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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: Elroy who wrote (319865)	1/10/2007 3:07:22 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) of 1574035

I think the point he is making is do you accept that that's the way things are ie we have an oil dependency on the ME, or do you try to change things? IMO not trying to change this negative dependency is very wrong. In a global economy some nations will always be dependent on others. The Brits were dependent on the Chinese for tea, the Swiss are dependent on the Americans for PC operating systems, the Japanese are dependent on other countries for almost all commodities, etc. It's a natural reaction to individual country's specialization or their possession of natural resources. I agree with you to a degree. It would be very difficult for a developed nation to be self sufficient. At the same time, oil carries a greater weight than tea or even pc operating systems. The US is a cold nation.....it needs oil to heat itself. It could turn to its vast coal reserves but then there would be considerable environmental degradation. We would survive but with an increase in medical costs and a significant decrease in our quality of life. I'm not sure the US's dependency on oil is necessarily bad. It allows Americans a higher quality of life (we drive everywhere) and allows our economy to run more smoothly than it would if we did not buy foreign oil. The fact that we buy it proves that it is worth more to us than the $58 per barrel that it costs us, or we wouldn't buy it. Right? We would rather have oil be free, but it's not, so our decision to purchase it from Arabs implies that the benefit we get from Arab oil outweighs its cost. If not, we wouldn't buy. No? Yes, but then oil is very expensive for us because we use it in many different ways. Its a major contributor to US trade deficits and helps make the US a debtor nation. Since the cost is significant, I think its in our best fiscal interest to reduce that dependency as much as possible.......if not for other reasons. When I say other reasons, I am referring to something like the situation in Europe.......where Russia is holding nations hostage for their oil and NG whenever they don't like what that nation is doing. I would not want the US to be put in the position of a Germany or a Poland where their NG or oil could be turned off at a moment's notice as a punitive measure.

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