AlexS

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+7 / 0

173 Comments

    • Thu Aug 7th 13:23 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Houston to Obama: Smell the Oil
      And CT, if our taxes went to bridges, fire departments, police, highways, etc., no problem. The Constitution says, "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare." It's the words "common" and "general" that matter. But a quarter of our budget goes specifically to senior citizens (a special interest group if there ever was one). Much of the rest goes to selected people and groups. Corn growers, ethanol blenders, stockholders of Fannie Mae, the list seems endless. I'd like to see us get back to spending for those things we have in common, the bridges, the police, the schools. Enough of this special interest nonsense. We will rue the day (we already are) when the politicians can buy off the votes of their special groups with everyone's money.
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    • Thu Aug 7th 12:57 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Houston to Obama: Smell the Oil
      As a Republican I find interesting all these "I am a Democrat, but ..." followed by a host of reasons why the Democratic Party's approach to key issues is nonsense. I would encourage you all to take a look at what your Democratic Party followership will lead to. Maybe it's time for a CHANGE.
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    • Thu Aug 7th 00:22 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why I'm Anti a 'Windfall Profit Tax' on Big Oil
      Good article. More information here than in an entire month's worth of Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, New York Times, and Al Franken. Sorry you won't be hired as a journalist. They only hire people who scream "hate Bush, hate Bush."
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    • Wed Aug 6th 17:00 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Crude Sell-off: Solid Entry Point into U.S. Oil Majors
      Pockyclips, I'd have to say as a Republican that offshore drilling is not necessarily a states rights issue. The region they're talking about (outer continental shelf) is by definition federal jurisdiction. I can see the states worried about their seashores but 5 miles out? And I think you've got the concept of subsidies reversed. Oil and nuclear to my knowledge are not subsidized. What usually stands in the way is some authority saying "NO", whether its Congress and OCS and ANWR, or Congress with its unwillingness to finally allow a geologically safe repository for nuclear waste, or to allow reprocessing of nuclear waste. Note that tax cuts are not subsidies by any reasonable definition. If they were, then allowing people (or companies) to keep the money they've earned would somehow become "subsidies". Not at all an honest definition. Just as dishonest is to impute to oil protection the cost of the U.S. Navy, for instance, as some people do. The Navy exists in large part to keep the sea lanes open for all trade, and no one attempts to attribute the cost of the Navy to the price of shirts, for instance. But Congress does subsidize ethanol, for instance, and requires oil companies to use certain percentages of ethanol in their gasoline. Congress hands over our cash. As well, Congress protects domestic ethanol with an import tax, thereby prohibiting the one source of ethanol (from sugar) that makes economic and energy sense (including greenhouse gases). Lastly I hear a lot of objections to OCS drilling on the grounds that it wouldn't be economical for the oil companies. Well if that's really the reason, then I say remove the obstacles to drilling and let the oil companies decide if its economical. No one in Congress, for instance, is making any calls about whether another hamburger chain would be profitable. Why would they object about profitability from oil production? Just another red herring.
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    • Wed Aug 6th 15:05 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Crude Sell-off: Solid Entry Point into U.S. Oil Majors
      There are at least three good reasons high oil prices aren't necessarily good for big oil (XOM, COP, etc) and falling oil prices (within limits) not necessarily bad. One is that higher prices get the public and the politicians riled up, and little good comes from politicians getting riled up (or pretending to get riled up). Two is that crude oil is the major cost input for refined products, and most big oil companies refine much more oil (1.5-2x) than they produce. Three is that high oil prices put in motion a lot more oil production projects and bidding for resources (engineering, materials, etc) makes everything get expensive. For instance, much has been made of offshore U.S. drilling, but even if Congress were to approve drilling, most of the deep water platforms are currently off the Brazil coast and it would be very expensive to snare them for OCS US drilling. Of course, few of our politicians would know that, because few of them have ever been responsible for any business outside of perhaps being a partner in a law firm. Sad to say both of our Presidential nominees fit the "no business experience" class.
