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Thread: Casey Research: Oil’s role in $ as reserve currency breaking down MUST READ

  1. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Prices can adjust if the currency is also allowed to adjust but since China keeps their currency at an artificially low level prices are not allowed to adjust.

    Under normal trade, if the US is running a trade deficit with a country, we are buying a lot of goods from them and using dollars to make the purchases. The other country typically has no use for the dollars they take in and sell them for their own currency which increases the demand for their own and increases the supply of dollars. This causes the value of their currency to rise against the dollar. As their currency rises against the dollar, the prices we in the US would pay for goods from them rises due to the changes in the exchange rate. China is keeping their dollars (by buying US dollar denominated things like US Treasury notes) as dollars and not converting them so the exchange rate does not change as it would if there was a free market. This keeps prices artificially low for US buyers of Chinese goods and keeps prices of our exports to them artificially high. This is an indirect government subsidy to its producers in China and distorts the market.

    If we are importing more goods then we aren't producing as much at home as we would. If we are exporting less we are producing less to export. Both of these mean fewer jobs here and more jobs in the other country. Labor is effectively exported.

    It is true that we get lower priced goods but the exchange is that we have fewer people working. Now if this "frees up labor to do other things" then we should have lots of jobs being created today since we have had so much labor freed up (as in our high unemployment rate).
    What a poor Keynesian argument!

    Oh, pray tell me, what happens as we spend LESS money on buying goods!
    Hint - we end up with more money to consume & invest ELSEWHERE, which will go into the LOCAL economy & it will create more jobs in LOCAL-CONSUMPTION; as I've said before, higher currency means less export-jobs but more local-consumption jobs & lower currency means more export-jobs but less local-consumption jobs!

    It is this Keynesian stupidity that pervades the economic sphere that people are made to believe that government devaluing their currency is "good for jobs" & all it leads to is people losing their purchasing-power & a race to the bottom between all countries trying to see who can devalue the fastest - CURRENCY WARS!

    It's because Keynesians are so incapable of understanding the concept of "opportunity cost" that they also support massive government spending, not realizing that government spending more simply means less capital & labor available to the private sector (productive sector to be precise)
    There is enormous inertia — a tyranny of the status quo — in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable
    - Milton Friedman



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  3. #32
    The money that used to go to local producers of these goods when they were made here is now going to China or other countries instead. That means that there is less money to spend in the local economy- not the same amount. Then you also have the people who lost their jobs no longer getting paid and they are earning less (or no money) and also have less to spend locally. It also puts downward pressure on wages.
    If I buy a widget locally, the seller of that widget can hire somebody to make more. He can also take that money to the grocery store and buy bread and go to the barber for a haircut and the hardware store for a hammer- they have more demand and can hire more workers too. If I buy that widget from China- that money is gone and he is not going to the grocery store, barber, or hardware store which means they are selling fewer products and need less workers too. It multiplies through the economy.

    Yes, the imported things mean lower prices but in exchange we as a whole have less money overall to spend on buying them. China is now holding over $1 trillion in US dollars which is not being spent in the local US economy creating jobs here.
    Last edited by Zippyjuan; 04-26-2012 at 01:46 PM.



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  5. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    ----Paul's energy policy will be focused on "free market" energy solutions. He says federal "regulations, corporate subsidies, and excessive taxation have distorted the market and resulted in government bureaucrats picking winners and losers," and have increased energy prices. He would repeal laws and regulations that impede energy production and would lower taxes on energy production.

    Paul has said that reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil will simplify U.S. foreign policy and improve the "anemic economy at home." He opposes energy subsidies, which he views as a government handout, but he supports tax credits.----

    exporting our oil does not reduce our dependence on foreign oil and does not improve our anemic economy at home .

    dollars just move around , because of the velocity/mult of money jobs are created as the money is spent , cheaper oil / energy prices would put more money in the pockets of american consumers thus helping our " anemic economy ".
    Sounds like a plan. Lets outlaw exporting refined petroleum products in the US, because doing so would help "reduce our dependence on foreign oil". That would work wonders, refineries in the US would suddenly have an incredibly hard time realizing any profit at current price levels because less than half of a barrel of crude can be processed into gasoline even with significant downstream reprocessing. And being that the US is one of only two countries in the entire world where the majority of its oil usage is in motor gasoline, well it's not hard to see what will happen.

    Refineries in the US wouldn't be able to sell all the refined products that the US doesn't demand or need. These products would flood inventories, unable to respond to pricing information and leave to places outside the US where they desperately need these products. Once inventories were nearing capacity these products would be flooded into the US domestic market( if refineries even stay open long enough to reach that point), those holding inventory would want to accept nearly ANY price to realize SOME profit over having useless refined products sitting in their inventories. The prices of non motor gasoline cracks would plummet everywhere in the US, prompting more demand for these products.

    At the same time, the price charged for motor gasoline by domestic refiners in the US would have to rise considerably, being that the profitability of half of each barrel refined just dropped to near nothing. A barrel of oil is still a barrel of oil, and while the US is one of the largest producers of crude in the world it also imports about half of its crude demand from foreign sources, and this foreign crude is competing on a world market. And being that the excess US refined products are now taken off the international market, the price of crude oil has risen as other countries increase their refining capacity for their own domestic needs that the US was previously filling, subsequently increasing demand and the price for crude.

