Nice AJC article on oil

[AWL71 0]

If drilling in ANWR decreased our dependance on foreign oil by as little as 2-3% that would be a step in the right direction IMO. We have to start somewhere. Becoming less dependant on foreign oil makes sense to me even if the percentages are low. And until we start drilling who is to say actually how much oil is in ANWR?

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

[StreetScooby 5]

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and it's funny you point to Exxon on this - they've been very upfront that they are an oil company and do not have expertise in other forms of energy.

I know this. That is my point. Let the market work. Our Congress is not letting that happen in this industry.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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What do you mean by functional?

Google efficient market. Most markets aren't fully efficient, but they're close enough.

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I've pointed out that the markets have failed with every other natural resource (in particular, fisheries). What counterexample can you provide?

Look around you. You're surrounding by functioning markets. It's what has made our society what it is today.

Were the examples you cite really markets? Or, govt attempts at markets?

We are all engines of karma

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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ANWR is our life insurance policy - when things get bad, we have it ready.

I thought it was a wildlife refuge.
Do you favour opening up Yosemite and Yellowstone to mineral exploration/exploitation as well? If not is it because ANWR is a lot further away than other parks/reserves?
These questions are not just directed at Kelpdiver.

[jcd11235 0]

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If drilling in ANWR decreased our dependance on foreign oil by as little as 2-3% that would be a step in the right direction IMO. We have to start somewhere. Becoming less dependant on foreign oil makes sense to me even if the percentages are low. And until we start drilling who is to say actually how much oil is in ANWR?

The problem isn't dependence on foreign oil. The problem is dependence on oil. Increasing domestic oil production won't help decrease that dependence. If anything, it will further enable it.

Drilling in ANWR won't noticeably lower our fuel prices. But it will have the effect of, to borrow kelpdiver's metaphor, cashing out our life insurance policy so that when we need the oil, it will no longer be there.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[idrankwhat 0]

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If drilling in ANWR decreased our dependance on foreign oil by as little as 2-3% that would be a step in the right direction IMO. We have to start somewhere. Becoming less dependant on foreign oil makes sense to me even if the percentages are low. And until we start drilling who is to say actually how much oil is in ANWR?

1) "US oil" is oil from the US that is released through private organizations into the global oil market. Global market, not US market. In short, drilling in ANWR doesn't do more than to increase the global supply by a minimal amount, and one that is easily compensated for by supply reduction by another supplier.

2) Drilling in ANWR to find out how much oil is there makes as much sense as firing off some of the rounds in your clip to see if you have enough bullets for the battle.

[idrankwhat 0]

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Look around you. You're surrounding by functioning markets. It's what has made our society what it is today.

We're also surrounded by dis-functioning markets e.g., sugar, oil, corn, milk, beef, lumber, etc.
It's what has made our society what it is today.

[StreetScooby 5]

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We're also surrounded by dis-functioning markets e.g., sugar, oil, corn, milk, beef, lumber, etc.

And how much has our govt stuck their nose into those markets?

We are all engines of karma

[jcd11235 0]

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We're also surrounded by dis-functioning markets e.g., sugar, oil, corn, milk, beef, lumber, etc.

And how much has our govt stuck their nose into those markets?

Unregulated markets tend to transition to monopolies. Monopolies minimize consumer surplus.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[kelpdiver 2]

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I've pointed out that the markets have failed with every other natural resource (in particular, fisheries). What counterexample can you provide?

Look around you. You're surrounding by functioning markets. It's what has made our society what it is today.

Were the examples you cite really markets? Or, govt attempts at markets?

I'm looking for examples where the market doesn't destroy a limited consumable resource.

The Atlantic swordfish market, sardines in Monterey, abalone anywhere in California, the buffalo, lumber. Most of these were eliminated, because there is rarely any incentive for individual collectors to stop what they're doing, even though it collectively destroys them all. The only one that is at all healthy is lumber, and that's only with considerable government interference. In the others, it acted too late.

And these are all markets where if harvested at a suitable rate, the resource regenerates and lasts forever. Oil doesn't regenerate, not in any time frame that matters to humans.

[kelpdiver 2]

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ANWR is our life insurance policy - when things get bad, we have it ready.

I thought it was a wildlife refuge.
Do you favour opening up Yosemite and Yellowstone to mineral exploration/exploitation as well? If not is it because ANWR is a lot further away than other parks/reserves?
These questions are not just directed at Kelpdiver.

