On Mar 18, 7:20*pm, "
wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:16:43 -0400, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
"Charlie" wrote:

Consider China. Their economy is doing very well because American
manufacturing is going down the tubes.
* Actually we make just as many things as we ever have, and even for
inflation it has increased steadily. What has happened is a very large
average increase in productivity over the last 20 years. We have lost
considerably more jobs to robots then Chinese especially the higher
paying ones.

Here's the problem. Every time there is a tanker of oil is on the market we
are bidding against our own money that now is in the hands of the Chinese.

So if you think that the president has any control of oil prices put down
your copy of Playboy and start reading the business section of your
newspaper.
* Of course the President has some control. To the extent that the
adminsitration's rules and regulations put obstacles in the path of
developing our own resources it impacts greatly. The dumbest thing a
president can say (and this has been said by people of both parties) is
that there is nothing they can do immediately. While that is true, if
someone had decided at the time of the last big surge to do something
about it, THIS surge might not have been as large.

But it's *NOT* true. *If there was a reasonable energy (and foreign) policy
there wouldn't be the worry in the market. *If he had a plan - bring on the
pipeline, drill-baby-drill, and open federal lands, sure that oil wouldn't be
coming onto the market for five years, but very few speculators are going to
stick their neck out when the momentum is down.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I remember hearing much the same stuff in 1980 when Carter's
failed policies had produced similar results. We were running
out of oil and there was no easy solution. We had to learn to
conserve, to do with less. With the election of Ronald Reagan,
those failed policies were replaced with sound ones and free
market economics. Oil headed straight down and was at $8 a
barrel within a few years.

Just suppose we drilled in ANWR and found an oil field equal
to Saudi Arabia? What do you think that would do to the price?
Until you get rid of the politicians who won't even let exploratory
drilling to find out what's there, no one will ever know.