Do you understand what the minimum ROI target is for investment capital? Do you know how this relates to investment by oil companies via drilling? Do you know how this affects their stock price? Do you know this affects their ability to leverage? Do you know how this affects senior management compensation? Do you know how this affects shareholder value?

In the real world not in your fantasy world executives face pressure on a quarterly basis. Wall Street make the rules not you blogging on the PP

Do you understand if energy prices were lower the money would be spent on either consuming other products or savings?

You Said

“Lower consumption is the way to economic ruin. No society can grow and expand and advance while taking away the means to do that”.

Is this a joke?

Do understand if energy prices were lower the money would spent on either consuming other products or savings?

Do you understand out of control spending you support is driving the dollar in the ground which creates inflation? BTW this was a conservative principal before NEOCONMEN like you took over the GOP.

Do you understand if consumers buy products that we create in the U.S. or overseas that save on consumption of energy that would create jobs and help the economy?

As far as understanding business what is your background because it seems rather naive.

“the island nations that are being destroyed as the oceans rise”
Name one. The one in Gore’s movie has already been shown to be bogus. There is no ocean level change beyond the normal small changes.

“Cars are starting to right-size”
Just what percentage of the cars on the road do you think have changed in the last 4 months? The market worked just fine. When price got to the tipping point, people used less. Coupled with considerably more support in the US for more drilling and more refineries, speculators have less confidence about how high prices will be in the future due to the US not drillign new wells and refining more gas. Thus, prices started down.

Coal, by the way, is an excellent fuel for power plants. Very little pollution with the current required technology.

Amazing what the modern day supersititons are.

Pot/Kettle

The first step is to realize that economic viability is a social construct to a significant degree. The question is how we book-keep the pros and cons.

For example, coal is economically viable if you don’t take into account several side effects. If you actually had to pay out for the mountains destroyed in West Virginia or the island nations that are being destroyed as the oceans rise, the economic equation would change dramatically.

You also never know where new activity comes from. For example, Steve Wozniak credits his fortune to the fact that his dad worked at Lockheed Martin and would bring home “trash” chips to play with.

I do appreciate the extra helping of condescension, though. It’s nice to see from someone that still sees the energy world in the terms of 1980 (and is interested in repeating the great crime that Ronald Reagan committed against this country all those years ago).

And speaking of ignoring the real world, speculation may actually be getting reigned in a little. Feinstein’s “Enron loophole” closure made it harder for traders to hide their moves in market manipulation. It also required the trading houses to have some monitoring of potential situations.

The speculation may also have gotten hit by a new piece of information: Once prices hit a certain level, we will conserve. That means we’ve got an elastic market after all.

But damn, I never thought I’d see Boone Pickens written off as some wild-eyed liberal. Y’all can hold on to him, though. Al Gore sees farther and more truly.

Lower consumption is the way to economic ruin. No society can grow and expand and advance while taking away the means to do that.

I agree we need viable alternatives – those are nuclear power, drilling for more oil offshore and in ANWR, and building more refineries. In addition, real alternatives that work now, don’t need government subsidies (which is what SBA loans are), are economically and environmentally sustainable, and can compete in the free market are good ideas. Bell Bio-Energy is a good example of that. Their process can manufacture oil, gas, and diesel at substantially less than the current cost (something I know libs hate). Hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol, wind, solar, and most of the current biofuels are not economically viable, and some are in fact, environmentally ruinous.

I agree that a balanced national budget and balanced state budgets are necessary for long term economic stability. Bringing down fuel prices might help that.

Any good CEO (which many are not) knows to look long term, not short term. Stable energy prices are good for the long term. Besides, oil companies do not set oil, gasoline, or diesel prices. In fact, by drilling more and refining more, they increase supply faster than demand, so those actions would, over time, decrease the price. The oil companies want to drill – they have been pushing for it.

Oil companies have always made a profit, since the raw cost of materials is always a pass-through cost.

You really should understand business and how the (somewhat) free market works.

