Issue: Foreign Policy: Oil Security for the US and our flawed foreign policy

[Eric B]

Let's admit it. We need oil. The mideast has a lot of it. The root of our foreign policy problems today is that our govt. felt we needed to keep the oil coming. We were worried about running out of oil and the implications of such. Technology has proven reserves globally, the middle east no longer has a monopoly on oil reserves (never did). Thus proving our oil based foreign policy not only morally objectionable but also practically useless.

I think another important point that it is no longer just the west who are addicted to oil. The world is dependent on oil. Oil is a global commodity. If some theocracy doesn't want to sell oil to the US they will sell it to soemone else, thus displacing oil from somewhere else for the US to buy. Oil in the ground is useless to those in power, it must be sold. From the standpoint of oil security we no longer (and never should have) need to be concerned about who controls the oil. Again, this point practically nullifies our current foriegn policy.

Oil security exists because oil exists and must be sold.

 

[JosephTheLibertarian]

The free market would take care of itself, trust me. If demand switches to something other than oil due to there being a market for it, you'll be damned sure that there will be guys making it happen! Thats' the problem with this current economy.. corporatism. In a free society the economy would fix itself.

 

[SAVEamerica]

This is one issue I don't completely agree with RP on. In one video he says that he's not worried about running out of oil because he believes the market will deal with it. I agree that it will but only somewhat. There really are no realistic alternatives to oil at the moment and I think this is one thing the government needs to deal with. First they need to stop helping big oil though....

They really need to start pushing for real alternatives and reducing consumption before production peaks. If something drastic doesn't happen to prepare us for it we're fucked.

 

[JosephTheLibertarian]

Ron Paul wants to stop government subsidies on oil.. that's a start IMO for the environment and it will indirectly aid in the rise in alternatives once "big oil" loses this election.

 

[SAVEamerica]

I forgot to mention that even though I don't completely agree with him on this, he's the only one out of the current group that I would trust to be president during a serious oil supply crisis.

 

[Corporate_slave]

If we spent $400,000,000,000.00 on renewable energy, we'd be JUST FINE.

We wouldn't need it, we wouldn't need that, and we sure a sh!t wouldn't need THEM.

 

[Bryan]

Let's admit it. We need oil.

Perhaps I'm going to get a bit off-topic but I would like the address one of your premises, most specifically that we need oil. This is an area where I disagree with Dr. Paul even though he is moving us in the right direction.

I find it important to look at the reasons why we consume oil (what makes the need) which I classify in three broad categories:
1. Survival
2. Personal development
3. Freedom of travel

To analyze:
1. As our current ideological system is today, it’s pretty expensive to buy the necessary free gifts of the Earth that are required for basic survival (land to live on, taxes on that land, raw material for shelter, raw material to grow food, etc). The system leads itself to a high demand of energy usage (such as driving to a place of work) so one can optimally benefit from the fruits of their labor so they can be able to afford what is necessary for survival. As oil has been the most cost-effective energy source for many applications its use has been adopted which can then raise the bar on the market rate for the free gifts of the Earth. For example, if there was no oil and everyone needed to walk to work then perhaps some workers would want to work less to cover the added travel time, thus their wage goes down, thus their ability to pay higher market rates for natural resources would go down (such as real estate) which could then alter the market. All this means that those who do not use the most cost-effective energy source will lose out to those who do, thus many will adapt to use oil to be competitive for the sake of survival. This promotes the use of oil based on our ideology perspective.

2. Since oil is a cost-effective energy source it is natural to extend its use from survival to personal development. This is a more or less a personal and independent decision in that one need not succumb to using oil because others are.

3. The public land corridors that are provided for travel today have a strong bias to the use of oil. While there are certainly other methods of transportation that are possible that do not require oil, such as hiking, biking and horse back, to use these methods it, with a few limited exceptions, requires one to share the same land corridors with oil using traffic which is both hazardous to ones physical health and mental state. Oil using traffic produces severe travel hazards, air pollution and noise pollution- all of which adversely affect those that are traveling on foot, etc. This provides advantages to oil using traffic and is again strictly the result of the current ideological system, there is simply no reason that other free publicly maintained land corridors could not be created for the use of traffic that did not produce the hazards of oil using traffic. Of course, since most do not think travel on foot, etc is an attractive option they do not support this, thus imposing a form of soft-tyranny on others who prefer to travel this way without the hazards associate with the oil using traffic. Of course, most will then capitulate to using oil to avoid the hazards associated with foot traffic on a road dominated by oil using vehicles thus increasing the demand for oil.

