RoshawnMarkwees
Assimilationist
- Thread starter
- #341
No. The 1970’s were a wake up to the prospect of oil being finite. That’s what drove price ceilings and conservation measures.Nixon’s price controls caused the US to run out of gas.Two things.Way off.
Somehow, everyone missed the point I was trying to make.... or more likely I did a terrible job of making my point.
The prior poster made the claim that energy is what drives the economy. He wasn't talking about being able to get energy to drive the economy.
Any economy can get energy. All you have to do is earn money, and buy it.
He was referring to the natural supply of energy. Meaning we have coal, and oil, and other sources of energy here in the US.
My point to everyone is that, even if we had zero natural supply of energy, we would still have a booming economy, because we can buy the energy we need. We know this because.... we do that now. We buy energy from all over the world.
As long as you work and produce goods and services, you can buy any energy you need. This is why Hong Kong with zero natural energy sources, has a 1st world economy. Same with all the other countries I listed.
As for the Arab Oil Embargo..... it did nothing. Absolutely nothing. The reason we had gasoline shortages in the US, was because of price controls.
Remember what I just said before, anyone can get all the energy they need, if they are willing to pay for it?
The reverse is also true. It doesn't matter how much natural energy sources you have, if you are not willing to pay for it.
When the government put in place price controls in the 1970s, that was effectively us refusing to pay for energy. Then you act shocked we had a gasoline shortage nation wide?
You see this in Venezuela today.
Venezuela's Fuel Shortage Upends Longtime Colombian Border Gas Smuggling Trade
Motorists near Colombia's border with Venezuela used to opt for cheaper, smuggled gas from the neighboring country. Now the tables have turned.www.npr.org
Venezuela Gasoline Prices
Gasoline Prices in Venezuela remained unchanged at 0.02 USD/Liter in April. This page provides the latest reported value for - Venezuela Gasoline Prices - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.tradingeconomics.com
Venezuela has a nation wide gasoline shortage. Left-wingers like to try and blame US sanctions, but all you need to do is look at the government controlled prices for gasoline, and you can clearly see why they have shortages.
2¢ per liter. Translation... The government set price for gasoline in Venezuela is 7.6¢ per gallon.
Then you wonder why they don't have money to produce and refine oil in Venezuela, and why the nation with the most known oil reserves has a nation wide shortage of oil and gasoline?
You want to blame US sanctions, when they are charging 7.6¢ per gallon of gas?
So my whole point is, no economy is entirely dependent on energy, unless you make it dependent on energy. As long as you produce goods and services of value, you can buy all the energy you need, provided you are willing to pay for it.
By the way, this is yet another reason people should automatically be suspicious of any politicians that says he can lower prices on something. California tried capping electricity prices, and the result was rolling blackouts.
Venezuela, by the way, also cut electricity prices after Hugo Chavez nationalized the electric companies, and now they have routine blackouts that are nation wide.
Anyone can buy energy but the price is dictated by supply. When the US has enough potential supply to reduce the price, the economy thrives. When Arabs cut supply, the price increases and that slows economies. When governments apply superficial price controls during an energy drought, the supply runs out and you have shortages.
Simply not factually true. The Arabs didn't cut supply at all.
Further, the cause and effect relationship between oil and the economy, is the reverse. When the economy increases, the price of oil generally goes up. When the economy crashes, the price of oil general goes down.
Now what is true, is that the price of oil sold by Saudi Arabia, was a fixed price. That fixed price, meant that the inflation price of gasoline was decreasing year over year, because the Arabs were getting less money. $20 for a barrel of oil, was not worth as much in 1970s, as it was in 1960, or 1950, or 1940 even.
The Saudis made do with this, because the value of the dollar was declining very slowly.
Well, that changed when Nixion decoupled the dollar from the gold standard. This was unavoidable, and has repercussions, namely that the Saudis started floating oil sales at market price, which was a shock...... that's why they called it "The Nixon Shock".
Nixon shock - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
But the idea that the Arabs cut off supply, is a complete and total fabrication. It's not true at all, in any sense.
The reason is fairly simple. Imagine if you will, that you and another person are buying and selling goods.
Now imagine if you get angry at that person, and you decide you will not sell that person goods anymore. Does that mean you simply stop selling goods? Think about that very carefully, does that mean you simply close down, and stop selling anything, and go be homeless? Family out on the street?
No of course not. Well, to this day, most of the Saudi government is entirely built on oil revenue.
Saudi Arabia: breakdown of revenue by source 2021 | Statista
The government of Saudi Arabia estimated that 558 billion Saudi Riyal of its revenue for 2021 was generated from oil.www.statista.com
To this very day, 68% of the revenue into the Saudi government is exclusively oil exports. You shut that off, the entire nation of Saudi Arabia would end in chaos, and anarchy.
So what you are you going to? You are going to keep selling your products.
In steps me, the capitalist. I'll buy your products.
