While I wouldn't call it "Bush's Fault" the core reason why energy prices have been on a steady increase has been an inflationary monetary policy of the federal reserve (along with an unwillingness of the state and federal government to run balanced budgets) which has resulted in many/most major currencies increasing in value by 25% to 50% against the US dollar over the past decade. To put it another way, most commodity prices (including food and energy) are increasing at such a rapid rate because inflation statistics are heavily manipulated and not representative of reality.
And I agree with you. The problem is that txrattlesnake (like many people) equate a problem with an acute failure of government by one man.
You are correct in that an inflationary monetary policy had something to do with it. However, oil didn't rise 25-50%, it rose 100-200%.
My thoughts on why oil increased so acutely under Bush comes down to the following:
Devaulation of US currency due to bad monetary policy
Increase in base oil prices well outside of US jurisdiction by a president
Low production by US facilities in regards to our consumption (making points 1 and 2 more valuable)
I think there are things that Bush could of absolutely done to reduce oil prices. However, some of these things were hindered by other areas of government at state and local levels. ANWAR is a great example of that - it has huge amounts of oil, but congress and the senate have voted against it. Because of this, I don't like it when people like TX attribute prices to one, and only one guy because that's simply not the case.
The War on Terror waged by George Bush caused gas prices to increase, and it was also beneficial to Bush and some of his own friend's oil wealth that it did so.
Okay, then why has the price of gas decreased $1.50 since Bush has been out of office?
While I wouldn't call it "Bush's Fault" the core reason why energy prices have been on a steady increase has been an inflationary monetary policy of the federal reserve (along with an unwillingness of the state and federal government to run balanced budgets) which has resulted in many/most major currencies increasing in value by 25% to 50% against the US dollar over the past decade. To put it another way, most commodity prices (including food and energy) are increasing at such a rapid rate because inflation statistics are heavily manipulated and not representative of reality.
And I agree with you. The problem is that txrattlesnake (like many people) equate a problem with an acute failure of government by one man.
You are correct in that an inflationary monetary policy had something to do with it. However, oil didn't rise 25-50%, it rose 100-200%.
My thoughts on why oil increased so acutely under Bush comes down to the following:
Devaulation of US currency due to bad monetary policy
Increase in base oil prices well outside of US jurisdiction by a president
Low production by US facilities in regards to our consumption (making points 1 and 2 more valuable)
I think there are things that Bush could of absolutely done to reduce oil prices. However, some of these things were hindered by other areas of government at state and local levels. ANWAR is a great example of that - it has huge amounts of oil, but congress and the senate have voted against it. Because of this, I don't like it when people like TX attribute prices to one, and only one guy because that's simply not the case.
The War on Terror waged by George Bush caused gas prices to increase, and it was also beneficial to Bush and some of his own friend's oil wealth that it did so.
Okay, then why has the price of gas decreased $1.50 since Bush has been out of office?
Explain to me EXACTLY why the war on terror caused gas prices to increase.
Gas didn't decrease to $1.50 when Bush went out of office. It's currently $2.50 where I live, and you can see the trend of prices here:
If you'll notice, gas prices peaked in July of 2008, and immediately fell afterwards. They were dropping before Obama was elected. Prices have risen steadily since Obama took office in January.
So why did they drop? The global recession. Demand for oil outstripped supply for the most part in 2008, which caused oil prices to rise as they had to react to the fact there simply wasn't enough oil to go around. When the recession hit, the demand for oil plummeted incredibly quick, as oil producers found that people were using less, which meant they had unsold stock that was sitting there, losing them money. The reaction by investors and OPEC was to drop the price of oil to ensure that it kept flowing.
If you want to get technical, gas prices have skyrocketed under Obama must quicker than they did under Bush. Gas prices dropped on Bush's first few years of office, while increasing a dollar per gallon under Obama's first year since election. At this rate, under Obama, gas prices will rise to $5.50 a gallon before he is up for re-election.
Notice that since his inaguration in January, prices have steadily risen?
Also, if the war on terror was the reason, we would have seen prices spike in 2003 when we invaded. Prices went up 3 years after the invasion of Iraq. I don't see how you could reasonably correlate prices to that war in any way, shape or form, as PriceBuddy has gas at $1.50 in 2003 when we invaded.
I might be wrong on the gas thing (though the reason gas probably started coming down in July of 2008 was because Bush was on his way out of office), but I don't think it has much of an overall effect on my general thesis that one of these days I don't think the poor will continue to go along with the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich mentallity which will eventually result in the same kind of climate that produced heroes of the poor like Robin Hood, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Billy the Kid, and the James Gang.
