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Old 04-26-2006, 10:55 AM   #16
Shane
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 159
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Guru,

All I can tell you is we in Texas would have really appreciated all this attention on the scandalous, years long plot to inflate oil profits in the 80's when everyone was going bankrupt in the industry.

Also, it is well known that a big part of the problem is we stopped building refineries somewhere in the 70's, so there is no way to increase supply. This has as much to do with environmental concerns as it does oil profiteering, but the bottom line is if you're only running a handful of refineries at peak capacity, supply goes down and profits go up. It's one of those things scientists don't debate much either.

So again, I am sorry but the bleak, evil-American-oil-barons-ought-to-be-strung-up sort of rhetoric is not reality. You slap some more restrictions on oil and you may well be looking at a Repeat of Carter's gas line phenomenon, where it simply ceases to be profitable to make and sell gas at all, so people just stop. If you wanted to be a good liberal on this issue, what you really might ought to be talking is, "why with record profits are oil industry workers not making more than they are?" That would get some folks' attention in a hurry.

These are important matters, I understand, but it is also important not to get so ramped up you are motivated to shoot people over what essentially, once again, is merely the buying and selling of things. Certainly, anyone who wants to go into the alternative energy source market and open a company is welcome to. The fact is, even at its present price range, gas and oil and so forth are still cheaper.

The new things are coming. Just have a little patience and a little faith in your fellow human being. I've been hearing this sort of thing all my life, and it appears it has been going on for all of recorded history. With the rare exception of ignoring the possibility that people who claim they intend to conquer the earth really mean to try to do that, there are very few instances in history where the world as we know it really does just suddenly cease to exist, though. That's more of a religious thing than a scientific thing.
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