You know why I'm going to be willing to buy up all the products you sell? Because I know someone right now, who is very much in need of your products.
The guy you are no longer selling to.
I'm going to buy your products up at a discount (because your biggest buyer you are not selling to anymore), and then I'm going to sell them to that guy you won't, for a profit.
He's still going to get the products.
This is exactly what happened during the embargo. The Arabs all still sold the oil, just not to the US. But buyers in Asia and Europe, and Africa, seeing a golden opportunity, spun right around and sold that oil to the US.
There was no cut in supply.
The cause of all shortages was due to price controls.
As for the over all price of oil causing real harm to the economy, I've seen precious little to suggest it does.
When oil Spiked to $140 a barrel in 2008, the change in airline fares to cover that cost was roughly $20. When the cost to fill up the tank was $3/gallon, compared to $2/gallon today, was about $45 a month.
That assumes people don't buy more fuel efficient cars when the price goes up, which we know they do, and thus offsets that increase in cost.
Now obviously cheaper energy will result in at least some amount of benefit to the economy. But again, Japan with half the population, and almost.... not quite but almost no natural energy sources at all.... still 3rd largest economy in the world. *shrug*.
You left out the most important thing. The Presidents prior to Nixon would crack open the Strategic Reserves (capped US Wells) and bring the prices down whenever the ME tried to go nuts with their prices. The ME would intentionally slow down pumping which would raise prices but with the Strategic Reserve making up the difference, the prices stayed constant. Nixon chose not to use that method. The "Gas Shortage" was created that way.
Um.................. fail? The name is Strategic Petroleum Reserves.
Strategic Petroleum Reserve (United States) - Wikipedia
You are correct that Nixon did not 'crack open the strategic petroleum reserves'.... that is correct. You are absolutely 100% correct.
Because they didn't exist.
The United States started the petroleum reserve in 1975 after oil supplies were interrupted during the 1973–1974 oil embargo, to mitigate future supply disruptions.
Do tell how "Presidents prior to Nixon" were able to 'crack open' the petroleum reserves that did not exist until the year after Nixon left office?
Further, the SPR, has virtually no real world effect on prices. None. We use far too much oil, for the tiny amount in the SPR, to be of any market impact.
The absolute largest sale of oil ever made, was in 2017, when they sold 190 Million barrels.
The US uses 20 Million a day. That's 9 days worth of oil. That's it. It is literally and figuratively an oil drop in the bucket compared to the US yearly use, or world wide yearly use of oil, and would have zero impact on oil prices.
There was never any attempt to steady oil prices prior to Nixon, and no attempts to steady oil prices after Carter.
Nixon and Carter are the only two presidents that ever attempted anything to control or stead the price of oil, and both resulted in shortages.
The SPR was never used to try and mitigate prices. You can look up what it was used for. Never once did they mention trying to control prices. And even the ones where they sold for reasons like 'disruption to supply', was joke. For example after Hurricane Katrina, they sold 11 Million barrels of oil. That isn't even 12 hours of the US's daily oil consumption.
Like most things that government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars on... the SPR is used to pay back political supporters... because I guarantee you that the people managing those oil reserves for the US government, are political supporters that are making a really good profit from just siting there on oil, and doing nothing with it....
And it's to use as a convenient political football to kick around, so that dumb people think government is protecting them.
Ever time something happens, they sell off a few million barrels, so that they can say to dumb voters "Look what we did for you!".... and people dumb enough to buy that.
Funny that we in the Military knew about the Strategic Oil Reserve before 1975 and you think it was created under a different name in 1975. The old Strategic Oil Reserve didn't buy Petroleum. I required X number of Oil Wells to be capped off to be held in reserve. The United States always did have the ability to be Oil free from the world from day one. The Oil Production would mysteriously be supplimented by a million barrrels a day whenever the ME and others would get hinky like the 1967 Israeli War where the ME refused to ship to countries that were friendly to Israel and again in 1973. That oil production didn't magically appear. The oil was there in capped wells. But the Internet seems to have left that part out. It does tall of the million barrels of oil but it doesn't tell where it came from. Well, cupcake, that's where it came from. There was a Strategic Oil Reserve before the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ever existed.
No. I don't think so. Data seems to contradict you.
First, I can't find any record anywhere of anything you are claiming.
However, in order for your claim to be true, we should be able to find evidence where the amount of imported oil declined, and was made up by your mythical capped oil wells.
We have data on how much oil was imported into the US, every single month, going back to 1920.
The Arab Oil Embargo started in 1973, and ended in 1974.
In 1972, we were importing 60K barrels a month.
In 1973, the year we were under the embargo, we imported 90K, then 120K, and year by year, the average monthly imported oil increased.
In fact, oil imports were pretty low, and fairly steady, until 1971. That's actually when the price controls on oil started, when Nixon passed the original price controls that lasted the entire 1970s.
Oil imports only started to decline, when Reagan removed the price controls in the 1980s.
