$262 barrel of oil?

[GTSteve03]

What George Soros thinks will happen to the price of oil has no tie in to civil rights or firearms, the reason I choose to be a member here.

Take Bush and the administration to task, that's always a good idea.

But if you're gonna do it here, please tie it SOMEHOW to civil rights or guns.

Sorry about the sarcasm in my other response. I think I am just going by what I see on most other internet forums that I'm a member of.

Invariably, no matter what the topic of the forum, if there is a Politics section, then things will always veer off into "us vs. them" no matter what the original rules of that forum were.

I think it's just the nature of the beast when dealing with politics these days. The other 90% of this forum is pretty strictly 2A and gun related, so you could always just choose to go there when the L&P gets the blood pressure up.

 

[TexasRifleman]

The other 90% of this forum is pretty strictly 2A and gun related, so you could always just choose to go there when the L&P gets the blood pressure up.

And I do, but there are growing complaints, as you can see in another thread, about the amount of non related stuff.

I want to do what was suggested, moderate OURSELVES rather than have it get to a point where posts are getting deleted.

The moderators clearly don't WANT to do that, and no one wants to see it happen. But, I suspect there is a limit to how much of it will be allowed, and I don't want to see that limit reached.

As I said, there are PLENTY of civil rights, 2A, self defense etc topics politically that are well within the bounds of this place. It just seems like over the last few weeks it's headed towards, as one guy put it "DU-like" territory.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

TexasSIGman, why don't you just ignore posts like this that upset you? You claim to be concerned that the Moderators are going to become more Draconian, yet you are on a unilateral campaign to ensure that they do exactly that.

Perhaps you will succeed. That will be an interesting development in itself. All I can say is be careful what you wish for.

 

[bogie]

I think that AQ will pop something big first, and we'll have folks clamoring to make half the middle east either glassed over or the 51st state, at least until we tap it dry.

 

[telomerase]

According to this article, there's plenty of energy.... but it won't be the US using it. Americans are terrified of anything new, and are sliding quickly into irrelevance among nations.

...so in spite of the fact that we're floating on huge energy reserves, I invested in COP and CVX last year anyway. Now I'm benefiting from the restrictions on technology and competition that those companies pay their politicians for... kind of morally ambiguous, I guess.

 

[R.H. Lee]

Ditto what Jim March said. Increase global oil prices will only make our shale oil reserves more valuable. In the long run, exploitation and development of those reserves will alleviate foreign depedency.

 

[longeyes]

We're quoting George Soros now. My God, it IS becoming like DU in here.....

No one forces anyone to participate in a thread. If it doesn't interest you, pass on, brother, in peace, and find your bliss elsewhere. No doubt there will be something that catches your fancy.

Threats to RKBA ARE relevant to this forum. Ditto scenarios that might require an exercise thereof.

 

[CAnnoneer]

Solar is not going to a viable source of energy for us, not in ten years, not in thirty.

AFAIK, it costs 10k to outfit one's roof with solar panels that take care of your energy needs during the day and sell the excess to the electrical company. During the night, you buy some back from them. Even at current electricity prices, it takes less than 10 years for this investment to pay for itself and start producing money.

Right now, we burn a lot of oil to generate electrical power. That is oil that would be saved if people switch to solar for their households.

People are working on increasing the cell efficiency, while mass-production would drive the unit price down. All it takes is judicious investment on the part of the feds to start the process. For example, they could just order a bunch for federal buildings. Not even a true subsidy really.

Add to that wind power for places like the huge coastlines we have, and we can save an enormous amount, decrease rate of increasing demand, and buy valuable time.

All it takes is a vision and an energetic administration (excuse the pun) and a focused congress.

The only reliable form of alternative energy we have, or most likely will have for quite awhile, is nuclear.

It is not the only source, but I do like nuclear. The problem is, it is not renewable. Still, it can buy us some time, if only the greens would admit it is not that dangerous.

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

Soros has been trying to destroy the US dollar for decades. The guy is vested in the destruction of the US currency. Anything he says has to be accompanied by a cheek full of salt.

I think you're confusing cause and effect. Soros and others might be betting that the dollar is going to tank, and taking all of those short positions could possible add to the danger of the dollar falling (I don't know anything about futures currency markets, so maybe someone will correct me on this.) But if you wand someone to blame for the weakness of the dollar, I think about 90% of it is due to the Federal Reserve inflating our dollars working in cahoots with the administration driving a monumental budget deficit.

Can I relate this to guns? Well, if things go like some of the worst-case scenarios predict, I'll be glad I have a boom stick or two.

 

[gc70]

It is not the only source, but I do like nuclear. The problem is, it is not renewable. Still, it can buy us some time, if only the greens would admit it is not that dangerous.

