Comments on: IRAQ – WAR – OIL

By: Circe

Circe — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:23:15 +0000

I just read an article reviewing Matthew (“Matt”) Simmons new book in which he suggests that the Saudis actually don’t have nearly as much oil left to pump as we were lead to believe. This could have catastrophic consequences for our economy if Simmons is correct. Simmons is not a militant environmentalist or anti-oil partisan; he is Chairman and CEO of one of the nation’s leading oil-industry investment banks, Simmons & Company International. For decades, Simmons has been pouring billions of dollars into the energy business, financing the exploration and development of new oil reservoirs. The article is at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=3832 for those who wish to read it.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 01:02:54 +0000

A restated comment to Julian.
Very well said, Julian. I could not have written it as well as you just did.
You are so right, and what is so sad, there are few who will open their eyes to the truth. They are so brainwashed by the this government and the religious right, that even if the truth hit them on the head they would not see it.
It does warm my heart that at least you see the truth. Now, how do we go about getting others to at least consider that this information could be actually true?.
Any Ideas?
Suzanne

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 19:23:10 +0000

You are 100% correct. I accept the correction.
Suzanne

By: K. Marx

K. Marx — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 06:43:06 +0000

Suzanne; A person is less open to enlightenment if they are first told, “to pull their heads out of their xxxx.”

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 03:42:36 +0000

Very well said, Julian. I could not have written it as well as you just did.
You are so right, and what is so sad, there are few who will open their eyes to the truth. They are so brainwashed by the this government and the religious right, that even if the truth hit them on the head they would not see it.
It does warm my heart that at least you see the truth. Now, how do we go about getting others to pull their heads out of their xxxx and face the facts.
Any Ideas?
Suzanne

By: Julian

Julian — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:38:00 +0000

Hi Suzanne, The piece at oiltruth.com presents very disturbing information that should significantly change the parameters of debate. It puts the Hatfield vs McCoy contest between the Republicans and Democrats into a different, diminished framework; makes the DNC vs RNC sorts of political differences seem like children just bonking each other on the heads with nerf bats – their differences are just a joke that distracts us from the real problems that we face. The challenges that warrant the attention of serious people are not the petty, superficial squables that receive the most media attention. There are critical problems in the foundation of our economic system that are emerging as fundamental resources grow more scarce. The piece at oiltruth.com highlights one such problem.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 01:38:09 +0000

Good artical and some good research.
Yes, that is very close to what I was trying to explain. What do you think after reading that information?
Suzanne

By: Julian

Julian — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 13:29:14 +0000

Suzanne, Is your primary point the same as the one explained at the following website? http://www.oiltruth.com/

By: Julian

Julian — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:34:32 +0000

Hi Suzanne,
I don’t have time to try to answer all of the questions you posed. They are very good ones though – but my wife is yelling for me to come watch “Ray”, the movie, right now. I think that I agree with your basic point. Our economic system is unsustainable and loaded with inherent contradictions. For one thing, our dependance on oil is so great and the oil supply must, in principle, be a vanishing resource. There is strong evidence that oil production has already peaked. But consumption is expected to increase. Therefore, conflicts over access to oil will increase. I don’t think that the US is trying to steal the world’s oil supply outright, as others on this site seem to think I believe. I think that we want to control our access to oil resources, build the infrastructure to pump, refine it, and pay for it. But other entities are not going to cooperate as readily as they did in the past to grant us access to resources that they control or at least think that they have the right to control. Our needs, as an energy craving system, will continue to be a root cause of conflict and will motivate our geopolitical strategies. As China and “developing nations” ramp up their oil use and industrial ambitions, I fear that the problems and conflicts will grow exponentially. I genuinely wonder why it is so difficult for the Bush administration to have this conversation with us. The “demoscarey is on the march” stuff is such a thin veil, but plenty of folks keep buying it. Off to the movies now. Best to ya. J I also want to add that I thought that K.Marx’s answer to your question was elegant. I envy his (or her) clarity of reasoning.

By: K. Marx

K. Marx — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 18:56:53 +0000

Suzanne; You bring up some interesting points. First and foremost, you speak of a “middle class”? What is this “middle class” exactly? I read about it in history books sometimes.
Large corporations do pay taxes. They simply don’t pay as high of a percentage. To pay no taxes, they would have to write off as much as they profit. Microsoft, and many other large corporations, turn huge profits and pay huge dividends to shareholders. To say they pay no taxes is, as I take it, hyperbole to express the fact that they pay a relatively small percentage.
This works well (in theory) because it promotes economic growth and is why the tax laws favor the wealthy. The idea is that if they pay less taxes, that’s more money they can plug into the economy. Right? That only works when they plug it into the U.S. economy, not exporting jobs, trading for foreign currency during favorable exchange rates, etc. So perhaps the problem isn’t the fact that the wealthy pay a smaller tax percentage, the problem is that they use their economic gains to benefit only themselves and economies outside the U.S. (i.e., at present, places like China, the Middle East, and the EU).
Perhaps the government should give some incentive for people to benefit the U.S. economy and gasoline alternatives. If I make textiles, why shouldn’t I increase my profits by sending my capital to Asia? What economic advantage do I have to pay workers $17 per hour when I could pay them $0.10 per hour? What economic advantage do I have to pay $20 per sheet of lumber when I could buy it and ship it from overseas for $10 per sheet?
Similarly, if I am a board member of a huge oil corporation, what economic advantages do I have abandoning my cash-cow industry for a, comparitively, incentiveless industry like alternative fuels?
The point is this: If, as a CEO, board member, shareholder, etc., there is no economic advantage (and there are actually economic disadvantages), why should they do something? To be sure, ethics come into play, but only so much. If your job is to increase profits, there’s a point where you say, “Look, I’d love to help the world for tomorrow, but I have to eat Today.”
I wonder what the difference is between blaming a group of people and simply stating logical inferences? That is to say, is it blaming someone when you are robbed and you testify against the robber? Likewise, is it blaming the liberals that drafted the declaration of independance? Or is it stating a logical inference that there were a group of men who disliked foreign, absolutist rule and thought liberalism to be the answer so they drafted a declaration of independance? I believe the case to be that you can blame liberal, progressive thinkers, as a whole; that is, as a stereotypical group for making part of the North American continent free from foreign, absolutist rule.
Making a stereotype is rational as long as it fits. If you say, “Most Republicans are pro-life,” the statement is correct as long as more than fifty percent of Republicans are pro-life. Just as, if you said, “Most environmentalists are morons,” that would be a rational statement, if in fact, more than fifty percent of environmentalists had been examined and had been found to be morons, i.e. defined as mildly retarted, or what the APA defines as a person having an IQ between 50-80 or so. I trust this is not true, because it would be difficult to conduct the sweeping changes, apparently as stated by Sean, that environmentalists have made in U.S. domestic policy if they were, as a majority, mildly retarded. After hearing such facts from Sean, I’m led to believe that environmentalists are poised to take over the world. Fear the Weapons of Mass Greenery!
A stereotype of a group might not be politically correct, or favorable, but it might very well be rational.
That is not to say that every case where someone plays the ‘Blame an ideology’ game they are correct. I’m only stating that there is a possibility, at times, that one could blame one particular ideology for certain actions.