I wasn't going to start PP&P with a different subject but since oil futures hit $110/bbl this morning (02 Jan) it gets first billing.
High prices have sustained long enough that these contracts are starting to be reflected in consumer prices. What I see is consumer prices popping in the next few months at the same time the idea of recession gains credence. This will result in a gap down of both oil and GDP. Gas will hit $4 at least in California. National average peak $3.84. April? We will likely revisit those prices in the summer with refinery capacity issues the cause. Oil will probably peak less than $110 and in January. The low may break $50. Guessing $48.88. May and again in October?
Spoilers; Mexico gets religion and decides a weakened US is not in their interests would push prices to the low end.
But I have a lousy record on oil prices so I'd much rather hear from my betters. Go for it.
57 comments:
Murst!
I am actually surprised that gas siphoning has not become a big issue yet.....at $50-$100 a tank its an easy way to make some money.
The conventional wisdom is that oil has virtually no demand curve, but the conventional wisdom is wrong. Fuel has a demand curve just like everything else, and when prices get high enough, demand will ease off, and prices will settle.
People have been putting up with $3.50/gallon gas only because the media keeps telling them that it's just a short-term bump, due to this or that. Once the message sinks in that $3/gallon will be the lowest we see in the near future, people will adjust their habits. I realize I'm just one person, but I carpool and take public transportation a lot more just to avoid the dreaded trip to the gas station.
My guess is that oil will settle at $110/barrel and gas will settle at $3.50/gallon, and those are the prices we'll see unless/until the dollar either starts strengthening or begins a true collapse.
Three cheers for the land export model. Repent America, the end is nigh.
The cost of fuel gets headlines but it's a secondary concern at best. Assume the average person drives 1500 miles in a month, in a car that gets 25 mpg: 60 gallons per month. A $1 increase in the price of gas is a $60 increase in the monthly budget. In most cases that's a drop in the bucket.
People are slowly changing their driving habits, but it's influenced more by environmentalism and simple time analysis. I'm fortunate to work at home, which gives me the commute time back (about 1 hour a day in my case). Saving money on gas is nice, but the time is worth much more to me. Less stress from idiot drivers too.
I am always amazed at people who drive 50+ miles each way to work. The amount of time spent in the car is just enormous. But if that isn't enough to stop people from doing it, a few extra bucks on gas sure won't either. Most people aren't driving that far for low paying jobs.
Simi,
There's also a huge negative buffer on changing driving habits. When gas rises the resale value of "guzzlers" goes down even more. 50,000 miles at 25mpg is 2000 gallons. At 17mpg it is 3000 gallons. That 1k gallon difference is $3000 which more than makes up for the price difference between a late model Civic and a late model crossover.
Gas siphoning is an interesting idea but it's not very practical, even for low rent crooks. Leaving aside the obvious dangers of handling petrol, gas is fairly heavy, about 6 lbs/gal. You might get a take of 30 gals from an SUV or pickup worth $100+, but that weighs 180 lbs and you're going to need a bunch of gas cans to hold it. You're also going to need a car; you sure aren't going to walk away with it.
And if you manage to do all that, the only thing to do with the gas is put it in your own gas tank. Who's going to buy gas that doesn't come from the gas station? Buying stolen electronics isn't going to cost you any more than you paid, but bad gas can torch your engine or exhaust system and cost a whole lot to fix.
A far more lucrative enterprise would be to steal rims and tires. Some can cost upwards of $1000/wheel, and in many cases they can be put on lots of different cars so they're easy to fence. A NASCAR pit crew can change 4 tires in 15 seconds; a couple of motivated criminals could put an Escalade up on cinder blocks in under 3 minutes.
Rob;
I don't think we'll see $110 a barrel for very long.
But I think you're correct in that $75-85 a barrel looks to be the norm for awhile.
Here's a few reasons.
The end of the biz I'm getting into is going great guns developing and operating new deepwater wells.
Such critters are only economical to operate at a certain threshold per barrel.
