Chances are that Obama sucks up to more corporations than just that one, Michael.

Thanks for the clarification

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Defeating market theocrats since 2001.

By "used properly" you really mean, "used in a way of which I approve".


They can't work sixteen hour days because of the choices they made, not the oil companies, not the government, they themselves. How is it you deny any personal responsibility for your or anybody else's situation in life? They can feel free to vote, but it seems to me that if they have the time to be away from their kids to really get out there and advocate taking wealth away from people, they've certainly got the time to go out there and make some of their own.

Sounds to me like you made an employment CHOICE which consequently affects other elements of your life. I'm sure there are a myriad of other living situations and employment solutions you either didn't want or didn't find in your searching, the bottom line is that you CHOSE to live where you live and you CHOSE to work where you work.


Referencing domestic consumption and production (which does exist) and then referencing the global consumption and production of the same commodity (the companies with which we take exception) is in no way contradictory. Different rules apply at the domestic and global levels of economics.

Really? So China's petroleum consumption has NOT substantially increased over the last ten years regardless of global economic conditions or your assanine 'time of year' measurement? All this time I'd been listening to IMF and WB numbers when really the overly simplistic news stories about gas consumption fluctuating at certain times of the year were all I needed. Thanks Career Point!

Oil is used for more than gasoline champ, like plastic manufacturing, electrical power, and a multitude of other heavy industries in which China and India find themselves rapidly expanding.

Your definition of "free trade" is similar to your definition of "used appropriately"; if it is in line with your preferences. Such a method of defining terms in a discussion does not reflect any degree of variable operationalization or uniformity of terms or conditions. Oil companies aren't lying to us and saying oil will cure cancer, nor are they forcing us to buy their product, thus the trade is absent fraud or force and is in fact free. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it any less true.


Read Joseph Stiglitz or Saskia Sassen, two of academia's most heralded economists and two of the biggest idiots to ever print a word of text. Fact is, America enjoyed an inflated economy characterized by egregiously high wages and even egregiously higher spending. Our economy must adjust to reflect the lack of global desire to buy American products (no longer made in America) and the lethargy and feeling of entitlement among America's last remaining manufacturing sector employees.

Life's tough sometimes, and not everybody can have two cars, a house, and a dog named Spot. The idea is to do the best YOU can without blaming your shortcomings on the prosperity of others. If people are seriously having trouble putting together $128 extra a month, maybe it's time they reconsider their spending habits, or maybe seek additional income. Even when I made minimum wage (I flipped many a burger in my youth), I could move finances around to find cash, surely people making even low wages can do the same. If they can't, oh well, we can't allow the failures of the few useless individuals in a society to justify punishing the successful. It's your life, manage it like an adult.

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"Bring me that horizon".

Why would they do that? Current production can keep up with demand with steady price increases. Only when price becomes too high for consumption would an increase in supply be necessary. This is simplistic and ignores the larger economic implications of an inability to procure oil, but the free-market philosophy (which is still not utilized by the way) provides a structure in which R&D come from necessity and not from a desire for comfort.

Like the critical-thinkers than ran the Soviet economy, or the pre-Dong PRC hacks to provided central planning that worked ever so well. I seem to recall China's market liberalization (though hardly liberal yet) yielding massive GDP gains when compared to the allegedly meritorious interventionist economic theories of socialism or Leninism (since we can both reasonably conclude that Marxism runs in the same realm of feasibility as anarcho-captialism).

At this point you'll attempt to point out EU economic expansion under the auspices of social welfare reforms and minimum wage requirements, and then cite nineteenth century Germany compared to the UK of the same time. Neither of these examples will help your case however because both denote periods of economic activity characterized by neo-liberal policy implementation and aggregate decreases in the scope of state economic interventionism.

When we find a trust, I'll be the first one there, hammer in hand. The oil industry is not oligopolous however (unless you use a VERY broad sense of the word), and so trust-busting would be premature.

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"Bring me that horizon".

No, by "used properly" I mean, "Used in accordance with competative free trade."


I don't deny personal responsibility, you just say that because it would give your argument more merit if it were true. For those that have kids, waking up at 2 am is a responsibility that they must accept, potty training your kids is a responsibility, helping them with their homework is a responsibility, paying higher gas prices for the oil company products is not a responsibility because you had kids. People should take responsibility for their actions, but only for what actually applies to their actions, not whatever other people can charge on to it and guilt you into doing.

I made the best choice of all the options that were availible to me, but that doesn't matter. My choice of where I live has no effect on the gas price, so that is not effected by my choices.


Yes, but the plastic manufacturing and other heavy industries do not go in annual cycles, so they make no effect of the annual cycle of oil costs, or gas prices, they only add to the base cost.

I could have sworn that they said it would cure cancer, well there is just another reason to be upset at their actions.

They are lying, by buying up investments and tinkering with their production to make the demand much higher than it should be, and so not free trade. Do you know what "market manipulation" is? It is where someone buys such a vast amount of some product to cause it's demand to appear to go way up, in an attempt to cause the price to go up. It is a type of fraud and illegal. However, rather than having one person buy a lot of shares, they have a bunch of people buy a good amount of shares (by giving them benefits) in order to do the same thing. Is it illegal, yes. Can it be proven in a court of law, no. Is it still wrong, yes. Is it free trade, no.

So it's justifible to charge everyone an extra $128 and call it their fault for having kids, or living at one address instead of another, regardless of whether they can afford it. But the idea that the companies that are making 40+ billion a year, that we know can afford it and still have everything they could want, is just selfish.

That's just amazing. Tell the single mother to get a second job, but Lord forbid that the CEO of Cheveron can't get that fourth private jet that he wants.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

I'd knew you'd bring this up..You know how many places in the US no live by the "Not in my back yard" mentality? Almost every single one of them. There have been refineries proposed.. all denied.

Read up..

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Pioneers are walking all around singing songs about Lenin and they should be shot for it.

Handlebars

"If you are looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror"- V

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken

come on you know you wanna play football..

Beagán agus a rá go maith.

Economic Left/Right: 3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.87

What is it with you guys... you bitch when they don't do anything and bitch when they do...

How come the oil companies don't invest some of their record profits into a few more refineries to produce more fuel for us? Is it perhaps because they LIKE making a lot more money off of us than they used to? Do you enjoy paying $4 a gallon for gas?

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I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
~~Socrates

My UPDATED Pep Talk For Lefties and Lurkers

Also... look how much money they made after Katrina... they sure as hell raked it in then...

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I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
~~Socrates

My UPDATED Pep Talk For Lefties and Lurkers

are you in the oil industry, bourne?

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I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
~~Socrates

My UPDATED Pep Talk For Lefties and Lurkers

You know, bourne... individuals are not oil companies... are you confused or just trying to cloud the issue?

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I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
~~Socrates

My UPDATED Pep Talk For Lefties and Lurkers