Things have not been going well of late for the ideologues who also wax economic regarding inflation, interest rates, austerity, etc. They’ve been wrong at every turn. Luskin, Ferguson, Bowyer, Laffer, Kudlow, the WSJ editorialists, and so on…
…I continue to be amazed that folks who can be so devastatingly wrong, for so long, on such a broad array of topics, can continue to hold sway…Interestingly, these same folks were stunningly wrong about a decade ago about when they banged the drum for war against Iraq. Overthrowing Saddam, of course, was a high priority for the neocons, and they needed to drum up broad support to get folks on board. What better lever to pull than to claim that oil prices would drop through the floor once Saddam was out of the picture and Iraqi oil flowed freely?
Here was the conservative line on what would happen to oil prices after we ousted Saddam…
Rand Corp (by recollection): Under a free market [ed. note: The author’s article was all about our liberation of Iraq], oil prices would probably fall to between $8 and $12 per barrel over the next 10 years — down dramatically from today’s price of about $25 per barrel…
Fortune: No one knows for sure which way things will go. But if you have to make a bet, the most likely scenario is that a year from now, with a new regime in Baghdad and long-dormant Iraqi wells finally pumping out crude, oil prices will be back in the mid-20s.
Heritage Foundation: An unencumbered flow of Iraqi oil would be likely to provide a more constant supply of oil to the global market, which would dampen price fluctuations, ensuring stable oil prices in the world market in a price range lower than the current $25 to $30 a barrel.
National Review: “…markets clearly expect lower prices. On the eve of hostilities, oil was selling for about $37 per barrel…But once it became clear that Iraq’s liberation was at hand, the price quickly dropped to about $28 per barrel, cutting our annual oil bill by $70 billion. With full Iraqi production, the price might drop to $20 per barrel or less, giving us the equivalent of an annual tax cut of about $120 billion per year…”
WSJ: Of course, the largest benefit–a more stable Mideast–is huge but unquantifiable. A second plus, lower oil prices, is somewhat more measurable…Postwar, with Iraqi production back in the pipeline and calmer markets, oil prices will fall even further. If they drop to an average in the low $20s, the U.S. economy will get a boost of $55 billion to $60 billion a year.
Time after time.
Thanks, Barry Ritholtz
Repukes, “conservatives”, Rush, Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Allen West, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan, Donald Trump and Tea Pukes are all wrong?
How could that be? Aren’t they God inspired?
I don’t think god has fuck all to do with it…
It would have been far more acceptable to kill Saddam and get the fuck outa Dodge.
Instead we left more dead than had died in the WTC attack (which he had nothing to do with, nor did he have WMDs,) squandered any remaining change at patching things up with the Arab world, and generally proved how stupid, bumbling, inept, greedy, grasping like monkeys after a banana in a narrow-neck jar, our 1%ers elites are.
No wonder the rest of the world doesn’t respect us.
I’m reading Legacy of Ashes right now and the CIA are the worst Keystone cop bunch of fuck ups… I’m embarrassed for ’em…
Edit: read “chance” instead of “change” in “any remaining change at”
Teapublicans unabashedly bury their idiotic past projections because their sheeple constituents have short term memory and they know it.
The 1% start with a self serving goal and then market it as follows:
1. Link a fear factor to it
2. Add God in there somewhere to get the loon base to listen
3. Add a slippery slope element
4. Wrap in a flag
5. Sprinkle with bacon
Feed to sheeple via a Fox News outlet
Sheeple are idiots who want their opinions fed to them.
They have neither memory or cognition.
They’d rather get drunk and/or stoned from Friday evening to Sunday night, kill an eskimo woman and rape a Kodiak bear than do arithmetic beyond their fingers and toes.
They’re the bottom feeders, the half of the population who have an IQ less than 100.
In other words, loyal Fox audiences.
Please finish this statement:
“On the other hand, non-loyal Fox audiences are…” [describe attributes here, including who they are, how many there are, where they live, etc.].
Please identify these non-sheeple superior erudites. I want to know more about them.
Remember all the “OMG! Gas prices are intolerably high at $2.70 per gallon! Why hasn’t President Bush used his Oil Connections to reduce the price to something Honest?” news clips that all the major media outlets (other than FOX) and left wing blogs were harping on during the 2008 elections?
Despite the fact that gas prices have soared dramatically to $4 -$5 during Obama’s Presidency, there’s not so much as a single peep of “outrage” about “unconscionably high gas prices” from the very same media outlets that exclaimed outraged shock at the “horrifically high” prices of 2008 ($2.70) for the last 4 and half years. Let alone claims that Obama should somehow be able to lower them.
One might begin to harbor suspicions of the news media having a political bias…
Or that you don’t watch or read the news. Seems that I can’t turn on the TV or pick up a paper without every news outlet screaming every time the prices jumps.
Of course there are those who think the president (no mater which one) is responsible for causing the sun to shine and the rain to fall as well.
Oh, they’ll mention it when the price has gone up by 7-10 CENTS in a single week during a slow news week, but there’s never been any of the shocked, dismayed, “nobody can afford to drive anymore” melodramatic hand wringing by the news media during the Obama Presidency that was so prevalent during Bush’s Presidency when the price was a mere $2.70.
