Obama, in a speech today, said the price of oil has gone up because of the Iraq war.
Amazing how the rallying cry used to be the war was for oil. If that were the case gas should be pretty cheap since we have access to all that oil. Guess its changed a bit now huh?
Senator Barack Obama on Thursday blamed the fragile economy on “careless and incompetent execution” of the Iraq war, imploring voters in this swing state to consider the trickle-down economic consequences of the war as they choose a successor to President Bush.
“When you’re spending over $50 to fill up your car because the price of oil is four times what it was before Iraq, you’re paying a price for this war,” Mr. Obama said to an audience at the University of Charleston. “When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war.”
“We spend $12 billion a month in Iraq, and that does affect the economy,” Mrs. Clinton said. “That’s one of the reasons we’ve gone into more and more debt. We’ve got to begin not only to withdraw our troops, but bring that money back home. We need to put that money to work here in Indiana.”
A year ago in the opening phase of his candidacy, Mr. Obama tried to appeal to voters because of his opposition to the war. As the economy emerged as voters’ chief concern, Mr. Obama argued that the two were undeniably linked.
“The more than $10 billion we’re spending each month in Iraq is money we could be investing here at home,” Mr. Obama said. “Just think about what battles we could be fighting instead of fighting this misguided war.”
Of course the cost of the war is 1% of our GDP, something which is NOT going to cause the kind of strain on our economy he is talking about. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the welfare state the liberals have placed this country in. Will he soon fix that?
Oh, I forgot…he wants to add more entitlements.
I also find it curious that he doesn’t note that the Democrats have restricted refining to almost nil, have blocked any new oil drilling in anwar, and have added tax to the cost of gasoline out the yazoo…..but its the wars fault now.
But lets say he does pull out of Iraq and the inevitable happens…meaning al-Qaeda and/or Iran take over the reins, what does he think the cost of re-invading is going to be? Or do we just allow AQ to have a nation state in which to base attacks from?
This doesn’t count the cost of human lives lost once Iraq disintegrates of course. But in the lefts eyes Iraq will go back to lollipops and kite flying once we leave.
See author page
So are you saying the two are not linked? I think they are. Certainly the invasion is not the direct cause of the increase at the pump; however, Obama stating the “careless and incompetent execution” of the Iraq resulted in increases at the pump is empirically warranted.
http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/2008/03/road-not-taken.html
empirically warranted.
Really? based on what data exactly? Oh here let me answer that ABSOLUTELY NONE! Here is some real data for you guy. Pay attention these are facts not feelings.
1. No new refineries have been built in this country in over thirty years.
2. We have massive reserves off our coasts and in Alaska not just Anwar, yet we can’t even explore to find out how much is there little less actually start pumping it.
3. No nuclear power plants.
4. egregious regulations that add to the price of gas and lets see 80 cents in taxes for every gallon and now we have the Democrats calling for another 50 cents on top of that!
5. And ethanol what a bunch of crap! It costs more to produce and transport is actually worse for the environment and is one of the primary reasons I pay five dollars for a gallon of milk.
Conclusion to be drawn from the FACTS, the democrats along with the enviro’s are directly responsible for the 30 dollars I spend per week to fill up the thirteen gallon tank on my 93 Chevrolet Cavalier! And lets take what you posted at face value shall we? well lets see if we drilled and refined our domestic resources we would have a stable supply and what goes on in the Middle East would not matter much now would it? Oh and now we have the dumbocrats talking about undoing NAFTA, why is that important oh I don’t know maybe because we get something like 40% of our oil from the Canadian tar sands and the great global warming hoax another dumbocrat favorite may lead us to not be able to import the Canadian oil thus making it worse. So no I don’t think so Obama is your typical vacuous demagogue and so are you.
1. Which party continues to block new drilling for oil in the United States?
2. Which party stands in the way of building new oil refineries?
3. Which party blocks all new nuclear power plants?
4. Which party wrongfully demands conservation as the only answer to our energy problems?
As usual, Obama is attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the Sheeple who have sipped his Kool Aid and are too stupid to think for themselves.
Obama knows about as much about the economy as he knows about choosing mentors.
Gee and all this time I thought the Dems were telling us all those dollars were going into the pockets of the defense industry and Halliburton and such which should be adding to the economy and keeping people working producing things, like up armored Humvess and body armor.
Iraq has nothing to do with oil prices. World wide demand increases especially from countries like China and India are to blame. These two nations alone are almost tripling the demand for crude oil. In fact, now that Iraq can sell their oil openly they are and the US is not their primary customer. They own their oil and are selling it openly.
