“We have to be on guard, however, against populists who claim we could have one-dollar gas if not for speculators, world-government-Trilateralists, and Big-Oil conspiracies. They make rational discourse difficult and devalue valid criticism of current White-House policies.”
Fred Singer writes at the American Thinker:
Newt Gingrich seemed to be shooting from the hip when he promised, if elected, to bring us gasoline at $2.50 a gallon. Yet cheaper gas is not out of question once the price of crude oil is brought down to about $60 a barrel. And I readily agree with Gingrich’s policy prescriptions — primarily among them increasing domestic production of oil. But it may also take conservation (or substitution ) to cut, by 40%, the world price of the raw material for motor fuels. As gas prices rise to $5 during the summer driving season, Obama is feeling the heat but has not produced new ideas. On the contrary; all his policies tend to make gas more costly — opening the door for GOP initiatives…
The cost to pump oil and transport it from the middle east is about 6 to 8 dollars a barrel.
Ten years ago the Saudi’s said 25 dollars/barrel was a fair price.
Despite the fact that oil is getting harder to extract, the technology is also improving, so the cost to extract shouldn’t have changed much.
Tankers are larger and more efficient.
So why are we paying 10 to 15 times this?
How would the middle east like it if the west created a cartel and charged them 10 or 15 times more for food and consumer good?