3/02/2006

Our Oil?

Many people say that American troops are in Iraq protecting "our oil." This article from The Angry Economist talks about the farce that our troops are dying in Iraq while protecting America’s oil. I agree with the author that if it truly were America’s oil, that America would get the oil before any other countries, or that other countries wouldn’t be able to buy the oil until America bought all the oil it needed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you really think that operating at a surplus means that the nation was not already trillions of dollars in debt? There is a difference. It's not like the trillions of dollars you are talking about came from George W.

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 on Seth's comment for a grammatical error.

Oil is a fungible commodity. Anyone who thinks in terms of "our oil" is probably clueless.

The way to generate profits from something is to restrict its supply. Therefore the people who are interested in profiting from the situation are those who are trying to reduce supply. Since Zarqawi has been blowing up pipelines and terminals, and the U.S. has not, it is the former who are after the power that control of oil might bring.

Blake: our deficit is supposed to grow exponentially. This is what happens when you measure it in nominal terms - its not different than the money in your savings account growing exponentially.