by Starman » Sat Aug 20, 2005 6:47 pm
Foodforlife:<br>said: "I'm with Xymphora".<br><br>Oh, that's REAL rigorous all right -- <br>You're going with Xymphora -- Who bases his analysis on facts-not-in-evidence and skews the 'evidence' to prove his foregone conclusion. Obviously, the key value of science is to serve faith-based wish-fulfillment according to your 'logic'.<br><br>A world-wide recession caused by unmet oil-demand supply has the very likely potential to be disasterous for the world AND US economy, with repercusions and extended domino-consequences that are impossible to accurately predict let alone effectively prepare for -- It's simply incomprehensible to me how anyone can argue their contrary position so passionately and yet have such an uniformed grasp of what they're arguing against -- that is, IF one can even call such a flimsy criticism an 'argument' in the sense of using facts and evidence to support one's position, instead of what seems to be nothing but the form, "I believe the indications of impending oil supply shortage is entirely contrived -- since high oil prices serve the petro industry, this must be so.' <br><br>In a world with $100 oil, EVERYBODY loses.<br><br>I haven't seen anything that even comes close to proving your thesis -- that that the major oil companies are conspiring to keep oil supplies tight so as to support todays high crude and fuel-prices (over $65 44-gallon barrel, more than twice what it was a year ago, and almost $3 gallon gasoline). We are already seeing acute shortages in Nicaragua, the Phillipines, and China -- the latter where scheduled tanker deliveries, only partly caused by severe storms, have left state refineries idle. <br><br>If oil is really so abundant, then WHY are oil companies investing in increasy risky, costly and problematic exploration and development projects in politically-unstable regions, aggravating civil strife, warlordism, crime and factionalism, and provoking public protests over environmental concerns, failed promises, rampant corruption, severe economic imbalances, theats to the viability of traditional communities and way of life, and outright cultural genocide?<br><br>If oil is so naturally abundant, WHY was there so much concerted political opposition mounted in the US, even using the arguiment of National Security, to oppose China's State-majority oil company CNOOC purchase-offer of US-based Unocal, which owns substantial oil and gas reserves in Asia?<br><br>The following observation --from 'The Twilight Era of Oil'<br>-- is yet more evidence showing that US Policy makers, politicians and Pentagon Officials are treating the threat of Peak Oil as a VERY serious issue, with far-ranging implications for US foreign policy and global security (as THEY define it) -- which, if oil were really as plentiful as you insist it is, wouldn't make ANY sense: How else would YOU explain it?<br>--quote--<br>Further evidence of a growing amalgamation between energy issues and U.S. national security policy can be found in the Pentagon's 2005 report on Chinese military power, released on July 20. While in previous years this report had focused mainly on China's purported threat to the island of Taiwan, this year's edition pays as much attention to the military implications of China's growing dependence on imported oil and natural gas. "This dependence on overseas resources and energy supplies... is playing a role in shaping China's strategy and policy," the report notes. "Such concerns factor heavily in Beijing's relations with Angola, Central Asia, Indonesia, the Middle East (including Iran), Russia, Sudan, and Venezuela... Beijing's belief that it requires such special relationships in order to assure its energy access could shape its defense strategy and force planning in the future." <br><br>The unclassified version of the Pentagon report does not state what steps Washington should take in response to these developments, but the implications are obvious: The United States must strengthen its own forces in key oil-producing regions so as to preclude any drive by China to dominate or control these areas. <br>--unquote--<br><br>Note: For other nations of the world, in which the US has some 1000 military bases exercising subtle-but-real 'force projection', it's a valid to substitute 'the US' for China, and 'Washington DC' for 'Beijing' as in, ""This dependence on overseas resources and energy supplies... is playing a role in shaping US strategy and policy," the report notes. "Such concerns factor heavily in Washington's relations with Angola, Central Asia, Indonesia, the Middle East (including Iran), Russia, Sudan, and Venezuela... Washington DC's belief that it requires such special relationships in order to assure its energy access could shape its defense strategy and force planning in the future." <br><br>HARDLY a notion conducive to 'abundant oil, ehough for everybody; No shortage foreseen, folks! It's all just a rip-off scam.'