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Politics : Dutch Central Bank Sale Announcement Imminent? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: long-gone who wrote (15714)	9/29/2002 7:24:47 PM
From: sea_urchin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81108

long-gone >If we can, once & for all time, destroy the value of petroleum & break the back of OPEC, we will have good as destroyed Radical Islam OK, now the penny has dropped. Now I understand what you are getting at. I hadn't thought about that before nor, in fact, have I read about it. So, in fact, the US is actually at war with all the Arab countries and all the oil producers with the intention of getting hold of the taps that control the flow of production and opening them wide. So wide, in fact, that oil has no particular value. Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story, however. As Rockefeller showed us a hundred years ago, the real profits in the oil business are in its distribution and not in its extraction from the ground. In fact, to a considerable extent, if you compare the price of gasoline at the pump in most places in the world to the cost of the oil itself you will find very little relationship. The reason is that governments use petroleum and its products as a vehicle for taxation. (Pun intended) The US, in fact, has virtually the cheapest petroleum and oil in the world simply because the taxes applied to its sale are probably the lowest. In Europe, UK, Japan etc gasoline costs much more than in the US for this reason. Accordingly, even if, after the war which you envisage, the basic cost of oil could fall to nothing, the cost of petroleum throughout the world is likely to fall very little. Of course, I understand that the prime reason for bringing down the oil price is not to lower its cost to the end user but the profit to the producers --- who are the "bad guys". But, I also know, because I wasn't born yesterday, that once the "good guys" are in control of the taps that control the flow of oil, instead of opening them wide, as you suggest, they will keep them closed as tight as possible. After all, why should they throw away money? If they can get $50 a barrel, why should they take any less? By way of example let me mention food production. As you know, the US has such efficient production of corn that it can give away thousands, possibly millions, of tons to so-called starving multitudes in Africa or elsewhere. Now I ask you, why doesn't the US give the corn away in America and let its own people get the benefit? I'll tell you. They would rather burn the corn than lower its price. So what makes you think they will give the oil away? What you are proposing, however, is tantamount to piracy or armed robbery. For whatever reason, let's call it terrorism, you are suggesting that your country must make war with one of the purposes being to plunder someone else. It's exactly the same as African, armed robbers, here in SA, believe they are right to to steal money from a bank or someone's home or hi-jack a car. They argue that the whites took their land and the robbery is simply a way to obtain from the whites, and clearly not the ones who might have taken the land, what they say is rightly theirs. Well, if that's the way the world has to be then I'm glad I don't have too many years left on this earth.