Travellinguist's Musings

Falling Gas Prices and "Sending Messages"

So gas prices fell slightly recently and John McCain said that it was because president Bush lifted the ban on off-shore oil drilling. Well, if this is true, it would be based on the perception that someday we might have oil of our own, since it would take a decade or more to actually have any oil (probably after we finished wiping out polar bears and other forms of wildlife in toxic spills and disasters).
Well, assuming for a second that McCain's logic is sound, that the OPEC people began releasing more light, sweet crude because they wanted to placate us and make us stop planning to one day drill and one day in a decade or so have some little bit MORE oil of our own, since we do produce oil, and also since major oil companies hold dozens of off-shore leases which they don't even bother using already, then we see something else. If the fear that we might no longer be dependent upon OPEC oil is making them open up the spigot can you imagine if we seriously tried to show the world that we were going to go off oil altogether, foreign and domestic? If that were the case not only would OPEC open more spigots, but ExxonMobil and other Big Oil American companies with endless record profits skinned off of our backs would also start using their existing leases to open their spigots. We might have the perfect storm where EVERYONE, not just Saudis and Venezuelans and Nigerians were trying to flood the market with enough oil to make us forget such silly things as clean, renewable power like wind, solar and biomass.
It worked in the 1980s after Reagan came into office. Jimmy Carter had challenged America to be free of oil and foreign oil by the 1990s. He was run out of town on a rail and suddenly the Saudis were pumping oil like there was no tomorrow (because there wouldn't have been for them. They'd have been strung up by their own people long ago if not for the mercenary armies and police forces they buy with our oil payments to keep the Kingdom "stable.") and prices dropped. Consequently we forgot all about Jimmy Carter's bold challenge, used him as joke fodder and hooked ourselves ever more deeply into the oil, which is now blowing up our economy as I write.
Taking McCain's logic as sound, if threatening to drill opened up foreign oil supplies than threatening to go off oil altogether should open EVERY spigot and drop prices quickly enough that we could completely forget about alternative energy until the next crisis. But oh yeah, that is the problem. McCain's logic is not sound. He is a crank, old fool speaking to audiences of people who, like him, don't know how to use computers or the internet or understand the economics of monopoly which allow these oil companies to squeeze every last dime out of us as our homes are foreclosed. Some basic economic theory could straighten this all out, but well economics pretends it's a science and like the real sciences, Americans are woefully ignorant of its rules, precepts and theories.

Labels: McCain energy oil science drilling alternative energy

posted by travellinguist @ 2:46 PM