    With the price of gasoline rising to $10 per gallon in the US and paralyzing the economy, foreign refineries respond to price changes and start sending their motor gasoline, which the US is uniquely dependent on, to the US and reap the profits. In the meantime those few domestic refineries that were left are slowing shutting down, as they just can't compete, half of every barrel they refine is stuck in a domestic market that does not demand its products.

    Congrats, ignorant emotionally moved fool. You helped reduce the dependency on foreign oil in the US by outlawing exports which leads to more dependency on foreign oil! What's the next move? It's pretty obvious...those foreign refiners are unfair. Democrats and Republicans in congress hold up charts showing how as prices rise, more and more gasoline from foreign sources is imported into the US. So idiot in chief ILUVRP, channeling the emotional pains of the entire country, holding seances with Abraham Lincoln and the founding fathers so as to be able to declare he knows what they would want to do; declares plans for more intervention to "help" the working folk who are being gouged by the foreign energy companies by placing a price ceiling on gasoline at the pump. Hooray for ILUVRP! Gasoline can never rise above $6! Foreign companies won't be gouging the American people! Of course the domestic refineries that are left will cry foul, they can't make possibly make any money with gasoline at $6 a gallon. So in order to keep America energy independent, ILUVRP provides subsidies to all the remaining oil refineries to make up for the lost revenue from incredibly low prices on all non gasoline cracks. Not only did ILUVRP make America energy independent, he stopped foreign companies from gouging the working man, and saved jobs by subsidizing the domestic refinery industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers!
    Last edited by Aurave; 04-26-2012 at 03:55 PM.
    E che sospiri la libertà!

  6. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by kathy88 View Post
    80% of American voters couldn't get through that article, and if they did would have no idea what they just read. Tweeted and FBed.
    ...Which is why 20% makes 80% of the money (the 80-20 rule).

  7. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Prices can adjust if the currency is also allowed to adjust but since China keeps their currency at an artificially low level prices are not allowed to adjust.
    I am sorry but I do not buy this. In the long run can entrepreneurs not form expectations about what the future exchange rate will be and make pricing decisions based on this? If they do not doesn't this imply that the are not maximizing profit i.e. the economy is not in equilibrium? Consider this as analogous to the fisher effect. In the short run unexpected inflation benefits borrowers at the expense of lenders, but in the long run as inflation expectations become ingrained, interest rates rise so as to remove the gains to borrowers due to inflation.
    "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else"

    - Claude Frédéric Bastiat

  8. #36
    pon2 1/2 , i won't even waste my time saying anything about what you write , i put down what ron paul said , you don't even understand what he was talking about , you must keep taking your pills.

    oh btw , were you kicked off the limpball forum for being too much of a neocon ??

  9. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by nbruno322 View Post
    The world doesn't need to revolve around US dollars anymore and the longer the US tries to pretend that the dollar is still and will remain dominant, the more often its international actions will backfire.
    That is the bottom line. Cutting off our nose to spite our face.

    The only possible brilliance in the plan unfolding before us lies in the likelihood that these actions by our "leaders" represent a purposeful destruction of the US economy by puppets acting on behalf of globalists, with world government interests.

    presence

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

    Awareness is the Root of Liberation Revolution is Action upon Revelation

    'Resistance and Disobedience in Economic Activity is the Most Moral Human Action Possible' - SEK3

    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...


  10. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by kathy88 View Post
    80% of American voters couldn't get through that article, and if they did would have no idea what they just read. Tweeted and FBed.
    This is why the founding fathers created a republic not a democracy.

    The masses are the untruth.
    The old republic is still acting like a soldier to uphold fading beliefs of a bygone era.
    We are the mavens of the coming metamorphosis.
    A meniscus tear will soon unleash the cascade of the new republic.

    just watch (and get you're ducks in a row),

    presence
    Last edited by presence; 04-26-2012 at 06:36 PM.

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

    Awareness is the Root of Liberation Revolution is Action upon Revelation

    'Resistance and Disobedience in Economic Activity is the Most Moral Human Action Possible' - SEK3

    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...


  11. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    The money that used to go to local producers of these goods when they were made here is now going to China or other countries instead. That means that there is less money to spend in the local economy- not the same amount. Then you also have the people who lost their jobs no longer getting paid and they are earning less (or no money) and also have less to spend locally. It also puts downward pressure on wages.
    If I buy a widget locally, the seller of that widget can hire somebody to make more. He can also take that money to the grocery store and buy bread and go to the barber for a haircut and the hardware store for a hammer- they have more demand and can hire more workers too. If I buy that widget from China- that money is gone and he is not going to the grocery store, barber, or hardware store which means they are selling fewer products and need less workers too. It multiplies through the economy.

    Yes, the imported things mean lower prices but in exchange we as a whole have less money overall to spend on buying them. China is now holding over $1 trillion in US dollars which is not being spent in the local US economy creating jobs here.
    Is this supposed to be some kind of joke or something? I don't know how can you not know the implications after spending so much time on this forum!

    Anyways, when people prefer imported products, it's because they are more cost-efficient, & it's the nature of the markets to continuously move towards the most cost-efficient products
    So, imports only means that the labor used on producing those products domestically would be used to produce something else & hence there would be MORE goods & services (REAL WEALTH) within the country, lower prices & higher living-standards so jobs don't necessarily have to be "lost", they merely shift to producing other products.
    The problem isnt' necessarily the imports, they merely INCREASE real wealth in the country; the problems are the often the regulatory hindrances that prevent businesses from taking utilizing that labor as soon as possible & other stupid laws like minimum wage laws, which keep people unemployed

    Ah! The money! That's the Keynesian issue because they think "money" is wealth & that's why they THINK just printing more of it will create more wealth But for those who understand real economics, GOODS & SERVICES are REAL WEALTH; if "money" was wealth then Zimbabwe would have become the richest nation in the world when they'd hyperinflation.