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    • Wed Aug 6th 10:52 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Commodities: On the Downhill Slope?
      Agreed. People talk a lot about demand destruction. I went out to dinner yesterday and from my vantage point in the parking lot there wasn't a whole lot of demand destruction.
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    • Tue Aug 5th 17:32 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Obama Wants to 'Robin Hood' Exxon
      Funny how so may people are now experts on how much oil in on federal leased land, what drilling strategy to use, what it's worth to the corporation, etc. Most of the people I know never made it through college geology. I guess they pick it up reading Newsweak.
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    • Tue Aug 5th 16:07 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Obama Wants to 'Robin Hood' Exxon
      I still don't get the idea that if I give $10 for someone to vote for my candidate then I'm breaking the law but if Obama promises his voters $1000 each if he's elected then that's OK. Perhaps Obama should be in jail.
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    • Tue Aug 5th 15:45 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Obama Wants to 'Robin Hood' Exxon
      Mark, Obama gave the commencement speech at my alma mater. In part of his speech (toward the end), he referred to "justice everlasting". Rather like the Apostle's Creed, or Nicene Creed. But since Obama can't promise "life everlasting" he had to settle for "justice everlasting". If Obama doesn't believe what he says then he's just a con artist. But if he believes what he's saying .... well, the man is very scary.
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    • Tue Aug 5th 15:36 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Obama Wants to 'Robin Hood' Exxon
      Well Mark I can only hope that SA doesn't turn over their records to the incoming Thought Police.
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    • Tue Aug 5th 15:23 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Obama Wants to 'Robin Hood' Exxon
      It used to be that you could depend on a business site to be pro-business, but Jonathan your comments take the cake. First, Exxon is more than just a few wealthy people. You take from Exxon you take from tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands or millions of stockholders, including those through mutual funds. Second, if it's OK to just take and redistribute, what (philosophically now) prevents anyone from just taking from SA, for instance, or you personally, or anyone. Barack's notion and your approval is a formula from the law of the jungle. Take and eat what you can. The powerful survive. Easy for Barack to say if he's going to be the powerful. Not good for the rest of us. It's so sad that this man might be the next President. So sad.
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    • Tue Aug 5th 15:02 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Obama Wants to 'Robin Hood' Exxon
      Who was the bank robber who said he robbed banks because "that's where the money is"? Was it Barack Obama?
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    • Thu Jul 31st 15:56 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Move Over Exxon-Mobil, Here Comes Gazprom
      If Gazprom's long term prospects are to serve as a cash cow for the Russian government then it won't be worth much to investors.
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    • Thu Jul 24th 18:38 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      'Pickens Plan' Comes in the Nick of Time
      Since most of our natural gas is domestically produced it's not obvious that cutting its usage (in favor of wind turbines) would decrease dollar flow to the Middle East. This would especially be true if the wind turbines (or their steel) end up being produced somewhere else (how long before I see "Made in China" on a wind turbine?). Why not just allow increased drilling for natural gas? And keep in mind that gas turbines are typically used for peak generation of electricity, during those long hot summer days when the wind is most likely to be still. In that case, since wind energy is not easily stored, we will need gas-fueled plant capacity anyway (doesn't sound very efficient to me, building two power plants instead of one). Now the rights of way, on the other hand, would probably be very valuable for various things other than wind turbine electricity. Maybe it could be used to transport that Bakken gas to other markets.
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    • Thu Jul 24th 16:31 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Getting Charged Up About Lithium
      I don't think lithium is that rare. A lot of the greases on the marketplace use lithium based soaps as thickeners and I've never heard anyone saying that lithium prices or a lithium shortage is causing them to shy away from such greases. Then too if it's used in auto batteries it's pretty certain that any metals would be recycled. I'm not familiar with the economics of $10K batteries, but I rather doubt that the cost of lithium itself plays much of a part.
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