Re: Energy Protectionism
From: Tkalbfus1 (tkalbfus1_at_aol.com)
Date: 08/25/04
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Date: 25 Aug 2004 03:11:36 GMT
>And he clearly answered, 'Silly question. American soldiers shouldn't
>be there in the first place.'
>
How does a soldier "shouldn't be there in there in the first place," if he is
already there. If your life is in danger and you are a soldier, do you
"shouldn't be there in the first place," and how do you do that. I'll bet every
soldier who's been in a firefight would like to know the answer to that
question. Do soldiers suddenly teleport out of their when they say that "magic
phase"? That would be a neat trick if they could.
>So, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to think these 'sovereign
>nations' don't have the right to control and sell their natural resources?
They do, but we don't have to buy it from them if it damages our economy do we?
It may make economic sense to buy oil from the cheapest source (ie the Middle
East) at any given moment, but by doing so, we are undermining our capacity to
produce our own energy as they can't compete with the cheaper foreign source in
the long run. Our domestic energy suppliers disappear and forien oil exporting
countries are free to cause ouil shocks by rapidly spiking the price of oil
upwards in an oil market thay control. I did not vote for the Arabs or for
OPEC, so I don't see why we should give them control of our economy or the
ability to cause recessions by buying their oil. The government has a right to
protect the Nation's interest buy curtailing oil imports. The Arabs can do
whatever they want with their oil, but I don't think the US should buy it, its
a bad source of energy in that it gives foreigners too much power and influence
over our economy, they should therefore be cut out.
>Turn it around. What if we had some natural resource that the rest of
>the world didn't have. What if we sold this resource to increase our
>wealth? Would we be in the position you have put the Arabs?
>
If other nations don't like it, they should find the nearest substitute and
learn to do without this resource. The needs of the nation have to be put ahead
of individual economic interest at any given moment. Our long term interest is
not to give foreign nations the ability to cause price spikes that disrupt our
economy. the best thing for our country is to make sure the price of gasoline
goes high and never comes down and provide government guarantees of that so our
economy is forced to adapt and develop substitutes. Imagine what we'd be doing
now if oil in the Middle East was never discovered. If gasoline was too
expensive, our cars would run on other things and that's what we should be
doing now.
>Oh yea, I really like your, 'to our oil supply' and 'the world's oil
>supplies'. How do you figure it isn't theirs?
Because they monopolize it and use it as a weapon. If they use it as a weapon
rather than allow individual producers to maximize their profits under a
compedative environment, that is what's known as a trust. There is precident
for taking away the property of a private corporation that seeks to monopolize
a segment of the market, this is called an antitrust suit. So now are you
saying that monopolies are good for the economy, and that one producer should
make himself as rich as possible at our expense. There is a long term benifit
of not being dependent on monopolies that the market does not address, so that
Government needs to step in.
>By the way, you are ranting about an impossible alternative energy in
>the next decade.
They are not impossible, a kilogram of hydrogen equals the chemical energy of a
gallon of gasoline. Hydrogen is not impossible, it exists in vast quantities in
the universe. The way we utilize hydrogen is to generate energy and use that
energy to make hydrogen and the hydrogen is what propels cars. The beast way to
do this is to ignore the oil fields of the Middle East and pretend they don't
exist.
>If we all started driving smaller efficient cars like
>humans, (instead of using aggressive animal driving habits.), we could
>accomplish what you want _AND_ save a big pile of money to boot.
If a car is small enough, we will sit on it and crush it and it won't get us
anywhere! What we need is a car that runs on something else besides gasoline.
Why do you propose a temporary solution instead of a permanent one. If we build
smaller cars that are more fuel efficient, we are still using up our finite
reserves of petrolium and putting money into Arabs pockets. It seems a better
idea to solve this problem of oil dependency rather than expending resources on
a stop-gap solution. There is alot of energy out there, we just have to find
out how to use it. You on the other hand don't seem willing to look, you'd just
rather use less and less, why is that?
The difference is similar to the difference between a fish that obtains its
oxygen with its gills through the water and a whale that holds its breath for a
long time. The whale eventually has to surface, no matter how efficient its
body is at using the oxygen stored in its lungs, the fish never has to.
Tom
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