    Let's look at a simple example :
    Let's say there are a $100 in the economy & there are 100 people capable of producing 100 goods in a closed economy
    Now, that's the baseline at an averate rate of 1 person = 1 good = $1
    Let's say 11 goods are imported from China at $10, what effect does that have on 100 Americans' labor capacity? NONE. They can STILL produce 100 goods & since the supply of money has reduced in relation to labor, it puts downward pressure on its NOMINAL price (wage/salary) so now it's $0.90 = 1 person = 1 good
    But guess what happened to the WHOLE ECONOMY, now there are 111 goods (100 + 11 imports) & $90, meaning every $1 is worth 1.23 goods instead of $1 = 1 good, the average NOMINAL wage has dropped from $1 to $0.90 BUT previously they could each buy 1 good on average, now they can buy 1.11 goods each on average (1.23 x 0.90)
    Oooh, those $10 are gone BUT there are 11 MORE goods that otherwise wouldn't have been there

    So again, "money" is NOT wealth at the macro-level, it's the goods & services that determine the living-standards within a country, the more goods & services there are, the cheaper they'll be & higher the living-standards

    Again, you should seriously consider leaning about "opportunity cost"
    You keep posting this Keynesian fallacies that have been debunked ages ago, you should read this book & may be you'll gather the market-perspective - http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf
    It's a very short book, written in plain English & it's absolutely free so please go ahead & have a look!
    There is enormous inertia — a tyranny of the status quo — in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable
    - Milton Friedman

  12. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Aurave View Post
    Sounds like a plan. Lets outlaw exporting refined petroleum products in the US, because doing so would help "reduce our dependence on foreign oil". That would work wonders, refineries in the US would suddenly have an incredibly hard time realizing any profit at current price levels because less than half of a barrel of crude can be processed into gasoline even with significant downstream reprocessing. And being that the US is one of only two countries in the entire world where the majority of its oil usage is in motor gasoline, well it's not hard to see what will happen.

    Refineries in the US wouldn't be able to sell all the refined products that the US doesn't demand or need. These products would flood inventories, unable to respond to pricing information and leave to places outside the US where they desperately need these products. Once inventories were nearing capacity these products would be flooded into the US domestic market( if refineries even stay open long enough to reach that point), those holding inventory would want to accept nearly ANY price to realize SOME profit over having useless refined products sitting in their inventories. The prices of non motor gasoline cracks would plummet everywhere in the US, prompting more demand for these products.

    At the same time, the price charged for motor gasoline by domestic refiners in the US would have to rise considerably, being that the profitability of half of each barrel refined just dropped to near nothing. A barrel of oil is still a barrel of oil, and while the US is one of the largest producers of crude in the world it also imports about half of its crude demand from foreign sources, and this foreign crude is competing on a world market. And being that the excess US refined products are now taken off the international market, the price of crude oil has risen as other countries increase their refining capacity for their own domestic needs that the US was previously filling, subsequently increasing demand and the price for crude.

    With the price of gasoline rising to $10 per gallon in the US and paralyzing the economy, foreign refineries respond to price changes and start sending their motor gasoline, which the US is uniquely dependent on, to the US and reap the profits. In the meantime those few domestic refineries that were left are slowing shutting down, as they just can't compete, half of every barrel they refine is stuck in a domestic market that does not demand its products.

    Congrats, ignorant emotionally moved fool. You helped reduce the dependency on foreign oil in the US by outlawing exports which leads to more dependency on foreign oil! What's the next move? It's pretty obvious...those foreign refiners are unfair. Democrats and Republicans in congress hold up charts showing how as prices rise, more and more gasoline from foreign sources is imported into the US. So idiot in chief ILUVRP, channeling the emotional pains of the entire country, holding seances with Abraham Lincoln and the founding fathers so as to be able to declare he knows what they would want to do; declares plans for more intervention to "help" the working folk who are being gouged by the foreign energy companies by placing a price ceiling on gasoline at the pump. Hooray for ILUVRP! Gasoline can never rise above $6! Foreign companies won't be gouging the American people! Of course the domestic refineries that are left will cry foul, they can't make possibly make any money with gasoline at $6 a gallon. So in order to keep America energy independent, ILUVRP provides subsidies to all the remaining oil refineries to make up for the lost revenue from incredibly low prices on all non gasoline cracks. Not only did ILUVRP make America energy independent, he stopped foreign companies from gouging the working man, and saved jobs by subsidizing the domestic refinery industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers!
    +1

    Who cares about all that - GOVERNMENT - that's the answer to everything! Politicians & bureaucrats can solve any problem, they can give us cheap oil, cheap cars, cheap houses, cheap everything, all they need to do is pass laws to make everything cheap & everything will be cheap, hell, they could even make it free!

    Capitalism sucks! Communism rocks!

    Quote Originally Posted by GreenBulldog View Post
    ...Which is why 20% makes 80% of the money (the 80-20 rule).
    +1

    Exactly!

    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    pon2 1/2 , i won't even waste my time saying anything about what you write , i put down what ron paul said , you don't even understand what he was talking about , you must keep taking your pills.

    oh btw , were you kicked off the limpball forum for being too much of a neocon ??
    I LUV P,

    Where has Ron Paul said that he'll ban oil-exports????

