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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (18150)	7/15/2005 12:55:32 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

Oil is a commodity. Sure the oil is a commodity, but there is a lot of profit for the company who can take it from the supply to the demand.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (18150)	7/15/2005 11:24:51 AM
From: Bucky Katt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Venezuela uses oil sales, army buildup to defy U.S. LOS ALTOS MIRANDINOS, Venezuela -- As military officials barked orders, more than 300 civilians gathered in the morning hours to practice saluting and precision marching in preparation for possible war. There were homemakers and retirees, lawyers and street vendors, all volunteers of a newly expanded army reserve force that President Hugo Chavez is organizing to defend the country against the United States and other threats. "The United States is the only superpower, but if the people are united we can defeat them," said Arnaldo Cerniar, a 65-year-old retired credit officer who began training three months ago. "We need to defend the country against any aggression." Chavez's recent decision to expand Venezuela's reserve force to as many as 2 million people is only one indication of the growing tensions between this oil-rich nation and the U.S. Although Venezuela continues to sell large quantities of oil to the United States, Chavez has threatened to cut off supplies in the event of an American invasion. U.S. officials have dismissed the idea of a military attack on Venezuela. Nonetheless, Chavez is seeking to diversify crude-oil sales away from the U.S. and has reoriented Venezuela's foreign policy toward its Latin American neighbors and other nations, such as Iran. Chavez recently signed a pact with 13 Caribbean nations to sell them discounted oil and has pushed oil and gas accords with South American nations to counter U.S. power in the region. So far, U.S. efforts to isolate Chavez diplomatically have failed. At a recent meeting of the Organization of American States, the U.S. couldn't muster enough support to set up a permanent committee to monitor democracy in the region, a proposal that was widely interpreted as aimed at Venezuela. William LeoGrande, dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington and an expert on Latin America, said OAS members rejected the measure because Chavez is democratically elected and because the U.S. is disliked in a region where free-market measures have failed to ease poverty. He said the OAS failure leaves the U.S. with few options to contain Chavez. "The problem the administration has is that there are not many levers the U.S. can use," LeoGrande said. "As a principal supplier of oil, Venezuela is still commercially important to the U.S." Many argue that the U.S. criticism has allowed Chavez to benefit politically by playing the nationalist card. "Every time Condoleezza Rice attacks Chavez, his approval rating goes up 2 or 3 percentage points," said Luis Vicente Leon, a pollster and Chavez critic. By Gary Marx Tribune foreign correspondent Published July 15, 2005 chicagotribune.com

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (18150)	7/15/2005 8:43:31 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

Oil is a very scarce, badly needed, no-free-market commodity.. Most consumers consume it through non-commodity long term contracts, although the spot-markets might be seen as something like a commodity-market, by those willing to do so?? I still remember when Bush I, somewhat angry after he had lost his second election, on a republican campaign finance party, got orgastic about how he saved US for the $100/barrel commodity and consumer gas-market (and nobody thanks him for that, not even the Saudis) PS How did you come to the conclusion that oil was a commodity?? (obviously, that depends on the definition of 'commodity')

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (18150)	7/15/2005 8:47:26 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

Very few commodities have price-ranges of $0.05 to $0.25 to $60?? no?? What was it, 5 cents a gallon somewhere..not even subsidized.. Refining technologies is obviously not a commodity market, considering the costs of handling all the different "qualities" plus emissions stuff. Good old diesel-engines are not even a commodity these days?? (improved refinement technologies, as well as refined diesel-engines) commodity?? commodity global free markets??? OK, some say the Atlantic adds $2-3/barrel in transportation costs, much less than the Pacific for Wal-Mart t-shirts.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (18150)	7/15/2005 8:59:32 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Respond to of 20773

How come the commodity-saudis agreed to an average US-commodity price of $9-15, after Bush I, but during Clinton?? (as well as a 70-90% drop in saudi lifestyle, not to forget Irak and Kuwait??) Despite the fact that $20-28 would have a non-commodity-price?? (Venezuelan oil is actually pretty expensive to drill for, they said $14-18 was the minimum) PS I remember when Texas was going for $150/barrel (probably $300-600 in the dolares of today) commodity?? PS The rumor is that the saudi commodites was even much cheaper, due to the long-term contracts, but one will probably never know.. exscept for declassication of the Bush Tribe and the agreements. (probably much cheaper than the Saddam commodities to both old-NATO-Turkey, buddy-Jordan and Syria) commodity?? PPS The slanted-drilling BP-Kuwaitis was even more funnier commodities, as was the Shah and many more.. (it is going even more commodity these decades, no??)

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (18150)	7/15/2005 9:47:10 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Respond to of 20773

Commodity cookies, sniffed from (the) between the pages?? maybe it is a matter of defining all those words?? I think this particular quote was more (in english) something like "sniffing cocain from ?? (kind-of two (vaginal??) pages) of (the-your-our??) bible (book of babbling, the talking (babbling) book??)" plus something about "what the US liberals do" ("liberal" must be one of the top-funniest words defined in babble-americanish??) C-SPAN is great.. especially C-SPAN3, especially that stuff which is not archived that they tend to stream. (totally free commodity on global internet, although an extra 10 cents/month for the US cable-viewers) Bless them.. ( Ouch, they are getting down to Judith Miller again)