However, you are missing the point of roadwalker's argument. What if we drill the hell out of all our domestic oil supplies at today's prices, we'll be getting around a $65 per barrel (less costs) of economic benefit. Whereas, if our oil companies drilled but held the commodity off the market until scarcity drove up prices, they'd get a higher price per barrel on the open market or our economic would get a higher economic benefit.
Roadwalker is talking about monopolization and cartel manipulation. That's ALREADY occurring internationally as quite a few of the major producers are storing oil in leased tankers in order to prop up prices. But it can't last forever when demand is outstripped by supply.
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Permitting domestic drilling, and increasing the supply of oil works to inhibit such monopolistic collusion by the major suppliers. I also believe that when we see signs of manipulative stockpiling (hoarding), our government should exercise it's option to open up the SDR to counter it.
Also pushing alternatives that are readily implemented (NG vehicle conversion, and even cost competitive PHEV hybrids) decrease demand even further and make it extremely risky for producers to continue to sit on their supply.
But let's look at how hoarding can work to inhibit your alternative energy agenda. You need Lithium for PHEV batteries. Bolivia has 50% of the global supply and China and Afghanistan quite a bit of the rest. Bolivia is setting their terms for exploiting their vast Lithium supply. And now that Obama has advertised his intentions to require the US consumer to rely upon this resource, do the Bolivians have any incentive to cooperate when they know they hold the key to transitioning to this technology? NO!! So they hoard by refusing to permit exploitation of a resource that was previous far less valuable than it will be under Obama's agenda.
They same thing can be done to Copper and Steel production, since the metal is critical to a massive revamping of the national electrical grid (million dollars per mile average cost).
Now.. given that we're seeing such hoarding of a critical energy resource in order to manipulate the oil markets (as well as the USD since many short the dollar and buy oil as a hedge), it kind of begs the question why alternatives are not being pushed harder as a profitable alternative?
Simply because that hoarding is acting as a "Sword of Damocles" over the more costly alternative energy sector. If you invest to replace oil, they will divest of their oil hoardings and crash the price of oil to a more realistic supply/demand level.
So what's the solution? I would like to see consumers provided options to the kind of fuel they use. Converting vehicles to use either NG or gasoline is a start. PHEVs are the holy grail, once we're no longer exposed to Lithium hoarding by Bolivia. But that would require a different energy storage medium, such as ultra-capacitors or some other battery concoction. Also, conservation is not a bad idea, so long as such a policy doesn't place a burden on the consumer that prevents them from performing their daily activities.
Oh.. and btw.. with regard to your comic books. Those are very limited items, depending on the number of copies published. It's also a very limited market.
Neither of these apply to the oil markets. Comic books are not a "commodity" nor are they "fungible".
Hawk |