Now when all the infrastructure has been built, snazzy new production platforms, kooky-stoopid drilling rigs, Floating Production Storage Units, Dynamic Positioning Service and repair ships, God alone khows how much pipe and valves... what's going to happen when that lovely black crude starts gushing out?
The price goes down...assuming that you're Snowflake enough NOT TO CAP THE OLDER WELLS that are producing that same amount of oh-lay for less lucre.
And that's what's going to happen.
The oil companies need oil to sell for that threshold amount to make their latest whizzbangs and gimcracks pay.
As far as gasoline...who effin' knows?
The feedstock is only the first step in that supply chain.
Will they build new refineries? Where? How's the tonnage to move it to market,(strongly assuming they'll be built offshore).
Will Chavez choke to death on a Socialist-baked biscuit? Will someone bomb Iran's one and only refinery? Will Al-Qaeda bomb any of ours?
Will they persist in one of the great Mysteries of our Age by continuing to produce and market mid-grade gasoline? Who buys that stuff? And WHY?
Heck, they socked the price of a gallon of 87 octane up ten cents just on the news of Bhutto getting gakked...and Pakistan exports basically dick-all for oil and gas.
You can count on one thing, the War in Iraq sure the fuck wasn't a War for Oil the way the mouthbreathers carried on it was.
I could make a stronger case that it was to prevent Sadaam from undercutting everyone else with that sweet crude that bubbles up unassisted at several dozen bar over there.
love my 2003 Golf diesel- it never needs smogging and fits the new sized parking spaces.
One of the things OPEC fears is substitution. We never saw $100 oil before because the very reality is enough to push a lot of alternative strategies. Nuke plants may sprout like mushrooms and solar "initiatives" start making economic sense. I think right now $140-$150 oil equivalents makes solar cost effective in the Sun Belt United States. The thing is that math was based upon $60 oil. At $110 oil those solar sources benefit from economies of scale and $110 may be the tipping price especially if there is any disruption or persistence. Then there's the big gorilla; coal. Even with silly carbon sequestration and credit trading markets $110 oil makes coal hugely viable to generate electricity. Then things get sciency. Coal plasma combustion for vehicles. Coal burning turbine hybrids. In the mean time oil sands and shale oil with any assurance of extended $80+ oil will continue to move forward.
Bilgeman:
I come from a "played out" oilfield; played out in that it is too expensive to get at the "rest" of the oil, and the wells are capped. All over the state. I have often wondered how much oil is capped in the "old" producing states. Peak oil, my foot.
Chicke,
If only the car itself were better I'd join you.
Frankly I'm surprised somebody hasn't gotten into the fast food recycling business big time. Waste Management could install some cheap onsite equipment and pick up the used cooking oils and run their own fleets for free plus profit.
The problem with coal is its location and abundance, and because promises continued US autonomy in so many ways. Violent opposition (both domestic and foreign) will see that never happens.
Chicken,
For all his faults Clinton will be known for the brilliance of "It's the economy stupid." Even a little economic pain and I fully expect coal to become popular again.
Oil prices have been high enough to cause fuel consumption to drop in California each year for the past 3 years. This hasn't been the case nationally. Probably because California's population is more urbanized and more densely urbanized than just about anywhere else in the US, meaning that it is pretty easy to reduce the total amount you drive (by moving, changing shopping habits or taking transit) and also because gasoline is more expensive here than elsewhere in the US.
I would expect to see U.S. gasoline consumption to start to drop if prices even continue at current levels. This combined with the oil companies deciding that this time oil prices really will stay high enough to justify their kewl technologies should moderate oil price increases (I'd be shocked if we see $200/bbl oil at any time in 2008, but I'd also be shocked with oil at less than $50/bbl).
@simi.uber.alles:
Solid analysis, but don't forget the marginal consumer. The "average" consumer will only have to cut back on spending, but it's a different story for the not-so-average consumer. Most people have some discretionary income that they can cut back on, and most people are only doing 60 gallons a month, but there are some people who are completely strapped for cash and some people who are putting 80 or 100 or more gallons in a month thanks to extreme commutes, low-mileage vehicles (*cough*Hummer*cough*), and/or multiple cars in the family.