In short, we can see that our ideological *choices* lead to an artificially high demand for oil of which now, has basically lead our entire society into debt bondage as the people are dependent upon oil to pay off the debts that they have agreed to in order to pay for the basics for human survival. By many agreeing to pay high prices for natural resources based on the assumption that oil is cheap these people have driven up the market price for these natural resources such that everyone else must make the same poor choice just to survive. Thus, societal debt bondage is born which has led to a high level of acceptance of "securing our oil interests".

So the point is that while consumers do demand oil, it is somewhat of a product of our ideological choices. This is one of my main issues I have with our current ideological system- it's driven by the need for cheap energy and reduces everyone's freedom by requiring that they obtain it to even to provide for basic survival. This provides a huge advantage over those who can control the flow of cheap energy, which is why the oil business is such a big deal. Until there is cheap energy that anyone can produce independently, this will always be a problem.

With our current ideological system, those that control the oil have a strong control over your life- it doesn't have to be like this.

I fail to see how we can ever reduce our dependency on cheap energy (currently oil) with our current system, this forces the creation of artificial issues such as oil security. So in this way, I suggest we examine our ideological choices when considering our need for oil- it seems like the best thing to do to achieve optimal liberty and peace.

 

[Eric B]

No doubt, our current need for oil (cheap energy) has been heavily influenced by disruption of the free market. Who is to say that our current system of transportation (two cars in every driveway, trucks not rail) is the most efficient (in fact I'm pretty sure it is not)? Our government built the public roads for us and created an artificial "free" resource that promoted the use of gasoline. Then, once dependence became apparent, subsidized oil companies by using force to secure oil rights (foreign policy since WWII). Thus, at least in part, creating the addiction.

I would ride my bike to work every day if I didn't fear for my life. This would be more efficient for me in many ways (skip the trip to the gym, save on fuel save on depreciation of the vehicle, etc) but I cannot because of all the cars on the road. It may be too late to consider privatization (real privatization, not govt sponsored monopolies) of "public" transportation. What I theorize above is just one of many many examples of how socialism, even mild socialism, can have unintended consequeces with no mechanism for correction as in the free market.

Now it is what it is. We need oil, at least in the short term. Stop artificially affecting the price of oil through foreign policy or other oil subsidies. Let the free market figure out if oil really is "cheap". I propose that once you figure in the costs of wars to protect oil, both direct and indirect (not only is war horrible it is also horribly inefficient), oil is not that cheap at all. Prices may rise (they may fall - there is still a lot of oil out there) and at that time the free market will develop the most efficient form of cheap energy. We will also rearrange our lives to deal with the new cost of energy. If all of this happens at once it will be a disasterous calamity. I'm not such an idealist that I would not support some sort of weening period (but not in terms current combat for obvious moral reasons).

I started this thread to throw out my thoughts on how one might argue the case for oil security and a non-interventionist foriegn policy. It has changed to a more general discussion of oil and that's fine with me. I would like to see more on Dr. Paul's ideas on energy policy.....possible I haven't looked hard enough. Can anyone sum it up or send a link?

 

[kelldor]

Stan Meyers

We could have solved our energy problems decades ago, however our government has killed inventors like Stan Meyers who perfected electrolysis of water, which produces hydrogen. Stan wanted to give the technology to our country to save of from our current situation. The pentagon war planners looked at the effects of what this technology would do to conventional warfare. Tanks can only go as far as your supply lines can continue to fuel them. If your army runs out of gas, your tanks don't move. This happened in Africa in WW2. Germans had to get out of their tanks and start walking.

Now imagine if your tanks and planes ran off of water, and 1 tank could get you from LA to NY. All of the sudden conventional warfare is changed forever, and significantly more scary because now you have little piss ant countries that have tanks that would no longer be limited by fuel. That's why they offed him.

Today many people are using a device called a Joe Cell. This is very simple and easy to make from stuff at the hardware store and its cheap. This electrolyzes water in a small canister which produces hydrogen fumes that you then feed through a tube into your air intake. You then get significantly increased performance, way cleaner burning fuel so that your pollution output is way less, and you get roughly double the gas milage. Your engine still runs off gas like normal with a Joe Cell, however its being augmented with the hydrogen, so your gas lasts a lot longer. No it's not a hydrogen bomb, btw.

