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Originally posted by RubbrDucky

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That pretty much sums it up!

Quote:

Originally posted by pitch19

Like its been said before the U.S. could be a leader in producing oil. We have a estimated 700 year supply sitting up in Alaska and one sitting off the coast of California. Not to mentioned one in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead we just keep paying arabs for our oil. Looks like Brazil got smart and updated it's technology and is not producing some oil.

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Originally posted by broomstick

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it's a renewable resource... it just takes a damned long time for the Earth to produce more.

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Originally posted by Seryano

Americans are going through a painful learning period.

The oil producers used to sell to the refineries (in the case of vertical marketing, the producers refined their own production).

But when it began to be scare, investors jumped in.

They were commodity traders and they bought oil, just like they bought corn. They knew it would go up in price and so it did. All that trading made the price higher and higher.

And now they are buying oil at a higher price than ever before and they are making more profits than ever before.

Where will it stop? NEVER!

Only when somebody repeals the law of supply and demand and that will not happen!

All those SUV and Pick-Up Truck drivers have created a tremendous demand.
If everybody drove smart cars at 60 mpg, the price would fall.
But Americans like to show off. They get their ego satisfied by driving the biggest, most powerful and as a result EVERYBODY PAYS.

That little skirmish in Iraq helped. Because now the dollar is worth less, thanks to
your beloved President's foolish four trillion dollar war, spending money he doesn't
have.

So those people who don't want to take Monopoly money, raise the prices on things. And
the poor American Joe Six-Pack pays for it at the gas pump filling his pick up truck with
a V-8.

The answer? Make friends with Hugo Chavez (lol)
He's one of the few oil producers who is not a member of Oil Producing Exporting Countries (OPEC). In his country they pay 10 cents a gallon! Viva Hugo!

Or find a VW Beetle.

Quote:

Originally posted by EricLindros

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No, we don't. At current usage levels there isn't 700 years worth of oil on the entire planet, and that's disregarding projected demand increases AND whether or not it's recoverable oil.

Further, the "Arab country" argument is a political canard. The largest exporter of petroleum to the United States is Canada. Canada and Mexico combine for approximately 40% of US petroleum imports, and another significant portion of our (US) oil imports come from non-Arab countries like Colombia, Nigeria, Russia, Venezuela, Algeria, etc.