Thanks to BP that may change. Those who accept donations from Big Oil may find them selves voted out now. :hmmm:

If it weren't for British Petroleum this well would still be flowing oil. Never forget that.

Here's the choice
 

Here's the choice we could build veicles that run on alternative fuels and develope alternative fuels ,or continue giving billion's of dollars to energy providers that hate us. What has gone on about energy here in the states is a joke . The Volt is a joke, US energy policy is a joke, 100 dollars a barrel for oil will be a joke, Cap en Trade is a joke. Only way to turn around the economic down turn is to have cheap clean energy , so the cosumer has more money to spend on other goods. So when gas goes over 5 dollars a gallon I wonder what a can of peas will cost.

Except for an increase in the price of oil.:DL And I don't mean an artificial increase through legislation, either, I mean a nice, natural market-based increase. Or spike. Whatever.

You clearly have a distaste for Big Oil, and I can't say I blame you. Like any entity with enough power, they have a tendency to overreach and do less-than-reputable things. However, the same insatiability for profits will drive them to continue providing some kind of petroleum substitute or alternative long after the oil is gone. TBH, I think they already have one, but since drilling is cheaper they just use that.

If it were up to me, I'd take the leash off of Big Oil and just let them go to town. No taxes, other than an effluent tax, no trade restrictions, no quotas, no embargoes, no drilling restrictions on land they own. However, as long as I'm pretending that I have such fiat power, I'd also curb legislative power across the board to the point of near-impotence that would require a supermajority for any minor legislative or regulatory powers left not already set in stone. Who ya' gonaa lobby now A-holes? I guess you'll have to provide a good or service at an agreeable price.

Granted, there will be places where they'll charge whatever the market will bear, but I don't see that as a problem. IMO, many people are too quick to see themselves as victims of a power far greater than themselves, or worse, see themselves as entitled to a share of that power and wealth, and too many ambitious politicians are too quick to take advantage of that. For some reason, people tend to forget that they also have power as consumers and employees and informed voters. I'm not afraid of Big Oil. Big Oil is my, for lack of a better word, biatch. Big Oil is my employer's biatch. They will give us oil at a reasonable cost or we'll simply take our business elsewhere. Failing that, we'll just use something else, or we'll make our own oil, or we'll cut back on our usage. We may even organize to bring prices down. Monopsony is monpoly's more powerful twin.

Except when OPEC and other cartels decide to make you their Biach instead.

But the "Watercar" nonsense isnt helping people get off oil. HHO as a way to make an engine more efficient is sane but running a car on water is not. I dont know how many times I have seen these crazy "Vacuum energy generators" Or other bullcrap but they have one thing in common. They usually have a big youtube video or news item and promptly vanish. Often with investor money.

The only one I follow these days is Blacklight energy. Which sticks around and posts updates which give atleast some entertainment and discussion value.

I'm almost at a loss to describe how incorrect this statement is.

You remind me of me when I was a lot younger, Zach. I was all over this energy-crisis, fossil-fuel, foreign-oil, doomsday BS. It took me a long time to realize that I'd been had. As with most scares, there really wasn't much of a threat at all, just people with an agenda who needed people to be scared.

I don't think I can blame you for seeing things the way you do. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that you learned a lot of the same things in public school that I did in the arena of environmental science and what they call somehow call "economics" with a straight face. I did science projects comparing the efficiency of various alternative energy sources, and wrote essay after essay on alternative energy policy for various courses. It wasn't until after I got out of high school that I realized that most of what I'd been taught in those areas was pure bunk.

Public schools, being the unionized and publicly-funded institutions that they are, are extremely vulnerable to both political currents and people who find it acceptable to work in publicly-funded and unionized intstitutions. This is why our schools are so awful despite the hundreds of billions of dollars we throw at them. What is supposed to be a place of learning quickly becomes a vector for the ideals of people who have no interest in how anything works beyond their own self-interest and whatever pandering politicians peddle to them. This is how we end up with a mandatory public institution that tells us we're running out of energy or that the earth is dying. Most of the time, there's some kind of other agenda behind this crap, and it's usually some kind of anti-corporate message based on people wanting free stuff. The funny thing is that these same people are foolish enough to believe that the government is so magnanimous or virtuous to give them what they want despite the fact that it's made up of people who are just as bad as any greedy CEO, but with fiat power. That's how we end up with asshead politicians and laws that nobody has been happy with, ever. But I digress.