I have seen clips of people taking jumper cables to either side of a balloon filled with water and putting some kind of current through it, then they pull them off, pop the balloon, and light the water on fire. it's cool lookin! it changes the atomic structure of the water. you can pass your hand through the flames and you wont feel it at all, but, its actually cooking your hand from the inside out so i don't recommend it.

With Joe cells alone in every vehicle in America, we would no longer need to import oil. Domestic production should just about suffice then, if not, we could continue importing from Mexico, only, and then we would be set.

There is a lot of information on the net about building Joe Cells. It is becoming much more common now. YouTube, Google, and Wiki "Joe Cell" or "Hydrogen Tap" or "Water car" or "Stan Meyer" or "water fuel cell" to see and read how it works, but be warned. If the government catches you they'll threaten you with yours and your families lives. That's why I'm not going to post any links, and it is also why I am not pursuing the technology at this time. If you do it or talk about it, be discreet, and I don't recommend replying to this. I may delete this post in a 2-3 days.

In closing, just think about it. This technology is taking the web by storm (more so in australia and new zealand) in much the same way Ron Paul is. The Complex has to now speed up their NWO plans and create a massive amount of chaos to keep us from waking up to the reality that we could all be twice as energy efficient with our cars for as little as 100-200 bucks.

 

[DjLoTi]

Do you really know *anything* about solar? Do you know that combustable engines are only 15-25% efficient? Please... we definitely do not *need* gas... I bought mine last month.. please

We *need* change. That's what we need.

I would just like to note that hydrogen cell cars and buses are not only twice as efficient, but they also produce drinkable, clean H2O

I love science...

 

[mrapathy]

who has put out the message we need oil? its a public relations message from the oil companies.

keep people confused and fearful with set of near panic. malleable.

we arent using much domestic oil in fact its mostly capped off though some is being sold to foreign nations overseas.

alaska has alot but the monpoly doesnt truely want to use it.
the people of alaska would like the business and profit from it.

we are not in the middleeast to liberate oil or have it benefit the iraqi people or lower prices for the US or anyone else except a minority of monopoly men.
its to all but cap it and support the oil cartel OPEC for profit.
keep the prices high. when no one is looking sneak a barrel or two for next to nothing. enjoy some more profits.

 

[angelatc]

I'm no expert, but between Mexico, America, Canada and all of South America I think we could survive.

 

[SAVEamerica]

Well, I don't think hydrogen is going to help much...
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=940
http://www.energybulletin.net/2437.html
http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA263497.html
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/techno...a7179aa138b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html

 

[Gee]

This is the problem with subsidizing any industry (which we did for oil indirectly via Middle Eastern interventions). When that industry is no longer viable, you suddenly find yourself being far too dependent on it, because you've artificially inflated it. I wish our government would stay the hell out of the market

 

[Gary]

You guys are all ignoring the bigger picture. The world market does run on a totally free enterprise. The fact is, oil IS the most efficient resource for the US. Yes, we acquire it through a combination of oil companies' money and US government money, but in the end it is all our money. The reason we go with oil is because it is currently the most efficient.

Also, oil is the current standard. We simply cannot ignore the fact that standards drive economic benefits. The fact of the matter is that nearly all cars use gasoline (from crude oil), which is readily available at every corner gas station. This ready market has in turn driven huge investments to produce and distribute oil/gasoline more efficiently (and these investments are made by the big oil companies, not the govt.!) Net result is that there is a huge economic barrier to alternative fuel sources, whether there are devious plots in place to protect oil or not.

In my estimation, the actual value of oil is not properly accounted for, and current free market economic systems do not account for it. As someone earlier pointed out, oil in the ground does no good to someone wanting to make money off it. But oil in the ground does a huge amount of good for a future owner of the mineral rights. The problem is that there is little financial incentive to avoid depleting practical oil reserves rather than leaving them for future generations. It's unclear if the valuations of oil account for the real depletion rates of total oil reserves since it is difficult to truly know how scarce oil reserves are or are not.

I don't have a very good idea, but I do agree that govt. not meddling to try to reduce the price of oil would be a good start. I sometimes wonder why we collectively decided that "oil" is strategic for US interests, but not say "telecommunications equipment" or "semiconductors" or "engine manufacturing" or virtually any industry, all of which our economy and security is at least somewhat dependent on (well maybe not hollywood entertainment but you get the picture).

