Featured Death to EV bills

Wouldn't it be in the oilie's best interest to maintain power by keeping prices low ?

 

If you mean oil companies drilling in the US, no that is not in their best interest. Say it costs $40/bbl to produce in a new well in the US vs $7/bbl in saudi arabia. In the permian basin I believe this is around $62/bbl. Do you spend a lot more money for new wells if oil is bellow $70/bbl. Remember many wells were capped in 2020 and 2021 because of lack of demand. Or do you keep pumping what you have and keep the current wells profitable.

 

Not if they drive the price per barrel to at or below the cost to extract it. In addition to the wells capped mentioned by @austingreen, many drilling companies went out of business during that time because of losses during that time of high expansion.

 

Oil is fungible, don’t ask, I’m just repeating others

 

This is surreal at this point. He is beyond bad. He will go to the history books as the single president who should have never been a president because he was so bad, clueless, and incompetent. I don’t want to even imagine the damage he and Musk will have done in two–four years. Two crazies/demented ones running the US.

 

At a large scale and in trading it is. It gets nuanced at smaller scale. It isn't like electricity, there are differences in oil sources.

Take the fracked oil from the Midwest. This is a light, sweet crude. It will take less to process it, and has more valuable products per barrel. The refineries on the Gulf though were designed for heavier petroleum. They'll be less efficient processing that light oil, so will only buy what can be mixed in without problems. When the drillers were producing too much, they had to discount the crude in order to sell it to the refineries.

 

Not really. Just like everything else, if you can make something a necessity and then charge as much as possible, then that's in your best interests.

We see this same thing with personal automobiles in general. Manufacturer's are finding it's more rewarding to slash their econo models and just charge more for their vehicles.

The same with smartphones. These will only keep going up in price, because people are hooked and there's no going back.

Same with property. Sure, it's all a supply/demand thing. But there are lots that will continue to lobby and vote for that which keeps their properties few and expensive.

The rich keep getting richer. It looks like their on a roll right now. And they get richer by charging the poor even more. That's how it works.

 

Preach it brother. Remembering all the time that the other choice was obviously even worse. Even losing in swing states. The more we acknowledge how bad our Administration is, the more we admit the alternate was even worse in the minds of the majority of voters.

 

And there lies the crux of the matter, the mind of the average voter is even more crucial when voting is not compulsory. If you get the required number of voters to believe they are the better choice because things will be worse if you let the other side win, you get them motivated to get off the butt and vote. Those who think deeply about what is being offered, either don't believe the average American can be that naive to fall from the lies and nonsense that often contradicted itself, so they didn't bother to vote against it ...... The rest couldn't see that plan A or plan B was the better option, with no plan C that was likely to get the numbers to make a difference, they couldn't see the point of voting .....

I have a great deal of difficulty believing in a system that costs billions to buy your way to the top job. With that sort of money at stake, you will say anything the voters want to hear, carefully veil what you really plan to do in throw away lines that appear to be nothing concrete and more possibly used as negotiating tools.
Once you get the top job, you can point back to all the times you told the voters what you were going to do, if they didn't think it through about how that would directly affect them, then in their minds, more fool them and they will just become trampled in the rush to achieve what they set out to do ........

The real question is, just what is their end goal? It clearly isn't in the average American voters best interest, those that think they can buy their way into being part of this "Brave New World" are in for a very painful awakening as their world crumbles around them ...... The Russian Oligarchy thought their money made them safe ... and it did for the short term .... what is the age old saying .... "A fool and his money are soon parted" if you weaken the ability of the nation you built your empire in/on, then how do you expect to keep hold of it when the foundations crumble?

T1 Terry

 

their end game is to enrich corporations and the wealthy, and to reverse all the liberal social policies of the last 70-100 years

 

It might look that way on the

It might look that way on the surface, but the Ukraine nonsense and backing far right parties in Germany and the UK doesn't fit into the scenario ...... they could make a lot more money supplying arms etc to nations they have fighting each other, without sending US troops there, why make an enemy of Canada ..... unless it was to stop them sending troops to defend the US at a later date ....... There is a lot more to the Putin/Trump thing than there seems on the surface, and the Trump wrecking ball is dismantling any agency that would have the power to look deeper into such a thing ..... just a bad feeling about the whole issue .... what, with Putin and Xi Jinping now becoming close buddies and Russia supplying China with the gas and oil requirements among other things .......