<br><br>And too: It's curious why Xymphora was so selective in choosing which quotes by Yergin to use, even though I pointed out that Yergin doesn't support Xymphora's conclusions by any stretch. For instance, Xymphora didn't include the following, which was posted in the article 'The Twilight Era of Petroleum' by Michael T. Klare, ""We've entered a new era of oil prices," said energy expert Daniel Yergin in an April interview with Time Magazine. If markets remain as tight as they are at present, "you'll see a lot more volatility, and you could see prices spike up as high as $65 to $80." <br><br>Pray tell, show me HOW someone could deduce from this that the oil supply is being deliberately managed? To promote your thesis, you are assuming that all the major oil producers including state-owned companies in Venezuela, China, Russia and elsewhere, are colluding with private oil companies all around the world (and including the OPEC member-producers) to abide by highly-restrictive quotas, resisting the temptation to underbid current world-prices by two dollars a barrel and thus making an extra 300 million to 600 million dollars per day by selling an extra 5 to 10 million barrels a day. <br><br>You fail to appreciate just how competative and greedy the oil producers are -- if they COULD sell an extra 1 million barrels per day by cutting the price-per-barrel a dollar or two, they'd jump at it. YET, you ignore such evident, basic realities in order to persist in your belief of a huge conspiracy. What you also fail to appreciate are that rising oil prices will threaten many of the oil companies' own interests, as other sectors of the national and global economy will be hit-hard by the trickle-effects of higher costs, for everything from, finished-goods to food, from transportation to imports, from the housing market to the travel industry, and from the stock market to interest rates. As well as the jobs market. It's NOT in the politicos or power-elites or Pentagon's or even the shadow-gov./octopus of the Corporatocracy, for the economic impact of sustained high oil prices. You assume there are, but the only thing you provide is the non-sequitor argument, 'Oil companies will benefit from high prices'. But if consumer prices rise (and they will -- costs WILL be kicked down the food-chain), then we're going to see a large recessionary pressure, which will impact the stock-market (eliminating price-supports and encouraging a sell-off -- so Wall Street could see a big dive -- which in turn will lead to lay-offs and company-restructuring as non-competitive asets are dumped and short-term liquidity become king --with interest-rate hikes and the beginning of the end for the housing-bubble -- foreclosures and bankruptcies, mass unemployment, increasing fuel-costs and supply-interruptions, electric-rate and food-price hikes, leading to banking-collapse and the world dumping follars for euros ...<br><br>Kee-Rist, do you see the possible runaway train-wreck?<br><br>Also from "The Twilight Era of Petroleum', <br>--quote--<br>Just how seriously American policymakers view these various energy-related developments is further revealed in another recent event: the first high-profile "war game" featuring an overseas oil crisis. Known as "Oil Shockwave," ... "the game was conducted to determine what steps the United States could take to mitigate the impact of a significant disruption in overseas production and delivery, such as might be produced by a civil war in Nigeria and a terrorist upsurge in Saudi Arabia. The answer: practically nothing. "Once oil supply disruptions occur," the participants concluded, "there is little that can be done in the short term to protect the U.S. economy from its impacts, including gasoline above $5 per gallon and a sharp decline in economic growth potentially leading into a recession.<br>--quote--<br><br>I recommend this article as a good overview of the issue of projected oil-market supply-and-demand fluctuations resulting from an oil industry that will be increasingly challenged to provide for the world's insatiable demand for global oil products -- it should help correct many of the flawed assumptions a lot of Peak Oil critics seem reluctant to let go of -- and which I get tired of pointing-out. I mean, if you're going to debate an issue, fine, but at LEAST show enough courtesy to be modestly informed about it, to avoid falling into the most gross errors. A common mistake is assuming that there's going to be an abrupt drop-off point, like between one month and the next, in which world oil output will fall and then keep falling. That's NOT a prediction that the Peak Oil theory makes, so it's a non-issue there's no point debating. Over several years or even a decade (*or more), there will be numerous limited periods of increase and decrease of oil supply, as old fields go into decline and new fields are developed. But the volatility in the market will likely have HUGE, unintended effects on all aspects of our society and around the world. My point has been, we have been seeing a lot of these effects already, as we've been IN a period of tight oil-markets where production is close to or even at peak capacity.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/oil/2005/0804twilight.htm">www.globalpolicy.org/secu...ilight.