    As I've said before, he's said that he respects the PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE-PROPERTY so much that he wouldn't use government force against any kind of non-violent discrimination so there's no way he's going to violate PROPERTY-RIGHTS of those exporting oil - they're the once investing & producing it so it's their PRIVATE-PROPERTY!
    Besides, I'm sure he stands more than anyone that government CAN'T make anything cheaper, it's the markets that determine prices & government-intervention only makes things worse!

    You're calling me a neo-con??? When in fact YOU are the neo-con, like those who talk about "letting the market work" & less government but don't know sh!t about the market-economics & therefore support MORE GOVERNMENT & MORE MARKET-INTERVENTION

    And don't forget to take your birth-control pill, we don't need any more communists on this planets, there are already too many here & they're doing everything to violate the freedoms of & enslave the rest of the people to the government!

    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    That is the bottom line. Cutting off our nose to spite our face.

    The only possible brilliance in the plan unfolding before us lies in the likelihood that these actions by our "leaders" represent a purposeful destruction of the US economy by puppets acting on behalf of globalists, with world government interests.

    presence
    NO! EVERYTHING isn't some pre-planned conspiracy! There may be people working towards their self-interest but acting like "everyone is in on it" is pure paranoia & something that needs to be minimized if we wish to have any credibility.

    People act in their self-interests & they mayn't all always be in line with one another. Congress simply supports wars because they get money to support it, oil-companies want to secure oil, war-profiteers want profits & so on
    But does NOT mean that they are "all working in unison" to destroy that "chosen land" of America; in fact, such American exceptionalism doesn't help at all
    Even Ron Paul has said many times that people in Congress support the policies they do because they get paid for it but often they're too stupid to think about the deeper consequences so the question of them being on some mega-conspiracy is rather absurd, they are just not that smart

    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    This is why the founding fathers created a republic not a democracy.

    The masses are the untruth.
    The old republic is still acting like a soldier to uphold fading beliefs of a bygone era.
    We are the mavens of the coming metamorphosis.
    A meniscus tear will soon unleash the cascade of the new republic.

    just watch (and get you're ducks in a row),

    presence
    Yes, they knew the dangers of democracy! In fact, initially, voting was only restricted to PROPERTY-OWNERS, which was only a small percentage of population because they knew that if every idiot got to vote then people will vote for thieves that promise to steal from those who have earned it & give it to those who haven't!

    The battle isn't necessarily between Rich & Poor as the communists would want people to believe, it's between corrupt rich/poor who government force against honest rich/poor!
    Last edited by Paul Or Nothing II; 04-28-2012 at 03:17 AM.
    There is enormous inertia — a tyranny of the status quo — in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable
    - Milton Friedman



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  14. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by wgadget View Post
    He was also talking about MORAL HAZARD...When you see people walking away from their promises to pay their mortgages, and whole countries walking away from paying their debts, it's almost over.
    Yep, for most there is not really an option to pay though, they have no job thus they have no way to pay.

  15. #42
    " Paul has said that reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil will simplify U.S. foreign policy and improve the "anemic economy at home"

    ---Where has Ron Paul said that he'll ban oil-exports????---

    no one has said that we should ban oil exports , i just think its stupid to buy oil from opec at the same time we export oil , buying foreign oil ( from opec) only supports the people killing our gi's , i have no problem with oil from canada.

    how do we reduce our dependence on foreign oil while exporting our oil ??

    i won't even address your commie statements , mainly coming from a chickenhawk they don't mean much.

  16. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    " Paul has said that reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil will simplify U.S. foreign policy and improve the "anemic economy at home"

    ---Where has Ron Paul said that he'll ban oil-exports????---

    no one has said that we should ban oil exports , i just think its stupid to buy oil from opec at the same time we export oil , buying foreign oil ( from opec) only supports the people killing our gi's , i have no problem with oil from canada.

    how do we reduce our dependence on foreign oil while exporting our oil ??

    i won't even address your commie statements , mainly coming from a chickenhawk they don't mean much.
    It's NOT "our" oil, USA is NOT a communist country where everything is owned collectively, people are supposed to have PROPERTY-RIGHTS & Ron Paul is the staunchest defender of PROPERTY-RIGHTS & therefore he is NOT going to interfere with how businesses do their business because he understands more than most people that government-interference only makes things WORSE

    And chickenhawk = someone who's not served yet supports unnecessary wars
    I DON'T support unnecessary wars so there's no question of me being a "chickenhawk"

    Now, I understand that having a low IQ doesn't really help commies to THINK things out, & as can be seen below, I've called you out on this stupidity even in the past but clearly commies are just simply too dumb; otherwise they'd just wisen up & learn about the markets & stop thinking that government force & intervention is the panacea

    http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4237758
    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Or Nothing II View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    spouting this kind of talk leeds me to believe you are a chicken-hawk
    Please try to think a little before you post

    Chicken-Hawk = someone who wants wars but has never served

    I don't want wars so how does that relate to me?
    There is enormous inertia — a tyranny of the status quo — in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable
    - Milton Friedman

  17. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    " Paul has said that reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil will simplify U.S. foreign policy and improve the "anemic economy at home"

    ---Where has Ron Paul said that he'll ban oil-exports????---

    no one has said that we should ban oil exports , i just think its stupid to buy oil from opec at the same time we export oil , buying foreign oil ( from opec) only supports the people killing our gi's , i have no problem with oil from canada.

    how do we reduce our dependence on foreign oil while exporting our oil ??

    i won't even address your commie statements , mainly coming from a chickenhawk they don't mean much.
    You are just literally the epitome of an ignorant boor ranting about things you haven't taken two seconds to inform yourself on, and it shows in the way you communicate.

