OPEC Warns War With Iran Would Cause 'Unlimited' Oil Price Hike

Drilling offshore cannot produce anything viable for at least 10 years. And, even then, it will not bring the price of gas down, as discussed in numerous other vine articles.

We need to focus on developing effective, realistically priced alternatives.

In reality this won,t happen
It depends at whose interests are prior , the people ? the big oil corporates?

I guess that launching wars for oil tells the answer

Gee, dare I suggest a national energy policy to discover and utilize a replacement for oil?
You know, like that loathsome Jimmy Carter did in 1979.
And which was completely ignored during the free wheeling days of religious zealotry over the "magic of the free market," and President Pruneface.
Welcome to the real world, people! This stuff won't last forever, and until we actually undertake the endeavor to find an alternative, we will be held hostage by our dear friends in OPEC, or our supposed enemies in Iran.

In the meantime, the effort will create, jobs....jobs will stimulate the economy, and the act of drilling will positively impact oil future, now.

No, it won't. No amount of drilling is going to impact oil futures now. Firstly, the price is set on a global level. Secondly, supply hinges heavily on a cartel. Therefor, any amount that we get out of the ground will be compensated for by OPEC producing that much less in order to retain their profit margin. Thirdly, there is not nearly enough oil offshore for us to drill up and supply our need. Oil is a 20th century commodity. A phase, a fad, if you will. The investments need to be in sustainable energy.

BAjunkie:

Ditto, ditto!!
I love to listen to the free market hucksters; they're the last believers in the tooth fairy, the ultimate vestige of snake oil salesmen.
It wasn't the market that damned near bankrupted California and led to Gov Terminator's ascension; it was one of the Enron goofs, literally doing nothing more than making a phone call!, shutting down a plant, and causing the rolling blackouts that plagued the state.
The modern economy has a much in common with a free market supply/demand model as an F-22 has with Montgolfier's balloon. The modern economy is run by corporations and cartels that can fix prices, control supply (and in come cases, even demand) and aren't even shy about. OPEC announces when they're decreasing production to jack up prices!
That there are as many corporate suck ups and conglomerate sycophants still running loose (and posting here) is further proof that the age of innocence has not yet ended.
To the extent that the market plays a role in this, OPEC will keep the price high enough to bleed us dry, but so high as to make alternative fuels attractive.

Excuse me, that last line should have read "but not so high as to make alternative fuels attractive."

Exactly right, Thomas.
It's like they don't see that OPEC, and other entities, don't have to operate by the rules we have to operate by. It's much like the mafia led days of prohibition, except we can do nothing about it.

I would say the same thing about Bush! he doesn't know what the heck he is doing. if you have forgotten Bush was the first to call Iran axes of evil. let's be real here, there is eveil going on from both sides!

No one can know the truth--big lies issuied by both sides US and Iran
hearing grinding sounds but no flour

Politics sucks

U.S. trade with Iran increases tenfold under Bush administration

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/07/08/iran-bullsemen.html

Politics sucks

U.S. trade with Iran increases tenfold under Bush administration

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/07/08/iran-bullsemen.html

Good link, Fada. Illustrates the deceptiveness in Bush's character.

I would say the same thing about Bush! he doesn't know what the heck he is doing. if you have forgotten Bush was the first to call Iran axes of evil. let's be real here, there is eveil going on from both sides!

Yes, both are lying dogs.

It,s bewildering to read all those contradictor news:

-US calls for sanction at Iran ,, war is immenent
-US trades with Iran is increasing??
-Ahmadingjad urges Opec to abandon Dollar ??

http://darrylwolkpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/04/official-says-iran-has-stopped-using-us.html

Iran put pressure on other OPEC countries at the meeting to price oil in a basket of currencies,

They think they are holding smart politics
From the consequences , they are botching and having no true plan for anything

I am convinced that the situation is unpredictabe ,Shaun
but using deplomatic channels - instead of goading hubris of both sides- may avoid new war disaster and new rise in oil price

They (Iran/USA, et al) are or will be in Switzerland. I hope that all sitting under a tree and getting the problems solved.

Agreed, alternatives are the clear answer, to improve both our energy issues, and our geopolitical issues.

But, as to the silver lining associated with the American public reaching a tipping point where they create a real demand for alternatives, unfortunately that tipping point price occurs with fuel prices so high the country is in a full on depression.

Oil companies own not only the primary energy product, but the distribution method for fuel energy in this country. Simple increased demand is not going to motivate them to begin distributing energy sources they do not own. If left to just the market forces, that will happen when things are very, very ugly.

The only way to get achieve any change without that ugliness, is governmental leadership. But this government comes from the energy, and has proven itself nothing but an extension of it.

At every opportunity, this administration has favored energy company interests over those of the American people.

And so, here we are.

Personally, IMO, if oil prices remain high, the silver lining is that people will not become complacent, again, regarding alternatives.

Historically, when oil prices dip, people forget all about alternative technologies.

Good point.

You are right, and I agree that people want alternatives. For sure.

But I wasn't referring to public opinion or desires, but rather to the tipping point with regard to market forces. At which point does market pressure shift in such a way as to make the current energy business model not make good business sense for the energy companies.

Without some intervention into that marketplace, the only determining factor as to our energy needs is does XYZ solution make good business sense for the energy companies.

So, it doesn't matter how we feel about it or what we say, only what kind of market pressure those feelings put on the market.

The bottom line is this, Americans are feeling the enormous pressure of very high fuel costs, yet Big Oil is turning record profits.

Our lives and our businesses run off oil. At which point does fuel become so high-priced that we can no longer afford it, so we stop buying it, thereby changing the profitability of the market.

Things will creep in the market from the side, and hopefully something viable will take hold, but without that, and without some intervention into the fee market, our wills and desires don't add up to nearly enough pressure to make things change.