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>--excerpt--<br>Several recent developments -- persistently high gasoline prices, unprecedented warnings from the Secretary of Energy and the major oil companies, China's brief pursuit of the American Unocal Corporation -- suggest that we are just about to enter the Twilight Era of Petroleum, a time of chronic energy shortages and economic stagnation as well as recurring crisis and conflict. Petroleum will not exactly disappear during this period -- it will still be available at the neighborhood gas pump, for those who can afford it -- but it will not be cheap and abundant, as it has been for the past 30 years. The culture and lifestyles we associate with the heyday of the Petroleum Age -– large, gas-guzzling cars and SUVs, low-density suburban sprawl, strip malls and mega-malls, cross-country driving vacations, and so on -- will give way to more constrained patterns of living based on a tight gasoline diet. While Americans will still consume the lion's share of global petroleum stocks on a daily basis, we will have to compete far more vigorously with consumers from other countries, including China and India, for access to an ever-diminishing pool of supply. <br><br>The concept of a "twilight" of petroleum derives from what is known about the global supply and demand equation. Energy experts have long acknowledged that the global production of oil will someday reach a moment of maximum (or "peak") daily output, followed by an increasingly sharp drop in supply. But while the basic concept of peak oil has gained substantial worldwide acceptance, there is still much confusion about its actual character. Many people who express familiarity with the concept tend to view peak oil as a sharp pinnacle, with global output rising to the summit one month and dropping sharply the next; and looking back from a hundred years hence, things might actually appear this way. But for those of us embedded in this moment of time, peak oil will be experienced as something more like a rocky plateau -- an extended period of time, perhaps several decades in length, during which global oil production will remain at or near current levels but will fail to achieve the elevated output deemed necessary to satisfy future world demand. The result will be perennially high prices, intense international competition for available supplies, and periodic shortages caused by political and social unrest in the producing countries. <br><br>The Era of Easy Oil Is Over <br><br>The Twilight Era of oil, as I term it, is likely to be characterized by the growing politicization of oil policy and the recurring use of military force to gain control over valuable supplies. This is so because oil, alone among all major trading commodities, is viewed as a strategic material; something so vital to a nation's economic well-being, that is, as to justify the use of force in assuring its availability. That nations are prepared to go to war over petroleum is not exactly a new phenomenon. The pursuit of foreign oil was a significant factor in World War II and the 1991 Gulf War, to offer only two examples; but it is likely to become ever more a part of our everyday world in a period of increased competition and diminishing supplies. <br><br>This new era will not begin with a single, clearly defined incident, but rather with a series of events suggesting the transition from a period of relative abundance to a time of persistent scarcity. These events will take both economic and political form: on the one hand, rising energy prices and contracting supplies; on the other, more diplomatic crises and military assertiveness. Recently, we have witnessed significant examples of both. <br><br>On the economic side, the most important signals have been provided by rising crude oil prices and warnings of diminished output in the future. A barrel of crude now costs just over $60 -- approximately twice the figure for this time a year ago -- and many experts believe that the price could rise much higher if the supply situation continues to deteriorate. "We've entered a new era of oil prices," said energy expert Daniel Yergin in an April interview with Time Magazine. If markets remain as tight as they are at present, "you'll see a lot more volatility, and you could see prices spike up as high as $65 to $80." <br><br>Analysts at Goldman Sachs are even more pessimistic, suggesting that oil could reach as high as $105 a barrel in the near future. "We believe that oil markets may have entered the early stages of what we have referred to as a ‘super-spike' period," they reported in April, with elevated prices prevailing for a "multi-year" stretch of time. <br><br>Of course, the world has experienced severe price spikes before -- most notably in 1973-74 following the October War between Egypt and Israel and the Arab oil embargo, as well as in 1979-80 following the Iranian Revolution -- but this time the high prices are likely to persist indefinitely, rather than recede as was the case in the past. This is so because new production (in such places as the Caspian Sea and off the West coast of Africa) is not coming on line fast enough or furiously enough to compensate for the decline in output from older fields, such as those in North America and the North Sea. On top of this, it is becoming increasingly evident that stalwart producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia have depleted many of their most prolific fields and are no longer capable of boosting their total output in significant ways. <br><br>Until recently, it was considered heresy for officials of the oil industry and government bodies like the U.S. Department of Energy to acknowledge the possibility of a near-term contraction in oil supplies. But several recent events signal the breakdown of the dominant consensus: <br><br>*On July 8, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman told reporters from the Christian Science Monitor that the era of cheap and abundant petroleum may now be over. "For the first time in my lifetime," he declared, major oil suppliers like Saudi Arabia "are right at their ragged edge" in their ability to satisfy rising world demand for energy. Despite the huge increase in international demand, Bodman noted, the world's leading producers are not capable of substantially expanding their output, and so we should expect a continuing upward trend in gasoline prices. "We are in a new situation," he asserted. "We are likely at least in the near-term to be dealing with a different pricing regime than we have seen before." <br>. . .