Come again? Big oil's message is to allow them to drill for more oil. That message has fallen on deaf ears in Washington. Tell me again how that indicates that Big Oil's message is wrong?
Big Oil's message is right. If you'd been paying attention these last two weeks, you would have seen it in action. George W Bush removed a meaningless restriction on offshore drilling, and as a direct consequence, crude oil prices dropped 15% in just a few days. Gas prices are already down 35 cents here. Imagine what would happen if Washington really heard the message and actually made it legal to drill for oil!
Of course big oil would never manipulate prices or cause you to ignore the fact that big oil
isn't operating at the capacity it already has to produce. Because that would require big oil being snake oil salesmen just like Pickens.
Your whole view on this subject would be a lot more obvious if you just put "The multinational oil companies claim" before every paragraph. Then the interest is clear, and it becomes all the more striking that you scramble to point out the bias in guys like Pickins, but scramble with equal vigour to disclaim any scheme when it comes to big oil's claims.
The problem with your wholesale acceptance of big oil's theories is this:
1. It requires you to believe that big oil has far less political clout than environmentalists (who has more dollars, and how do politics work?)
2. It requires you to believe that big oil will always be motivated to supply so that the price remains low, even though history has proven conclusively that big oil both will not, and cannot, always regulate the price of oil.
3. It also requires you to believe all of big oil's claims about the future of oil as an energy source....on the word of the people who sell most of the oil...that it's nonsensical to search for an alternative.
In sum, you have to consider not only the part that big oil does control (where it has every motive to charge you more money for oil, not less), and the part it does not control (world supply-it can't guarantee that world supply will be stable, no matter how much drilling you want to do here, and thus, it cannot guarantee a stable pricing scheme.)
It's completely irrational to reject all efforts at conservation and developing alternatives to
supplement oil on the grounds that the oil companies told you it wouldn't be necessary.
Big oil, big oil, big oil...
Sheesh, your post is about as ignorant of oil and how it gets yanked outta the ground here in the 'States as is possible. At best, you are missing half the equation:
little oil.
Ever since oil started to rise in price, a bunch of
little oil & oil-related companies have either beefed up, sprung up, or otherwise increased optempo.
These guys are not some sort of sinister cartel of top-hatted caricatures. Some are old oil men like my FIL who got kicked in the jimmy (economically) in the 1980s oil bust, but see an opportunity to make money again, here in the 'States, exploiting existing fields with new tech and hunting down new fields.
The
little oil industry is humming. For instance, my family just spent the weekend in Nacadoches, Texas and the surrounding area. The little towns that are the geographical/petroleum hot spots have not a hotel room to be had, as the land men, drillers, and other
little oil businesses have them all booked. You have to stay in the larger towns a ways out like Nacadoches, Tyler, Shreveport, etc. in order to find a room...at twice or triple the usual rate, I might add (I write after paying $103+taxes for one night in Naca-freakin-Doches, Texas in July). Some of the land men at the hotel have been staying there and hitting the courthouses since
December.
There is so much stinking work to be had, even my worthless BIL (I have several, one of which is like
useless accessories reference deleted) can get a job. If you can find your way around a courthouse, can run MS Office, and are moderately motivated, you, too, can make some serious effing money getting mineral rights all lined up.
None of these guys get the "Big Oil Talking Points and Price Manipulation Memo," you seem to think exists. They are just reacting to the market and see an opportunity to make money. The fact that they will increase the supply that will eventually correct the current oil bubble is the reality that your conspiracy theory can not account for.
[Cleaned up for language on this very public forum...]
