Aardvark

Good thing i'm not suggesting that then:rolleyes: What i am suggesting is that off shore drilling has been carrying on for several decades in a very intensive fashion off the coast of Britain and these 'impacts or realisation of risks' have not arisen. Off shore oil rigs have proven to be a cleaner way of getting oil than having it imported by ship. It's also been hugely economically beneficial.

Would that mean that the poster might not be using a proxy at all?

I'd be perfectly happy to see off shore oil drilling in my 'back yard.' You talk of 'risk'. Oil has been drilled off shore for decades off the coast of my nation. I've yet to see any impact on beach front property owners, tourism or the environment. What i have seen is a reliable supply of energy, an huge economic boost and a generally hugely impressive example of mans mastery of the most extreme environments.

The day that President Bush announced the end of the Presidential ban on off shore oil drilling the price of oil dropped. The price dropped immediately he made the speech.

I don't seem to want to address it because it is absolutely irrelevant. The fact that the USA is completely dependent on foreign oil, that the American President has to abase himself before foreign leaders and plead for them to produce more oil has no bearing at all on the ill conceived idea that regulating oil trading in the USA will somehow reduce the globally set oil price. The actions that the USA could take to reduce the oil price are to reduce imports of oil through energy substitution and efficency and to increase domestic oil production. Further regulating the New York oil market isn't going to affect the price of oil at all. You seem to have the idea that because America is dependent on foreign oil that this somehow gives America leverage to influence oil prices through restricting oil trading in America. That idea has no logical basis, it simply makes on sense. the fact remains that if oil trading is suppressed in the USA the oil trading will simply continue in the rest of the world. the prices will continue to be set and the USA will continue to accept whatever the going price is. Until America gets its house in order and reduces dependence on imported oil it doesn't get to have any control on the price. No, according to YOUR quote from Michael Greenberger, there is a theory that ''speculators who are using what are called dark markets, markets that can't be watched by the public or regulators, to manipulate the price of crude oil and, therefore, gasoline and heating oil in an upward direction.'' That's pretty much the definition of a conspiracy. And it's also complete and utter nonsense.

If every other species of animal died then humans would not remain dominant very long. Humans would likely become extinct quite quickly. No. It would matter if the ecosystem were hurt or collapsed. Aside from the fact that it would immeasurably 'inconvenience' mankind, the diversity of life on this planet is a matter of beauty and wonder that has value of its own. People who think quotes from the 'Matrix' films have any actual wisdom or meaning really need to grow up.

A Canadian blogger has offered $1000 to anyone who can trace the source of a death threat posted on his blog. Anyone here up to the task and fancy making a bit of money? http://ezralevant.com/ ''Tonight at 10:30 p.m. MT I received this comment posted to my blog: ezra you will be killed by my hands The IP address from which the comment was made is 72.137.199.43 I'm not a good Internet sleuth; I think that's a Rogers account. That's all I know. But I'd like to know more.'' ''UPDATE: Here are some more clues for you. I searched for the above IP address within my blog's statistics program, and I came up with the information here. The user is in Toronto, the host name is "CPE001217af1113-CM00195eebd328.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com" and the ISP is called "Rogers Cable Inc. Wlfdle" I don't know what Wlfdle means -- do you?''

Every other country on the planet with offshore oil is successfully drilling it. Why all the concern in the USA? It seems a very odd thing to be so hyper sensitive about.

On the contrary. Of course speculation has a short term impact on oil prices, driving the price down and up. My point is that the price of oil is set by international trading, oil being perfectly fungible. Closing some 'loophole' in the USA to try and restrict speculation isn't going to have any effect whatsoever. And as for Michael Greenberger, if he truly believes that speculators are deliberately 'manipulating' the price of oil in 'dark markets' then he is a fool. That would require a concerted conspiracy on the part of huge numbers of oil traders, all working together, in concert to try and corner the worlds oil supply. A palpable nonsense. And as for his use of stock trading as an analogy for oil trading, yet again, people seem to forget, oil is a FUNGIBLE commodity. The US Congress can try and regulate its trading all they want, all that'll happen is traders will continue trading outside the USA and continue to ignore the grandstanding ignoramuses in New York and Washington. It remains a fact that the USA is utterly dependent on imported oil. Until the USA makes serious efforts to achieve energy independence the USA will remain dependent on international oil supplies and that means that the USA doesn't get to regulate the trading.