T1 Terry

 

And they're in lies the Crux indeed. Bad ideas are vanquished. Some of the vanquished will say political opponents are just not as smart as i. The ultimate in virtue signaling. It's reminiscent when Reagan simply asked of Jimmy Carter voters ... were you better off during the last 4 years? It's tragic when auditing government wasteful spending is reframed as destroying america. It's reminiscent of murdering thugs that eventually end up with the cop's knee in their back - cuffing them while they scream, 'he killin me he killin me!
The murdering thug's view is correct. The cop is killing his ability to commit crimes. The upside down world where cops need to be defunded is finally over. Sorry ... not sorry. Hopefully next election the fringe won't be running rough shod over the rest of the left.
And therein lies more irony. The fringe continue to protest of disaster, & they are free to do so. Not so during the last 4 years, w/out getting canceled or worse.
.

 

Vanquished? Finally over? I don't have that high of hopes. I hope the current administration does as much good as possible, but don't have any faith in any political party or politician or any type of government that things will get and stay better. Taxes might go down a little for a little while. But that's about it is all I see. And taxes don't really bother me that much, even though I pay a large percentage of my income on them. Even if my taxes were 0% I'd still not have any way to buy a home, still have the suffering due to prejudice and crime and still have to deal with health issues and insurance that basically takes all the money but doesn't want to help out when I need it.

 

I have been blessed, especially for the past few years, with having excellent health insurance. That can be critical when dealing with things like cancer. For example, my wife's cancer medication is almost $17K for 30 days. Between insurance and the drug manufacturer, our out of pocket is $0.

 

The project 25 playbook, that is guiding the worse of the admin's actions, goal is make the US a christian nationalist kingdom.

 

He tried to extort half of ukraines minerals before turning on Zelenskyy

 

Both project 2030 (fears by conservatives) & project 25 (fears by liberals) - are as Biden would put it, malarkey. Both sides fear monger, both sides have a minority that fall for it.
.

 

Want to edit that!

 

Ukraine is a complex situation that to properly understand one must go all the way back to when the Soviet Union broke up and some countries were formed by the old Soviet Union.

Looking at this from a current perspective only - is not going to give one a feel for what is really going on there.

The US(and Europe) is interested in Ukraine resources - but this is good for the Ukraine and the US(and Europe).

If the US(and Europe)has an active vested and business interest in Ukraine's significant rare mineral resources Russia is much less likely to engage Ukraine in conflict because there are active US (and Europe) entities on the ground engaged in business enterprises. This would be a form of cooperative business protection for that country.

The US has given over 200 Billion dollars in aid by conservative estimates and put its considerable Military/NATO support behind the country. Europe also has contributed mightily - this comes at a cost.

The Soviets wanted certain parts of Ukraine for their country's strategic safety, however misguided their method where for securing that, they will not be giving that back anytime soon.

How interesting certain people's post/stances are on this issue currently in our world - compared to the unwavering support they posted for the last Administrations unilateral and cowardly abandonment of Afghanistan - the American lives lost and the billions of dollars of American military equipment left for the terrorist to play with.
Families of Service Members Killed During Afghanistan Withdrawal Criticize Biden at GOP Convention | Military.com

Ex-military leaders blame Biden for chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, take responsibility

Taliban holding on to $7 billion of U.S. military equipment left behind after withdrawal - CBS News

In contrast Ukraine is still receiving support, the communication with Russia is above board and being openly shared with everyone on a world stage. Nothing is being hidden and no cowardly middle of the night withdrawal of support is being considered.
Communication is being shared with Europe's leaders and Ukraine's President Zelensky had a meeting with our Vice President and our current Head of State. Take President Zelensky's statements with a grain of salt - he is a slippery one.

Zelensky's Corruption Problem - Newsweek

Always interesting to look at world events with an open mind and be able to make observations not colored by mindless political nonsense.