It's a refuge, and in the context of energy, a resource. For reasons of the former and the fact that oil only gets more valuable, it's useful to keep it as a rainy day supply.

[kelpdiver 2]

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We're also surrounded by dis-functioning markets e.g., sugar, oil, corn, milk, beef, lumber, etc.

And how much has our govt stuck their nose into those markets?

The government acts to stablilize many of these markets with the use of subsidies. Since these are essentials of life, we can't have boom and bust cycles that markets tend to have on their own due to the lemmings that participate in them.

But you're still missing the distinction of resources that are scarse and non renewable. You can't look at a twice annual crop like corn and draw any meaningful comparisons. The floods are going to wipe out a shitload of corn this year. Next year will be perfectly normal. You only lose one crop at a time.

When a scarse resource becomes even more scarse, the price goes up. This gives the harvester the incentive to keep on collecting, rather than to leave it be. There is absolutely no incentive to sit and wait - more isn't coming, so you might as well sell what is there now. This is exactly how the commercial abalone market in CA collapsed. Even at $50/lb, there was enough market to reduce the species to a non sustaining population.

The market solves everything mantra is idiocy.

[AWL71 0]

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We're also surrounded by dis-functioning markets e.g., sugar, oil, corn, milk, beef, lumber, etc.

And how much has our govt stuck their nose into those markets?

Unregulated markets tend to transition to monopolies. Monopolies minimize consumer surplus.

Monopolies minimize consumer choice and raise prices. Monoplies worked out great for the former Soviet Union.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

[idrankwhat 0]

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We're also surrounded by dis-functioning markets e.g., sugar, oil, corn, milk, beef, lumber, etc.

And how much has our govt stuck their nose into those markets?

A whoooooole bunch! Subsidies and tariffs have completely destroyed any semblance of free market interaction. US cotton doesn't make a dime on sales, it's all from subsidies. We buy milk with taxpayer money in order to keep the price from crashing, which in turn is an incentive to produce more milk, which subsequently gets shipped off or stored in caves using taxpayer money. When you get a chance you should do some research on our Government's intervention in the sugar market. That "cartel" got their mitts on our legislators even before big oil did.
Actually I think sugar is why we snagged Hawaii but that discussion is probably worthy of another thread.

edited to add: I don't think "snagged" is the correct term. I believe that "liberated" is what all the hipsters using these days.

[jcd11235 0]

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We're also surrounded by dis-functioning markets e.g., sugar, oil, corn, milk, beef, lumber, etc.

And how much has our govt stuck their nose into those markets?

Unregulated markets tend to transition to monopolies. Monopolies minimize consumer surplus.

Monopolies minimize consumer choice and raise prices. Monoplies worked out great for the former Soviet Union.

Yes. That's why neither unregulated markets nor markets in which everything is completely regulated makes good economic sense.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

Vinny, I posted that EIA info about offshoring making an impact by 2030 a few days ago.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[billvon 3,120]

>Monopolies minimize consumer choice and raise prices.

Correct. Which is why a carefully REGULATED market works better than an unregulated one.

[AWL71 0]

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>Monopolies minimize consumer choice and raise prices.

Correct. Which is why a carefully REGULATED market works better than an unregulated one.

No government is capable of "carefully" regulating markets. Some person in power will favor one market over another out of self interest and it snowballs from there. Sounds good on paper but it is not practical. It's like saying the world would be a better place if we all did the right thing. We all know people aern't going to do the right things. Free Market economy is not perfect but it beats the alternative.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

[kelpdiver 2]

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>Monopolies minimize consumer choice and raise prices.

Correct. Which is why a carefully REGULATED market works better than an unregulated one.

No government is capable of "carefully" regulating markets. Some person in power will favor one market over another out of self interest and it snowballs from there. Sounds good on paper but it is not practical. It's like saying the world would be a better place if we all did the right thing. We all know people aern't going to do the right things. Free Market economy is not perfect but it beats the alternative.

As I've said repeatedly (with silence in response) is that in a free market for a scarse resource, you can count on invdividuals to destroy the market, so I'll take the government over it.

[billvon 3,120]

>No government is capable of "carefully" regulating markets.

Ours does a fairly good job. Still primarily a free market, with a lot of laws against fraud, significant oversight by the SEC and some strong anti-monopoly laws on the books.

>Sounds good on paper but it is not practical. It's like saying the world
>would be a better place if we all did the right thing. We all know people
>aern't going to do the right things.

And that's why a true "free market" will never work in reality.