Boring single guys who work as lawyers in the city won't care, but families with four cars where both mom and dad have commutes and the kids are racking up big mileage due to active social lives are going to start feeling some serious pain.
This is not a fictitious situation; I know one family which has four cars in the driveway, but thanks to the costs, including the cost of gas, at least one of those is going off registration simply because keeping them all going is too expensive, which means the family will have to adjust their habits. There may not be major adjustments for the "average" family (well, not yet), but there are already adjustments happening at the margins.
P.S. If we can go through this election year without the media breaking out the "it's the economy, stupid" phrase, I will have real hope for the future of humanity. Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to happen, and I think we're going to be assaulted with endless repetitions of it sooner rather than later.
Winston is correct on every point. Add to his California observations of lower consumption and urbanity that Californians are more mobile so their choices (voting with their feet) shows up faster.
As to $50 oil, understand oil will be $65-$75 but the marginal price will most likely dip below $50 and to $110.
PV,
With three cars in the driveway and two of them guzzlers I can confirm. We may swap out a V8 Explorer for a Volvo S60 for instance.
I bought a diesel Jetta in 02 because of the high gasoline prices.
I'm 20 miles from Times Square, but parking is prohibitivly expensive in NYC, so I drive 26 miles each way to use a park-and ride for $8.50. With that money, I get a round-trip bus ride and parking. If I work where parking is $10,00 +- &1.00, I drive. I'm an Ironworker, and my hours vary.
Twenty two years ago, Exxon walked away from a 2 Billion dollar shale-oil extraction venture in Denver, Oil had to sustain &35.00 to be profitable.
I'd walk barefoot over red Hot coals if Luba was on my back.
Completely and totally off-topic, but Letterman is a genius. The best way to succeed in media and entertainment is to have your own production company, and ideally your own distribution as well. Hollywood is coming to intensely dislike Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson, but both of them have their own companies and so there's nothing Hollywood can do about them (oh yeah, and they're making good money off those companies.)
The moral of the story: all of the power (and profit) in media and entertainment is in the production and distribution.
"The moral of the story: all of the power (and profit) in media and entertainment is in the production and distribution."
Yes, with the "talent" occupying an essential but highly replaceable niche. A similar system operates in science and technology
Didn't you all just say "Oprah?"
Substitutes are coming.
Even if GM doesn't follow through with the Volt, someone else will, given how cheap electricity is as a vehicle fuel (as low as 1/5 the price of gasoline on a cost-per-mile basis)
In the near term high-efficiency diesels are back starting next year, even for those of you in CARB states.
VW's claiming their new diesel Jetta will get you mid-40s mpg in the city.
And diesel is a very friendly fuel to store (compared to petrol) at your exurban retreat, if you're worried about fuel supply interruptions (like those of us back east saw post-Katrina)
The inflation-adjusted price of oil in the early eighties was about the same as today. So we are not a new high. Caused a lot more disruption than today, though.
We need to put a floor under the imported oil price so that exploration and alternatives have a decent expectation of success.
Remember Charley Brown, Lucy & the football? Gotta stop falling for that one.
Some basic predictions for what might happen if fuel prices continue to increase:
* People won't start moving closer to work in large numbers unless things get a lot worse.
* Use of mass transit will rise where it is available.
* Bicycle commuting won't increase much.
* The working poor will flee jobs in areas where they can't afford to live. Increased labor costs will drive up Rob Dawg's gardening and tri-tip expenses.
* Food prices will continue to rise. Small scale local producers of non-energy-intensive food, such as breaded koi, will benefit.
* Rising diesel prices plus the falling dollar will benefit what US manufacturing there still is.
* Ethanol, biodiesel, and fuel cells will prove not to be viable except in special cases.
* Range and recharge time issues will still prevent large-scale adoption of electric cars.
* Diesel-electric cars (like a locomotive) will hit the sweet spot for most drivers in terms of price, operating costs, and practicality. Nigel will drive a diesel-electric BMW coupe with a loud stereo system that puts out Ferrari engine noises as he drives. Fortunately, herbal wang pills will remain affordable due to their small size and light weight.
