Mooz

Oil below $70 It's finally around actual supply vs demand. Ol Hugo in his bid for unlimited power has taken over damn near everything in his country. Since his nationalization of the oil companies, production has actually decreased by 33%. Also, despite his rabid hate for the USA, we're his ONLY customer paying full price. Every other country he ships to is in some sort of pay 20% now the rest over 30 years program. Or some other discount program. Oh and we're paying cash and not buying on credit.

So now not only is he producing less and thus bringing in less money for his impovrished subjects.. sorry "citizens", he's earning less on what he is exporting. All his talks of "cutting off oil to the USA" are just saber rattling. If we stopped buying from him, he'd be facing a revolt in months. At this point he's bringing in half oh what he was in july. HALF!

Good job hughie. I'm sure once you finally declare yourself dictator for life, people will just forget all the promises you made. Anyone who doesn't you can just kill. I really can't wait for the day when the people of Venezuela finally overthrow this tyrant.

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slimpanzee

Considering price per barrel has dropped more than 50%, your $2.93 per gallon is an insult. The price at the pump has not dropped 50% or you'd be paying closer to $2. Nice to see it lower, but it's a slap in the face in my opinion.

Want to really piss him off... research electric cars by American companies like Chevy and Zap. No gas needed... or in the case of the Volt, it equals out to about 150 mpg.

Bagels

I actually believe it is down near $45 per barrel now.

Mooz

Nah demand is still fairly high across the board. Plus OPEC will make another 500,000-1,000,000 barrel cut when they meet again. That will keep true supply vs demand pricing around $65-$70. Now if we can really cut our demand it'll hurt him good. Don't get too excited over pure electric cars. You still need to charge them. Guess how they fuel electricity production Leep in mind that the oil required to run a gasoline car is always going to be less than the amount required to provide electricity that will fuel an electric car.

Stronger fuel cells (electric) are needed first. After that, use nuclear power to provide electricity to power the electric cars and we'll be free of oil. Just don't go tossing those things up in a hurry. No one wants to glow.

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slimpanzee

^^^Huh? The price per barrel dropped $4.69 to settle in at $69.85 today. That's the lowest it's been since August of last year. The price at the pump drops 4 CENTS overnight to bring the national average to $3.08. Doing the math, the pricer per barrel dropped just over 6%, the price at the pump just over 1%. The price over all has dropped over 50% per barrel, yet only has dropped around 25% at the pump. To say your happy that it's $2.93 just goes to show the oil companies got what they wanted. You're happy with a high price, because it's not $4.11.

If the price did (or does) fall to 45 bucks a barrel, that price per gallon better drop below 2 bucks.

slimpanzee

Thus the reason Obama's energy plan makes more sense. The US has some of the best wind resources in the world... only natural to capitalize on that. In WA state, over 75% of our electricity comes from one Hydro electric damn (the Grand Coulee). In fact, the Grand Coulee damn is one of (if not the) biggest power plants in the States. 8% is Nuke and 7% is Natural gas. The rest is coal. So for me, driving an electric car would really mean I'd be reducing my need for oil.

The energy infrastructure needs modernizing and we need to capitalize on Hydro, wind, solar and nuke... there is no reason to drill, thinking that will lower the price of anything.

IntuitioN

just because it's gonna take a lot of time doesn't mean we shouldn't start now.
and Iraq's OPEC rep said they want $100/barrel. glad we're spending 10 billion a month
Iraq Oil Minister says OPEC could cut production - Oct. 16, 2008

Prior to the war it was $25
Cost of Iraq war hinges on oil question - Stocks & economy - MSNBC.com

I can see we clearly needed to go fetch us some oil, and couldn't drill baby drill when we had the chance (or even better, started researching alternative methods before we were paying out the ass, imagine if all that money went to research, or pandas (they probably could have figured something out, crafty bastards)).

slimpanzee

MPD, that is a bad way to think about it. Sure, it's not a magic wand. Obama is not a wizard. We'll still be using oil for many years to come. But having alternatives to oil makes it a much better market when it comes to shopping for energy. And staring now to get off the oil is better than starting when it's too late.

And as Wolf points out, the less we use fossil fuels the better. It's time to get over the old way of thinking, and realize we have to do something now.

SpringheelJack

If you;re worried about pollution, then become a vegetarian. The various emissions from cows feeding and related transport is the largest single cause of CO2 emissions, not to mention the fact they produce a full third of the world's methane, which is literally 20x more damaging than CO2. Unless you're willing to do that, you shouldn't bother worrying about your oil consumption.

Global warming/pollution is a serious concern, but most of what they tell you about it is related to someone wanting to make money with their new 'green' invention. You could drive 200 miles every day in a diesel engine while guzzling bottled water and leaving all your lights on,and you're not doing as much damage as one cow. All these people selling you eco-crap and carbon credits (Did you know Al Gore owns the company he buys his from, there's no real industry oversight and almost none of them are non-profit?) are scam artists who deluded themselves into thinking they're the good guys.

cifex

Ummm.... no... Agricultural factors account for about 15% of methane gases. The technological side of that pie is far bigger. So if everyone doesn't subscribe to your particular brand of vegetarian zealotry they shouldn't do a damn thing? What a load of crap. Not to mention the fact that one of the main issues is reducing foreign dependence. Great job being part of the solution.

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