High gas prices=Mormon President

[_Droopy]

If that were actually the case, we should be able to see some kind of a correlation between the price fluctuations that Kevin posted above, and the kinds of "artificial restraints" that you're alluding to here. So can you chart them out, Droopy? E.g., there is a steep decline on that graph between 10/25 and 12/15. What happened to cause that? How and in what ways did "government interference" lessen so as to affect the drop in price?

As usual, Kevin is using charts and graphs - his favorite weapon of choice because, depending upon how they are constructed and upon what data is used and what data ignored, they can be used to demonstrate the truth of any claim absent logical argument and actual educated knowledge of things - to make a case that simple empirical and historical facts can make a hash of in a matter of moments. Charts, graphs, and statistics, despite their justifiable use in study and research, are also the bread and butter of the intellectual hack and must be judiciously used by even the best thinkers and researchers, care being taken to ensure an honest portrayal of the phenomena shown.

The major driver of the long term rise in oil prices in the United States is undersupply and high demand, created primarily by deep restrictions of domestic drilling reaching back to the Carter administration as well as some of the most business hostile corporate taxes and scientifically dubious environmental regulation in the industrialized world. We simply do not have enough oil at the pump to keep prices down in the face of rising oversees demand and OPEC's continual squeezing of supply.

Look, Graham wants people to believe that increase in supply will not eventuate in a decrease in price - in brazen contradiction to the most rudimentary principles of basic economics. Nothing going on in world markets or in China or India could possible overwhelm the effects of a massive and continual supply of secure, domestic petroleum. Kevin is a unalloyed economic illiterate (as are most on the Left). He wants people to accept that government deficits and federal debt are caused, not by overspending by government, but by tax cuts!

He thinks higher taxes create more economic activity and makes people work harder. He has no idea whatsoever how the oil futures markets work, and clearly hasn't availed himself of the slightest degree of self education on the subject. He's running on emotional fumes fueled by his ideology, which, I'm not even sure is itself all that sincere and not just another expression of his wild, flailing search for himself.

[_ldsfaqs]

I'm going to break down all the above and make it simple, to hopefully give a "chance" for even an anti-mormon/liberal such as Kevin to understand.

Kevin.....

All the current oil operations, the "growth" has occurred because of Bush.
Obama has done almost nothing in comparison. The granting of permits has almost stopped completely.
Not only that, but he has closed operations in the sea, to where there is almost ZERO operations.
These actions and more, has caused gas prices to go up, because he's INTERFERING in the free market. He's interfering in the natural eb and flow of the market. As a result, the market reacts. Yes, there is more drilling right now over-all, but it's because of Bush, AND more importantly, the market is stating even MUCH MORE DRILLING should be occurring.

Gas production for example had huge growth and prices were high, but as the growth occurred, there is now a surplus of gas, and the prices has now went down, to where they are now naturally themselves reducing production.

Likewise, if Obama hadn't stuck his hands in the cookie jar like liberals like to do in their Fascism, production would have increased according to the MARKET.

So, your "Oil Chart" is pretty and all, but it doesn't tell the "whole truth". While it is true, there has been an increase in production, it's NOT according to the market, and as a result, the prices have increased.

Even worse..... Both Obama himself AND his Energy Secretary have specifically stated that it is THEIR POLICY to make the gas prices go up like Europe, in order to FORCE America off oil.

Kevin, they aren't stupid, they are doing this intentionally, they are just lying about it, and trying to say otherwise at the same time, and gullible idiots like you fall for it.

Further, we have historical precedence for this.... When Carter fugged up the oil market and there were gas shortages and long lines at gas stations, and Reagan took over and implemented policy's like Republicans are saying to do, the gas prices went down.

One other thing..... You liberals say you "care" about the "little people". In every way, you show that that's not true. Hi gas hurts the little people the worst, not the middle class who can afford to buy Hybrids. By the way, I'm one of those little people. I know from experience what liberal policy's do.

