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Foxnews - McCain camp mocks Obama energy plan

When I read it the article had a link to the donation-page. I'm not usually the donating type - I believe in myself, so it is there I feel any possible funding will be best allocated - but them things look awesome, and if 2008 goes as I'd like it to, I can Ebay it for a possible profit. It's a way of serving oneself and helping out Big Mac simultaneously. And the oppositions all bent out of shape about it - Ha!

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Type: Discussion • Score: 0 • Views: 5,431 • Replies: 86

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You mean you are fed up with the electoral system of USA?
If yes then your views are all-pervasive and omnipotent

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Oh Hanno, if you'd only read a little further on that right wing piece of **** website, you would have found this.

Barack Obama, responding to a week of taunts from John McCain's campaign, said Tuesday that his Republican detractors "take pride in being ignorant" and that it's time to get serious.

The Illinois senator was responding in part to criticism from Republicans who mocked him for suggesting last week that Americans could save on energy costs and gas by properly inflating their tires. McCain surrogates passed out tire gauges that say "Obama's Energy Plan," and McCain said last week the "only thing" Obama has proposed with regard to energy is to inflate tires.

"This is the kind of thing they do. I don't understand it," Obama said at a town hall meeting in Berea, Ohio, Tuesday. "Two points: One, they know they are lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they are making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent.

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant," he said.

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Mhm.

It's really sad. Not just how McCain is running a negative campaign - also that, apparently, Republicans have completely given up on "personal responsibility" and instead whine and cry for the government to step in.

Gas prices are high? The government should do something about it!

Quote:

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

(source)

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Good ole Uncle Hanno, the one no one wants to sit beside.

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Yeah, that Obama's solution to increasing fuel economy.

Kinda funny Laughing

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Thanks for that OE. I had heard that somewhere and forgot about it. How sickening that our leaders are such greedy corrupt bastards.

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I doubt BO even knows how to work one of those.

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H2O_MAN wrote:

Yeah, that Obama's solution to increasing fuel economy.

Kinda funny

To quote B Obama;

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

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JTT wrote:

H2O_MAN wrote:
Yeah, that Obama's solution to increasing fuel economy.

Kinda funny

To quote B Obama;

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

Yeah, BO is kinda clueless and he tends to lash out.

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Well, waterguy, maybe you could explain, in a few words, which measure would help safe more money at the pump, and why:

- domestic drilling, or
- keeping your tires inflated.

We're awaiting your well reasoned response.

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I would say the obvious answer here is domestic drilling. This would involve forcing the government to get out of the way of natural economic activity and permit the creation of more supply as a means of meeting demand. Fairly simple, in my view. We can count on the self interest of consumers to motivate people to check their tire pressure far more reliably than some government program to propagandize them to do so.

That markets will respond now to the future prospect of greater supply is no surprise to anyone. The only wonder here is the rather amazing willingness of the credulous majority to believe the cant of the sainted hero, and the Democrat establishment whose mouthpiece he is, that somehow drilling this year won't change anything for a decade is somehow not the absurd proposition it so obviously is.

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Yes, of course. It's so simple. All those inconvenient truths in that article OE posted be damned!

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I can think of few propositions so absurd as that the oil industry is going to take any steps which require a capital investment the result of which would be to lower the gross revenues they get for their product. One quick way to lower gasoline prices to would be to increase refinery capacity to reasonable levels. Over the last thirty years, the oil companies have reduced refinery capacity.

Does O'George think we are all so stupid as to think the oil companies will be willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces? Are we to believe that they will rush to kill the goose that lays the golden egg?

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Do you know any "efficiency experts" who can actually cause all the tires in the country to always be perfectly inflated? Do you believe absolutely in the predictions of arm chair speculators about the productivity of as yet untapped oil fields? Do you believe - as Obama evidently does- that our oil import problem can be solved by windmills; government design of automobiles; and public haranguing by political windbags such as himself?

Perhaps OE also believes Germany can meet its Kyoto committments while it dismantles the nuclear establishment that today produces over one third of its electrical power. Some "analysis" !