C'mon man does anyone really give a damn that it's now at 3 dollars a gallon? Hell Europe has been paying the equivelent of 5 dollars a gallon since forever. I think people spend way way more on something useless like all the gadgets attached to their cell phone. I want instant video, music, news, email blah blah blah...and that's from a 20 year old kid. That's like 99 a month and no one cares. What about cable? 300 channels and nothing good on.
If people really wanted to make a dent in their gas expenses, buy a moped..of course when you get sucked into traffic by the vacuum caused by a large truck passing you by...well..hey at least you didn't lose your soul to the man.
Hey, I want to start paying less for hamburgers too, like 5 cents, but it isn't going to happen.
Oh one more series
FIREFLY!!!!!!
Most of the world's oil is supplied by nationalized oil companies, not the eeeeeevil Exxon and Chevron. Therefore they are not under the same pressures to produce oil in an efficient manner. Hence we see declining supplies from nationalized oil suppliers like Venezuela and Mexico. If private companies were operating these fields production would be increasing.
Oil bulls are setting themselves up for a fall. I am old enough to remember what happened in the early 1980s, when the Smart Money said we were running out of oil and prices were where they are now on an inflation-adjusted basis. We all know how that worked out. This is why the big majors are reluctant to commit again to shale oil.
I am not sure we'll see $8/barrel again like we did during the 1980s and briefly during the late 1990s, but I think we'll see oil under $20/barrel again within the next year or two as the world's economies tip into recession.
Link for Lou
Theft of diesel tanks is a serious problem over the last few years. Growers have wheeled tanks on their ranches and they tend to empty on their own or disappear.
As the US goes into a hard recession this year and the stock market tanks, foreign markets especially the emerging ones, will fall even harder. Very quickly oil will be $20-30 a barrel.
Happy New Year.
I know, Edgar. It's different this time. I think that there were some real estate agents saying that in Orange County in 2004.
I predict an increase in gas siphoning.
I wonder if the robbers wore fishnets over their heads....
Re: oil, think deepwater drilling and PBR.
@Sweet Cashback,
Perhaps they were Freegan Luba enthusiasts...
Californians needs higher gas costs to get their heads out of their SUV asses (plus gas taxes might slightly offset that problematic 14 billion plus budget issue).
Lou:
"Oil bulls are setting themselves up for a fall. I am old enough to remember what happened in the early 1980s, when the Smart Money said we were running out of oil and prices were where they are now on an inflation-adjusted basis. We all know how that worked out."
Early 80's,(and yes, I remember 'em too, you geezer!), were something of a special circumstance in that we had Iran and Iraq killing each other off in boxcar lots and throwing oil at every container in sight in order to finance their war efforts.
Across the Persian Gulf, there were the Saudis, asking Allah why He had saddled them with such neighbors, and totally horny to but AWACS planes and US jet fighters.
And...those gnarly North Sea fields reserves were just strating to come online, as well as the Alyeska pipeline exploitation train having matured.
Taking all those factors into consideration, is it any wonder that the bottom dropped out from under Houston in 1982?
There were paradigm shifts then...what paradigms have shifted today?
rebecca:
"I come from a "played out" oilfield; played out in that it is too expensive to get at the "rest" of the oil, and the wells are capped. All over the state. I have often wondered how much oil is capped in the "old" producing states. Peak oil, my foot."
Indeed. Don't forget the strategic imperative, either:
Use up all the cheap foreign reserves FIRST, not LAST.
Some of the wells being drilled out in the Gulf are in depths that are apparently right off the continental shelf entirely.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14678206/
I suspect that there's a lot more oil in this old sponge of a planet than anyone thinks.
As to your capped fields...watch for when the start injecting 'em with water or steam,(depending on your local geology).
Pretty neat trick, that...pump down your sewage, and oil bubbles back up.