[_Kevin Graham]

As usual, Kevin is using charts and graphs - his favorite weapon of choice because

Because I realize that it is the best way to explain things to people like you and ldsfaqs. You cannot refute the data, all you can do is complain about it and pretend it doesn't exist.

Charts, graphs, and statistics, despite their justifiable use in study and research, are also the bread and butter of the intellectual hack and must be judiciously used by even the best thinkers and researchers, care being taken to ensure an honest portrayal of the phenomena shown.

The charts are of course, based on verifiable data. The problem for you is that you lack the intellectual means and fortitude to do the necessary research. This has been demonstrated time and time again, from matters of politics and apologetics. You're immune to reasoning and facts.

The major driver of the long term rise in oil prices in the United States is undersupply and high demand

Not according to the experts. Demand is down and supply is up, and yet prices are still going up. This is the whole point that refutes your entire premise. The single most important factor attributable to teh price of gasoline is the price of crude, and since crude is traded on the global market, an increase in domestic production can only have a marginal effect on the global price of crude, and thus, the prices we pay dmonestically for gasoline. This is the axiom that never seems to make it through that thick skull of yours, no matter how many experts I cite from the oil industry, or how ever many charts I provide based on all the verifiable data. I am only taking time out to post this data for the benefit of those who request it, because we already know there is no hope of ever convincing you of anything that runs corntrary to your usual "think tank" formulated talking points.

primarily by deep restrictions of domestic drilling reaching back to the Carter administration as well as some of the most business hostile corporate taxes and scientifically dubious environmental regulation in the industrialized world.

Again, you have it all backwards. Since domestic production has little to do with the price of a global commodity, producing more permits is going to do even less to drive down prices of gasoline. Especially when corporations are sitting on hundreds of approved permits and are not using them. You seem to think that every permit translates to successful drilling, and successful production of crude. How deluded you are. Most of these permits are not ever used, and most of them that are, produce little to nothing.

We simply do not have enough oil at the pump to keep prices down in the face of rising oversees demand and OPEC's continual squeezing of supply.

Again, you keep thinking there is enough oil domestically to have an impact on a global market. This is the Right Wing myth. All experts agree on this.

Look, Graham wants people to believe that increase in supply will not eventuate in a decrease in price

Horse manure! I've never said such nonsense. What I have said is that the rampant oil speculation is offsetting any effect in increased production and all the experts agree that this is the case. From those who actually speculate, to those who work in the industry at Goldman Sachs, they all agree that speculation is out of control. Speculation on oil has multiplied four fold since Obama has taken office. It is one of the least regulated markets for the billionare gamblers to bet on.

in brazen contradiction to the most rudimentary principles of basic economics.

Principles you understand about as well as you understand my fact-based arguments.

Nothing going on in world markets or in China or India could possible overwhelm the effects of a massive and continual supply of secure, domestic petroleum.

And thus, Loran's ignorance is manifest once again. He simply doesn't understand the market. He actually thinks the USA is going to be able to enjoy cheap gas if it somehow acheives independence on oil (which is a fantasy no expert would ever entertain). Take Brazil for example! They produce their own oil, importing none. And yet gasoline is roughly the same price down there as it is here and it goes up and drops at the same time it rises and drops in the USA. Why? Because the price of crude drives gasoline prices, and crude is a GLOBAL commodity. The graph I produced proved that gasoline prices in Canada have shifted the same way US prices have shifted, proving the point once again. But all of this flies right over the heads of the ignorant and they keep ranting about the evil Obama and his denial of useless permits, failing of course to acknowledge that he has approved hundreds, and that most of them go unused.

Kevin is a unalloyed economic illiterate

When you're constantly misrepresenting my arguments, its easy to assert such a thing. But coming from someone like you, it is still a compliment.

He wants people to accept that government deficits and federal debt are caused, not by overspending by government, but by tax cuts!

Horse manure! I've always maintained that deficts are created when expenditures exceed income. This is a no-brainer. It isn't either or. But Loran thinks it is, and has admitted his political philosophy involves starving the government of all income while at the same time complain about deficits! This is not just stupid, it is hypocritical. And he doesn't understand that it is the Rand philosophy that has put us in the mess we're in. Even Alan Greenspan, who worshiped Rand and her philosophy, admitted that this entire worldview of deregulation was proved wrong with the financial crash.

