Senate to sue OPEC for more oil

Thanks for the post, stone246.... i was afraid i might be first...

google "sue OPEC" and get this list of returns...
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=...

my absolute favorite comes from the Economist.com, where the usually liberal slant actually said this:

"This lawsuit would also have removed sovereign immunity that protects the governments in OPEC from prosecution or having their assets seized as punishment. The trouble is, even if OPEC were found guilty of antitrust abuses in an American court, how would the cartel actually be punished or broken up?

Ultimately, there is no way to secure compliance with America’s courts short of military action, which is one reason why even the Bush administration opposed last year’s Congressional vote. But, if oil prices continue to rise and the election race remains close, how long before one of the presidential candidates proposes bombing OPEC, even though there could be no surer way to send oil prices soaring to new highs?"

for those who haven't been around the sun too many times, check this one out, too... the First "Oil Crisis" in the US was when Saudi Arabia jacked its prices in the early 1970s. it caused a nasty recession before everyone adjusted to it.

but the dumbest thing of the times was when some moron in a US union decided to take the case to the Supreme Court of the US and sue Saudi Arabia FOR LOST JOBS.

my first reaction: and what court will try the case?

same here... if all of the folks who've wanted to attack the oil companies now turn their "righteous indignation" against all of the oil companies in the world, HOW CAN THAT POSSIBLY DO ANYTHING TO LOWER PRICES?!?!?!?"

this will go down in history as another one of the most poorly-thought-out concepts ever. you have my word on it.

the entire world is competing for a limited resource [iol]. if anyone tries to make life harder for the suppliers, they'll just figure a way to send more oil to everyone BUT US.

here's a quote from one of my favorite financial advisers....

"Oil prices will continue to rise. Global production of oil has not exceeded 85 million barrels per day for the past two years. Global demand is now 87 million barrels per day and rising at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, our pandering politicians want to tax excess oil profits and lift the federal gasoline tax for the summer driving months. There is no leadership in Washington on either side of the aisle. Focus your attention on your investment portfolio to capture maximum profits before the bull market bubble top in
mid 2009 or 2010."

in a supply-constrained market, there is ONE solution: INCREASE SUPPLIES.

but the US, thanks to the same Congressional "wisdom", has made it illegal to drill for what may be monstrous amounts of US offshore oil, and in doing so, has delayed even the POSSIBLE benefits of drilling for fives if not tens of years from now.

morons of the highest order! actually, by definitions, imbeciles, not morons. morons are LOTS smarter than imbeciles.

yeah, i AM pissed. stupidity pisses me off.

Sue Exxon instead for its $12 billion they made in profit, the highest quarterly and annual profits ever for a U.S. company. It seems an unattainable goal to sue OPEC; instead look at the home front and ask why Big Oil is raking in the billions and yet gas prices keep rising.

the government should sue them selves. either that or stop inflating the doller and runing the american people into poverty. we should eliminate the FED as well as the IRS!!

more oil is not the answer, more oil is the problem

i just knew it would come to this - next thing you know there'll be a guerilla resistance movement "liberating" gas stations - and i'll be joining .

They're wasting their time. We've cajoled OPEC much too long already. Let Saudi oil pile up in tanks in the dessert. They are not the only or last available source of oil to America.

Give Hugo Chavez a call. His oil is cheaper and closer to home. Forrest Dumya Gump is already a lame duck. His oil cronies have made a killing with this $130 per barrel ruse, lip-kissing Saudi butt in Dubai. Give Hugo Chavez a holla'!

Maybe we should raise our fuel economy standards like the rest of the world so we start using less oil. At some point we are going to hit peak oil, if we haven't already, and we are going to need to find ways to deal with lowering demand. Increasing the supply is not the answer.