One thing I have seen time and time again, in several countries, is established political parties gaining power and then using their power to repay the companies and special interest groups that got them elected; and the more established a political party becomes, and the longer they’re in power for, the more corrupt they become and the more they believe they’re "entitled to their entitlements". There are countless examples of this in Canadian politics, and this week two fairly large ones have been brought back to the forefront from the previous (Liberal) government; the long gun registry which was supposed to cost $2 Million but cost $2 Billion and was never audited correctly, and there is little evidence that it has done anything; and the awarding of a 10 year exclusive vaccine production contract worth (nearly) $350 Million to a single company who can't produce enough vaccine for all of Canada, and it appears that the only reason they were awarded this contract was they gave the Liberal Party a one time $56 Million donation the year the contract was awarded.
The difference between the US government and most other western democracies is that Americans have a two party system and (unlike other countries) they have no choice but to vote for one of two corrupt political parties. In almost every other democracy around the world, if they had political parties half as corrupt as the Democrats or Repbulicans several grass-roots parties would form and would win an election and gain power (possibly by creating a coalition). When a major party loses power it "goes into the wilderness" and only returns if it restructures and eliminates corruption so that people can trust them again.
I pretty much agree with this (though I don't know about the Canadian stuff). The American parties have set up the system to serve them rather than to serve the people, it's now pretty much guaranteed that America will either be ruled by the Republicans or the Democrats.
That's why I said a change to MMP - where representation is proportional to national opinion - would be probably help.
I might be wrong on the gas thing (though the reason gas probably started coming down in July of 2008 was because Bush was on his way out of office), but I don't think it has much of an overall effect on my general thesis that one of these days I don't think the poor will continue to go along with the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich mentallity which will eventually result in the same kind of climate that produced heroes of the poor like Robin Hood, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Billy the Kid, and the James Gang.
You utterly fail at economics. Bush doesn't control the oil supply for the majority of America, OPEC does. The price of crude oil is invaribly tied into gas prices. So unless Bush controls dozens of countries, his transitioning out of office had nothing to do with it.
Let's look at oil prices on the SAME graph I showed you:
Now, here's the point of the graph:
Oil prices also changed when the recession hit - not just American or Canadian oil, but the entire global oil industry. No one man, even Bush, could change that. It took a global recession to cause prices to go down. If you cannot understand that, then you really have no grasp of economics.
Now, for the 'poor will always be poor' statement:
It really comes down to how stupid the population is when it comes to money. The real underlying issue of creating wealth for anyone is how much they can save their earnings, rather than spend them. Unfortunately, our society spends much and saves little. Even poor people have a penchant for stupidity when it comes to how they spend their time and money, and this causes them to be poor.
You may disagree with that statement, but it is truthful. I fully understand that poor people have less discretionary income, but they also spend what they have in such a way to ensure that they will never get ahead. Successful people that are upper-middle to rich do not do this. As it stands, Americans watch an average of 151 hours of TV per month. That's approximately 5 hours of television per day. How much wealth do you think is lost during that time, where those people in the average could be participating in a revenue-generating activity? There are dozens of correlating factors, but it all comes down to the issue that you will be poor when you don't save. And if you aren't learning how to generate more income (or reducing expenses which the poor could easily help), then you will always be poor.
Anyone in the country can go from poverty to riches, but the problem is that few people want to take the time, and put the extra hours in to do it. If you want to start a thread (or I can) about how to generate wealth, we can do that. I even am working on a blog concerning how to become wealthy on minimum wage, so I'd love to discuss it with you.
A) Did you read the exert I posted. Link again here. Any comparison of absolute GDP healthcare spending is absolutely moronic.
B) You still haven't answered the question. How do you avoid the fact that larger populations need more levels of staffing then smaller ones? How does economics of scale fit in, when the government is the one who decides the prices anway?
I dont know of anyone here who doesnt think that culture pays a part in health. I do know, however, that the cultural differences in health between the United Kingdom and the United States does not account for threefold costs. Something like this should be simple to understand, just ask a doctor in the United Kingdom how much they make and ask a doctor in the United States how much they make, I'll go ahead and break it to you that its not a one to one ratio.
Economies of scale still works for the government because, even though they can set the price, they are still subject to market forces. A government hospital doesnt magically recieve things such as medical equipment, it either buys the goods from the market or produces those goods itself at market costs. Furthermore, as I mentioned before the payment of administration of government officials is incrediably lower than that of private businesses, the Security of State is one of the highest paid government administrators at $200,000 a year (only person who makes more is the president) and that hails in comparison to the tens of millions of dollars in salaries that an adminstrator in a private corporation can expect to make.
A) Did you read the exert I posted. Link again here. Any comparison of absolute GDP healthcare spending is absolutely moronic.
B) You still haven't answered the question. How do you avoid the fact that larger populations need more levels of staffing then smaller ones? How does economics of scale fit in, when the government is the one who decides the prices anway?
