Drain America First w/poll

Simple title - simple explanation. The problem with the "let's drill everything, everywhere" is that we are, as always, saying "screw our grandkids, we want it now."

Let's look at the arguments for and against:

1. Drilling everything, everywhere creates greater infrastructure needs - look, if you take one bucket at a time out of the well, you only need one bucket. if you take five buckets at a time from a limited resource, you end up over investing in buckets and you have less time to build another well.

2. If we are wrong and there is a lot more oil in the world, cool - oil prices really tank. If we are right and there is less oil, you just extended the amount of time the US has domestic reserves.

3. The cost of oil has gone up because of devaluation of the dollar - based mainly on the US deficit. Tax breaks to incentivize new drilling help this problem - how?

The frame has to be "why drain America first?" Once that oil is gone the US has less leverage, not more. If you develop non-petroleum based systems, then you still have petroleum reserves and less demand - double win.

But really, the point here is:

Drain America First

Just say no.

•  tips, drill bits or

  donations to Anna

  by tjlord on Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 08:58:27 AM PDT

•  Sooner or later

  The world will stop lending us money to buy oil from foreign sources.  That is, in essence, what the high dollar is, since our balance of trade has been bad for some time.

  The recent drop in the dollar, and the resulting rise in oil prices indicates that the time might be sooner.

  And with all the talk about how America uses more than it's share of the world's natural resources, do you really want to advocate using up everyone else's so that we can save ours?  Not a particularly moral position to be in.

  by william shipley on Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 09:06:20 AM PDT

  •  What I am advocating is that we not necessarily

    turn to overdrilling as the solutions.

    by tjlord on Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 09:16:05 AM PDT

    •  Overdrilling

      Is when you drill more than you can use.  Do you think this is a possibility?

      by william shipley on Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 12:06:36 PM PDT

•  Yep, That's Been My Meme

  If it's so valuable now, it'll be a lot more valuable later.

  by Gooserock on Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 09:19:33 AM PDT

  •  Yes, but these guys have to make their

    boat payments now.

    by lineatus on Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 09:24:40 AM PDT

    •  don't forget, they have to pay those

      fund investors now too

      by tjlord on Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 09:30:33 AM PDT

•  Not soon enough

  My response to "we'll run out of oil" is "not soon enough."

  I don't doubt that there are limits to oil production, but global warming has already made burning oil (and coal) a greater disaster than the limits will cause.

  by Frank Palmer on Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 09:41:55 AM PDT