    There is crude oil. It is the basic input for many products that are actually useful and needed. Motor gasoline for your car, heating oil, jet fuel, kerosene, asphalt and road oil, and on and on. These are the finished products that are actually demanded, and they all have to be refined from a barrel of crude oil. There is a cheap way to distill and refine crude into these products, and depending on the crude you will get around a set percentage of each product from a barrel of oil. Only about 40% of a barrel of crude can be turned into motor gasoline, the rest is made into other products. Of course, incremental changes can be slightly made to what end products each refinery will get from a barrel of oil, as they can reprocess certain distillates into something more "useful", but at an increasing cost. This is especially true in the United States, where our refineries are extremely efficient at reprocessing distillates further to make more motor gasoline than refineries around the world can. However they still never really break the 50% mark in crude to motor oil.

    Why does any of that matter? Well the US is a unique country in the world, where our demand for petroleum products is mostly in the form of gasoline. Countries in Europe for example, have the majority of their petroleum consumption in heating oil. Now our refineries can only process so much gasoline from each barrel of crude without it becoming prohibitively expensive.

    Currently about half of the crude oil our refineries use are imported from foreign sources. If we met all our gasoline demand with domestic refining capacity, our domestic refiners would then be EXPORTING the other products that we don't use. There is a gap in what we make and use. The fact that our exports of refined products is increasing EXPLICITLY SHOWS our dependence on foreign oil is decreasing. And we don't produce enough oil domestically for our refining needs, so OF COURSE WE HAVE TO BUY FOREIGN OIL.

    Our total daily imports of crude oil and refined products has dropped from 13,707 thousand barrels a day 6 years ago to 11,360 thousand barrels a day.

    Our total daily exports of refined products has more than doubled in the same time period from 1,292 thousand barrels a day to 2,877 thousand barrels a day.

    What the $#@! is it that you don't understand about this?
    E che sospiri la libertà!

  18. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Or Nothing II View Post
    +1

    Who cares about all that - GOVERNMENT - that's the answer to everything! Politicians & bureaucrats can solve any problem, they can give us cheap oil, cheap cars, cheap houses, cheap everything, all they need to do is pass laws to make everything cheap & everything will be cheap, hell, they could even make it free!

    Capitalism sucks! Communism rocks!
    That wasn't all just a hypothetical and sarcastic rant by me there either. Stuff like that has already been done, and the entire US is completely in the dark about it. I was taught in high school very briefly about the gas line shortages, gasoline rationing and what not during the early 70s under Nixon. The cause of all this was of course placed on the arab oil embargo. And of course if all you are taught concerning that event is a single sentence on a single day in class why would you even question it? It makes sense, arabs stopped selling us oil, so we had shortages, right?

    Of course anyone that understands economics understands that shortages are a price phenomenon, and does not necessarily mean there is increased physical scarcity- and it often never does.

    Nixon turned this country into the Soviet Union for a few years in the petroleum industry starting in 1971, and that is why there were shortages. Price controls were instituted, and while they were phased out relatively quickly for most things, they didn't fade for the oil industry. Starting in August 1971 the price of oil was "controlled". The long lines and rationing of gasoline started in the summer of 72 and continued on from there getting worse by 73.

    When did the Arab Oil Embargo start?

    October 1973.

    What happened? Maybe ILUVRP can educate us with some rant on foreign oil or OPEC or something.
    Last edited by Aurave; 04-28-2012 at 03:45 PM.
    E che sospiri la libertà!

  19. #46
    i will only say i am for america , to hell with a bounch of arabs , they don't like us and never have .

    they must really think that americans are as dumb as a bounch of rocks .

    i will post for the non belivers of ron paul and limpball lovers one more time what ron paul said, what is so hard to understand about loving america 1st.

    Paul has said that reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil will simplify U.S. foreign policy and improve the "anemic economy at home"

    to aurave , why say 2,877 thousand barrels a day when it is 2,877,000 ba x 55=158 million gallons a day .

    as far as gasoline goes we use 400 million gallons a day and export 118 million gallons a day , lets export 400 million gal a day , then we could pay $20/ga for gas . i guess when the big companies that love to export gasoline to keep prices high in america have troubles overseas the countries will send their af/navy/subs/marines to help them .

    i will never cuss at someone i don't agree with , i have more class than that , but at least you should get out of the kool-aid line.
    Last edited by ILUVRP; 04-28-2012 at 04:18 PM.

  20. #47
    Just when it seems you can't be any more stupid you prove otherwise. I seriously hope the majority of Americans aren't as $#@!ing dumb as you are because the country will be in real danger if they all start demanding things that follow your views.

    Read what you just replied to me with. What the hell are you saying? Honestly read what you just wrote. What the hell are you trying to communicate? What is its relevance to anything? Do you think at all? I'm serious. Read what you just wrote.
    E che sospiri la libertà!

