Re: Yikes! Diesel $4.50/gallon

On Apr 27, 1:41 am, heav <p...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The bankers whose friends and associates profit from lending the U.S.
government the money when the budget runs a deficit were panicked
(Alan Greenspan has written about this) that the Clinton era tax and
spending levels, if continued, would result in ZERO debt, something
Greenspan saw as potentially disastrous.  

And the evidence of this, beyond your own wild speculation, is? I'd
love to see a reference for the remark attributed to Greenspan. BTW,
spending rose dramatically during Clinton's years, as it has for
decades, regardless of who was in charge. That the budget was
briefly balanced came from a very strong economy and the stock market
boom, which everyone knew from history couldn't last for ever, filled
the coffers with tax money. You think that stock market boom would
have occurred had we instead had your policies of high taxes and govt
intervention? How great was the economy back in the 70's when the
top tax rate was twice what it was today? Even Clinton recognized
that capital gains cuts were good and they were cut again under his
administration.


Yeah - disastrous for all
his buddies who make enormous profits loaning our government the same
money they should be paying in taxes.

Last time I checked, the top 5% of income earners are paying around
50% of the total federal income taxes paid. So, the rich are paying
a huge amount of taxes, just not enough for socialists like you, who
would like to confiscate all wealth and turn it over to the govt so
they can decide how to piss it away. The ash heap of history is
filled with countries where they've tried that with disasterous
results.




The Republicans have had a policy of devaluing the dollar for
decades.

Reference please.



 They want the currency to be worth less.  I will leave it to
a Republican to explain why, but I think the theory is that our
products will then be cheaper when exported.  

The explanation won't be forthcoming, because the their is no such
policy.



Unfortunately the robber
baron free trade agreements have resulted in most manufacturing moving
off shore, so there are few products left to sell.  In addition, we
import 4 million barrels of oil a day or something, so at $120 a
barrel we are going in the hole fast.  No way are cheaper prices going
to make up that kind of profligate spending.  The fact that the dollar
is still the preferred reserve currency and that the oil trade is
based on the dollar are about the only things keeping us afloat, and
if the downward trend in the dollar continues it is only a matter of
time until exporters of oil will no longer accept dollars.

Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, EXPORTS  about 4
million barrels per day, each day, making now, at $120 a barrel, half
a billion dollars a day in profits.


And the point to this is? How many Boeing aircraft do they export?
How many semiconductors, computers, or similar high tech gear?




By the way, it isn't quite true that oil sells for the same price
everywhere.  In Venezuela I think gas is $0.12, twelve cents, per
gallon.  In Iraq, before the U.S. occupation, gas was $0.04, four
cents, per gallon at the pump.  It was up to $1.26, I read, a couple
of weeks ago.  I don't know what the price of gas is in Russia, but as
an exporting nation they may have lower prices than we are forced to
pay in oil importing nations.

Yes, but the same truth to the argument holds. It's government
intervention in the oil markets that produced those idiotic prices in
Venezuela and Iraq. It's easy to set the price of oil at anything
you want when you're a dictator and forcefully seize power and steal
private property. And look at the wonderful results for the
countries. What is the standard of living and economic power of
those countries? See anyone rushing to invest in those countries?
No.



The U.S. is still one of the world's largest producers of oil, but we
waste so much that we have to import huge amounts besides what is
domestically produced.  If we nationalized our oil here,

Yes, just like Fidel, it's obvious that's your goal. Strange thing.
I look at govt and see massive waste and inability to do most things
anywhere close to efficiently. Just last week there was a story of
how the IRS outsourced collection of back taxes owed and the net
result was is cost them $50mil more than what was recovered. How good
of a job did FEMA do with Katrina? Yet, you want the same geniuses to
run the oil business. I wonder who's more capable of finding oil?
Exxon and Boon Pickens, or some political hack?



had fuel
efficient vehicles, and greater use of mass transit, we could have
cheap oil here too.  If we eliminated wasteful gas guzzlers and
implemented maximum alternative energy like wind and solar we could
live as well or better than we do now on only domestically produced
oil.

If wind and solar can compete competively with other energy at today's
prices, then why aren't these rich and greedy *** entrepenuers all
jumping on it? Hmmm? And don't give us some far fetched conspiracy
theories, where they're sitting in a room with the same guys from 40
years ago that were supposed to be sitting on the 100MPG carburetor.
The simple fact is, we're only starting to get to prices where
alternatives can make viable economical sense. It's part of the
process that will make it happen. As the prices rise, the free
market will result in alternate solutions. But left to be free,
those solutions will be economically viable. Unlike govt
solutions. Remember the billions Carter sank into extracting oil
from shale? How much oil did the govt produce? Answer: Not one
barrel.
.