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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (186076)	4/5/2004 12:57:14 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575380

And the problem is not just economic, it's political and strategic. They have us by the balls. We are being forced to fight oil wars, and with the mess we've whipped up in the ME, there is a significant risk that oil flow from the region could be interrupted by unforeseen events, at a moments notice. John, I can't remember if I posted it last nite or only saw it on the news but the Saudi ambassador to DC is telling us that our increasing gas prices are our own fault and have little to do with the price of crude. He stated that the US has not built a new refinery in 20 years, and consequently, not enough gas is being refined to cover demand. Aside from being true to an extent although the rising price of crude does have an impact, the Saudis essentially are saying fukk you and stop your whining. Definitely, a major attitude change from just two years ago and any help they used to give in keeping oil prices down has gone out the window. Its another wake up call that we will ignore to our own detriment. ted

To: Road Walker who wrote (186076)	4/9/2004 9:45:08 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1575380

In your utopian free market world, companies would be the first to seize upon the threat of rising energy prices, and would invest now to save later. The reality of the market is that they don't look past the next quarterly earnings, and most won't spend a nickle now to save a dime in three years. I never claimed that it would be a utopia if we had less government interference in the economy or that private companies are superbly efficent and wise at allocating resources and making production decisions. I just think they are better at it then government, and they also have the advantage of being subject to market discipline. Energy is already one of the most regulated industries, it not like your fooling around with an Ayn Rand capitalist utopia. I suppose all this regulation has brought about a wonderful situation where we don't have to worry about energy... More government spending and regulation in this area will probably just waste more resources mandating bad ideas and possibly take money away from other ideas that would be better solutions. Even if I stay narrowly focused on energy concerns (and ignore the tax cost and yet another round of our country becomeing less free) I see no reason to think a massive increase in government involvement will do much good. Instead we get things like "gasahol". And it will take a massive rethink in our consumption based society. I think any government pushed attempt to massively rethink and reorganize our society is likely to have negative effects and possibly will have disastrous effects. Not directly related to this topic but some people might enjoy the link I posted here Message 20008341 Tim