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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (93175)	4/13/2003 11:46:29 AM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<< There is nothing stopping us from making long term alliances, agreements,future trades, etc with oil suppliers outside of the middle east to achieve the stable energy needs free of ME politics. I read once that only 3% of our oil comes from ME. The problem is that even if did not need ME oil at all, we would still consider it a vital interest because it is very profitable and because the rest of the world depends on it.>>> Iraq is going to be a glorious success as a reborn Nation. The alliances that America makes contribute a lot to world stability but the value is hard to compute, wih no refence or precedent to compare it to. What happens if you do not do something? China loosened its borders, reworked its laws for foreign companies, encouraged them to come into the country and the result has to be that many jobs and new industries were created which would improve peoples lives ( at least in the way we would call improved) and diminish greatly the discontent and revolts. So now China is on a roll, and their trade with outside Nations make new jobs in those countries also.And to continue its trade, the leaders in China will, IMO, take steps to correct some of their oppression in order to retain the value of that trade if others insist they do that. . As far as the concern about oil, the British thought they were running out of coal in the late 1800's. Didn't happen. Coal reserves world wide were recently calculated to last for 1000 years at the present rate of consumption And coal can be converted to gasoline or another liquid fuel. Natural gas supplies are enormous also, but need expensive pipelines to become more available It is not the supplies that should cause the worries, it is the cost of extraction or conversion of the fossil fuels Shortages discussed today are mostly an invention of the oil companies, who want those government bucks and approval to drill wherever they want. American wells were once able to make a profit at $8 /barrel. Costs are more today, but $30/barrel gives them huge profits if they were not so stinking greedy and continually investing in expansion. My opinion is that the government should go back to taxing the gas-guzzlers, and enforce the CAFE requirements for economy implemented in the 1970's This is not about money or taxes, its just a way to keep people thinking about economy in their daily lives, and in their businesses. Calilfornia thought they were running out of electricity in 2001 - Didn't happen The problem has simply vanished at least from national news,with some new charges to Californians, I suppose. Sig