The point is that what you have been taught is wrong. OPEC cannot bend us over the barrel, so to speak, because it needs us to buy their oil. We also have untapped reserves of our own. We have a virtual monopsony on oil consumption. If a producer loses the US market, they're sunk. Even with China on the rise, and India making a pathetic socialist attempt to keep up, no producer can afford to lose the US market. To make matters worse for them, they're inextricably intertwined with US-based shipping and refining firms.

If we were smart, we'd completely eradicate all taxes and tariffs on the oil business, thus guaranteeing that our position as not only the largest market but the most profitable one, barrel for barrel, and force OPEC into meeting our demands by sheer virtue of market force. We might even become an exporter in our own right by importing foreign oil for cracking before it is shipped elsewhere. But of course, we won't do that because we have too many Marxist bastards with votes who want free stuff gumming up the works.

I gather that alternative energy is a passion of yours, and that's ok. We need people like you to innovate and exert pressure on domestic industry for energy alternatives. Just have a care, especially when considering state funding. You may well end up charging off on some crusade to inadvertently further the interests of a bunch of lazy jerks.

First take your union busting bull and take a hike.

Second you don't know me. I am not you when you were young I am educated enough to know what is what.

Third eradicate oil taxes? are you nuts?

Edit: 4th you seem to be on a crusade against "Lazy Jerks" are you one of these republicans that thinks of little more about how some welfare user is stealing your two cents you throw into the US treasury?

As you wish. Thank goodness there are people of similar opinion to give my union power to extort higher wages out of them. It's almost funny how easy it is. I can even come on a largely conservative forum and still find people who will defend unions for no apparent reason, even though it costs them.

Before I take my union-busting bull on a hike to the bank, which doesn't open till' 9, please allow me to address the rest of your points.


And you don't know me, so you can't really say that you're not me when I was young, either, can you? Stop. Think about that for a minute. Kind of makes you wonder whether or not you're educated enough to know what is what, doesn't it?

That said, you may be right. Maybe you're not like me when I was younger, but you sure sound like it. I don't say that to make you feel stupid or belittle you, I just want you to think about the position you hold, and why you hold it.

No, I'm not nuts, but you think I am because such an attitude seems completelky counterintuitive to you. Eliminate oil taxes!? What kind of sense does that make? That's revenue that could be going towards initiatives that would benefit society in whatever way you actually believe that a government agency whose legitimacy and primary motive for existence has absolutely nothing to do with you or any beliefs you hold other than lip-service could effect.

Perhaps you have noticed the lack of progress that has been made in harnessing tremendous oil revenues for any kind of productive purpose. I don't even have to look them up to know that they were in the tens of billions last fiscal quarter alone. Gee, I wonder why that is. Could it be that idiots like me who are identified as opposition are somehow impeding the productive use of that revenue? Maybe we're directing it into the pockets of CEOs or wars because we're such conservative idiots. Oh my, better vote to increase the power of the state for our own good then, huh? Oh wait, that's never worked. That money often goes to collectivized interests like my union, which is just as greedy and self-serving as any Wall-Street fat cat, that use the revenue to advance one purpose only; their agendas and paychecks. Half the time it goes to rich people who lobby for it because people like you inadvertently allow them to do that through your misplaced faith in the government. Are you seeing how this all works, yet?

Industry, even the oil industry, drives progress when you allow it to do so. I don't have the space to explain why this is so, but perhaps you can read The Wealth of Nations or just listen to a few modern economists.

No, and actually, there are no Republicans like that. Republicans didn't become Republicans by complaining about taxes. For the most part, they got that way by complaining about social issues. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Republicans any more than I like Democrats. To me, they are both part of the same party, with only marginal differences.

I am not a Republican, and my problem is not with the " two cents" that some welfare user gets out of my paycheck, though I hate those guys, too. My problem is with interests that co-opt people like you to establish a market via legislative force where one would not otherwise be.