So Hillary today has said that OPEC can no longer be a cartel and that she’d go and do something about it.
Now, this really got me to wonder. Hillary is obviously making these stupid promises because she feels that this kind of rhetoric will connect with the people who she is most likely to get. Uneducated voters.
I doubt that Hillary thinks that getting rid of the gas tax will help all that much. At the typical 1000 mile a month usage at 20 MPG, you’ll save a whopping $27.60 if the gas tax were suspended for three months, assuming that they pass the savings on to the customer.
But now Hillary is coming out and saying that OPEC can’t continue on as it has been. This is all part of her plan as a sort of “Warrior for the Little Guy” image she’s been working on ever since the primary went heavily blue-collar after Barack’s huge February wins.
But do you guys think this sort of anti-OPEC attitude is prevalent among the working class? Because if this is true, I think we’re really fucked as a country. If OPEC has us bent over the table it is only due to our own personal lack of foresight in my opinion. If we are going to start demanding cheap oil from OPEC then we are only delaying the inevitable. I know that the oil business is all based around the cost of extracting oil from various places. And at some point shale becomes feasible. That’s fine and good, but what it does mean is that oil will probably never be cheaper than it used to be.
We’ve all known this for quite some time now. We’re running out of oil. I know there is a debate and it’s more complicated than all of that, but the point is that oil will never be as cheap as it has been. But I wonder what the average American thinks of this.
The reason why I pose this question is because it is my personal belief that we need to get off of oil as soon as possible. I am more of a technologist than anything else, but I do believe that we need to rid ourselves of our dependence on oil for several reasons. The main one being that a huge factor in out livelyhood depends on oil that is underneath someone else’s ground. The minute we are able to wean ourselves off of it, we’ll have much more power as a nation. Not to mention the benefits of ancillary technology that will propagate therefrom.
But how likely is this to happen? I think it depends a lot on the public’s view about what the score is with us and oil. Are we more likely to blame others for the price of gas? Do Americans view cheap oil as a right? Are we so near-sighted as to be unable, still, to see that in the future we won’t have the luxury of cheap oil? The question is, will Hillary’s pandering actually strike a note with Americans? Or are we finally grown-up enough to realize that we can’t continue on the same path?
I’ve seen various reports where they would interview people at the pumps. The question was, “Why is gas so expensive?” A lot of people said because of the oil companies, but a surprising number of people actually knew the right answer that it was simply a question of increased demand. Again, I’m not going to argue that we are experiencing peak oil right now because I know that at various price-points the supply becomes much greater. But the point is that it will have to be more expensive.
There’s no point in debating the short-sighted stupidity of Hillary’s latest because she probably doesn’t even believe it herself. But what she does believe, apparently, is that Americans feel put upon by high gas prices. The question is do we blame ourselves or do we blame OPEC and the oil companies? This, in my opinion is the single-biggest obstacle that any American President can overcome. If we do make it a priority and prepare for the lack of resources that is inevitable, then we’ll be far better off.