Survey: Price of oil, is it important?
 

Please explain as briefly as you can the scope of oil's use, and explain why the price of oil is unimportant if that is what you think.

Ya know, I posted that hoping to get some replies. But part of me though "that might shut some of these ignorant bastards up".

I love win/win situations! :winkwink:

Well, the price of oil is pretty much the staple drive of the global economy so I would say that yes, it is VERY important. Just look around your house, what isn't made with petrochemcials or treatments? Your computer monitor, the granulated sugar in most of your food, the vegetables you eat, the meat you eat (1kg of beef takes 3/4 of a gallon to produce), the running shoes you wear, the gas you put in your car, backup electricity, almost all clothing is treated with pertochemicals. To make a statement like "the price of oil is unimportant" is uneducated and simply wrong.

Oil is the new gold for determining global economics and wealth so yes, it is very important.

Give that man/woman/barnacle a kewpie doll!!!! Glad the ignorant bastards decided to avoid the discussion.

:winkwink:

It drives me nuts when I hear people say "I don't care about the price of oil, I don't drive" Fucking morons. :1orglaugh

There are very few aspects of life that aren't directly affected by the price of oil.

Directly affected are manufactures that require oil as a raw material, such as plastics. Obviously as the price of oil goes up, so does the price of those manufactured goods.

Indirectly affected are goods that have to be transported. Every train, truck, cargo ship and airplane needs fuel, and currently our fuel source is primarily oil based. The longer it has to travel, the more it gets hit by the rising costs of fuel... so even if you don't drive to the store, your milk, bread and cheese DOES. You'll be paying more.

Additionally, on the topic of food preparation, most of the food grown in the world depends heavily on automation (for tractors, combines, etc) and all those automations are run petrochemically. Thus, oil price increases do a double-whammy on agriculture.

There's far more than this, of course... suffice it to say that an increase in oil prices will permeate every aspect of your daily life (assuming you live in a 1st world country where people don't still cultivate rice by hand and in bare feet). :2 cents:

So far, I haven't heard anyone bring up the third world and emerging nations. If we are to assume that the US is in Iraq as part of a strategy to hold down oil prices, is it not a positive boon to nations whose industrialization is at stake for us to be doing so?

C'mon anit-war Bush-bashing America-haters, I need to hear your comeback to that one. :pimp

I'm not anti-war (I'm a firm believer in SENSIBLE violence) nor an america hater, but I'll bite on this one.

The US did not invade to hold down oil prices. What invasion reasons evolved around oil were done to have CONTROL over the sources, not their prices. Control will AFFECT prices... you're trying to wag the dog if you claim prices are the ultimate goal.

It's entirely understandable why they'd want control. Some of these emerging nations have a substantial amount of power to upend the US economy at will (although it would likely mean economic disaster for them as well... think of the results of china dumping the USD as a reserve currency). Control of energy means the ability to dictate terms. There's no great surprise that china and russia are backing iran... it's not out of any great love to the ayatollah or an idiological thing. They want to secure access to iranian oil.

Ironically, if they would just come out and say "We need that oil because we're running out, you have it and we're going to take it" then at least people would be able to respect the honest stance that we all know is the Realpolitick reason. Instead you have a bunch of jackals preaching feel-good bullshit like 'spreading democracy', or obviously bogus tripe like WMDs.

I'm not saying the US invaded to hold down oil prices, I'm merely presenting that to echo the hypothesis posed on this board by others. Personally I think the US invaded Iraq to get rid of Saddam and his threat to neighboring oil-producing countries. I don't think the US invaded merely to hold down oil prices, I think we invaded as a first step toward preempting any threat to the entire global economy.

Now, the above statement seems to be addled. Control will affect prices... that's what you said. And yet prices aren't the ultimate goal? I'm trying to see how this isn't splitting hairs. Maybe if you explained it more fully?

Simple. You're presenting (perhaps as devil's advocate) that 'oil prices' are the ultimate goal of invasion. I posit that oil CONTROL is the overriding factor, and that prices adjust accordingly.

Control over supply: Cause
Prices of oil: Effect

Claiming that keeping the price of oil down was the ultimate aim is, as I commented before, a 'wag the dog' hypothesis, which doesn't stand up to any serious scrutiny.

Additionally, I haven't seen anyone claim that Iraq was invaded to keep oil prices low. Perhaps I haven't been paying attention, or just skim over such simple mindedness as a result of years tuning my bullshit detector on the 'net.

ask opec.............they will tell you.....