Why aren't we doing what brazil been doing for year's using Sugar ethanol...it's burn's cleaner and will provide lot's of job's plus we can grow it in our southern state's...F**K using there Oil,We should stop being there slave's...No need to panic as well..

it's still supply and demand, no matter what other dreams you have.

if we don't exploit more of our OWN supplies AND/OR reduce our own consumption, there is NOTHING else that will work.

all of the developing countries, including China and India and probably ten others, will be increasing demand over the coming years. that will make it certain that no legal crap or whining from the USA will make one iota of difference. build a bridge and GET OVER IT.

if everyone junked their 20-25mpg cars and bought 40-50 mpg cars, it might put a big dent in consumption, but as long as gas is still as cheap as it is, there's no financial benefit to taking a loss on the clunker and buying the Prius.

if you're only driven by that economic decision, you'll never buy a low-consumption car. i bought one in '04 and have been enjoying the great mileage ever since, and my reason was: to go the same number of places and burn less gas.

if your heart is REALLY in that position, buy a hybrid. only lowering consumption will work, since none of you will support increasing supplies, right? didn't think so....

and alcohol-based fuel is nice, but still not efficient enough. nor is solar. some of the "fuel from pond scum" techniques DO look very good.... check them out. they can even "run off" coal-plant CO2.

ah, but you want to cut off THAT source, too....

good luck.

I always thought the Democrats in the House were stupid but this just confirms it.

How is that going to help anything?

More populist, feel good, legislation.

@renbyrd, by the way... the Big Oil companies that you and Hillary want to hit with high "windfall profits" taxes made around 10% profit over the past few years

several other industries, including some investment firms and several pharmaceutical companies, made profit percentages that ranged from two to maybe five times as much!

ten percent of a huge number [$400 billion] is, yes, a huge number, but without that profit, they stop finding more oil, and the price goes up, not down.

get a clue!

@riverdeer... "more oil is not the answer, more oil is the problem "

please explain what that means, if you can....

@jefftego, "we are going to need to find ways to deal with lowering demand. Increasing the supply is not the answer. "

in a commodity market, there are only three ways to lower prices: decrease demand, increase supply, or regulate the price by governmental decree.

in a free market, there are only two, but in both, increasing supply is still an alternative, whether you LIKE it or not.

In Oregon, I have seen hemp plants reach the thickness of trees with the trunks reaching a solid 14 to 16 inches. Besides the fuel that can come from hemp, there is a long list of other products and industries that would benefit:

Food
Clothing
Fabrics
Paper
Paint
Lubricants
Plastic
Medicine
Fiberboards
MDF type wood products and cabinets
Rope

The whole world used to run on the stuff, but now its illegal in most of the world. Not because people get high on the stuff, because it is so cheap and easy to grow and produce, everybody would profit from it, and Big Energy just can't have that at all.

I'm no lover of big oil. But you lose your best audience when you complain about the record profits of the companies. Sure Exxon's 12 billion is the biggest profit ever, because it just merged with Mobil.

What percentage profit did they make on their sales? Twelve billion profit on sales of 50 billion is quite high, but on sales of 500 billion it sucks - I wouldn't wish that on anybody. How much money did they have to invest to get an income of 12 billion? If you don't ask these questions you'll never get to the right answers.

I may be wrong but I think what riverdeer may be getting at is that we need to get away from oil anyway, getting the finite amounts left for cheap means nothing in the long run. Stop thinking about tomorrow and start thinking about twenty, thirty years from now... Do you have kids or want to have kids? What will they do? Oil is a finite resource that pollutes to boot, there are better ways out there, most of all conservation and rethinking our infrastructure and economy... All this scrabbling over how much money we pay is a short term stop-gap measure at best.

It would even things out a little if they gave a nice piece of that profit to the working class! That still really wouldn't be enough though.

Solution:

1. Declare OPEC a terrorist organisation.
2. Invade all 13 OPEC countries (one down, 12 to go).
3. ??????
4. Profit!

Our Government is doing everything it can to keep us at OPECs mercy with their inacton.At what point will someone decided enough is enough and implement a plan to get us off oil?Instead of giving Big Oil money and tax breaks for exploration why not give it to companies who are looking for alternatives or who have already created alternatives to advance them?We should be sueing our Government instead.

What a big waste of time. Yet again, Congress confirms that they are not listening to us. We don't want oil anymore. We want alternatives.

@BentFranklin.... THANK YOU!!!! EXACTLY
but they won't understand that, here.
[sadly].

Exxon/Mobil clears about 10% profit. the reason they have 40B in profit is that they sell 400B in goods.

big=bad, for these people. banks, pharma companies and many others make higher profit percentages than oil, but few in Congress seem to go after THEM for "windfall profits..."

these people don't understand basic economics... it's purely gut-feel and emotional for them, and they vote like crazy [maye there's a pun there...]