( It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyDie_4dOdU -)
Why is Oil so old and yet it acts like a little child…We start this post with video from the Energy Citizens protest against Cap and Trade…I have a sense of humor but this is just childishly bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMhNZB3Vndw
Courtesy of Wes King
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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4s0nzsU1Wg&feature=related )
But I digress here are some really useful Stats about OIL I bet you never knew:
10 Facts About Oil and Gas… not the kind that comes out of your arse….
08/02/2008 ART “The Permaculturalist” L. says:
With gas prices skyrocketing, public transit ridership is at an all time high. Instead of cutting back on public transportation services, we should be reforming our national transportation system to create more affordable travel options for the whole country.
Check out our 10 Facts About Oil and Gas to learn more.
96 Percent of the world’s transportation energy currently supplied by oil.
$75
Cost of barrel of oil on July 18th, 2007.
$131
Cost of barrel of oil on July 18th, 2008.
9.6 billion
Number of fewer miles Americans drove in May 2008 compared to May 2007.
10.3 billion
Number of trips taken via the U.S. public transportation system in 2007, the highest in 50 years.
44
Percent increase in price of diesel fuel paid by public transit agencies.
20
Percent of America’s public transit agencies that are cutting services due to budget constraints.
46
Percent of population that has no access to public transit.
$6,251
Amount the average two-worker household saves annually by taking public transportation instead of driving a car.
2030
Year by which lifting the ban on offshore drilling may start to impact the price of gas
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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm63_M_4BF0&feature=related )
But if you want to see how Oil both behaves childishly and causes trouble all over the world, here is Greg Palasts take on it…
http://www.gregpalast.com/the-best-thing-in-the-world-for-big-oil/
The Best Thing in The World for Big Oil”
…Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Palast on why Saddam had to go.
“This war in Iraq has been the best thing in the world for Big Oil and OPEC. They’ve made the largest profits in the history of the world. The interesting thing about your book is you show how it was all planned from the beginning. The story is like a spy thriller.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Listen to RFK and Greg Palast on Iraq, a 20-minute conversation about blood and oil for ‘Ring of Fire’ from Air America.
The following is part of the story referenced in their discussion:
THE JERK: WHY SADDAM HAD TO GO
by Greg Palast
Excerpt from ‘Armed Madhouse‘
The 323-page multi-volume “Options for Iraqi Oil” begins with the expected dungeons-and-dragons warning:
The report is submitted on the understanding that [the State Department] will maintain the contents confidential.
For two years, the State Department (and Defense and the White House) denied there were secret plans for Iraq’s oil. They told us so in writing. That was the first indication the plan existed. Proving that, and getting a copy, became the near-to-pathologic obsession of our team.
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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqCtbEGcBBA&feature=related )
Cutting to the Chase several paragraph’s down the page and much intrigue and much spilled ink:
In the sanitary words of the Council on Foreign Relations’ report (written up by Jaffe herself), Saddam’s problem was that he was a “swinger”:
Tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability
to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential in-
fluence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key
“swing” producer, posing a difficult situation for the U.S.
government.
Now hold on a minute: Why is our government in a “difficult” position if Iraq is a “swing producer” of oil?
The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to “support the Palestinian intifada” and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum allowed under the Oil-for-Food Program. The result: Oil prices suddenly dive-bomb. Up, down, up, down. Saddam was out of control.
“Control is what it’s all about,” one oilman told me. “It’s not about getting the oil, it’s about controlling oil’s price.”
So, within days of Bush’s election in November 2000, the James Baker Institute issued this warning:
In a market with so little cushion to cover unexpected
events, oil prices become extremely sensitive to perceived
supply risks. Such a market increases the potential lever-
age of an otherwise lesser producer such as Iraq…
I met with Falah Aljibury, an advisor to Goldman Sachs, the Baker/CFR group and, I discovered, host to the State Department’s invasion planning meetings in February 2001. The Iraqi-born industry man put it this way: “Iraq is not stable, a wild card.” Saddam cuts production, or suddenly boosts it, playing games with the U.N. over the Oil-for-Food Program. The tinpot despot was, almost alone, setting the weekly world price of oil and Big Oil did not care for that. In the CFR’s sober language:
Saddam is a “destabilizing influence… to the flow of oil
to international markets from the Middle East.”
With Saddam out of control, jerking markets up and down, the price of controlling the price was getting just too high. Saddam drove the oil boys bonkers. For example, Saddam’s games pushed the State Department, disastrously, to launch, in April 2002, a coup d’etat in Venezuela.
This could not stand. Saddam delighted in playing cat-and-mouse with the USA and our oil majors. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t playing with mice, but a much bigger and unforgiving breed of roden
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The original is not so bad either
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbsHOQmKhps )
I mean if you really want to set the world on fire:
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/discovery-news-2009-cool-jobs-burn-boss.html
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