<br>In setting the stage for its simulated crisis, Oil Shockwave identified a set of conditions that provide a vivid preview of what we can expect during the Twilight Era of Petroleum: <br><br>*Global oil prices exceeding $150 per barrel<br>*Gasoline prices of $5.00 or more per gallon<br>*A spike in the consumer price index of more than 12%<br>*A protracted recession<br>*A decline of over 25% in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index<br>*A crisis with China over Taiwan<br>*Increased friction with Saudi Arabia over U.S. policy toward Israel<br><br>Whether or not we experience these precise conditions cannot be foreseen at this time, it is incontestable that a slowdown in the global production of petroleum will produce increasingly severe developments of this sort and, in a far tenser, more desperate world, almost certainly threaten resource wars of all sorts; nor will this be a temporary situation from which we can hope to recover quickly. It will be a semi-permanent state of affairs. <br><br>Eventually, of course, global oil production will not merely be stagnant, as during the Twilight Era, but will begin a gradual, irreversible decline, leading to the end of the Petroleum Age altogether. Just how difficult and dangerous the Twilight Era proves to be, and just how quickly it will come to an end, will depend on one key factor: How quickly we move to reduce our reliance on petroleum as a major source of our energy and begin the transition to alternative fuels. This transition cannot be avoided. It will come whether we are prepared for it or not. The only way we can avert its most painful features is by moving swiftly to lay the foundations for a post-petroleum economy. <br><br>--end excerpt--<br><br>One thing that should be profoundly disturbing to all Americans, is the history of American policy interference in dozens of Third World nations during the past forty years which in retrospect show a deliberate, duplicious strategy to sabotage and confound vigorous economic development in dozens of key Third World nations that would have enormously increased standards of living and provided a lucrative investment climate, both of which would have eliminated US access to cheap resources and labor, and that would have competed with America's pre-eminent security markets. There's absolutely no reason why the American and Eurpoean 'success story' of a booming middle class with incredible opportunity and innovation and wealth based on easy credit, efficient industrial mass-production, vigorous democratic instituions and growth of modern civil society couldn't have been replicated around the world -- if not (to a great extent) for the deliberate interference and diversion of resources accomplished by State Dept. and corporate-client special interests, in order to benefit western-based investers and to establish the US as the world's primary superpower. The US's quest to dominate and control strategic oil reserves has been a major factor in US policy ever since the Second World War -- providing what to anybody but the most determined abundant oil optimists, is unavoidable evidence that US Policymakers have always appreciated the seriousness of oil as a finite resource that is NOT as cheap and abundant as the public has been encouraged to believe.<br><br>The pattern of IMF and World Bank collusion with the State Dept, Pentagon, the NSA and CIA etc. in perpetrating enormous fraud in order to compromise national sovereignty, inhibit development and modernization of third-world nations, and coerce economic exploitation as per ruinous, devastating debt-peonage obligations is one of the biggest racketeering crimes of the modern age. It's no accident that the US, with 5 percent of the world's population, uses 20 percent of the world's oil, some 20+ million barrels per day -- most of it imported. By limited the development of Third World nations and confounding their domestic dependency/use of oil, has left more oil, at lower cost, for the US to control and use itself, fueling the American engine of economic expansion. Also, depriving these nations of the opportunity to become strong economic competitors reduces their ability to challenge US hegemony or resist America's neocolonial exploitation. It's all about power -- in which control of oil has played a crucial role in the last 100 years.<br><br>But, if you can provide some compelling info to refute these points, have at it. I'd love to be convinced things aren't as dire as they appear. But I'm not gonna indulge in unsupported wish-gratification just to avoid an inconvenient truth.<br><br>'K, 'nuff babblin.<br>Starman<br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