  21. #48
    i try my best to make things simple so everyone can understand , but i guess i misjudged some people.

    borrow some pills from pon2



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  23. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    i try my best to make things simple so everyone can understand , but i guess i misjudged some people.

    borrow some pills from pon2
    No. You say idiotic or completely incorrect things, often both at the same time. Random things that are completely incomprehensible to any thinking being no matter how one tries to slice it to find some understanding of what you meant. For example:

    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    to aurave , why say 2,877 thousand barrels a day when it is 2,877,000 ba x 55=158 million gallons a day .
    2,877 thousand barrels a day is how it is reported by reputable sources that tabulate this information on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. That is just how it is done, if you spent the time to look at an actual source it would be quite obvious and you wouldn't need to ask. The fact you do means I can feel pretty confident in ignoring what you have to say.

    Now where do you get the *55 from? I just want to know. I can't for the life of me figure out where you got that number. It's not an easy typo or logical mistake to make. There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil. Now I could understand, if you improperly took the average refinery yield of motor gasoline per barrel of crude input of 45%, and used a multiplier of (.45*42) of 18.9. It would still be wrong, but understandable as to why. I would also understand if you further took account of average refinery processing gain in total volume per crude barrel input, which is 7% currently, and came up with a multiplier of (.45*1.07*42) 20.2. That of course is also wrong, but again, at least there would be a reasonable mistake.

    But *55? Like I said I honestly can't tell what the $#@! you are doing. Where did you pull that from?


    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    as far as gasoline goes we use 400 million gallons a day and export 118 million gallons a day
    As far as just spouting random numbers out about gasoline, where exactly do you get that 118 million gallons a day is being exported? Well I know it's from no where, because its complete bull$#@!. The US doesn't export gasoline production equal to 30% of its gasoline consumption. So where did you pull those numbers from? Are you intentionally trying to make people more ignorant?

    For 2011:

    US refineries produced an average of 9,035 thousand bbl of motor gasoline per day.

    US consumed an average of 8,736 thousand bbl of motor gasoline per day.

    You are trying to pass off that US refineries exported 2,810 thousand bbl of motor gasoline. Domestic refineries produced 299 thousand bbl more than domestic demand warranted. I want you to do two things. First is to guess if the actual average daily exports of gasoline for 2011 are closer to 2,810 like the number you invented, or 299. Second is to find out what the actual number is, of exports for motor gasoline in 2011. You may start your search at the EIA.

    It's 479 thousand bbl per day by the way. Can you find it? Or are you not capable of such a simple task?

    How is anyone supposed to take you seriously in the slightest, and even consider the ideas and solutions you regurgitate onto these forums when basic facts and figures you throw out there are so completely off the wall and incorrect? You are too incompetent to recognize your own incompetence of course.
    Last edited by Aurave; 04-29-2012 at 05:58 AM.
    E che sospiri la libertà!

  24. #50
    you are correct about 42g/ba , i was wrong , drums are 55gal , military uses.

    In 2011, the United States consumed about 134 billion gallons (or 3.19 billion barrels1) of gasoline, a daily average of about 367.08 million gallons (8.74 million barrels). This was about 6% less than the record high of about 142.38 billion gallons (or 3.39 billion barrels) consumed in 2007.

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...ClYJP5mRr2u62A

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...EjA9UFNwmR44pQ

    long weekend , links above is just something to read.

    i guess the main difference between us is some people pick america first and some pick business profit first , given a choice i will always pick america first.
    Last edited by ILUVRP; 04-29-2012 at 12:50 PM.

  25. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    you are correct about 42g/ba , i was wrong , drums are 55gal , military uses.

    In 2011, the United States consumed about 134 billion gallons (or 3.19 billion barrels1) of gasoline, a daily average of about 367.08 million gallons (8.74 million barrels). This was about 6% less than the record high of about 142.38 billion gallons (or 3.39 billion barrels) consumed in 2007.

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...ClYJP5mRr2u62A

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...EjA9UFNwmR44pQ

    long weekend , links above is just something to read.

    i guess the main difference between us is some people pick america first and some pick business profit first , given a choice i will always pick america first.
    Of course you just brush over and ignore most of what I say. Probably because you legitimately are incapable of understanding the relevance of anything.

    And I love your awesome google searches, where you type words and pick things you think agree with you. Either way I figured you'd link to stupid ass retarded opinions coming from those who share a similar ignorant view as yours. And you did! Didn't even take me 15s to spot my first bull$#@!.

    From your first link:
    "Same with gasoline. Tank farms fill up, the rusty pickup truck in the driveway has gas in it, the BP station is full to capacity, everything that can hold gasoline except for your bath tub is filled to capacity. Normally, this would crash prices."

    Considering that the latest data of the combined utilization rate for storage of motor gasoline in pipelines, bulk storage, and refineries is only at 47% in the US, it's again hard to take this article seriously. Like you.
    E che sospiri la libertà!

  26. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by Aurave View Post

    Now where do you get the *55 from? I just want to know. I can't for the life of me figure out where you got that number. It's not an easy typo or logical mistake to make. There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil. Now I could understand, if you improperly took the average refinery yield of motor gasoline per barrel of crude input of 45%, and used a multiplier of (.45*42) of 18.9. It would still be wrong, but understandable as to why. I would also understand if you further took account of average refinery processing gain in total volume per crude barrel input, which is 7% currently, and came up with a multiplier of (.45*1.07*42) 20.2. That of course is also wrong, but again, at least there would be a reasonable mistake.