The continental US pumped more crude between 1975 and 2000 than was listed as existing reserves available. As of 2000 there were more reserves than in 1975. The Hubbert peak was wrong two generations ago and is wrong today. Let me expand. Hubbert was right that in 1975 we ran out of $8/bbl oil. BFD. We probably ran out of $20/bbl oil about ten years ago as well. Someday we will run out of $40 oil too.
At 11:47 AM, Bilgeman said...
You can count on one thing, the War in Iraq sure the fuck wasn't a War for Oil the way the mouthbreathers carried on it was.
I could make a stronger case that it was to prevent Sadaam from undercutting everyone else with that sweet crude that bubbles up unassisted at several dozen bar over there.
I like how you insulted one group of people by calling them mouthbreathers, and then join them by writing that the war is about oil. Pretty cool. Also, are you writing of the current war in Iraq or the previous war? Usually, I would write of an ongoing war in the present tense, and a past war in past tense. Not sure how a mouthbreather constructs sentences though.
All war is about profits since the beginning. Hell, Helen didn't launch a thousand ships, that war was about who controlled certain trade routes.
Old:
"Also, are you writing of the current war in Iraq or the previous war? Usually, I would write of an ongoing war in the present tense, and a past war in past tense. Not sure how a mouthbreather constructs sentences though."
There was one "war" in Iraq, it began in January of 1991.I know this for a fact...I was there.
It ended with the formation of the new Iraqi government,(remember their Purple Finger election?), and our re-establishment of the US Embassy in Baghdad.
I also spent quality time floating around in the Persian Gulf aboard forward deployed sealift vessels,(with cargoes that go "BOOM" quite readily),and for considerably less pay than I could have been making commercially, btw, during the middle and late 1990's.
Some people, many of them latter-day mouthbreathers, insist on the misperception that this was a time of "Peace".
There are squadrons of US and Limey fighter pilots, and not a few brigades of Iraqis,(mostly Air Defense Radar types...at least the ones who were lucky enough not to receive orders to turn on their sets), who stand ready to correct if folks don't care to hear it from the likes of me.
"All war is about profits since the beginning."
Ah, thank you for sharing your keen grasp of the Obvious.
May I point out that survival itself can be validly described as an endeavor that aims to make a profit?
Joe Kennedy and Citgo seem to be trying very hard to make a profit, (of some kind), out of the unavailability of home heating oil at prices folks can afford.
"I like how you insulted one group of people by calling them mouthbreathers, and then join them by writing that the war is about oil."
Did you miss the caveat:
"...the way the mouthbreathers carried on it was."?
Perhaps my sentence structure was too opaque.
If all that really was was a War for Oil, as advertised, then we undeniably lost.
Unless it wasn't REALLY just a War for Oil at all.
But that just couldn't be, could it?
That was my point.
The endlessly repeated theme that we were, and still are, out there for not much more than to acquire someone else's oil hurt...
...a lot. It didn't hurt the Iraqi in the street or in Kuwait's trenches,(no one was asking their opinion anyway), but it DID hurt us.
Thanks,(if you were one of those mouthbreathing deep thinkurs), for using a variation of this profound revelation as a weapon to flog those of us who put our lives on the line to attempt securing the resources that we are now using to motor about with.
Some people, and probably a lot more than it's realized, go into things with their eyes wide open...believing in what they're doing.
Once Big Butt-Plug was overthrown, I guess we were just supposed to ignore the low-sulfur petroleum coming up out of the ground at 300-500 psi unassisted?
I guess that would satisfy some folk's self-esteem issues by proving that we were morally superior to the dirty and nasty scramble for easily recoverable finite resources.
Maybe those moralists would volunteer to split eco-friendly and renewable resource firewood to keep those shivering geezers warm that Joe Kennedy and Citgo are carrying on about?
Thought not...someone ELSE'S problem, right? Maybe we'll just vote an increase in the gas tax to subsidize our hypothermic seniors.
Yeah...that's it. How noble we are, such givers! We won the War against Sadaam, and capitulated the War for Oil. Hooray for us!
But I'll tell you what REALLY hurt.
We know now, with the benefit of hindsight, that we could have put the boot in Sadaam's moochie for good in 1991.