Hmm... Sorry, I still don't see how this is any different from what I said. You seem to be saying that the man got in his car in the morning in order to start the car, and getting to work follows accordingly. I'm saying the man got into his car to go to work. I think we're just arguing semantics. Unless you'd like to expand on your apparent implication about control... :winkwink:

This is a bad analogy. Going to work isn't a consequence of starting the car. You can get to work by walking, biking, bussing, hitching a ride. The goal there is getting to work, not the means to the end (starting and driving the car).

Control over oil does more than affect prices. Control over oil gives you power over other nations. Currently, oil is treated as a commodity and is more or less equally available everywhere at a uniform cost... but in the future, when scarcity becomes an issue the game will change dramatically. The ultimate goal is power, and control over a nation's energy largely equates to control over that nation's sovereignty.

If the price of oil was the ultimate goal, there are myriad ways to affect price that are cheaper and more reliable (stockpiling, for example). I'm sure some sectors of the economy would love more expensive oil, just as others would love cheaper oil, but those factors likely matter little in the overall scheme of power and future supply security.

A factor that hasn't been mentioned which is germaine to the price of oil is the fact that most oil traded is priced in USD, and while the price of oil may be going up heavily against the USD, it's much more gentle against other world currencies... there's an average increase of 25% of other currencies vs the USD over the last 2 years (EUR, JPY, CAD etc) and around a 50% in the price of light crude/barrel. The 'increase' in oil prices seen is as much a reflection of the pisspoor performance of the greenback as a genuine slide up the supply/demand curve.

No oil= no gas=no limos to drive Bush around in

The oil is drying up folks and we'll see the effects of this in 5-20 years. Imagine one day you wake up and there is no gas for your car - or anyone else's. (Don't laugh, it happened to us in Phoenix last summer.)

I don't think Bush is the brightest bulb in the bunch, but I have great faith in our government leaders - the ones directly below Bush. Someone somewhere has noticed that we are running out of oil and has positioned the US to be in the right place - The Middle East. Think about it: When the oil runs out we'll have a huge base in Iraq. Maybe even Iran, Syria, and perhaps Saudi Arabia.

Bush not might be too bright, but someoene in the White House is thinking ahead to proetct the interests of the US 30 years from now. And to think we did this with less than 1500 killed US military personel is staggering.

Which is why you're going to see Russia, China and India all assert their presence more forcefully there in the future. Downside of course that it's hard to maintain a province so far from the center of empire... witness the problems the french had in indochina, or the british with india. Ever increasing dollars pumped in, ever decreasing returns pulled out.

I'm no nostradamus, I don't claim to know the future better than any other reasonably well informed individual... but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand where the next big conflict will be, and over what the conflict will be... barring a global catastrophie like cascade greenhouse effect, rapid and immediate end of oil, global pandemic with 70% kill ratio or a meteor or some shit. :2 cents:

its important to me but what the fuck am i gonna do

Workshop Willy departed this thread very quickly when he realized he was digging himself into a hole.

:1orglaugh

You're absolutely splitting hairs here. Enough said there, I think.


I respect your opinion regarding control as a means of expanding hegemony, but there are more direct ways to to that as well.


I disagree. Stockpiling, while a good supply/demand solution to controlling price as long as other variables are stable, is much more difficult as primarily China, but other nations as well, continue to industrialize. This phenomenon has been occurring very rapidly over the past few years. In order to efficiently stockpile oil, price has to be low enough in a world where demand is increasing at an accelerating rate. As for 'sectors of the economy' &c., I think you're being a little specious. Overall, ower prices are far more conducive to realizing stable political and economic environments in the United States and other important nations who practice a semblance republican government. Therefore, in the emerging global economy, using stockpiling as a means of controlling oil prices is a less attractive option than first controlling price in order to stockpile.


Exactly. And has been mentioned on this board, Iran for one is looking at pricing in Euros. Therefore, controlling the oil is a means of controlling price when viewed through the paradigm of contemplating military action against Iran (a thread was posted on GFY about this, which is what prompted me to start this thread).

As I said, I think that overall you and I are simply arguing semantics in this thread. I might also add that the point of my initially posting this thread was simply to get a read on how realistic certain people on this board are when it comes to oil and its importance to the overall economic picture, and therefore how important price is. You've added an interesting dimension, but it's not really within the scope of the original post. :winkwink: