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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (17076)	4/19/2010 4:41:07 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

OT I don't think your definition is the common one. Mine might be stronger than the common one, but at least a weaker version of my definition is probably what most people mean by "energy independence", and a decent number of people really to mean the total independence suggested by my definition. Do I support your definition of energy independence? - "setting up some buffers so that we can't be held hostage by hostile oil producing countries." Well I'm not sure. Its rather vague. Their are major problems for any oil producing nations trying to hold us hostage is the wide spread production of oil. The US produces a chunk for its own use, and then Mexico and Canada are major sources. I'm not sure they are at all likely to join the effort. Another problem for anyone attempting to do so is that for many of the oil produces oil is their main source of revenue and they would take a terrible hit by not selling it (and if they just try not selling to the US, than the oil gets sold on to us by others). Another problem for anyone attempting to do this is that it lower demand for their product going forward, as it encourages conservation, new sources of production, and alternatives. And another point is that many oil exporters are rather dependent on imports which they may lose if they cut off oil (both as a retaliatory gesture, and because they won't have as much money for imports), for example Iran relies on imports of refined oil products. They might be able to get their refining done by other oil produces who are participating in the withholding of oil, but the attempt is at least complicated by their need for the imports. And several major oil produces rely to an extent on US security guarantees. Good examples are Iraq and Kuwait, to a lesser extent Saudi, and even to a small extent even countries like Canada and Mexico (Canada having a formal alliance that Mexico does not, but its not like we would let some hostile foreign power invade Mexico). Several of those issues are true to a greater extent than they where at the time of the Arab oil embargo in the 70s. So such steps might not be very important, but I'm not necessarily opposed to having some of them, for example I'm not calling for the elimination of the strategic petroleum reserve (even though there is some evidence that suggests that its supply effect is mostly canceled by reducing the amount of privately stored oil).