 

[Captain Shays]

During the last days of the Clinton and Gore administration me and a group comprised of researchers embarked upon a task to attempt to determine what gas really costs when you factor in all fothe externalities that in a free market environment the industry would foot the bills for but with our fascist-socialist-corporatist-capitalist hybrid system the taxpayers are forced to pay for instead.
I don't have all the figures on this hard drive but I do remember some of what we found out.
We gathered the numbers of barrels of oil that we import and derrived from that the numbers of gallons of gasoline from that oil.
We then found out what it was costing us in taxes to maintain military presense to keep shipping lanes open, maintain military bases in or around those oil producing countries, intelligence gathering ect. Then we divided that number by the number of gallons of gas and it came out to around $1.50 per gallon on top of what we were paying at the pump at that time which was around $1.50. so, when you factored in the military expense we were paying $3.00 per gallon.

So then, we questioned what other costs the taxpayers were bearing that they shouldn't be. Up to that time which was about 1998-99 the US taxpayers footed out around $63 Billion in what we called "corporate welfare". This came in the form of specialized tax breaks, partnership subsidies, and research and ddevelopment grants just to the oil and auto cartels. We figured that many of the same old monied interests owned stocks in numerous oil companies, and their peripheral companies like drill bit manufacturere, shipping, rigging etc. and auto parts, steel, chemical, ect. So we decided to lump it allin together and divide that also by the numbers of gallons of gas that Americans use every year.
Some of my group were hard core liberals and literally hated the oil companies and wanted to blame them for everything. Some of it could be legitimized and some of it was ridiculous. We can say "oil companies" or we can say "fossil fuel companies". If we say fossil fuel companies then we can lump in the energy providers that burn coal. If we lump them in we can blame the accumulative buildup of carbon based residuals on governemnt office buildings, statues, schools that need to be power-washed or the sulpher and carbon eats away the cement. We also pay for cleanup after the many spills that occur each and every year. The number of accidental spills is staggering and we the peeps pay for the intiial cleanup. Some times we get reimbursed and sometimes we don't.
Then there are 10,000 new cases of asthsema and other chronic lung ailments each year in people who don'thave health coverage and the taxpayers wind up paying for their medical costs. I for one didn't want to factor those costs in because they were too vague and hard to determine what really caused it.

Anyway, the bottom line was when you factored in the pollution remdeiation, corporate welfare, and other externalities, we came up with an additional $1.05 per gallon.
So the total was
$1.50 at the pump
$1.50 military expenditures
$1.05 0ther related externalities
$4.05 per gallon total.

Even if our numbers were half of that, much can still be determined that in a free market environment where the fossil fuel companies would pay for their own R&D, pay their fair share of taxes, clean up their own mess, and provide for their own security we would certainly see prices rise considerablly. But would the prices be really rising, or would we start to see what its really costing us at the pump?

I have come to this conclusion. We're being lied to. Its a big scam being perpetrated on the American people. That the influence of money send our grown children to procure, protect, and provide oil at taxpayer's expense.

But then the auto cartels are also being heavily subsidized and many of the people who own huge amounts of stock in those auto cartels also own huge amounts of stock in oil cartels as well so we're subsidizing them coming and going.

We import around 23% of our oil requirements from places where our military is being used to protect it.
Thats the difference between a car that gets 14 mpg as opposed to one that gets 19 mpg.

So if we had an honest government who wasn't bought and sold and populated by a bunch of corporate war mongerers we would see $4.00, $5.00 maybe even $6.00 per gallon at the pump.
And what do you think would be our response to that? Well we would cut back on our consumption. We would find alternatives. We would choose to eliminate our need of foreign oil by our choices in a free market environment. No?

Then you would see every American inventor and innovator and businessman and dreamer coming out fo the woodwork with new forms of transportation, new fuels, better carborators andother devices that would set us free forever from radical Islamic nuts and communist who want to kill us.

 

[Captain Shays]

Electricity.

No one can every stop this country from producing all the electricity we would ever need for all ground transportation and shipping requirements.

