Gas prices

[_ludwigm]

There are side effects:

KDKA - Pittsburgh : High Fuel Prices Hurt Nevada Brothels - - - - - -

[_JAK]

Of course we (in the USA) were told by Donald Rumsfeld that: The war will pay for itself with Iraqi oil. Such could not have been further from the reality.

Seriously, you can track the current price of oil's sharp rise back to our initially invasion of Iraq. Just prior to the invasion oil priced where in the mid to upper $20s per barrel, we invade and the price jumped into the high $30s/low $40s and has only really gone up since. Five years later and here we are with oil at $140. So if you voted for Bush in 2004, do me and the rest of the free world a favor...

Ball up your fist and punch yourself in the crotch. Not a little love tap either, I mean hit yourself as hard as you can and keep doing it until you've permanently destroyed your ability to reproduce. Hopefully this advice catches you before you've had the chance to have kids and thus raise the next generation of republitard to screw up our country. if not, consider some Jonestown Punch.

Hey AMA,

I have no disagreement with your statistical analysis in paragraph one. While I didn’t vote for GWB either time, I was attuned to the reality of what it meant for him to be elected once (2004) and previously placed (2000 by the U.S. Supreme Court). As the saying goes, “go with the flow.” Anyone who didn’t invest in oil at either of those two times, missed the boat with their financial self-interest.

The best thing that ever happened to GWB was the 9-11 attack. It gave him the excuse to act as he did. All the talk about the Iraq war paying for itself by the Bush surrogates was false. If they did not know it was false, they were ignorant. If they did, they were lying to the gullible American public. Either way, they deserve no credit for intellect in the long-term effect of the attack on Iraq. However, with people like Dick Cheney pulling the strings of GWB, one should have seen some writing on the wall, so to speak. None who have profited from the GWB debacle as simple investors and who did not vote for GWB and company is responsible for the arrogant, incompetence of the GWB years.

Just reading the tea leaves and acting accordingly was a rational response. No self-abuse is called for unless one ignored that writing on the wall.

[_Angus McAwesome]

Hey AMA,

heh... American Medical Association? No... American Music Awards? No...

Angus McAWESOME! Snoogins...

I have no disagreement with your statistical analysis in paragraph one. While I didn’t vote for GWB either time, I was attuned to the reality of what it meant for him to be elected once (2004) and previously placed (2000 by the U.S. Supreme Court). As the saying goes, “go with the flow.” Anyone who didn’t invest in oil at either of those two times, missed the boat with their financial self-interest.

The best thing that ever happened to GWB was the 9-11 attack. It gave him the excuse to act as he did. All the talk about the Iraq war paying for itself by the Bush surrogates was false. If they did not know it was false, they were ignorant. If they did, they were lying to the gullible American public. Either way, they deserve no credit for intellect in the long-term effect of the attack on Iraq. However, with people like Dick Cheney pulling the strings of GWB, one should have seen some writing on the wall, so to speak. None who have profited from the GWB debacle as simple investors and who did not vote for GWB and company is responsible for the arrogant, incompetence of the GWB years.

Just reading the tea leaves and acting accordingly was a rational response. No self-abuse is called for unless one ignored that writing on the wall.

I was agreeing with you and venting my frustration at around 49% of my "fellow Americans" there, JAK. I too made a little extra pocket money thanks to rising oil prices (hey, I'm pissed about it, but that doesn't stop me from being practical about it). It's been a great five years for my retirement fund, but on the other hand it really irks me to see my country get run into the ground by a bunch of incompetent, lying, no-good, rotten bastards that give "conservatives" a bad name. Seriously, the Republican Party used to stand for something, these days it stands for which ever industrial lobby is paying the most money.

[_richardMdBorn]

Of course we (in the USA) were told by Donald Rumsfeld that: The war will pay for itself with Iraqi oil. Such could not have been further from the reality.

CFR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26, 2003 – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed as "utter nonsense" the notion that the United States is after Iraqi oil.

"The only idea we have for the region is that it not be producing weapons of mass destruction and it not be invading its neighbors and that it be peaceful," Rumsfeld said. He added that the United States also wants to see an Iraq where the citizens can "figure out how they want to run their country free of a dictator like Saddam Hussein."

Rumsfeld's comments came during an interview with the Arab TV network Al Jazeera. The Defense Department is increasingly trying to get its message to people outside the United States.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=29374

[_EAllusion]

It was Paul Wolfowitz, speaking for the administration, who infamously stated that the Iraq war would pay for itself (with oil) in the most transparent way. He was the deputy secretary of defense under Rumsfeld.

There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be US taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.

Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Secretary of Defense
testifying before the defense subcommittee
of the House Appropriations Committee
March 27, 2003

The administration consistently implied that Iraqi resources would make the cost of the war negligible

e.g.

"Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will."

Richard Perle, chair
The Pentagon's Defense Policy Board
July 11, 2002

There aren't any quotes from Rumsfeld that are as obvious as Wolfowitz's, but there are plenty of examples of him 1) Laughing at or rebutting any notion that the Iraq war was going to cost more than a relative pittance and 2) Saying we'll first turn to the resources of the Iraq (hint hint) to shoulder the cost.

[_ajax18]

Tomorrow is the start of Bike to work month. I plan on biking for all of it. Hey, I did more on my mission and if old Dutch ladies can do it, I can do it too.

Two problems with that for me. #1 is sweat. #2 is that bikes don't carry much. Going grocery shopping by bus would change grocery shopping as most career couple modern families now know it. Are we really ready to go back to going grocery shopping every day like that do in the third world? Usually if I can bike it, gas, as high as it is, still isn't as big an issue as having to insure the car and either maintain with my labor, pay the bank for a new one, or pay someone to help me fix it.

The only way to make public transportation more efficient is to have a majority of the people dependent upon it. And even then it's still not as convenient nor can you carry much stuff (speaking from my South American experience). Bottom line, losing the automobile is going to drop our quality of life below what it once was until we figure out something better. Rebuilding the infrastructure around something else doesn't look very convenient either. Perhaps that's why we've avoided it this long. It took people a long time to come up gasoline engines and although there are rumors of other engines out there, we haven't been able to make it happen yet.

[_ajax18]

It has been observed that all transfer of wealth is theft.
...
Without a doubt, oil is big business.

Especially, when one can even make a war for it.

The problem is for all the dying we've elected to do in Iraq and criticism we've received from the rest of the world, the American people really haven't gotten any of that oil. If we've fought for it, and taken the moral blame for it, why don't we actually get any of it?

[_ludwigm]

del