Please take a look at the price comparison table in this article. It is an eye opener. Apparently, while current price of crude oil is around $67 per barrel, drinking water sells at $105 per barrel, while Starbuck’s Cafe latte sells at $1,260 per barrel.
Debate is whether you agree with the conclusion of the article. Should a non-renewable resource, such as crude oil, be priced at around $1,000 per barrel? Is that an inevitable outcome, as we formulate foreign policies to artificially keep down the price of the next energy source - the uranium?
Of course, none of us would want to pay $100 per gallon at the pump, but do you see the logic in the article?
The article is inane. I find it hard to imagine anyone consuming a gallon of latté in a day, but several gallons of gasoline on a long, traffic-clogged two-way commute is plausible. And that’s just my first objection to the author’s pseudo-populist bullshit rant.
These kinds of dubious comparisons have been around for a long time. What, aside from the fact that they are both brownish liquids with a foul taste, does the price of Starbuck’s coffee have to do with the price of crude oil?
Anyway, let’s see if Mr. Ashtiani is correct. I strongly urge Iran to immediately re-price its export crude at $1000/bbl., and see how the market responds.
As for the rest of the linked article, I pretty much gave up at the point where the author demonstrated that he apparently has no clue what the term ‘nationalization’ means. I have to suspect that next week’s promised recipe for eggplant stew will be no more reliable than the speculations he’s offered in the linked column
Totally inane. If I buy a ticket to the opera, I could spend $200 just to get through the door. Since Starbucks has piped music, logically, I should pay $200 just to go through the door.
What is it $1000/bbl instead of $10,000 or $10,000,000/bbl? It is not going to become anymore non-renewable no matter what we price it. The only hope for truly protecting a non-renewable resource is to price it so high that absolutely no one can afford to use it in any real quantity.
The price is going to rise as either demand goes up of the supply goes down. I forget what that rule is called and it looks like the author does too.
It should be priced according to market forces, but is oil really a non-renewable resource (like cell phone minutes)? if so where did it come from and how did it stop being produced? Did God just put a certain number of barrels in the earth and let it run?
I contend that oil is being manufactured by mother earth today, and she will make soem more tommorow, and the next day.
Except for the fact that She can’t just whip it up in an afternoon like it was sun tea. Yeah, oil is still being made today, I’m sure. The problem is if we pump out all the oil that’s already made or almost “finished” (whatever point that is with petroleum), then we get to wait another couple hundred thousand years before the next batch is finished. You have a 100,000-year warranty on that SUV?
Drinking water sells for about twenty cents/barrel(which includes a disposal fee for the used water) in almost every city in the US. This is what the average homeowner pays.
He’s got Coke at $244/barrel(priced by the ludicrous standard of an 11 ounce can for 50 cents). Just by buying 2-liters, you can reduce that to $100/barrel or less. And, if Coke were truly available by the barrel, shipped in tanker trucks with no packaging, it would no doubt be well-under the price of oil. Probably more like $25/barrel.
Starbucks lattes, shipped in tanker trucks and sold 10-20 gallons at a time, pumped into your car…I’d say no more than the current price of oil.
The price of oil/barrel is a free-market thing pretty much, no matter whether you get the Iranian lunatic saying it is too low, or the rabid talk show host saying it’s too high. You’re still dealing with a lunatic.
Now that I think of it, I pay about $250/barrel for oil I put into my engine, one quart at a time. Damn! Now I’m pissed.
As an aside, I’ve heard it claimed that middle eastern petroleum is effectively “subsidized” by massive U.S. spending on strategic security.
First we spent billions on keeping the middle east from becoming part of the Soviet sphere. Then we’ve spent more billions on keeping all-out war from breaking out between Israel and it’s neighbors (including the “foreign aid” to Egypt which many call a flat-out yearly tribute to keep the Camp David accords), and still more billions on anti-terrorism, etc.
Has anyone tried to put a dollar amount on “what if the Middle East had no oil and we didn’t have to give a damn about it”?
From a practical standpoint, whats the difference between running out of oil and oil thats so expensive no one can aford to use it? I say, enjoy it while we can, let market forces set the price, but look for alternatives for the eventual day when we run out.