Don't breeder reactors address the "renewable" aspect of nuclear power?

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

It is not the only source, but I do like nuclear. The problem is, it is not renewable. Still, it can buy us some time, if only the greens would admit it is not that dangerous.

My problem with nuclear is it's going to take a massive investment and use of those same non-renewable resources to get the next generation of nukes on line. If that's just to "buy time" to develop renewables, we could better spend that time and those resources developing the renewables in the first place.

Then there's always the problem of wastes that stay active for millenia. Mutant zombie hordes, indeed.

 

[Art Eatman]

To get back to oil, guns and civil rights:

Oil at $100 means gasoline and diesel at $4-ish, mas o menos. We're already seeing the beginning of the end of the housing bubble. This is a strongly recessionary trend. Further, the dollar is losing strength, which means that imported goods such as computers and TVs and other electronics will increase in cost. Same for wintertime fresh veggies.

So, "stagflation". The economy goes nowhere, but prices increase. Add in the issues of the middle east, and we get the public desire for The Man On The White Horse to save us. It could mean a more leftist Congress and Administration, given that those now in power are at least labelled "conservative".

If unemployment rises to a notable extent, odds are that today's culture will see a rise in crime. That leads to calls for "Law'n'Order". That leads to more controls over people which means more loss of privacy. It can easily include more gun control.

That's my logic chain, obviously simply put. I could easily amplify each and every point, but they all seem rather obvious to me. (I grant that my decades of watching all this develop, and having lived through many previous trend movements come and go makes it seem obvious to me.)

The reason I've let this thread run is that, to me, there is more to self-defense than guns. Lifestyle, location, savings, investments--these are all part of the self-defense package.

Art

 

[publius]

Although I read it with interest, I do agree that this thread really doesn't belong on this forum. With due respect to Art, his explanation strikes me as a rather expansive interpretation of forum rules.

The reason I've let this thread run is that, to me, there is more to self-defense than guns. Lifestyle, location, savings, investments--these are all part of the self-defense package.

Welcome to The High Road, an online discussion board dedicated to the discussion and advancement of responsible firearms ownership. It is the declared mission of this board to achieve and provide the highest quality of firearms discussion on the Internet, a standard set by the discussion board The Firing Line from 1998-2002.

Firearms are part of the self defense package. They are the part discussed here. The Firing Line is back open, and unless someone closed it when I wasn't looking, so is the Roundtable.

It's OK with me. I like off topic threads, and enjoyed this one. But I do have a thing about expansive interpretations of stated rules....

 

[ElTacoGrande]

That is ridiculous.

Ok, we all need oxygen. No matter how scare oxygen is, we would pay it if we possibly could, even with our last dollar. So if O2 were scarce, there would be no limit of how much we would pay for it.

But oil is not like that. There are widely available alternatives to it. Vegetable oil, for instance, can be used for almost everything that oil is used for, and veg oil goes for $60/barrel or so. Natural gas can be used for some things. Coal can be. Nuclear electricity can be.

If oil went over $100/barrel people would just stop buying it and switch to something else.

The sooner the better.

 

[RealGun]

No, THEY want to talk about guns. THEY go other places for political debate.

That woudn't suit me. While I deplore this habit of converting every topic into a Bush bashing and whining session, I want to discuss legal and political issues among those who have gun ownership in common, or where I would be entitled to make that assumption rather than swimming upstream on the gun thing all the time.

 

[Pilot]

That is ridiculous.

Ok, we all need oxygen.
If oil went over $100/barrel people would just stop buying it and switch to something else.

The sooner the better.

Be careful what you wish for. Oil is the oxygen of the world's economy. Make it scarce or expensive and it will destroy the economy, and create strife and war. Its already happening. "People buying it" is only a small fraction of the demand. Its industires like plastic, transportation (airlines, rail, trucking) and energy companies that buy it. If the price of oil goes up, all other sources of energy go up in price including natural gas, coal, ethanol, everything. The above statement is naive to the point of being dangerous.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

It takes oil to provide the energy and material needed to make solar panels. It takes oil to provide the energy and material needed to make wind mills. It takes oil to build nuclear power plants and extract nuclear fuel.

I encourage the development of alternate energy sources--it is critical to our way of life in the long term. But we will continue to rely on oil for the forseeable future.

 

[Art Eatman]

"But we will continue to rely on oil for the forseeable future."

And that's why the ramifications of drastic price increases are of concern to us: The effects on our society, and what that means in terms of governmental actions.

It's not the price of oil, per se, that's important, that is subject matter for THR. It's what it can mean to us as gunowners.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I wouldn't trust anything Soros says.

I'd like to see us drill for oil in the ANWR. No bets on that as a proposition.