On the other hand, we are not allowed to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, but just off our territorial waters are…. the Chinese rigs drilling away. Yet somehow that does not bother the environmentalists.
And the money we are spending mostly does go right back into the US economy in the form of contracts to Ford, GM, Navistar/International, and several smaller firms. These include some new companies making the MRAPs. None of this helps Michigan because the Democratic governor with the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the US and probably the worst business climate has only two solutions for our local economy: Raise our already high taxes on everything and make the state less attractive to business.
You want to see what an Obama economy looks like, examine Michigan.
Oil prices are high because it is running out. The reason OPEC is not increasing supply because they can’t. We should be drilling more of our own, but you are poorly misinformed if you think that is the solution. There not enough there to keep up with the growing demand a growing ecomomy needs. Refineries are a bad investment if you trying to get off oil, nuclear plants make more sense with an eye to eventually solar. Niether party is as concerned with this as they need to be.
IR,
Michigan is moving forward with wind power citing EU nations…. However these same nations are pulling out of windpower as it creates fluctuations in the grid and is a poor investment. No in essense, our idiotic govenor is bolding going down the wrong path citing other nations who are abbandoning it. Solar is nice and all, but looking at even home systems, is priced out of the sky. Maybe nano-tubes will work. maybe something better will come along. Geothermal is nice in a few areas (an Army base actually runs on it and powers the surrounding community).
Also, the Russians do not share your view on peak oil and I believe they have a point. Refineries ARE a good investment as is reducing the number of expensive specialty gasses and increasing octane levels so cars run more efficiently. In my county we have a special “low emmissions” requirement for gas. This “emmission reduction” gas robs vehicles of fuel economy and forces us to buy more gas per week. Supposedly this is “good” for the environment.
Better refineries can extract more gas ber barrel of oil and give us a cushion to improve/mature technologies and infrastructures without crushing the economy before it happens. Conservatives are wrongly accused of not wanting the latter and only the former so we can “get rich” or some other nonsense. In truth, reality demands we mature systems and technologies first and in the interim improve the proven technologies we have now.
Source about Russian theory on no peak oil:
http://www.321energy.com/editorials/bainerman/bainerman083105.html
Here is the DOE site showing a lot of information on Oil and other natural resource production/importation/refinement/use in the US and the world.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm
IR: There is enough oil, safely available for U.S. consumption to take care of ALL our needs without any outside supply other than Canada. We could pump and use our OWN OIL for the next 20 years and take the royalties and taxes on that production to fund the development and implementation of a hydrogen based economy. The technology which we could then sell to the Arabs for $$TRILLIONS as they would be out of their own oil by then.
But NOOOOOOOO… nasty little Dems just want to demagogue on this issue and blame the problem on someone else.
Except–and let’s face this honestly–you’d likely be first in line to rail in your bewildered, spittle-flecked manner against raising those taxes, wouldn’t you? This is a clear case of arguing a case from a position you don’t actually believe, simply in order to contradict a lefty.
“Except–and let’s face this honestly” We currently ARE TAXING U.S. oil and natural gas production and an increase in volume would generate much more revenue.
Now, that was simple wasn’t it?
The current Democrat prohibitions against further development of U.S. resources means billions more going to OPEC nations and not to the U.S. Treasury to fund alternative energy strategies.
Mike, you wrote: “We currently ARE TAXING U.S. oil and natural gas production and an increase in volume would generate much more revenue.”
Um…didn’t the GOP give the oil and natural gas industries some fairly large “exploration tax credits” not too long ago? I suspect that those credits would/will take a dent out of any new production revenues.
Oh, really? That’s your position on taxation? We’re already taxing all kinds of things; is it your position that all taxes to raise revenue are a good idea? Or is this a position of opportunity?
Since the Iraq progress isn’t as deplorable as the DNC would like, this is just the new rallying cry for withdrawal. However the entire argument is flawed. The economy’s hiccup is not due to oil, but to the housing/lending fallout.
Home prices are correcting after a false, astronomical rise, and it is much needed. Lenders have tightened up on criteria. However the economy is in the dumps because of the domino effect on new construction… which affects work contracts, which affects sales of supplies, which affects the individual workers and family income…
Add in the devaluation of the dollar, again largely tied to rate… which is fluctuating in response to the housing scene.
Oil? Not enuf to cause this. However I do agree that if the DNC really wanted to help citizens at the pump they would do a reprieve on the fed/state gas taxes. That is all that is within their power. They can’t dictate price per barrel, they can’t fix pricing, and there is no immediate cure with add’l refineries.
But they won’t… because they want the tax cash and chaos to play to their political favor – fodder as fuel for their BS. To bad we can’t harness THAT for energy!