We didn't do this, in very large part, because of the domestic political shitstorm that expanding the war aims would have caused. The voices of the mouthbreathing dullards were given weight, y'see. Bush 41 wanted to win re-election or something, so he dabbled in bipartisanship.
And therefore we left that bastard Sadaam in power,(and how many Shia and Kurds made an "early exit" because of that decision?) We stayed in Saudi Arabia, which Pig-Fucker bin-Laden claims was the burr under HIS particular camel-saddle. Putting Sadaam down back then would have obviated the need to keep bases in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques, (it's not like it's Las Vegas in case you've never been, I, for one, am perfectly happy to leave Saudi to the Sauds.).
But we all knew that we were leaving a job half done over there.
General Schwartzkopf as much as told us so.
And sure enough, the little boys and girls,(and some who were only born in 1990...they turned active-duty age last year, in case nobody but me was counting), are the ones who have had to go over and finish the job that we left undone.
Not all of them have survived the effort whole, y'know.
You may look at the "fractional people" from Walter Reed and Bethesda and see full-grown injured servicemen.
But I see 'em also as the little snot-nosed kids they were in 1991, with their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles posters and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers plastic action figures.
It's called "Survivor Guilt", and even though I did my bit in the bilges of an unarmed ship having SCUDS shot at me,(300 yards off our starboard bow in al-Jubail was the closest they got to me personally),I still feel it.
I guess I'm saddled with the character flaw of not wanting to have some kid carry my slack if I can avoid it.
I can only shudder at the shame that some people might bear.
But they don't seem to.
Maybe it's the sentence structure.
I promise to work on that.
Is there anything more pathetic than watching a really fat person ease in and out of a car?
it's like watching an addict shoot up.
Good commentary Bilgeman.
To me the problem is very simple. You cannot have warmongering madmen and terrorists in charge of the income stream from that oil. Corrupt bureaucrats, petty dictators and oligarchs are okay as long as they do not threaten the free world.
Bilgeman,
Patton said much the same thing about the Russkis at the truncated end of WW-II. Yes, we were war weary but a war against oppression that left an oppressor in a position of power? Both WW-II and Iraq I.
I never stood in harms way but I do have a commendation from the Navy around here someplace. I'm reminded of this because a few weeks ago at a party I was in a conversation with a recently retired Naval Aviator. When i told him about what I had done he actually thanked me.
No. Thank you.
Rob:
"Yes, we were war weary but a war against oppression that left an oppressor in a position of power? Both WW-II and Iraq I."
Of WWII, I can at least give credit that we accomplished our traditional war aims...unconditional surrender, (even if we did fudge a bit in Japan's case), as well as the manifest fact that we had the paradigm change of a huclear monopoly.
The Pentagon really did believe at the time that all future wars would be nuclear.
None of this obtained in Desert Storm.
What kind of shit is an Authorization on the Use of Military Force to restore the status quo ante?
It's like a "Shawshank Redemption" prison escape, only to have Andy Frane show back up at the prison gate the next day saying:
"I was bored, what can I say?".
Sisyphean by choice.
"I never stood in harms way but I do have a commendation from the Navy around here someplace."
Oh, the MarAd was quite appreciative of our sacrifices.
You applied for your "I Wuz There" medal, sending along proof that you, indeed, wuz there.
They would then send you the address of the business that sold the badge:
http://www.omsa.org/photopost/data/507/medium/25US-MM-Exped.jpg
Gee, how swell of 'em. What class!
They found it in the bottom of their budget to actually award it to Merchant Mariners, gratis, after the second round in the Sandbox.
But then I DID mention that government boats don't pay as well as commercial jobs.
Ain't nothin' free.
For comprehension purposes I would recommend rewriting your rant, old Bilge, and half as long. The rant may sound fine inside your head as you are typing away, but this isn't talk radio. You might be surprised in the difference between a rough draft and a final copy. The written word must be well crafted like an old grandfather crafted his Appalachian carvings. Otherwise, it is just a lot of hacking away.