Come on out of liberal fantasy land, and join us in the sunshine of the informed mind. Really – its great out here!

We all get you make your money off the oil industry. At the end of the day that is fine because we live in a capitalist society. But that does not makes us fools for your BS!

The truth is we need a combination of solution to get off any foreign dependency of oil.

1) lower consumption
2) Viable alternatives
3) Balance budget

I have a simple common sense solution why not support competitions via SBA style loan guarantee programs that either create an alternative to oil or save on energy.

This would create jobs and force oil companies to become more competitive.

If any of you think giving tax breaks and grants to oil companies is how we will lower prices I suggest you see a drug counselor or shrink!

The job of any CEO is to maximize share holder value bottom line. What incentive would an oil company have to ever lower margin if they do not have to? This is basic 101 opportunity cost economics.

An oil company would not drill if they thought it would lower margin. They would do it to increase supply and hold it until price is at the peak. This is why much of the oil today in the U.S. is capped. If they flooded the market with supply it would kill the ROI.

“We just paid for both sides of the Iraq war”

Dave,

Drilling isn’t the only part of an energy plan, but is a much needed one. I’ve posted quite a bit here about the other things we need to do regarding other solutions that we need. Sending our money away as part of the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world isn’t exactly good for our future generations either.

1. Canada
2. Saudi Arabia
3. Mexico
4. Venezuela
5. Nigeria
6. Iraq

I think the Canadians want to kill us, but they are French at heart, and would just surrender anyway. Saudi is not a country I care to continue to rely on as a stable source. Venezuela is just as bad. Nigeria doesn’t want to kill us, they just want our bank info, and who knows what Iraq will think of us in 5 years.

Drill Now, Drill Deep, Drill Often.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

That said, we do need to drill offshore and in ANWR, and tell Boone Pickens to take his scam elsewhere.

Regardless if oil is $150 or $50, do you really want to continue buying 70 percent of it from foreign sources, directly funding those who want to kill us?

Dollar, oil prices hint of inflation

Rising energy costs and the declining dollar pose trouble.

CSM-Two runaway trends – record oil prices and a plunging dollar – are hitting consumers just in time for the biggest retail spending season of the year.

Americans will be paying more at the gas pump and in their home-heating bills. Meanwhile, a falling dollar means that imported goods are more expensive. That includes all the toys, gadgets, and clothing people buy during the holiday shopping season.

The dollar is down for several reasons, but all reflect a more negative view of the United States relative to the rest of the global economy. Investors are selling greenbacks because of concern that inflation will rebound, uncertainty about the health of US banks, and a higher risk of recession – plus some longer-term rethinking about where to hold currency reserves.

What’s going on with oil is partly the flip side of that same financial coin. Since oil is priced globally in dollars, it’s typical for any big markdown in the dollar to be mirrored in a big markup in oil prices. For foreign buyers, that keeps the price of oil fairly stable. But US consumers take that adjustment on the chin.

“The terms of trade have worsened” for Americans, says Ken Mayland, who heads ClearView Economics, a Cleveland research firm. “The amount that the dollars in our pocket can buy has diminished.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1108/p01s05-usec.html

The dollar and oil, in this case, are like a see-saw: when one goes down, the other goes up. However, it isn’t a one-to-one correlation. Example:

January 21, 2001 _ _ _Yen 117.24:US$1
January 21, 2001 _ _ _Euro 1.07:US$1
January 21, 2001 _ _ _Oil US$32.21 / barrel
January 21, 2001 _ _ _Gold US$265 / ounce

August 1, 2001 _ _ _Yen 108.0:US$1
August 1, 2001 _ _ _Euro 0.64:US$1
August 1, 2001 _ _ _Oil US$125 / barrel (est)
August 1, 2001 _ _ _ Gold US$914 / ounce

Percent Change: $ vs. Yen: _ _ -7.9%
Percent Change: $ vs. Euro: _ _ _- 40.1%
Percent Change: $ vs. Oil: _ _ -74.2%
Percent Change: $ vs. Gold: _ _ _-71.0%