    But *55? Like I said I honestly can't tell what the $#@! you are doing. Where did you pull that from?
    55 gallon drums are very common in the US. The "barrel of oil" as used for purposes of international oil statistics does not exist as a physical barrel any more. It is simply a unit of measure. Petroleum products in the US, if stored or transported in a barrel, would be in a 55 gallon drum or barrel.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  27. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by ILUVRP View Post
    i guess the main difference between us is some people pick america first and some pick business profit first , given a choice i will always pick america first.
    No, the main difference is that some people believe in INDIVIDUALS' rights to their life, liberty & property & understand why it leads to prosperity for everyone - on the other hand, some people don't mind violating others' life, liberty & property due to their ignorant & self-certered notions of PERCEIVED personal benefit

    And thanks for expressing your dislike for profits, clearly shows where you stand in the debate of - Capitalism vs Communism

    I know you won't bother to learn anything about the market but I'll just post it anyway, just in case someone happens to read it & realize that prices & profits are NOT arbitrarily determined by businesses but that there's an underlying market-process at work that begets all prices & profits & no market-participant, not even dictatorial governments, can control this natural process

    http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

    HOW THE PRICE SYSTEM WORKS


    THE whole argument of this book may be summed up in the statement that in studying the effects of any given economic proposal we must trace not merely the immediate results but the results in the long run, not merely the primary consequences but the secondary consequences, and not merely the effects on some special group but the effects on everyone. It follows that it is foolish and misleading to concentrate our attention merely on some special point—to examine, for example, merely what happens in one industry without considering what happens in all. But it is precisely from the persistent and lazy habit of thinking only of some particular industry or process in isolation that the major fallacies of economics stem. These fallacies pervade not merely the arguments of the hired spokesmen of special interests, but the arguments even of some economists who pass as profound.

    It is on the fallacy of isolation, at bottom, that the "production-for-use-and-not-for-profìt" school is based, with its attack on the allegedly vicious "price system". The problem of production, say the adherents of this school, is solved.(This resounding error, as we shall see, is also the startingpoint of most currency cranks and share-the-wealth charlatans.) The problem of production is solved. The scientists, the efficiency experts, the engineers, the technicians, have solved it. They could turn out almost anything you cared to mention in huge and practically unlimited amounts. But, alas, the world is not ruled by the engineers, thinking only of production, but by the business men, thinking only of profit. The business men give their orders to the engineers, instead of vice versa. These business men will turn out any object as long as there is a profit in doing so, but the moment there is no longer a profit in making that article, the wicked business men will stop making it, though many people's wants are unsatisfied, and the world is crying for more goods.

    There are so many fallacies in this view that they cannot all be disentangled at once. But the central error, as we have hinted, comes from looking at only one industry, or even at several industries in turn, as if each of them existed in isolation. Each of them in fact exists in relation to all the others, and every important decision made in it is affected by and affects the decisions made in all the others.

    We can understand this better if we understand the basic problem that business collectively has to solve. To simplify this as much as possible, let us consider the problem that confronts a Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. His wants at first seem endless. He is soaked with rain; he shivers from cold; he suffers from hunger and thirst. He needs everything: drinking water, food, a roof over his head, protection from animals, a fire, a soft place to lie down. It is impossible for him to satisfy all these needs at once; he has not the time, energy or resources. He must attend immediately to the most pressing need. He suffers most, say, from thirst. He hollows out a place in the sand to collect rain water, or builds some crude receptacle. When he has provided for only a small water supply, however, he must turn to finding food before he tries to improve this. He can try to fish; but to do this he needs either a hook and line, or a net, and he must set to work on these. But everything he does delays or prevents him from doing something else only a little less urgent. He is faced constantly by the problem of alternative applications of his time and labor.

    A Swiss Family Robinson, perhaps, finds this problem a little easier to solve. It has more mouths to feed, but it also has more hands to work for them. It can practice division and specialization of labor. The father hunts; the mother prepares the food; the children collect firewood. But even the family cannot afford to have one member of it doing endlessly the same thing, regardless of the relative urgency of the common need he supplies and the urgency of other needs still unfilled. When the children have gathered a certain pile of firewood, they cannot be used simply to increase the pile. It is soon time for one of them to be sent, say, for more water. The family too has the constant problem of choosing among alternative applications of labor, and, if it is lucky enough to have acquired guns, fishing tackle, a boat, axes, saws and so on, of choosing among alternative applications of labor and capital. It would be considered unspeakably silly for the wood-gathering member of the family to complain that they could gather more firewood if his brother helped him all day, instead of getting the fish that were needed for the family dinner. It is recognized clearly in the case of an isolated individual or family that one occupation can expand only at the expense of all other occupations.

    Elementary illustrations like this are sometimes ridiculed as "Crusoe economics." Unfortunately, they are ridiculed most by those who most need them, who fail to understand the particular principle illustrated even in this simple form, or who lose track of that principle completely when they come to examine the bewildering complications of a great modern economic society.

    Let us now turn to such a society. How is the problem of alternative applications of labor and capital, to meet thousands of different needs and wants of different urgencies, solved in such a society? It is solved precisely through the price system. It is solved through the constantly changing interrelationships of costs of production, prices and profits.

    Prices are fixed through the relationship of supply and demand, and in turn affect supply and demand. When people want more of an article, they offer more for it. The price goes up. This increases the profits of those who make the article. Because it is now more profitable to make that article than others, the people already in the business expand their production of it, and more people are attracted to the business. This increased supply then reduces the price and reduces the profit margin, until the profit margin on that article once more falls to the general level of profits (relative risks considered) in other industries. Or the demand for that article may fall; or the supply of it may be increased to such a point that its price drops to a level where there is less profit in making it than in making other articles; or perhaps there is an actual loss in making it. In this case the "marginal" producers, that is, the producers who are least efficient, or whose costs of production are highest, will be driven out of business altogether. The product will now be made only by the more efficient producers who operate on lower costs. The supply of that commodity will also drop, or will at least cease to expand.

