$730,000,000,000

[Larry Gude]

...per year.

That's what we're pizzing away right now on oil IN EXCESS price of a barrel. That's right, if we just assume oil is worth $50 a barrel, which is what it was ONE YEAR AGO, then we use $150, which is right around the corner, and it stays there for a year, it will dwarf what we spend on national defense. It would be the largest single item on our national tab.

Think about that. Can you imagine a federal program that goes from ZERO to $730 billion...in one year? That's a $2,400 tax on every man, woman and child in this country.

That is nearly double the largest single year budget deficit in our history. That is enough money to retire the national DEBT in about 11 years.

 

[Pete]

What is worse is all that money leaves our shores for someone elses pocket. Not 1 added job, not 1 added salary.

 

[kwillia]

We are doomed. The terrorists win.

 

[cwo_ghwebb]

My mind can't comprehend those numbers, just too many zeros. I guess if I got a check that large I'd put it in the bank and try to spend the interest.

 

[outlawrc]

What is worse is all that money leaves our shores for someone elses pocket. Not 1 added job, not 1 added salary.

However, there are a few lost jobs and a few lost salaries due to cutbacks from the cost of fuel.

 

[Larry Gude]

Not so...

What is worse is all that money leaves our shores for someone elses pocket. Not 1 added job, not 1 added salary.

...not so. US oil companies are making more money. US speculators are making money. Every single barrel of crude that comes out of US ground is also being traded at $150 or so. That's some 35% of our total consumption.

So, at least a third is directly domestic. It's that 65% that is going away.

Not to worry. It's coming back. They're buying us up like the Japanese did 20 years ago. Welcome to the UAE Pebble Beach Pro-Am, baby!

 

[onebdzee]

However, there are a few lost jobs and a few lost salaries due to cutbacks from the cost of fuel.

and a few more lost small businesses....and a few more houses being lost

 

[bcp]

Im thinking its time for an ear of corn to be worth somewhere in the area of 50 bucks when it goes to the sand dwellers.

 

[ImnoMensa]

Thats opk we dont need to drill any more wellls. Just keep buying fro the Ayrabs.

Those people who vote against drilling are Sheit simple and they are running(ruining) this country.

 

[onebdzee]

Im thinking its time for an ear of corn to be worth somewhere in the area of 50 bucks when it goes to the sand dwellers.

like it's going to cost them something....that's not how all this crap works

UN tells the US to give it up....at no cost to them of course....We give it up and the UN gets the credit for it...Yay for them

Or in the case of North Korean....the prime minister(or whatever his title is) gets to be the hero by telling all the people that he is starving "hey, look at what a great leader I am....I made the UN give you food"

 

[MMDad]

So, who thinks the Pickens Plan will work?

 

[Larry Gude]

Details...

So, who thinks the Pickens Plan will work?

...please. He told me today, on my TV, that he'd let me in on it over the coming weeks.

You an insider or sumpin'?

 

[Larry Gude]

Where's the...

...goddamn outrage, you people??? Some of you got over $1,000 in the 'stimulus' farce. It was a $150,000,000,000 scam. Think about it; $730???
The stimulus thing could have been FIVE TIMES as large to equal what we piss away on oil.

Bet you'd been real impressed then, if you're government bought you off for a cool $5 g's or so, huh?

 

[MMDad]

...please. He told me today, on my TV, that he'd let me in on it over the coming weeks.

You an insider or sumpin'?

Of course. But I can't tell you. Well I could, but then I'd have to shoot you.


Actually, I heard him on Fox today. He's not just talking, he's doing something. I don't know what his whole plan is, but on the surface he seems to make sense.

I'm hoping that he's proposing that we allow drilling in the OCS and ANWR, but require that the lease $$$ goes into funding alternatives like wind, solar, and nuclear.

It would get us off the Arab teat, as well as eventually getting us most of the way off the oil teat.

You know, something most people haven't been addressing: how do you fly airplanes without oil? Jet engines don't work on alcohol, batteries, solar, nuclear, etc. and the demand is far more than biodiesel will be able to meet.

 

[MMDad]

...goddamn outrage, you people???

I'm not outraged at what we are paying today because I have been outraged over what we have paid to people who hate us for the last 50 years. It's just noticeable now because people see it on gas station signs.

 

[Larry Gude]

People...

I'm not outraged at what we are paying today because I have been outraged over what we have paid to people who hate us for the last 50 years. It's just noticeable now because people see it on gas station signs.

...have seen it on signs for ever. It used to be reasonable and it used to mostly go to US companies. It's only been under our dear W that we've gone to an imbalance between what we pump at home and what we import.

THAT'S the issue, foreign dependence.

 

[Larry Gude]

Simple...

:
You know, something most people haven't been addressing: how do you fly airplanes without oil? Jet engines don't work on alcohol, batteries, solar, nuclear, etc. and the demand is far more than biodiesel will be able to meet.

...guess what? Jet engines work better off of synthetic fuel made from coal.
I don't know the details, but I was reading something about that recently.

We got 500 freaking years of coal. We probably have 1,000 years of oil that no one wants to talk about. And a million years of gas. Why? Because who in the hell would want to spend more money and expand a business just to make less WHEN YOU OWN A MONOPOLY?

 

[Pete]

Free market :shrug: Conservatives cannot tout the free market only when it suits them can they?

 

[kwillia]

I still cannot grasp why we allow speculation on futures and the speculators that are driving up the futures prices are the very same ones profitting from the future speculations. Why is this legal...

 

[Pete]

I still cannot grasp why we allow speculation on futures and the speculators that are driving up the futures prices are the very same ones profitting from the future speculations. Why is this legal...

Been that way for eons, pork bellies, corn, wheat, soybeans, basically anything.

Of course when it implodes, and it always does, they loose a lot.

I think they should only allow commodity buyers to only buy what they can store. This would cut out Joe Blow who lives in Skokie in a split level on 1/2 acre overlooking Lake Michigan from buying 100,000 barrels of oil and turning around and selling it.