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

To: TimF who wrote (340355)	6/14/2007 2:53:15 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575154

re: Oil is a big concern but it isn't the only concern behind Iraq. We wouldn't have sent our troops to occupy Iraq if we were oil independent. re: As for calling the spending on Iraq a subsidy. No I wouldn't call it that. It doesn't lower oil or gasoline prices, if anything the risk premium has increased for now. It does lower oil prices. If the oil companies had to field their own army to protect those assets it would be reflected in the price. Instead the government (you and me) pays. re: OTOH it can reduce the risk of a large increase by preventing oil fields from being seized, or destroyed (destroyed meaning the rigs and pumps are destroyed, obviously the oil would still be in the ground). Is that a subsidy? Well if it is, then police protection of stores is a subsidy for what they sell, and of factories is a subsidy of what they produce. I don't think its very useful to refer to protecting a resource from violent seizure or destruction to be a subsidy. That's domestic, not foreign armies overthrowing other governments. If we threw the same money at efficiency and alt fuels we could get off imported oil, weaken our "enemies", come closer to balancing the trade deficit, and start a bunch of new US businesses based on intellectual property instead of an increasingly precious commodity. It's a no brainer.