 

[Art Eatman]

Soros has made many of his billions of dollars by speculating in comparative currency rates. That's how he gets the money to fund the anti-gun groups. If there is an area in which he is among the most knowledgeable, it's in the arena of world economics. TLOK how many people are in his research staff.

Soros spent some $15 million lobbying for the Campaign Finance Reform bill, which is anti-First Amendment (IMO, in spite the of SCOTUS decision). He spent, what, $10 million in funidng MoveOn.org? But during that same period he netted nearly a billion dollars in currency transactions.

Art

 

[CAnnoneer]

Don't breeder reactors address the "renewable" aspect of nuclear power?

The fundamental physics of it is that the mass defect curve has a minimum of the energy per nucleon at Fe (iron). Thus fusion and fission naturally move towards iron, but from opposite directions of atomic mass. In the extreme, if everything turns into iron, there would be no way to extract further energy by either scheme.

My understanding of the breeder reactors is that they improve the efficiency of the fission burn-up. However, fundamental physics above precludes renewability. By contrast, the renewability of wind, solar, or biofuel ultimately comes from fusion in the Sun, which albeit not infinite, would last us maybe another 5 billion years.

 

[Jim March]

First, this oil supply issue can and does affect the *military* actions of our nation's enemies, esp. the Islamofascists but also China.

Oil is a military resource, AND an economic one...and a nation's economy is the *ultimate* military resource.

This is on-topic for THR.

Next, on shale oil, check THIS out:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_4051709,00.html

http://energy.senate.gov/public/ind...ngs.Testimony&Hearing_ID=1445&Witness_ID=4139

What we don't know is "how long to the pump" (retail gas pump) this technology is, assuming it works as advertized.

This development/production lead time number is possibly the most critical date in the world...one that should be withheld from Osama Yo Mama and his sort.

 

[TechBrute]

Hi TejasSIGman, you must be new here.

Uh... no... he's been a member here more than 2 years longer than you have.

AFAIK, it costs 10k to outfit one's roof with solar panels that take care of your energy needs during the day and sell the excess to the electrical company. During the night, you buy some back from them. Even at current electricity prices, it takes less than 10 years for this investment to pay for itself and start producing money.

I have been looking into alternate energy sources extensively for the last few years. It costs in the neighborhood of $25K to outfit your house to be independant. Another limiting factor is the sheer amount of surface area you need to have. A smaller investment of $10K will not pay itself off in 10 years. You will still run a net negative bill, and in some areas of the country things like Hail and high winds add a new facet. Paying off a $10K investment in 10 years is highly optimistic, to the point of being unrealistic.

I am looking forward to detaching ourselves from foreign energy sources. THAT is indeed a threat to our national security. I believe Biodiesel is a viable semi-renewable stepping stone until Hydrogen Fuel Cells are viable.

 

[RealGun]

and a nation's economy is the *ultimate* military resource.

This is on-topic for THR.

I don't get it. I could say a nation's babies are the ultimate military resource and justify a discussion of abortion. If economics is a favored topic, fine, but let's dispense with the rationalizing about what's on topic here.

 

[benEzra]

It is not the only source, but I do like nuclear. The problem is, it is not renewable. Still, it can buy us some time, if only the greens would admit it is not that dangerous.

Nuclear is not "renewable," but the earth's reserves of uranium and thorium are vast enough to allow nuclear power to supply many times the earth's current energy needs for the rest of the earth's lifetime, until the sun goes red giant and makes the earth uninhabitable.

I've seen reasonable back-of-the-envelope calculations that project our nuclear fuel supply at between 1 and 5 billion years' worth. Time till the sun goes red giant is probably around a billion or two. I'm sure someone will finally get a fusion reactor to work by then.

The fundamental physics of it is that the mass defect curve has a minimum of the energy per nucleon at Fe (iron). Thus fusion and fission naturally move towards iron, but from opposite directions of atomic mass. In the extreme, if everything turns into iron, there would be no way to extract further energy by either scheme.

My understanding of the breeder reactors is that they improve the efficiency of the fission burn-up. However, fundamental physics above precludes renewability.

Not exactly. A breeder reactor uses neutrons from the fission process to convert NON-fissile elements into fissile elements, e.g. abundant uranium-238 (not fissionable under reactor conditions) into reactor-grade plutonium. A properly-run breeder reactor produces significantly more fuel than it uses. One to three percent U-235/U238 is so cheap right now that breeders aren't economically all that attractive, but if the price climbs as the U235-rich ores become depleted, then the technology is there. Fuel cost is a miniscule component of a reactor's operating costs, so a doubling or tripling of the fuel cost wouldn't hurt nuclear's economic viability.