Utopia Talk / Politics / The Real Price of Oil

NeverWoods Member	Sun Aug 17 20:27:03 The Real Price of Oil: Dollars, Gold, and the Price of Tea in China Published on August 16, 2008 Oil, it?s the lifeblood of our society. It?s given us the freedom and wealth we have today. It?s given us automobiles and machinery and greased the wheels of the industrial revolution. It made old Jed a millionaire. But oil?s in trouble, the price is up and everyone thinks they understand it. But what if the price of oil wasn?t really up? What if it were just an illusion? ?The price of oil is skyrocketing, and that means gas prices are up?? That?s about the limit of what most Americans know and understand about the whole oil situation. But there are more complex issues at work, and they involve more than just Middle East politics and China. The American Geological Institute (AGI) recently released a report looking at the price of crude oil in relation to the U.S. dollar and the price per ounce of gold. It highlights a fact that probably makes some folks at the Federal Reserve very nervous. This graph makes it easier to understand: The bottom purple line is the price of a barrel of crude oil per ounce of gold (if you wanted to use gold to pay for a barrel of oil). As you can see, that line is stable, and has been for the entirety of the graph, which is about 7 years. The top two lines are the price of oil in relation to currency (blue is the Dollar and the red is the Euro). Those lines show that the cost of oil has been going up in relation to currency only. What this chart makes obvious is that the value of oil has not been increasing in real terms, currency has just been decreasing in value. To put it another way, if the US Dollar were still based on gold (as it was until Nixon eliminated the Bretton Woods system in 1971), then the price of oil would be just as stable as that purple line in the chart is. So oil is worth the same, and the US dollar is just worth less. Maybe we need to shift our focus away from war and drilling; and towards a better economic policy at home. Here is the AGI data report And here?s the summary from the AGI report: The steep increase in the price of crude oil in the United States remains a headline issue, along with the falling US dollar. The drop in the dollar has caused concern in oil-producing countries which use it as the economic basis for the commodity, and often their currency. The chart below shows the spot market price of crude oil per barrel (BBL) in US dollars and in euros from 2001 to today. The price of oil has grown faster relative to the dollar than to the euro. Yet, a portion of the rise in oil prices is due to the fall of the value of the dollar. The graph also shows the number of barrels of crude oil per cost of an ounce of gold, demonstrating the parallel growth in commodity pricing. If the US dollar had remained strong in the global economy, oil might, in theory, be around $65 per barrel. However, oil is priced in dollars, and oil prices continue to rise. The impact of increased oil prices can not be ignored in the US economy, and, in turn, can further weaken the dollar. Resource economics is a complex feedback loop where today?s resource boom is driven by many external factors. This complex system bears watching by all geoscientists. http://www...and-the-price-of-tea-in-china/
NeverWoods Member	Sun Aug 17 20:29:01 The question mark bug needs a fixing.
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 20:32:32 and here's a summary...
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 20:33:08 It doesn't know how to interprit those chars, i'll see if i can run it through a cleaner so you can copy/paste stuff.
Rugian Member	Sun Aug 17 20:33:17 ''''''''''''''' ???????????????
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 20:38:31 Oil, it?s the lifeblood of our society
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 20:38:45 working on it...
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 20:42:49 Oil, it?s the lifeblood of our society
NeverWoods Member	Sun Aug 17 20:46:17 There is always a invalid character converter for this, if it's to bothersome.
Rugian Member	Sun Aug 17 20:47:06 it's
Rugian Member	Sun Aug 17 20:47:19 ^it got fixed?
NeverWoods Member	Sun Aug 17 20:48:34 Wrong character Rugian. Oil, it?s the lifeblood of our society
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 20:52:21 Oil, it?s the lifeblood of our society
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 20:53:52 Oil, it?s the lifeblood of our society
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 20:58:25 Oil, its the lifeblood of our society
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 21:07:37 Oil, its the lifeblood of our society
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 21:07:42 damnit
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 21:08:13 Oil, its the lifeblood of our society
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 21:23:44 Oil, its the lifeblood of our society
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 21:28:05 Oil, its the lifeblood of our society
Joe Black Member	Sun Aug 17 21:37:56 It's the
Turtle Crawler Member	Sun Aug 17 21:44:49 I'm having trouble figuring out how to do the encoding correctly in java. The packet sniffer shows a %92 but when I pull the string in java it comes as a ?. I can't seem to figure it out.
Joe Black Member	Sun Aug 17 21:51:26 And here?s the su
Joe Black Member	Sun Aug 17 21:51:41 and here's a summary...
master bates Member	Sun Aug 17 22:48:14 Heres a converter we often use: http://mitglied.lycos.de/upinvalids/conv.php
Agri Patron	Fri Aug 29 09:17:04 hum ho
NeverWoods Member	Fri Aug 29 14:01:26 Someone revived an old post..
JNH Member	Fri Aug 29 14:31:21 "I'm having trouble figuring out how to do the encoding correctly in java. The packet sniffer shows a %92 but when I pull the string in java it comes as a ?. I can't seem to figure it out." HTML 8217 or "right single quotation mark" is a three byte sequence in utf-8 (0xE28099). When this is embedded in the form-data, at least Firefox converts it to the string %E2%80%99 so you should see a byte sequence of 0x25 45 32 25 38 30 25 39 39 in the packet sniffer. That's at least what I saw in Wireshark.
river of blood Member	Fri Aug 29 14:34:58 This is so cute watching our new home take it's first baby steps.
river of blood Member	Fri Aug 29 14:38:46 *rubs tear from eye*
river of blood Member	Fri Aug 29 14:43:47 Thanks guys.
EarthPig EPCHMUFTFOI Member	Fri Aug 29 15:28:32 Hello, i would like to add something to this discussion: OIL, IT'S THE LIFEBLOOD OF OUR SOCIETY.
NeverWoods Member	Sat Aug 30 05:58:28 Oil, it’s the lifeblood of our society.
NeverWoods Member	Sat Aug 30 05:58:40 Oh it's working now.
Camaban Moderator	Sat Aug 30 07:17:39 ßÜ;??
garyd Member	Sat Aug 30 07:28:38 One should understand that sound economic policies are not what the left is about and that absent Chinese currency manipulation the dollar is far better off.
juztav Member	Sat Aug 30 07:34:29 heres what I still dont get. in the last two years, the value of the australian dollar against the american dollar, has pretty well doubled. the price of a barrel of oil (in american dollars) has pretty well doubled. so then the price of a gallon of petrol in australia should still be what it was two years ago.
garyd Member	Sat Aug 30 07:47:37 Not necessarily. Everybody's currency floats freely except for those currencies like China's which are pegged to the dollar which then, in turn float synchronously with the currency to which they are pegged. Commodity prices can vary greatly from country to country based on local circumstances. In one sense in the age of fiat currency even currency can be a commodity of sorts.
roland Member	Sun Aug 31 04:24:56 Oil, it’s the lifeblood of our society.
Cthulhu Tentacle Rapist	Thu Aug 27 18:37:42 If Obama was half the president Bush was, America would be problem free by now. Old George was just on the cusp of solidifying America's future forever when his term ran out
Canadian Member	Thu Aug 27 18:40:48 Why so much necromancy?
Cthulhu Tentacle Rapist	Thu Aug 27 20:02:27 Bored. just noticed which part of the adress directs to the specific thread so I was fucking around putting diferent numbers in
Cloud Strife Member	Thu Aug 27 20:20:29 You should stop.
Cthulhu Tentacle Rapist	Thu Aug 27 20:55:36 I stopped hours ago after necroing a massive 4 thread. Or maybe it was 5
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