Crude Oil Over $90 per Barrel

[menmon]

It's great for Houston! Us Houstonians love it when gas prices get above $3.

[subroc]

From what I have learned and heard, I'd say the price of crude is pretty much dictated by supply side manipulation by OPEC. There is little that can be done in the near or long term by changing domestic production rates. That's what the data indicates. Since there is little we can do to impact the market price of crude, the biggest challenge for America is to reduce consumption rates.

why? if nothing can be done anyway why reduce use?

[Cody Covey]

How would OPEC's manipulation affect domestic prices beyond what we buy from foreigners? Wouldn't our domestic oil be completely outside the scope of OPEC, or am I completely ignorant on the issue?

[Buzz]

How would OPEC's manipulation affect domestic prices beyond what we buy from foreigners? Wouldn't our domestic oil be completely outside the scope of OPEC, or am I completely ignorant on the issue?

Most people don't realize that oil produced domestically doesn't just get sold here. I goes onto an almost completely integrated world market just like almost every other drop that gets produced world wide. The big oil producers are international companies...

If you're bored sometime, this is a good read. The figures he refers to in the text are at the end of the document.

http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/documents/iew_052909.pdf


A really simplified look at it was done by Rachel Maddow. It's entertaining, and she slaps both sides equally. I don't agree with everything she says here but she's on the right track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0--Q9_KmAY


Another interesting factoid is that US oil use has pretty much peaked and is projected to gradually decrease for all of time. On the other hand, oil use in places like China and India is exploding. I believe that the sensitivity of oil prices to demand and it's effect on transportation costs will put a sever limit or crimp in a "global economy" going forward. I'm probably completely off base...

[Marvin S]

My memory didn't serve me well - but here are some figures from 1965 tax return - on $10,812 of total income paid $1,133.60 in federal income tax. Itemized with $109 in charitable deducts, RE tax 219.20 on a new 3 bdrm 1 1/2 bath house (20K value), State income tax $221. HC was not an item, we paid the bill. In fact, the price of HC has been driven up by having someone else pay for it.

How about a FICA chart?

You can get all the tax rate information you need right in this nifty publication!

http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/f...y-20101220.pdf


When I get some free time, I was going to use consumer price index information to translate those tax brackets in 1965 into today's dollars. It should be interesting, at least to me.

CPI info here:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/CPIAUCSL.txt

I know conservatives want to take us back in time, the question is, do they want to go back to the 1920's or back to pre 1916 levels?

Just how do you know that, I personally want a tax system that doesn't have the government at the time picking the winners & losers. I don't believe that hard to understand, & I do consider myself a fiscal conservative.

I say this not all tongue in cheek. Let's eliminate the IRS, and go to a VAT, consuption tax, flat tax or something simpler and more efficient

Flat tax is most fair & least subject to manipulation.

This "new era" argument rests on the notion that technological advances like widespread horizontal (and other directional) drilling, deepwater gas production techniques, and other advances in oil and gas recovery—all of which can make formerly uneconomic gas reserves profitably recoverable—have substantially changed the rules of the game. There is a cultural element to this putative "new era" in the oil patch.

Dippity - I have a little bit of training in this arena. There are 3 levels of reserves - Proven, Probable & Possible with corresponding tax rates, Proven being highest rate.

It's somewhat of a chess game, your kind want to place areas off limits & have succeeded, my kind believe that production is held back to gain negotiating advantage in order to force those areas open. Why would a major make a 2 bil investment knowing that throwing an area open by buying off the correct bureaucrat would make their investment look stupid?

But in the meantime, I'm playing, look at DNR which I have owned since it was a struggling infant, took a lot out @ $4 gas but still own considerable with a cost basis of $,98. & they take a lot of that nasty CO2 off the books. I personally hope gas goes to $5, just watch the economic engine shut down then. But before that I'd like to ID those who have these poorly thought out theories so they can be the ones last in the soup lines .