I dont know of anyone here who doesnt think that culture pays a part in health. I do know, however, that the cultural differences in health between the United Kingdom and the United States does not account for threefold costs. Something like this should be simple to understand, just ask a doctor in the United Kingdom how much they make and ask a doctor in the United States how much they make, I'll go ahead and break it to you that its not a one to one ratio.
Economies of scale still works for the government because, even though they can set the price, they are still subject to market forces. A government hospital doesnt magically recieve things such as medical equipment, it either buys the goods from the market or produces those goods itself at market costs. Furthermore, as I mentioned before the payment of administration of government officials is incrediably lower than that of private businesses, the Security of State is one of the highest paid government administrators at $200,000 a year (only person who makes more is the president) and that hails in comparison to the tens of millions of dollars in salaries that an adminstrator in a private corporation can expect to make.
That actually still doesn't make economy of scale effect the government... since the government would still charge the same amount... the government never makes their own stuff in the UK. Also your deflecting from the real very obvious point that a UK country 7 times bigger would in fact cost MORE with no other differences when it comes to GDP period... because you know I'm right.
What a government offical makes vs a public one means absolutely nothing since we are talking about the diffrence between the UK, and the UK if it was many times bigger.
I might be wrong on the gas thing (though the reason gas probably started coming down in July of 2008 was because Bush was on his way out of office), but I don't think it has much of an overall effect on my general thesis that one of these days I don't think the poor will continue to go along with the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich mentallity which will eventually result in the same kind of climate that produced heroes of the poor like Robin Hood, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Billy the Kid, and the James Gang.
You utterly fail at economics. Bush doesn't control the oil supply for the majority of America, OPEC does. The price of crude oil is invaribly tied into gas prices. So unless Bush controls dozens of countries, his transitioning out of office had nothing to do with it.
Let's look at oil prices on the SAME graph I showed you:
Now, here's the point of the graph:
Oil prices also changed when the recession hit - not just American or Canadian oil, but the entire global oil industry. No one man, even Bush, could change that. It took a global recession to cause prices to go down. If you cannot understand that, then you really have no grasp of economics.
Now, for the 'poor will always be poor' statement:
It really comes down to how stupid the population is when it comes to money. The real underlying issue of creating wealth for anyone is how much they can save their earnings, rather than spend them. Unfortunately, our society spends much and saves little. Even poor people have a penchant for stupidity when it comes to how they spend their time and money, and this causes them to be poor.
You may disagree with that statement, but it is truthful. I fully understand that poor people have less discretionary income, but they also spend what they have in such a way to ensure that they will never get ahead. Successful people that are upper-middle to rich do not do this. As it stands, Americans watch an average of 151 hours of TV per month. That's approximately 5 hours of television per day. How much wealth do you think is lost during that time, where those people in the average could be participating in a revenue-generating activity? There are dozens of correlating factors, but it all comes down to the issue that you will be poor when you don't save. And if you aren't learning how to generate more income (or reducing expenses which the poor could easily help), then you will always be poor.
Anyone in the country can go from poverty to riches, but the problem is that few people want to take the time, and put the extra hours in to do it. If you want to start a thread (or I can) about how to generate wealth, we can do that. I even am working on a blog concerning how to become wealthy on minimum wage, so I'd love to discuss it with you.
Actually, I don't think I gave a very good answer the first time. And it really is amazing how much one can forget in a year which may be why so many Americans seem so hellbent on getting the Republicans back in charge and returning to the Not So Glorious Bush Years.
The reason gas started to come down in July 2008 was because those in charge -- the Bush Brigade (and maybe some others) wanted to get Mccain elected President very badly, so they made it appear that gas prices had been lowered under Bush (as high gas prices had been a very big complaint against the Bush regime). Gas prices began to come down in an effort to try to get Mccain elected; however it didn't work.
It's true that gas prices have increased about $0.60 under Obama. However, they certainly aren't at the $6.00 to $8.00 a gallon they would have been under Mccain by now in the rich's attempt to strangle the poor in order to prevent them from ever being able to rise up and be a threat to rich's hegemony and their pockets.
Sure tell me how to get rich working at a backbreaking and soul destroying job for $8.00 an hour 40 hours a week when you have to pay for insurance, gas for your car if you have to drive very far to work, electricity, your apartment and other bills, while still being able to have enough time and energy for social, cultural, and intellectual development and fulfillment while the supervisors at your job are more concerned with their kids becoming the next big stars in the company rather than anyone else.
There have been many people who have suggested that the spike and collapse in oil prices that you attribute to some (bizarre) conspiracy theory was actually caused by speculation; because, as credit markets seized up and speculators lost their access to low cost loans the price of certain commodities (in particular oil and natural gas) fell to more rational levels that were justified based on economic indicators.
As a general rule the simplest explanation for something tends to be the correct one, and the theory that thousands of independent speculators took their money and invested in to a commodities bubble as outer investments performed poorly is far simpler than a conspiracy theory that has powerful people controlling the price of oil.