    This process is the origin of the belief that prices are determined by costs of production. The doctrine, stated in this form, is not true. Prices are determined by supply and demand, and demand is determined by how intensely people want a commodity and what they have to offer in exchange for it. It is true that supply is in part determined by costs of production. What a commodity has cost to produce in the past cannot determine its value. That will depend on the present relationship of supply and demand. But the expectations of business men concerning what a commodity will cost to produce in the future, and what its future price will be, will determine how much of it will be constant tendency for the price of a commodity and its marginal cost of production to equal each other, but not because that marginal cost of production directly determines the price.

    The private enterprise system, then, might be compared to thousands of machines, each regulated by its own quasiautomatic governor, yet with these machines and their governors all interconnected and influencing each other, so that they act in effect like one great machine. Most of us must have noticed the automatic "governor" on a steam engine. It usually consists of two balls or weights which work by centrifugal force. As the speed of the engine increases, these balls fly away from the rod to which they are attached and so automatically narrow or close off a throttle valve which regulates the intake of steam and thus slows down the engine. If the engine goes too slowly, on the other hand, the balls drop, widen the throttle valve, and increase the engine's speed. Thus every departure from the desired speed itself sets in motion the forces that tend to correct that departure.

    It is precisely in this way that the relative supply of thousands of different commodities is regulated under the system of competitive private enterprise. When people want more of a commodity, their competitive bidding raises its price. This increases the profits of the producers who make that product. This stimulates them to increase their production. It leads others to stop making some of the products they previously made, and turn to making the product that offers them the better return. But this increases the supply of that commodity at the same time that it reduces the supply of some other commodities. The price of that product therefore falls in relation to the price of other products, and the stimulus to the relative increase in its production disappears. In the same way, if the demand falls off for some product, its price and the profit in making it go lower, and its production declines.

    It is this last development that scandalizes those who do not understand the "price system" they denounce. They accuse it of creating scarcity. Why, they ask indignantly, should manufacturers cut off the production of shoes at the point where it becomes unprofitable to produce any more? Why should they be guided merely by their own profits? Why should they be guided by the market? Why do they not produce shoes to the "full capacity of modern technical processes"? The price system and private enterprise, conclude the "production-for-use" philosophers, are merely a form of "scarcity economics."

    These questions and conclusions stem from the fallacy of looking at one industry in isolation, of looking at the tree and ignoring the forest. Up to a certain point it is necessary to produce shoes. But it is also necessary to produce coats, shirts, trousers, homes, plows, shovels, factories, bridges, milk and bread. It would be idiotic to go on piling up mountains of surplus shoes, simply because we could do it, while hundreds of more urgent needs went unfilled.

    Now in an economy in equilibrium, a given industry can expand only at the expense of other industries. For at any moment the factors of production are limited. One industry can be expanded only by diverting to it labor, land and capital that would otherwise be employed in other industries. And when a given industry shrinks, or stops expanding its output, it does not necessarily mean that there has been any net decline in aggregate production. The shrinkage at that point may have merely released labor and capital to permit the expansion of other industries. It is erroneous to conclude, therefore, that a shrinkage of production in one line necessarily means a shrinkage in total production.

    Everything, in short, is produced at the expense of foregoing something else. Costs of production themselves, in fact, might be defined as the things that are given up (the leisure and pleasures, the raw materials with alternative potential uses) in order to create the thing that is made.

    It follows that it is just as essential for the health of a dynamic economy that dying industries should be allowed to die as that growing industries should be allowed to grow. For the dying industries absorb labor and capital that should be released for the growing industries. It is only the much vilified price system that solves the enormously complicated problem of deciding precisely how much of tens of thousands of different commodities and services should be produced in relation to each other. These otherwise bewildering equations are solved quasi-automatically by the system of prices, profits and costs. They are solved by this system incomparably better than any group of bureaucrats could solve them. For they are solved by a system under which each consumer makes his own demand and casts a fresh vote, or a dozen fresh votes, every day; whereas bureaucrats would try to solve it by having made for the consumers, not what the consumers themselves wanted, but what the bureaucrats decided was good for them.

    Yet though the bureaucrats do not understand the quasiautomatic system of the market, they are always disturbed by it. They are always trying to improve it or correct it, usually in the interests of some wailing pressure group. What some of the results of their intervention is, we shall examine in succeeding chapters.
    Last edited by Paul Or Nothing II; 04-30-2012 at 02:50 AM.
    There is enormous inertia — a tyranny of the status quo — in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable
    - Milton Friedman

  28. #54
    all i am saying i will always side with america/americans first.

    wouldn't it be great if we had 5-6 huge corp's running the country , letting them make trillions of dollars a year and the people with nothing.

    you may want to read up on japan before ww2 and see how that country did with 4-5 hugh companies running the country.

    also as far as our rights , the people have lost so many rights in the last 10 yrs , it won't be long before we have no rights .

    look at the SCOTUS and see--- how corp's can take your home and put up a shopping center---companies are people---sc picks the potus.

    the court is in the pocket of big business , not the COTUS .

    so much for the rights of people .

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