Also bear in mind that in a non-interventionist foreign policy where our aircraft carrier battle groups are positioned in our own waters instead of all over the world, we would reduce our oil consumption dramatically and there would be a flood of oil in the market

 

[Eric B]

During the last days of the Clinton and Gore administration me and a group comprised of researchers embarked upon a task to attempt to determine what gas really costs when you factor in all fothe externalities that in a free market environment the industry would foot the bills for but with our fascist-socialist-corporatist-capitalist hybrid system the taxpayers are forced to pay for instead.
I don't have all the figures on this hard drive but I do remember some of what we found out.
We gathered the numbers of barrels of oil that we import and derrived from that the numbers of gallons of gasoline from that oil.
We then found out what it was costing us in taxes to maintain military presense to keep shipping lanes open, maintain military bases in or around those oil producing countries, intelligence gathering ect. Then we divided that number by the number of gallons of gas and it came out to around $1.50 per gallon on top of what we were paying at the pump at that time which was around $1.50. so, when you factored in the military expense we were paying $3.00 per gallon.

So then, we questioned what other costs the taxpayers were bearing that they shouldn't be. Up to that time which was about 1998-99 the US taxpayers footed out around $63 Billion in what we called "corporate welfare". This came in the form of specialized tax breaks, partnership subsidies, and research and ddevelopment grants just to the oil and auto cartels. We figured that many of the same old monied interests owned stocks in numerous oil companies, and their peripheral companies like drill bit manufacturere, shipping, rigging etc. and auto parts, steel, chemical, ect. So we decided to lump it allin together and divide that also by the numbers of gallons of gas that Americans use every year.
Some of my group were hard core liberals and literally hated the oil companies and wanted to blame them for everything. Some of it could be legitimized and some of it was ridiculous. We can say "oil companies" or we can say "fossil fuel companies". If we say fossil fuel companies then we can lump in the energy providers that burn coal. If we lump them in we can blame the accumulative buildup of carbon based residuals on governemnt office buildings, statues, schools that need to be power-washed or the sulpher and carbon eats away the cement. We also pay for cleanup after the many spills that occur each and every year. The number of accidental spills is staggering and we the peeps pay for the intiial cleanup. Some times we get reimbursed and sometimes we don't.
Then there are 10,000 new cases of asthsema and other chronic lung ailments each year in people who don'thave health coverage and the taxpayers wind up paying for their medical costs. I for one didn't want to factor those costs in because they were too vague and hard to determine what really caused it.

Anyway, the bottom line was when you factored in the pollution remdeiation, corporate welfare, and other externalities, we came up with an additional $1.05 per gallon.
So the total was
$1.50 at the pump
$1.50 military expenditures
$1.05 0ther related externalities
$4.05 per gallon total.

Even if our numbers were half of that, much can still be determined that in a free market environment where the fossil fuel companies would pay for their own R&D, pay their fair share of taxes, clean up their own mess, and provide for their own security we would certainly see prices rise considerablly. But would the prices be really rising, or would we start to see what its really costing us at the pump?

I have come to this conclusion. We're being lied to. Its a big scam being perpetrated on the American people. That the influence of money send our grown children to procure, protect, and provide oil at taxpayer's expense.

But then the auto cartels are also being heavily subsidized and many of the people who own huge amounts of stock in those auto cartels also own huge amounts of stock in oil cartels as well so we're subsidizing them coming and going.

We import around 23% of our oil requirements from places where our military is being used to protect it.
Thats the difference between a car that gets 14 mpg as opposed to one that gets 19 mpg.

So if we had an honest government who wasn't bought and sold and populated by a bunch of corporate war mongerers we would see $4.00, $5.00 maybe even $6.00 per gallon at the pump.
And what do you think would be our response to that? Well we would cut back on our consumption. We would find alternatives. We would choose to eliminate our need of foreign oil by our choices in a free market environment. No?

Then you would see every American inventor and innovator and businessman and dreamer coming out fo the woodwork with new forms of transportation, new fuels, better carborators andother devices that would set us free forever from radical Islamic nuts and communist who want to kill us.

Exactly!! Let the FREE market determine the price of oil and gas. Is that report public? Where can one access the findings? Was the loss of productivity of soldiers who would otherwise contribute to the economy accounted for in the cost of protection?

 

[Gary]

Excellent points! Other parts of the world have much higher gas prices. I remember a few years back European gas prices were roughly 3-4x that of the USA. Not sure if that is still true, but obviously a truly free market wouldn't allow such variances.

 

[torchbearer]

How about helium-3?