But Loran is like an old dog who is unwilling to learn from history, no matter how recent. And about income and expenditures, he obviously doesn't understand how to do a budget. He doesn't understand that the current deficit came from cutting government income in the form of outrageous tax cuts for Bush's wealthy constituents, as well as spending trillions of our tax money in the form of two wars and a ludicrous prescription drug bill. If you want to complain about TARP, well all that was passed under Bush as well, though it was spent under Obama. The fact is these idiots never cared about deficits when the Right Wing embraced them as a necessity since Reagan. Dick Cheney is on record saying "deficits don't matter." It was Clinton who cut government spending and increased revenues to the point of surplus, and then it was GWB who pissed it all away within a year!

He thinks higher taxes create more economic activity and makes people work harder

I've never said such a thing in my life.

He has no idea whatsoever how the oil futures markets work, and clearly hasn't availed himself of the slightest degree of self education on the subject.

Actually I do, and unlike Loran, I have experts who agree with me. Loran only has a couple of hired hacks from his favorte GOP think tanks.

He's running on emotional fumes fueled by his ideology

Riiiiiiiiiiight! I'm just so torn up with emotion right now. LOL!

Project Much, Loran?

I educate because I am usually asked to, but I know there will always be folks like you who abhore education. You excuse yourself from the process by griping about how it is controlled by the evil "leftists." Between the two of us, you are the only one dying to get noticed by any obscure blog that will accept you. LOL!

Now to ldsfaqs's idiotic claim that drilling permits have been nonexistent under Obama, he is simply repeating Michelle Bachman's falsehood, which was refuted at factcheck.org more than a year ago:

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/03/gop-ex ... s-in-iowa/

This claim is not even close to the truth. A query of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement's online database shows 276 permits were approved for "new wells" — both developmental and exploratory — from the time Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009 to the date of Bachmann's speech.

Now, Bachmann doesn't say what kind of drilling permits she means, but Republicans have criticized the Obama administration for a moratorium on issuing new deepwater drilling permits after the Gulf oil spill and the slow pace of permit approvals since the moratorium was lifted. But even by this measure, she is wrong.

A day before her speech, the BOEMRE announced that it had issued its sixth deepwater drilling permit since Feb. 17, "when industry demonstrated that it had the capacity to handle subsea blowouts and spills," according to BOEMRE Director Michael R. Bromwich. Also, the agency reports as of March 30 there have been 39 permits for new gas and oil wells in shallow water (500 feet or less) since the new rules went into effect June 8, 2010.

So as always, Loran and ldsfaqs are victims of GOP propaganda. They are blind stooges, and I'd be inclined to feel sorry for them if they weren't so arrogant and dogmatic with their ignorance.

[_Droopy]

So as always, Loran and ldsfaqs are victims of GOP propaganda. They are blind stooges, and I'd be inclined to feel sorry for them if they weren't so arrogant and dogmatic with their ignorance.

I give up. I have never seen anyone, or met anyone, who knows so little about so much but is so damn good at presenting an appearance of knowledge and education while on stage. Its a dark, Satanic talent that, for all its infernal, annoying, confusing scrambling of any serious debate, is laudable for its theatrical quality, nonetheless. Its quite an act.

I've now done several, I think, long, involved, researched posts, citing competent, expert sources and adducing clear, logical, evidential based argument in support of my position. The most extensive refutation of Graham's carefully cherry-picked sourcing is here, near the bottom of the page.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22792

I've already explained, and sourced other experts who have explained, that while crude oil is traded on world markets, the oil we actually buy comes off the spot market, and the laws of supply and demand function strictly and rigorously upon that market. Speculation could only drive prices upward to any substantial degree under certain conditions, and there is no evidence at this time that speculators, as a group, are engaging in the kind of widespread behavior that force those kinds of price rises through speculation alone. Indeed, I clearly explained that, in point of fact:

Increased supply must decrease price in a competitive market with a given demand. Speculation may drive up oil prices to some marginal extent, but showing this to be the case is very problematic, as the oil that all of us buy at the pump is not purchased on world futures markets, but on the spot market, which responds to the laws of supply and demand, not futures speculation. Indeed, the only way futures speculators can really influence the market to any degree is to purchase oil and then hope that by the date the contract expires, that the price really has risen to the point a profit and not loss is possible. That's a risky business. Even worse is having to sell it back on the world market when his inflated speculatory contract expires for below what you bought if for and eating the difference, unless he inventories it and waits for prices to actually rise on the spot market - maybe. But holding onto it in an attempt to drive prices higher can only happen on a very short term basis, and against larger economic dynamics operating outside one's control. Artificial price hikes not justified by demand put the speculator in the position of either storing the oil or selling it back if prices don't actually rise and bring him a profit.

Sure, it can have a marginal effect, but hardly salient overall (as I understand the actual workings of this system, its the supply and demand driven spot market that actually effects the futures markets - and the economic fortunes of the speculators - not the other way around).

Flooding domestic markets with large quantities of refined gasoline and other products must, according to the laws of supply and demand, drive prices down. Further, as increased U.S. supply is traded on world markets in ever increasing quantity, world prices for crude will drop. This means that, as world supply increases from substantially increased U.S. drilling, gas prices will undergo deflationary pressure all over the world, including within the United States.

We can lower our own gas prices one or both of two ways. We can drill our own oil and market it to our own citizens (which will drive down indigenous gas prices) on indigenous wholesale and retail markets, and we can also put it on the world market in substantial quantities (which will drive down world prices, and hence U.S. prices). In other words, even if flooding strictly domestic spot market driven retail gasoline supply did not decrease prices (which, according to the laws of economics, it must), flooding world markets would, irregardless.

The real elephant in the room is that, if demand is down, and supply is up (which it is, due to vigorous drilling on private lands, while Obama has severely curtailed drilling on vast oil reserves beneath federal land on in shallow water offshore), and prices are still rising, then other forces are at work causing prices to rise beyond the basic laws of economics to forestall. Part of the is India and China growing at double digit rates, but other substantial factors are purely indigenous and purely political in nature. Our over thirty year hiatus from bringing any new drilling and refining capacity online, draconian EPA regulations (especially in California), extreme, multilayered taxation on gas itself and among the most punitive corporate tax rates in the West, and massive, Keynesian driven inflation that began to take off in earnest a couple of years ago and which is accelerating rapidly. The dollar is collapsing, and with it, the relative price of oil and everything else soars ever higher.

Oil prices have doubled under Obama's rule, and even if his EPA and refusal to open much of the U.S. to oil extraction is only a fraction of the problem, the over six trillion dollars of inflationary debt he and his regime of neo-Marxists, statist utopian dreamers, eco-fascists, and global governance ideologues have created (on top of Clinton and Bush's previous nine trillion, but at a much accelerated rate), is going to ensure that a gallon of gasoline continues to cost ever more as time goes on as the dollar buys ever less.

Graham is a Romper Room intellectual with a quasi-totalitarian leftist ideology that makes him feel like a moral Olympian as he postures and prances in public as a savior of "the poor." and the wretched of the earth. What his political ideology and the intiatives he endorses will actually do, because we know the have done so time and time again in the past, whenever they have been imposed on a society as policy, is destroy the ability of the economy to produce wealth, make actual economic growth all but impossible, corrupt the entire economic process by closely intermingling it with government, destroy the dollar, institutionally implant high unemployment and lurching inflation as a permanent feature of the economy, encourage the massive and pervasive growth of welfare statism, and ultimately, morally corrupt the entire general culture through a combination of perverse, ethically and rationally corrupted economic incentives, a raging entitlement mentality, and surging attitudes of class envy.

[_moksha]

Price gouging and let ups are fairly strong weapons for the oil industry during major election years. However, now that corporations have been granted people status, perhaps we will see Mr. Six "Buck" Exxon waiting in the 2013 Republican wings.