Comments on: OPEC issues bizarre oil threat, Financial Times also confused

By: Gary Herstein

Gary Herstein — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:36:26 +0000

“First off, who exactly can speak for the consuming nations and make a binding promise to keep up demand in the face of record-breaking prices? Nobody. This is capitalism.”

Permit me a quibble: the issue here is not capitalism, but market economy. The two are not the same. There have been non-capitalistic market economies (Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia to varying degrees), and non-market capitalisms (Nazi Germany, some of the more aggressively planned Asian systems). I realize this is rather off the main topic here, but it is a distinction worth making.

By: Eric Sutherland

Eric Sutherland — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 05:33:51 +0000

Things are getting strange. At what point will hoard economics kick in? Very few commodities have been depleted into scarcity mode. None that did not have some sort of competive replacement. Oil is different. Hoarding economics is different. Economists have little to no insight into what happens when a market is dominated by purchases dedicated for long term personal reserves.

Marketplace is produced by Public Radio International. A separate network from NPR.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:25:27 +0000

“Marketplace is produced in Los Angeles by American Public Media in association with the University of Southern California.”
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/about/faq.html

Not sure it is wrong to say “NPR’s Marketplace,” though, since it airs on NPR. Like saying “Fox’s American Idol.”

By: Eric Sutherland

Eric Sutherland — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:48:10 +0000

Oil ministers of OPEC countries are rightfully worried. I am sure that any day now American’s are going to start waking up by the millions and discovering what a bunch of pigs they are.

And then as soon as you are done laughing…

Some of the best urban legends floating around are stories of land barons in Wyoming that have just shut off the motors on the heads of productive wells. Who needs more taxable revenue from commodity sales when the sports franchises are doing well?

How long before the overlords of proven reserves decide that wages of production are not good enough, they are being paid with counterfeit money?

Everybody needs a good conspiracy theory once in a while.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:13:00 +0000

We need the high prices to encourage conservation and/or substitution with other fuels- these are the only reliable ways other than government restrictions to make gasoline demand more elastic.

I believe that the Petroleum industry is trying to have its cake and eat it too- it wants to tell us that it has reached Peak Oil so that we will swallow whatever prices come our way, and it wants us to commit to petroleum for years to come lest it reduce production. I think these guys know they are on the way out and want to make as much money as they can before we switch fuels. They are basically blackmailing us while making record profits.

By: Ronald

Ronald — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:06:00 +0000

Obviously this is coming from an old timer at OPEC who remembers 1980 when they got 34 dollars a barrel for a few months and then in 1986 when the price went down to, if I remember right, 12 dollars a barrel.

You might want to look up a quote from george bush during the 2000 presidential campaign where george complained about how Clinton/Gore should be able to reduce the price of oil by just being president and telling OPEC they should reduce the price. Try to get it out to the MSM.

By: Mark Goldes

Mark Goldes — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:08:12 +0000

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By: Ronald

Ronald — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:56:52 +0000

in today’s New York Times…”WAYNE, Mich., June 27 — Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president [sic], he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude. “I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply,” Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, told reporters here today. “Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.”"

I found this quote from George Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign. What an easy way to fix a problem, just ask them nicely.

More from this website on how Bush was going to solve higher oil prices then. (in 2000)

http://www.bushwatch.com/gas.htm