The endlessly repeated theme that we were, and still are, out there for not much more than to acquire someone else's oil hurt... ...a lot. It didn't hurt the Iraqi in the street or in Kuwait's trenches,(no one was asking their opinion anyway), but it DID hurt us. Thanks,(if you were one of those mouthbreathing deep thinkurs), for using a variation of this profound revelation as a weapon to flog those of us who put our lives on the line to attempt securing the resources that we are now using to motor about with. Some people, and probably a lot more than it's realized, go into things with their eyes wide open...believing in what they're doing.
What is your point? If your eyes are wide open, then you know it is about profit. Sorry to hurt your feelings but there is nothing greater than profits. No man, no set of men, nor no nation is greater than profits.
Yeah...that's it. How noble we are, such givers! We won the War against Sadaam, and capitulated the War for Oil. Hooray for us!
Maybe those moralists would volunteer to split eco-friendly and renewable resource firewood to keep those shivering geezers warm that Joe Kennedy and Citgo are carrying on about?
I reply, Profits.
(if you were one of those mouthbreathing deep thinkurs)
Don't presume to know, or to guess what I am, or what I am not. You can play an internet tough guy all you want, but mouthbreathing deep thinkurs has got to be one of the stupidest insults I ever read on the internet, and I read Casey's message boards, and Fark.com. I commend you sir, for taking the cake and the icing in that regard. I especially like the misspelling of thinkurs. Did he misspell the word on purpose? Did he misspell the word as a jab at the people who think that they think and do not know anything about the real world? Did he misspell the word due to poor education? If I were you and attempting that bon mot again, I would make sure my rant was readable, concise, and half as long. Wherever you got your edumacation, you should ask for a refund.
Old:
You criticze my spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.
Lame.
(Concise enough for ya?)
bilgeman said...
You criticze my spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.
I never criticized your spelling. I commended your misspelling of thinkurs. Just one of many areas where you have things assbackwards.
Lame.
(Concise enough for ya?)
Sure. Your reply confirmed my opinion that you are full of shit, another John Bircher trying to masquerade on the internet as sane. You say it is about profits, then it isn't because of the sacrifices people have made, then it again, it is about profits. So sure, plenty concise. At least Casey knew he was full of shit.
I also attacked your meager argument, but perhaps you glanced over that part. Comprehension is fun!
Old:
"Your reply confirmed my opinion that you are full of shit, another John Bircher trying to masquerade on the internet as sane."
Guess who's being quoted:
"Don't presume to know, or to guess what I am, or what I am not."
Hoist on your own petard there, chummie.
"I also attacked your meager argument, but perhaps you glanced over that part."
Survival is Profitable.
Didja glance over that?
"Comprehension is fun!"
So's an attention span.
Let me know when a post gets too long for you, and I'll break it up into as many parts as you need, okay?
So, what, war is profitable or it isn't. Don't act like it is some grand humanist experiment, and profitable. There wouldn't be war if it wasn't profitable. The only wars that are not profitable are fictional.
Hoist on your own petard there, chummie.
Should be 'hoisted'
Survival is Profitable.
Didja glance over that?
So, the war is about profits?
What is your point, Bilge,
What is your point? If your eyes are wide open, then you know it is about profit. Sorry to hurt your feelings but there is nothing greater than profits. No man, no set of men, nor no nation is greater than profits.
If we could back up the bullshit a bit, this caught my eye:
sure the fuck wasn't a War for Oil the way the mouthbreathers carried on it was
To my understanding, the 2003 intervention was, in large part, about our capability of kicking down Saddam & Sons' Ba'athist state, installing a secular shiite majority (the INC and Chalabi), and proceeding to construct the perfect "Free Market" paradise in the mideast, powered by their oil revenues (Wolfowitz's "floating on a sea of oil") and our industrial know-how (Halliburton, Heritage Foundation, AEI).
2003 wasn't about the pirce of oil in 2008, it was about strategic control of the oilfields for the next 100 years.
