Socially responsible spending

Post Reply New Topic

Yeah, everyone hates change. Especially when they know how to work with what they have already. I think that the cost of petroleum should be inflated artificially so as to encourage this change to take place faster, and one benefit of doing so is that if the inflation is artificial then it can be deflated artificially too. It would be better to do that rather than let everyone crash as the normal supply and demand trend control it, since it would allow for partial economic recovery if the change could not take place fast enough.

It is arguable that the cost of petroleum has been raised artificially (at least here in the United States) several times before. But not for any good legitimate reason. More like power and greed.

Take for example in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, where panic and fear led costs to skyrocket - much of this for no real good reason other than increasing profits based upon disaster.

In 2008, that summer where it hit about $4.25 a gallon or so at peak - record windfall oil profits and taking advantage of the lucrative situation with Bush and oil men in power at waning days. It could be argued that the drastic drop in oil prices in the fall was an attempt to help Republicans get re-elected.

Don't gasoline prices always go down every November of a presidential election year?

I'm not normally a fan of protectionism. But we're blowing hundreds of billions of dollars "protecting" our oil sources in the Middle East, while creating animosity directed back at ourselves, much in the way we did with banana republics in South America. So either the entire cost of that military presence should be billed to the oil companies (which would also serve the purpose of making alternative technologies more viable), or we should boycott oil from that region.

I was just reading that Sudan is about to have civil war because the south wants to secede along with the countries oil wells and the north doesn't want to lose its income. Boycotting Sudanese oil would deny both sides the income needed to buy modern weapons to use in their squabble.

Boycott all of the OPEC nations as much as we can, as the less money they receive, the less warfare they can finance against themselves, the USA, Israel, et al. Heck, if we do have to have oil, let it be in our military hardware just for irony's sake.

First, the oil reserves in the middle east are not yours, they are every bodies to have access to assuming that trade is desired, THEY ARE NOT 'YOURS'.

Second, the animosity directed at the USA is because as a nation you have bullied and robbed the rest of the planet to some extent or other ever since the outrageous claim that 'manifest destiny' meant that the USA was yours by right and then the Monroe doctrine denying European hegemony in the America's. Follow that with the wars against Mexico, The invasion of the Philippines and then a century of militaristic adventurism and profiteering, including assisting the Nazi regime in Germany for over half a decade.

Now has it occurred to you [US citizens one and all] that using less and not being such wasteful and self centered citizens of this lovely blue planet might repair some of the damage to your global image? Think about it for a while you are less than 5% of the planets population yet you consume over 25% of the planets energy and resources and it has proved unsustainable.

peace j

We consume as much as we do because we either produce or acquire by trade what we consume.

Over half of the technology used in the world was invented in the U.S.

It is GOOD to be rich.

ruveyn

MORON

Such a well reasoned conclusion. I am positively underwhelmed.

ruveyn

Last time I checked, it's still not ok to make personal attacks in PPR. I don't want a repeat of the mods feeling that they need to "clean this place up", so knock it off.