nerfer

The Global Oil Scam: 50 Times Bigger than Madoff

Interesting stuff, interesting responses.
Even if higher prices are the result of manipulation and not the evaporation of the excess oil supply (see chart near end of actual article), this manipulation only works if we keep buying gasoline and other oil byproducts at high rates. O/w the volume of sales go down and the producers won't be happy.

If we worked to reduce our gallons of gasoline consumed and developed functional alternatives (including nat. gas powered vehicles), this wouldn't happen. We don't have the capability to drill enough of our own oil - off-shore and ANWR both will add about 3% of our needs a decade after being green-lighted, hardly an end-all solution. Oil shale won't be productive as it has an EROEI of about 1:1 (same as corn-based ethanol). Hydrogen fuel cells are still way too expensive, but all other solutions need to be pushed thru, for our national security. (If I was president, this would include removing large SUVs from people commuting to desk jobs).
It will take a decade or more for real change to occur, and by then we'll really be in peak oil, so it's best for our economy to get used to high prices now.