Fine, simply posting random quotations without any accompanying explanation it wasn't clear what you were attempting to demonstrate. Certainly, global supply seems to be generally stagnating while demand continues to rise. Some fiddling with trading regulations in the USA will have no impact on that. Because oil is an internationally traded commodity which is almost the perfect example of a fungible good. To put it bluntly, screw around with the market in New York and the trading will just shift to a different place. The trading and the price will be unaffected.

iNow, None of those quotes support the idea that more regulations of speculators in New York will have the slightest impact on the globally set price of oil. In fact they are completely and absolutely irrelevant to the issue of speculation. You do understand that oil is a fungible commodity don't you?

Ok, i can think of a lot of reasons to criticise Chavez but amending the constitution through a democratic vote seems to be pretty low on the list (although there are some doubts about how free and fair his votes have been)

Nope, but Congress agreeing to the US governments proposal to end the sugar tariff this Spring would have done. The Florida sugar industry is dependent on the sugar tariff. Without the tariff the sugar would immediately become uneconomic to produce. There would be no more sugar planted for the next harvest. That would be an immediate consequence of the lifting of the tariff. According to the USDA Report (Haley, 2004) a lifting of tariffs would result in at least 70% of sugar being imported with the possibility of the complete disappearance of the US sugar industry altogether. That is NOT to say that the land would immediately revert to the State, but it would immediately no longer be used for wasteful, water sucking, sugar cane. And the State would be able to buy it for a much lower price if it still wanted to. It's pretty simple really. The Florida sugar industry relies on a tariff that keeps the price of sugar in the USA nearly double that of the world price. Without that tariff it is so uncompetitive that the planting would end immediately. If pointing that out makes me an ideological ranter then i'm happy to be one.

It really doesn't need any debating. The facts are clear cut. The California electricity market was highly regulated, the very price of electricity was set by the State. That price was set too low and so supply dried up. How could anyone consider a market where the very price is set by the State to not be highly regulated?:confused:

If you think that a constitution is something that should be set in stone, never to be amended, then i'd like to know your reasoning. On what grounds could a constitution be considered perfect and unalterable? As long as the laws of the land are set, changed and amended by free and fair democratic means then i can't see any valid criticism or concern.

Fine, so you're just going to accept corrupt pork barrelling because it's backed up by a powerful lobby? That's a pretty clear indictment of American democracy. It isn't just the subsidies, remember? US sugar growing is so inefficent that it has to be protected by tariff barriers that keep US sugar prices almost double world prices. And even then the sugar growers still need subsidies to keep going. Take a look at these figures 20.83 cents per pound, U.S. raw sugar price, May 2008 12.23 cents per pound, world raw sugar price, May 2008 (Sources: Cato Institute; U.S. Department of Agriculture) Now, take a look at the ingredients on a can of your favourite non diet soft drink. In the US you'll see 'non fructose corn syrup'. In the rest of the world, you'll see sugar. That's because sugar is so artifically expensive in the USA (and non fructose corn syrup is NOT good for you) If the subsidies and tariffs were removed the sugar industry would simply not plant any more sugar for the next harvest, it would stop. On the contrary, Congress could simply agree to eliminate the sugar tariffs and the solution would be immediate. No court cases would take place, there is no legal basis to challenge the government removing a tariff. It's just a shame that Senators such as Obama are so much in the pocket of lobbyists that they opposed the US governments proposal to remove those tariffs this year. No, you are simply sticking the 'ideological' label on an opinion you disagree with as a means of trying to discredit it without having to deal with its arguments. I never stated, gave the impression or believe that it is ok for the Earth to 'suffer' as long as i can blame corporations. On the contrary, i think the damage caused by subsidies and tariffs is an outrage and should be put right as soon as possible by a simple act of government in removing the sugar tariff and the sugar subsidy. I'm pointing out the corruption here. A small number of very rich people have pocketed taxpayers money to produce unwanted sugar in an environmentally destructive fashion. They have then forced up prices with tariffs, resulting in harmful substitutes being used in food products, consumers facing higher prices, an environmental disaster in Corn ethanol and pain for producers in poorer countries. Pointing out that ending the sugar tariff and subsidy is the simple solution to this corrupt mess apparently makes me 'ideological':rolleyes: Perhaps i could take your 'non ideological' desire to give yet more taxpayers money to rich porkbarrellers and ignore the idea of ending the distorting and damaging sugar tariff and subsidy more seriously, if you had anything more than a casual dismissal of it and the assumption that nothing can be done without the agreement of the lobbies.

As long as those Presidents are seeking further terms of office through free and fair elections then it's hard to see any legitimate concerns or criticisms. If the voters want to reelect someone for a 3rd or 4th or 12th time in a row, that's their democratic choice.