Nor for that matter is there any implication by the news media that Obama can somehow do something to lower the price of gasoline but has chosen not to do so like they did during Bush’s Presidency.
Having lived a long and happy live I’ve noticed over the decades that every summer the price goes up until people start to scream loud enough. Then prices drop about half the rise and every body goes back to being happy, until the next increase, and every year the oil companies state they made new record profits. It’s just like the seasons and at it’s core it’s the oil companies, politics be damned.
Liberals want higher gas prices.
That’s really crappy trolling. Ask pedro and bobbo for lessons.
Here you go:
If there was a magic spigot that provided ALL THE OIL we wanted FOR FREE========>>>the issue would be same as now: how to develop green energy asap before we drown in our own shit.”
So for the extra detail, liberals want higher gas prices because they want less gas purchased.
They thought the west would get the oil.
China is getting the oil.
We’re on a planet, a globe, west and east are merely travel directions.
Liberals said no blood for oil, the war in Iraq is all about oil, Bush went to war for oil for his oil buddies, then prices did not go down. Then liberals declared that Bush went to war to keep Iraqi oil off the market so as to keep prices high and make more money for his oil buddies. They really can’t make up their minds.
Meanwhile, liberals would like the oil price to go higher not lower. They want people paying more for gas not less.
They want people to have to drive smaller cars not bigger ones.
They prefer people not drive at all, and live closer to cities rather than take long drives.
And what is this company named TOTAL?
A french oil and gas company (Total S.A.).
Stop blaming liberals (or conservatives). This is all about money.
The reports by the RAND Corporation, Wall Street Journal & Heritage Foundation were counting on Iraqi (second largest oil-reserve country) oil coming back into the market in a big way – free of Iraqi sanctions.
Big Oil companies made their biggest profits in history when the price of oil was an all-time high. Thus dashing the argument that if the upstream or supply of crude oil was at too high a price, then it would have been impossible to make a profit.
Around 2004, Goldman Sachs releases an initially scoffed at report stating that by 2010, there would be $100 per barrel oil in a price superspike that would last 5 to 10 years. Oil reaches $147 per barrel in mid-2008.
The Wikileaks documents showed that at a meeting of Saudi oil and U.S. government officials the Saudi delegation stated that they had trouble selling their oil; meaning: a low demand from refiners. These documents also confirmed the role that oil speculation played in 2008 and beyond for the high cost of oil.
If they wanted oil, they could have dropped sanctions, and sold out Israel which has little oil.
“We can’t drill our way to cheaper oil.” /// Someone said on the tube the other day. IE==oil is a world priced commodity with no limit on demand.
So….. I’ll say again…”If there was a magic spigot that provided ALL THE OIL we wanted FOR FREE========>>>the issue would be same as now: how to develop green energy asap before we drown in our own shit.” or would that be shinola????
Ha, ha. I must be confused thinking oil is poison given that plants grow better with it?
Idiot sheep.
Pedro===the context is exactly perfect. We have experts and pundits flapping their lips repeatedly espousing the “neo-con” position of fear mongering invade first figure out how to leave later while reducing taxes on the SUPER RICH to make jobs (“JOBS!”)–and everything they say will flow/result from such actions has been proven wrong. WRONG CONSISTENTLY FOR THE LAST 12 years.
Thats the context. Its “like” they are paid to be wrong. Why?==>to mislead the public so they don’t focus on how continued tax breaks for the SUPER RICH are destroying this country, its middle class, its working class, its reputation in the world.
The statement would make little or no sense out of this context.
What…. pray tell…. is wrong with this analysis, or easier but still impossible for you==>what context would better fit this phrase?
And I will reemphasize–its not “like” they are paid to be these shills==>they ARE paid to be these mouth pieces…it IS their JOB.
But you post otherwise.
It would be amusing if you and your ilk didn’t vote just as stupidly.
I hate ilk.
World demand is up and oil and petroleum products production has levelled. So prices are higher over the last 10 years. That’s what markets do. If anything the long term continued presence of US military in the Middle East causes more instability in the region and higher oil prices.
After the 2007 financial market collapse oil was a temporary safe haven and spiked prices, which was followed by inevitable drop to a dead cat bounce. It has stabilised for several years now and is becoming a “hard currency” worldwide.
NGLs are definitely the cheap energy source now, not oil.
I guess printing trillions of dollars out of thin air has nothing to do with oil prices, or metals, or grains.
Oh, wait.
I think this video bears repeating here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FLv8c2nlF0E
Try watching and LISTENING this time.
I can’t possibly imagine why he wasn’t elected.
From Barry Ritholtz’s invitation to comment on his blog:
“Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.”
Classic, and highly applicable to this forum also.
Well, I think it was Obama’s buddy that says pay more taxes and pulls every trick to avoid paying taxes just make a killing on money transfers. Apple is keeping profits offshore. Google has been caught cheating the Brits.. Bernanke is about to get out of town before things implode.
I’m not sure anyone in the middle east gives a rats bleep about what the US thinks. Well the Russians do. They like present bleep and fart in our direction just because they know they can. A few countries put up with us, sort of , because we give them a lot of money.
Oh well never mind. You guys can talk this to death.