Despite our current pain, we are still in the Our Pain is There Profit stage. The point where that changes is a very, very ugly place.

Our only hope is that a new administration, who ever that is, won't be so willing to keep the American people on the brink of serious disaster to so oil companies can just get richer and richer.

Shaun,

I think that is pretty accurate that a war would affect the prices, but just because oil companies use that as an excuse to raise prices. I admit that a war would affect it a bit, but not to a point that it would get to a $10.00 a gallon! you are right we have to find alternatives, but that won't solve the problem right away. it would probably take around 10 years to get get it going. I think, i don't know if you will agree, we should to have some kind of dialogue with these oil producing countries to better our economy. the reason i am saying that is looking at what EU is doing, they back up from any involvement in the middle east and we get stuck with it. all that does is give EU a better image and access to oil supplies and contracts.

let me know what you think! :)

Well said musbra
I may add '' not rhetorically'' that Opec and Bush and Iran are not thinking about Koraan or Bible while working at plunging the world into mess of expensive oil

Opec is thinking about decreasing oil production and Bush is thinking at...nothing

Bush is thinking at...nothing

GWB does not have to think at......nothing. Our congress should start working before "going on vacation again". Drilling. Drilling. Drilling.

Just a minute

Iran and Iraq were the only two oil produceing countries that were not members of opec and they possed a threat to the U.S. only because they could flood the market with cheep oil, whitch Iran has promissed to do sometime in October I believe.

Iran and Iraq are members of OPEC

More correctly ,they were not members of oil producer US,s allies

Back in the 60's?

Check what year OPEC was consolidated w/the oil producing companies. Pleases.

view the videos by Lindsey Willams

May be the man is right over the huge reserve under Alaska in north pole \

But this dreamy Chaplain is raving about the reason of why the government is hindering wider consumption of Alaska oil ---

Why woud they plan to break the back of the largest private enterprise or to ''bunkrupt ''the nation by nationalizing oil industry?

It makes more sense that US wanted both Iraqi and Alaska oil

First : slagging Iraqi reserve for the interest of multinational firms
Then heading to Alaska in the future

Because of the very lucratve oil contracts slashed by big companies
The most lucrative and deceptive was imposed by war -- the no-bid sharing contracts for 75% of Iraqi oil

Could it happen in Canada? taking 75% of its oil by war?

You haven't watched the Lindsey Williams videos obviousely, so i doubt you'll check any of the other videos either.... oh well.

If you had watched Lindsey's videos, all 8 of them, you would know that George Bush Sr. had set up Saddom by sending a personal messenger to tell Saddom that the U.S. would not interfere if he was to invade Kuwaite... and he goes on to talk about Bush Sr. not being able to finish the job and having to wait untill his son was in office......

Look, I am not a writer. My typing skills, huh, I'd give myself a rating of 2-4 finger frustrating at best.

I got into this because of an article that stated, people want honest answeres.

I've been that way all of my life. Even as a small child there were so many things that made absolutely no sense to me, like how can people allow other people to lead them into such senseless and barberic actions such as killing other people and destroying everything that sustains life for human beings on this planet. As a child it seemed reasonable to me that everyone would surely hold these questions also and everyone probably knows why these things are happenning, so I began asking and searching...

Over 40 years later I finally began to find my answeres to those questions. Along the way I found answeres to many many more questions also..., and because I thought that there were people who wanted answeres to thier questions here, I have listed the most informative and direct way to find those answeres, yet you remain writing as to how uninformed you are.

Please do not take this as critisizm, this is merely my observation and I have observed this to be common amung the greater Majority of people. This type of behavior has raised many more questions in my little inquisitive mind and I have searched and found answeres to also, many of wich I owe gratitude to others for hearing my questions and sharing thier information with me.

Well the more I learn, the more I know that I don't know.

i think that the US knew Saddam will attack Kuwait and destroy the country which then gives the big corporations here the chance to go in and rebuild the country

Your suggestion is close to the truth , but with one difference

US has framed Saddam ''not to get small gains like Kuwait rebuilding''
But to get the chance to sanction Iraq then invade it to hold control at the biggest Oil reserve in the middle east
It was a long complicated scenario that came true

''Assured by the U.S., Saddam Invaded Kuwait''

"In his famous meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie on July 25, 1990, just before the invasion, Saddam calmly explained his intention to invade Kuwait, and Glaspie, not informed by the State Department that the policy had changed, proceeded to give Saddam the reassurance of American support that had been the U.S. policy transmitted by ambassadors and back channels for a decade. . . . "What Glaspie didn't know. and what Glaspie hadn't been told, was that the United States had never expected Iraq to win and certainly was not prepared to let Saddam collect his war prize."

Iraq's subsequent invasion of Kuwait was used by President George H. W. Bush to justify the 1991 war with Iraq, and the crippling sanctions that followed the war.

http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0417-Deception.html

musbra

Kuwait and the USA were not friendly. However, when Kuwait accepted to fly our flag in order that their oil shops not to be attacked and in 1987 that action took the market to a very low.

Saddam had loose screws holding his thinking and when he invadaded Kuwait on 8/2/1990 he took us (the world) to the first Gulf War. Of course that in those days a Secretary General full of luster in his diplomacy did his very best, unlike with K. Annan that his son was involved in shady business.

I feel that those former advisors/friends of Saddam in the United Nations were telling him that he could stay forever and that the American people would not put w/a war.

I heartly wish that this is the last war because we don't have the patient and the stomach. What I mean is that each country has to face their own music, starting w/Kenya, et al, i.e. I don't want more troops to be sent for another war.

Cool thanx for the reply.

i was able to watch one video so far and it was interesting. thanks.