What the crap is going on?
It's the speculators (we should tax traders' profits on oil trades)!
It's the politicians (our middle east policy caused all of this)!
It's drivers (we shouldn't drive our cars so much)!
I am kind of tired of hearing all of this stuff, and still see oil climbing. Has anyone stepped up to the plate? No. Well, I take that back: President Bush went to Saudi Arabia and asked them to increase production by 1 million barrels per day.
They said no.
Is that the extent of the work that will be put forward here? I keep hearing from people that "Europeans are used to paying this much, you should get over it!" Here's news: I am not going to get over this. We are paying more money for a commodity which enriches nations which support terrorism. We are paying more for a commodity which damages the environment. We have less money and we have more problems. Our dependence on oil is ridiculous.
Drilling in Alaska, or in your backyard, or in your bedroom, is a temporary answer. That doesn't solve the problem now. Oil is probably going to stay above $100 per barrel for a long time, and maybe never go much further than that (maybe to $75 again). The rest of the world is just using more of it. And will keep spending more money to get it.
This is a huge problem and it appears that we're all asleep at the switch.
Perhaps no one is really speaking out with any real solutions or anger because they fear the oil industry. That's logical, but it's lame. We elect people on the basis of their supposed ability to get difficult (or scary) things done. Our elected officials might worry about the effect on the electorate (don't tee off people in an election year). They might fear the middle east, or the bogey man. But one thing remains: the price is skyrocketing. Even if there is an infinite supply of the stuff inside the earth, I have less and less interest in supporting the efforts to get at it.
I am still waiting for someone to step up and really publicly start caring about this.
There is a great opportunity at this point to start to watch oil, and the rest of the energy sector, as it becomes the next bubble.