And the reason is simple. When you have price controls, no one is going to invest money in the market. Specifically if you place price controls on oil, domestic oil production isn't worth investing into. And that's what happened. Low production wells were shut down. And exploration and oil well digging, virtually stopped.
Regardless, the idea that oil imports declined during the embargo, is just factually not true. In fact, imports of oil increased year over year, for as long as the price controls existed.
Two things.
One: You aren't old enough to know
Two: Just because it's not on the internet doesn't make it true or untrue.
One: I cited government documents, what would know.
Two: Just because you have zero evidence at all anywhere to support a claim, does mean a ration person is logically going to assume it isn't true.
Put a little reason in your brain. In 1967 and again in 1973, the US came up with 1 million barrels of oil to break the embargo without increasing production. I guess the two Presidents both pulled those 2 million barrels of oil out their asses.
You contradict yourself. If you are saying that they got this oil from capped oil wells.... then that would be production.
The only way it would not be "production" is if the oil was in a storage facility.... like say the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Pumping oil out of a reservoir is way easier, and faster, than pumping it from a well.
A capped well would take months to pump oil from, like any other oil well. Unless you think the magical capped wells you believe in, were super easy fast pumping wells for some unknown reason.
Further " 1 million barrels of oil to break the embargo without increasing production." is impossible.
Again... we were using 18 Million barrels of oil *PER DAY* in the 1970s. 1 million barrels of oil, wouldn't even be noticed on the market. It certainly wouldn't "break the embargo". Two hours worth of oil, isn't going to supply the entire nation, and break an embargo.
They didn't break the embargo, because there was no need to break the embargo, because we were buying more oil during the embargo than before it.
I guess the two Presidents both pulled those 2 million barrels of oil out their asses.
Again, 2 million barrels of oil, when we were using 18 million barrels a day, is not going to break an embargo.
Honestly, it wouldn't even be noticed on the market.
The capped oil well is already hooked into the system. It's as simple as opening a spickot, oiling up some moving parts and throwing a circuit breaker. It really wasn't the 1 million barrels, it was the threat of increasing the oil production until OPEC became irrelevant. It really had nothing to do with the oil at all. It was World Politics. Until Bush, Jr came along, we didn't fire a single shot to defend a single oil well. Today, we have Troops guarding oil wells all around the world. You say it didn't exist and the Oil Reserve idea was a new idea in 1975, well, that's proven to be a failed idea that replaced a program that Presidents used to manipulate other countries. Starting with Nixon, our Presidents got dumber an dumber. And from what I can see, so has the General Public.
Oil production in the US was decreasing. There was no threat of increasing oil production, when oil wells were being shut off across the entire country.
Why do you think oil imports were increasing to begin with, when for 10 years prior it was pretty flat?
It's really simple. The price controls that Nixon put in place, that Reagan dismantled, made it unprofitable to run an oil well. Thus oil production fell.
In order to make up the loss of production, they imported oil.
There was no oil that government had, that was "hooked into the system". You are wrong.
Even if they did have some oil wells somewhere, 1 million barrels was still nothing compared to how much we were consuming.
Today, we have Troops guarding oil wells all around the world.
This is one of the strangest stupidity that left-wing morons say all the time.
Remember when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and then set fire to all the oil wells in the entire country?
Do you care about pollution and the environment?
It makes logical sense that you protect an oil well, if you are in a conflict where they have oil wells.
Remember how ISIS had taken control of oil wells in Syria, and were using the money from the oil wells to fund terrorist attacks and funding their slaughtering of people in Iraq?
Are you for that, or against that? Because if you are against that, then that implies you want troops to protect oil wells.
There is not one single time that you can point to, where we got control of an oil field, in order to simply steal the oil, or make money. Never happened.
When Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil companies, and expropriated oil wells owned by US based companies, we didn't send any troops, no Marines, no Army, no Tanks, no Navy Seals... nothing.
You people basically scream if we do nothing... and then scream if we do something... and you are never happy no matter what happens...
...so how about you sit your childish butt down, and let the adults handle things you can't understand? How about that?
The concern over the rest of the decade was about conservation because of the belief that the world was running out of oil.
In addition to Iranian oil at the release of US hostages, Canadian and Mexican oil coming online during Reagan’s term resulted in enhanced supply and a stabilization of prices all the way through the end of the Clinton admin.
Right, and everyone ends up concerned over "running out" after you put in place policies that discourage investment.
The irony of the 2008 price hikes in oil, results in the investment, and eventual breakthrough that became the Fracking oil boom.
No one needs to "enhance supply and stabilization" in the oil market, provided free market capitalism is allowed to work.
Many people have tried to constrain supply, and destabilize the market in the past. Hugo Chavez tried desperately to do so. So did the Saudis.
What destabilized oil, was Nixon and Carters price controls, not any of the whims of OPEC.
It was not purely politicized until the green agenda.
