permits issued in 2008 and 2,826 permits issued in 2011.
We can’t.
Yes we can.™ We have chosen not to.
Good thing Jim’s man has convinced Canada to raise it’s prices. He keeps arguing what can’t be done with his finger on the scale.
Is there any shred of evidence that any Obama policy results in lower costs?
Any? Anywhere?
Pack it up, go home. Close down all the oil compaies. They can’t do anything to help. We are all f’d. Only green can save us but it wont be able to for another 50 years so until then we have to go back to living in the stone age.
Wow that’s some powerful Hope and Change.
“Only Republicans are familiar with the law of supply and demand?”
Pretty much, yeah. But you knew that. 🙁
Both sides are familiar with it, but the Democrat version is “You demand something, and the government supplies it!” 😐
If we were really trying to reduce demand for gasoline we’d see the government pushing car manufacturers to develop compressed natural gas cars and expand the availability of CNG filling stations. And providing tax credits to people to install CNG compressors in their homes. Rather we get billions of dollars thrown at solar, wind power, and electric cars. Electric cars that nobody wants because just the act of turning on the heater on a chilly morning will leave you stranded on the side of the way on your way to work. It’d be fair quicker and more practical to convert current ICE engines to CNG than to try and reboot the electric car. But I guess Obama thinks we are supposed to sacrifice for the glorious vision of Dear Leader and completely abandon 150 years of automotive innovation. So, just shut-up and shiver in your little egg cars as you drive to your green sustainable job of the future.