[Uncle Bill]

Wouldn't that be a hoot, Marvin?

"But before that I'd like to ID those who have these poorly thought out theories so they can be the ones last in the soup lines ."

That goes for so many of the left's ideas...gun control the most obvious.

Or the 'community organizer' from planned parenthood having to make a choice about the fetus in her womb.

Or the atheist in a foxhole under bombardment.

Or the SFN crowd that just keeps demanding from the providers, well after the providers can no longer comply...ie the students in England and California...etc.etc.etc.

And they wonder why Atlas is shrugging?

UB

[junfan68]

You guys need to not fight it and buy some energy stocks.

[Uncle Bill]

You guys need to not fight it and buy some energy stocks.

I believe Marvin is still in that game, but I've long ago bailed on the entire stock market. I've lost a small fortune in oil, yen, euros, and all the other commodities that require constant vigilance. The dot-com era was also a wake-up call for me. Hard to find a reliably honest broker that wasn't more interested in what he was making. They rank right up there with trial lawyers in my experiences.

Settled in with a pocket full of 'rands and leafs back when they were being spat upon...around that $350 range. Also ventured into several bags of pre '65 silver when it was going for a couple of grand. So my kids might get into some of my retirement bucks after all, which will come as a big surprise to all of us because I always told them I'm spending their inheritance. Besides, they enjoy these family get togethers around the holidays. We haul out the coins and play Texas hold-em for fun. But I've recently gotten more demanding of the count when we finish.

UB

[zeus3925]

How about a FICA chart?

Here ya go, Marv.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/taxRates.html

[depittydawg]

So, if we drilled, wouldn't we solve that supply side issue?

In fact, wouldn't the mere threat of drilling cause those greedy bastards to let more crude flow to market?

I thought so..........

RK

Drilling only solves the supply side problem if you can extract enough oil. The data suggest this is not possible.
http://www.ensec.org/index.php?optio...r08&Itemid=334

Can The United States Drill Its Way to Energy Security?
SUNDAY, 14 DECEMBER 2008 00:00 TIMOTHY D. KAILING
Those who advocate increased oil and gas drilling generally, and quite reasonably, assume that increased drilling will result in significantly increased production of oil and gas. Drilling is certainly one of the rate-limiting steps to the eventual production of oil and gas. But beyond this crude notion that more is better, the innumerate naïveté of many energy projections is staggering.

In fact, many drilling advocates implicitly assume that the energy gained from increased drilling will be roughly linear: that is, doubling drilling effort is expected to eventually bring something like double the energy resources to market. In reality, the historical data give overwhelming and unequivocal evidence that the energy return on drilling in the United States will certainly be far less than this. For generations now, the energy return on increased drilling has been a quantitative relationship of sharply diminishing returns with increased drilling effort. In fact, for the last several decades, the relationship of drilling effort and energy return has been so unfavorable that there is little evidence that even vastly increased drilling will significantly increase U.S. domestic energy production. This stark fact must be incorporated into any strategic energy planning. To do otherwise is to put hope entirely before experience.

Why is There Essentially No Correlation Between Drilling and Energy Production?

But why, then, is there essentially no apparent energy return on increased drilling in the US historical data in the last half century?

The reason is that in a significantly depleted, "mature" petroleum region like the United States, there are severely diminishing returns on increased drilling effort. Why this is the case is really quite simple: petroleum geologists, apparently, know their business. For a nonrenewable resource, a relationship of severely diminishing returns is exactly the relationship expected if geologists are generally able to prioritize the exploitation of both new and existing reserves. In times of low energy prices, the base rate of drilling is low, but it is concentrated on the best prospects, and so the return on drilling effort is greater. In contrast, when high prices encourage more drilling, they generally open up relatively small, inaccessible, and otherwise marginal reserves and, because of this, increased drilling has remarkably little effect on the regional production numbers. This means that, for a significantly depleted region like the United States, increased drilling has very little impact at all on the strategic energy picture.