Took a little longer to get into a political discussion about oil in this thread than I thought.
To preface my post, I am a conservative but not so sure I am a Republican but definitely not a Democrat. I am not happy with the way the Bush Admin. has spent money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. I believe we have spent too much money in Iraq rebuilding infrastructure when we have many infrastructure needs here in our country. We should do what our military does best which is kick ass and take body counts. Then use their oil to rebuild their country. I think President Bush plays too much into the political correct movement and is weary of doing this because the MSM (main stream news media) would have a field day over the whole "war for oil" diatribe. Saddam needed to be removed. He had weapons of mass destruction and used them on his own people - The Kurds and this is well documented. It was just a matter of time before he attained more powerful weapons, he already had the appetite to use them. For the left to rest on their laurels and say "Bush lied about WMD" is ridiculous. I lose stuff in my own house that I find years later and I didn't hide them on purpose. Now take a country a little larger than Texas, hide a tractor trailer load of weapons and get someone to find it. Rather a difficult task to say the least.
Everything in this world economy we live in boils down to two basic ideals: money and power, with money being the most important, with money you have power. The global oil prices are far greater than the US economy and our elected officials - regardless of political party.
President Bush (or any president for that matter) does not control the oil prices, this is just paranoid propaganda voiced by various self interest groups from environmentalist, eco terrorists, political parties and forgein interests here and abroad.
Simply put demand for oil is up and going higher, not just in the US but around the globe. Here in the US we came blame ourselves for allowing the radical environmental groups for blocking any new refinery construction for the last thirty years and the death of any new nuclear power plants. This has directly affected our energy prices at home. One shining example of this is the new Emissions requirements. The new diesel engines are burning more fuel but emit less emissions. Someone please tell me how burning more fuel and getting less efficiency out of a BTU of energy helps the environment?
Abroad China, India and other developing countries are adding to the demand for oil that was once not there. Every country in this world, regardless of economic stature or military might, is fighting for a stake in the world economy. Sure the US and other dominate countries are superior in terms of wealth and military might, but nonetheless there is more competition for everything. This competition for energy, in this case oil, has driven prices up, in addition to our own handcuffs we have allowed the environmental groups to shackle us with.
The world has evolved from Countries/Nations to Global Corporations; that is why Thomas Jefferson was so weary of corporations gaining too much power in the fledging Republic he and other great men were trying to establish. Now Global Corporations are more powerful than the Countries and Nations where they reside. These corporations are motivated by greed for more profit share, which allows them more money for political contributions, which in turn creates their power, and powerful they are. These corporations pay no taxes to the countries in which they reside - it is all passed on to the consumer, factored into the economic proforma for the product they intend to sell.
We are just pawns in a global chess game plaid out by billionares and multi-national corporations. If you think for one minute that your political affiliation is immune to this, then I have some great ocean front property in Arizona to sell you.
The owner, the operator, the small business man - we are the ones that pay the bills to keep the economy going, always have and always will.
To keep on topic: BP diesel fuel $3.95.