Going into 2003 things were structured such that the Russians and French were about ready to resume their investment and industrial positions from the 80s. The Booshists running things here saw a golden opportunity to snag some low-hanging fruit and went for it.
And here we are.
Heywood:
"2003 wasn't about the pirce of oil in 2008, it was about strategic control of the oilfields for the next 100 years."
I'd assert that that was what the AUMF in 1991 was about...keeping Americans warm.
Try as you might, you can't separate 2003 from 1991.
At least you seem to give credence to the priority of ridding us of the threat Saddam sitting on that "ocean of oil" would have represented.
Old:
"What is your point? If your eyes are wide open, then you know it is about profit."
Y'know, Warren Beatty delivered the line better than you.
It might have been daring to say so in 1917,(or whenever John Reed said it), but in 2007, it's just...old.
"Sorry to hurt your feelings but there is nothing greater than profits. No man, no set of men, nor no nation is greater than profits."
Yeah, I've seen that movie too, "Network". Ned Beatty's finest oration.
But there are some things greater than profits.
Survival being one of them.
You can't make any money if you're dead, see?
And once you ARE alive, the only guarantees you have is that you're going to be thirsty, hungry, and cold.
As I pointed out to Rob Dawg, ain't nothin' free.
First you survive, then you have to profit in order to keep surviving.
The two shouldn't be separated and the latter objective used as a perjorative.
Especially by people who will themselves profit from the struggle they excoriate.
Which has been done, is being done, and probably will always be done.
And especially so when it is misapplied to a campaign that is primarily about removing a miltary/terrorist threat to national survival, as 2003 was.
Hey, I can identify and deal with my Survivor Guilt.
Why can't folks deal with theirs?
It's easier to see poorly edumacated money-grubbing John Birchers lurking the corridors of power everywhere, I guess.
'd assert that that was what the AUMF in 1991 was about...keeping Americans warm.
Then it was, in fact, about oil and your talking-point slam on us mouthbreathers. We never thought it was about the PRICE of oil . . . as Old said above it was about who was going to PROFIT from the control and productization of Iraq's oil . . .
We came to terms with Qaddafi, a guy who actually did target American servicemen and civilians; I was "objectively pro-Saddam" in 2003 since I strongly suspected the occupation would turn out to be the costly and bloody mess it is now. I thought he was a symptom of the problem of Iraq, and not a root cause, and didn't think going in and killing a lot of people there was going to solve anything.
Heywood:
"We came to terms with Qaddafi, a guy who actually did target American servicemen and civilians;"
We "came to terms with"?
Can you possibly be any more deceitful?
Qaddafi is the one who "came to terms" with us, and only in the autumn of 2004. AFTER we had knocked Sadaam off of his perch.
30 years of diplomacy and negotiation and economic sanctions against Libya had availed us what?
Berlin Disco bombing, Pan Am 103and a Libyan WMD program.
"...going in and killing a lot of people there was going to solve anything."
Well, it certainly solved things in Libya, and according to Italian PM Berlusconi, Qaddafi admitted as much to him .
"I was "objectively pro-Saddam" in 2003 since I strongly suspected the occupation would turn out to be the costly and bloody mess it is now."
Costly and bloody mess, huh?
Well, I won't disagree with that. But I'd observe that whatever it has cost us, there is no longer the threat of an inhuman and totalitarian dictator flush with oil wealth, to have to worry about.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, is at the least, in Iraq...not here. And it's American targets there have been heavily armed servicemen and women, who can, and have, made our enemies pay the butcher's bill too.
What did Qadaffi give up to normalize relations? bupkis. He let Occidental back into their leased exploration fields, I guess that was something.
here is no longer the threat of an inhuman and totalitarian dictator flush
you seem to suffering from the typical cartoon-level understanding of the world so I'll leave off here.
Reaching right-wingers is impossible, we'll just have to let history reach you, if it can.
Heywood:
"Reaching right-wingers is impossible, we'll just have to let history reach you, if it can."
Coming from someone who freely described themselves as:
"objectively pro-Saddam in 2003"
I find that dismissal utterly hilarious...
...and immeasurably sad.
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