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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (1445)	10/22/2005 7:17:06 PM
From: Seeker of Truth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218447

Hello Good man Jetson, I don't know anybody who thinks that Bush will stop the war that he started in Iraq. So it will continue for at least his term in office, i.e. 3 years and 2 months longer. Also, in that time period the US dollar will sink further, on account of the deficit due to the Iraq spending and overly low taxes. I believe it's conservative to say that USD 35 in Jan. 2009 will have the same purchasing power as USD 27 right now. So if we add some depletion of cheap oil, maybe $40 would be a floor price for investment purchases then. Presumably oil in the market would be selling for substantially above that, in order for $40 to be a floor, say $57? In addition we don't know if the war will end so promptly on inauguration day in 2009. So I understand from your excellent points that energy should be sold some time but we have to carefully consider the exact time. With much thanks, Seeker of Truth PS. I sought and found this time.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (1445)	10/22/2005 9:45:07 PM
From: Slagle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218447

Elroy Re: "Bush War" Bush and his henchmen had some really powerful reason for invading Iraq which is to my mind still a mystery. Those guys are not stupid and support for the operation went far beyond Bush's political allies, otherwise it wouldn't have happened. Maybe the idea was to deny the oil to China or for some other geopolitical reason. Maybe to lend support to the Saudis and the Kuwaitis. There is much logic in your position that there is an abundance of oil in the world. But much of that oil is bound to be right there in the Iraq neighborhood so maybe the purpose of the Iraq invasion was to ensure that this oil would be available at $27.50 or some other reasonable price. I sure don't believe that it was about "democracy" or "WMD's". On the other hand I don't believe that any sort of personal corruption was an important factor. You say that the Iraq invasion is the reason for the high oil price and I suppose that could be so because of the danger and political tensions it caused. But as for reduction of the supply of oil or any big increase in oil use because of the occupation I doubt. This isn't the Normandy invasion. I doubt that we will EVER leave the region now. We may withdraw from contact with the Iraqi population and from involvement in local affairs but I bet we maintain a big base out in the desert (like Guam or Diego Garcia) forever. Slagle

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (1445)	10/23/2005 12:51:02 PM
From: el_gaviero	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218447

I wonder if you are not more confident about oil production than warranted. Your traditional economic argument that supply is a function of price ignores: 1. The declining discovery rate of conventional oil, data for which is reliable. 2. The nature of oil distribution in the crust of the earth – i.e., the existence of a few huge oil provinces, more large provinces, many medium ones, and innumerable small ones. Ten thousand pigmy fields are not the same as one giant, even if the number of barrels in each is the same. 3. Most important of all, your argument ignores a basic fact of life. The marginal cost curve of oil extraction is rising (or soon will be). We don’t know how far from the end of the road we are but with respect to marginal costs we do know this: there IS an end of the road. It is that place where energy needed to secure one BTU rises to equal one BTU. My guess is that tar sands, and all the other stuff out there that people are beginning to exploit, have lousy ratios of energy input to output. With rising marginal costs, keep in mind what this means: each additional barrel of oil has in effect LESS oil than the previous. Even if the number of barrels goes up, the net energy of those barrels is going down. The fact of the matter is that we do not know the true state of the world. Does mankind still have access to a sizable chunk of hydrocarbon energy or not? We just don't know. By temperament I am on the side of limits, but intellectually I know that the matter has not yet been resolved one way or another.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (1445)	10/24/2005 4:20:48 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 218447

Overindebted? Crikey, they'd better get to work then, which means they'll have to crank up production to earn more to repay debt. Which means production going UP, not down. Which means no recession. <We are long over-due for a really bad recession and the consumer is horribly over-indebted, > Recessions aren't like earthquakes and volcanoes, which happen on natural cycles related to tectonic plate movement. There's no need for a recession just because of debt having gone up. If anything, increasing debt means increasing confidence in future production continuing uninterrupted. If fear is in the air, debt will be reduced as creditors put the screws on and stop lending, demanding higher interest rates etc. Mqurice