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I think Setants has a seriously inadequate appreciation for the difficulty any petroleum producer faces when contemplating the challenges and uncertainties involved in constructing a new refinery anywere in this country. Between EPA, state regulators and "intervenors" who can stop the process through tort action, is is impossible to reliably estimate any realistic return on invested capital. Without that there is no capital available. The result is there has been no new refinery capability created in this country for several decades. There is no oil company conspiracy required - we have done it to ourselves. Same goes for nuclear power plants and even modern, high efficiency coal-fired power plants. It is merely the palliative of small-minded non thinkers that this is all the result of a conspiracy by evil oil companies and power producers.

As Pogo said, "we have met the enemy and he is us."

As

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Aw, I feel so bad for those poor poor oil companies. With all those difficulties, it must be real hard to make any PROFIT at all.

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Clearly clinging to this belief and the facile explanation it provides you is, in your case, preferable to actually informing yourself of the salient facts and thinking about the matter. The first course provides you a ready made culprit and an excuse from any responsible action, while the second requires some effort and understanding of the real complexity involved and an acknowledgment of the necessity of actually facing some of the unpleasant tradeoffs that stand in the way of a solution.

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As for efficiency experts who can "cause" all tires to be inflated at once, i have not suggested any kind of mandate to assure vehicle maintenance--i have no dog in that fight, and haven't commented on it. Therefore, if O'George was directing that remark to me, he indulged a strawman, because that formed no part of my argument. I have only weighed in on the claim that exploiting domestic sources of petroleum makes more sense. I have pointed out that it is ludicrous to assume that the oil companies are going to indulge in a great capital outlay which will result in a lessening of their short-term revenues (i.e., a reduction of the price of gasoline at the pump).

By the same token, i did not for a moment suggest that it is easy or inexpensive to maintain old refineries, rather than just abandon them, or to build new ones. Pointing out how difficult and expensive it is to build new refineries simply makes my point for me. It is absurd to expect that oil companies are going to indulge in any large capital outlays which will have the effect of reducing their revenues (once again, any action which will result in the price of gasoline at the pump).

The following is from an investigative report by Senator Ron Wyden (D, Oregon) on refining capacity:

Quote:

The oil industry and its allies would have the public believe that insufficient refining capacity, restrictive environmental standards, growing gasoline demand and OPEC production cutbacks are the primary reasons for the current oil and gas supply problem. However, the record shows-supported by documents I have obtained-that there is more to the story. Specifically, the documents suggest that major oil companies pursued efforts to curtail refinery capacity as a strategy for improving profit margins; that competing oil companies worked together to subvert supply; that refinery closures inhibited supply; and that oil companies are reaping record profits, yet may benefit from a proposed national energy policy that would offer financial incentives to expand refinery capacity.

For the last several months limited domestic refinery capacity has taken center stage as the purported reason for insufficient domestic gasoline supply and higher prices. In the mid-1990s too much refining capacity, not too little, concerned the nation's major oil companies. At that time, the oil and gas industry faced what they termed "excess refining capacity," a circumstance they viewed as a financial liability that drove down overall profit margins. The industry reduced the total amount of potential supply by closing down more than 50 refineries in the past decade. Since 1995 alone, 24 refinery closings have taken nearly 830,000 barrels of oil per day.

Source in HTML format, converted from PDF format.

So, ignoring O'George's attempts to paste strawman arguments to what i have stated, i will state my proposition once again. It is absurd to think that oil companies are going to engage in any activity which requires a large capital outlay and the result of which will be to reduce their revenues.

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In that it appears that O'George has a seriously inadequate appreciation for simple explanations in the English language, allow me to point out another of his strawman arguments. I have at no time alleged any deeply-dyed conspiracy among the individual companies of the oil industry. It doesn't take a lot of brains (although, apparently, more than the amount which the Jesuits left O'George in possession of) to figure out that several individual companies, acting in their own best interest as they see them in terms of their revenue, would have a great incentive to keep refinery capacity low, or to actually reduce capacity, and no incentive to make large capital outlays--whether to maintain refinery capacity, increase refinery capacity, or invest in the exploitation of new domestic petroleum sources--the result of which will be to reduce their revenues.

That is the statement i made, not any of the silly strawman allegations in which O'George indulged.

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