Yes. My very own homegrown organic opinion. So? Since when has being correct been measured by how in tune with the current orthodoxy? You seem to have a real tendency to judge opinions on the basis of how conformist they are rather than on their merits? Actually, the State could stop giving sugar subsidies, cheap access to water and high tariff barrier protections. That would clean up the situation very fast. And that's a nice use of prejorative language. Label any opinion you disagree with as 'ideological' and a 'rant'. It sure saves you from having to actually address the facts and reasoning of any argument you dislike doesn't it? I doubt it. I think Obama is an empty suit who will swivel in the breeze. I'm not expecting him to achieve anything particular except to pander to lobby groups. But then that's just an opinion of mine. Since Obamas policy (at the moment) is to maintain tariff barriers against Brazilian sugar cane ethanol, in order to maintain the pork barrelling corn ethanol disgrace, the evidence so far is that he'll be energetically shovelling more swill into the pigs trough. I'd love to be wrong, but the evidence is that he's a creature of pressure groups and lobbies. Maybe he does have some genuine principles. If he does, i'd love to hear what they are.

I hope it's just you, but i suspect that rather a lot of people have fallen for his particular brand of portentous obfustication.

I love how certain false ideas get established in the narrative. Things go wrong and people run to blame deregulation, then invent fairy stories to back up the idea. For the record, the California electricity market was highly regulated. It failed because the regulator imposed a price for electricity that was below the market rate. This then led to less electricity being produced (obviously). It had nothing to do with 'vindictive' plant managers purposely lowing production in a conspiracy to raise prices. It was a case of bad regulation not deregulation causing the electricity problems. But hey, the political meme is that the California electricity crisis was caused by deregulation and 'vindictive' plant managers, so just repeat that and you'll get by just fine. It's so much easier to go with a false narrative that actually look for the truth isn't it?

The price of oil is set internationally, fiddling with regulations in New York isn't going to change that. As for the price rising, Supply is stagnant, demand is rising. I suspect that even Obama secretly understands that. That's not at issue. We just aren't looking for scapegoats to blame. Umm, yes it is. It's very serious outrage at continued American highhandness and attempts to impose America regulation on British affairs. No. The FSA has no interest in the taxation of petrol. Their outrage over attempts to impose US regulation on the UK is, surprisingly enough, motivated by outrage over attempts to impose US regulation on the UK. At no point has any UK politician or pundit tried to 'misdirect' or claim in anyway that the high price of petrol in the UK has anything to do with US speculators or this foolish regulation in the USA. True. And utterly irrelevant to this thread.

'An over-arching set of guidelines'?????? And who exactly is going to set and enforce them? The whole idea of nations being free is that they are free....... As long as Uribe is subject to a free and fair election, whether Columbia has term limits or not is Columbias business, not of some 'guideline' setters.

Comparatively little oil has been found completely off the continental shelfs (it doesn't seem to have formed so easily out of relatively shallow waters), at present no oil is being drilled that far out, but theoretically the United Nations 'Law of the Seas' would be applicable which grants the UN jurisdiction over all international waters. . President Bush is pushing for the USA to ratify it. Possibly, although it would have to be very tough to stand up to all storms. In addition, the oil then has to be transported, either through pipes or tankers. All along the process it is possible for there to be leakage. However, every other nation on the planet seems to manage it, it's seems odd that the USA should whine about the high cost of imported oil and then find it impossible to drill its own when it has large deposits off its coast.

Considering that their entire business only exists because of huge artificial protectionism, huge subsidies and privileged access to precious and scant water supplies, they shouldn't be entitled to another penny of the taxpayers money. The position of the sugar business in Florida is an ongoing disgrace, it is an outrage, economically hurting American consumers, hurting Central and South American producers, environmentally devastating the Florida wetlands, retarding genuine biofuel development and abetting the Corn Ethanol disaster and leaching of the American taxpayer to fund the entire mess. It's a prime example of pork barrelling, corporate welfare, that is rotting America like a cancer. Their 'business' should simply have all artifical supports removed and then allowed to go bust like any other inefficent, worthless business would.

It's simply a publicity stunt. Closing the 'enron' 'loophole' wouldn't cut the price of oil by a single cent. The idea that the rise in the price of oil is all the fault of those evil speculators is just childish scapegoating. As for the 'Global' aspect of Obamas plan, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article4167841.ece ''The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said that it could veto American efforts to impose regulation on the London oil market'' and ''Stuart Fraser, the City of London's policy chief, described the call as “American imperialism”'' Still, if Obama can persuade enough of the economically illiterate that it's speculators driving up the price of oil and nothing to do with supply and demand he might get a few more votes, and that's all this is about.