MGB: Do oil companies rule the world?

What a strange coincidence that Wall Street had a collapse at the same time gas prices went out of site! Do the oil companies have that much power over the entire planet?

The easy answer is no. The high oil prices were being dealt with by the size of our total GDP and economy. And in the world economy I don't think it is big enough. I watched a very interesting program on oil and how it is in the products we use every day. But as a component of the products oil is not for the most part the driving cost. So if you exclude transportation there is still a huge economy.

Wall street was getting in trouble since 1998 and it just turned downward at a steeper slope in the last year. The problems were well masked by the marketing done by the initial buyers of the bad loans. They will investigate these firms for overstating values but that takes time and does not solve anything.

They, Fannie and Freddie were able to bundle these loans with good loans and sell them all over the world until they had cycled several trillion dollars worth of loans. And they were able to hold $3 Trillion themselves. This is the part Clinton and Bush tried to fix. When the real estate market turned down by 20% it was all over. Now all the cash was tied up with the bad loans and earning nothing. Because the mortgages were sold as bundled bonds the owner could not unbundle them and sell off just the losers.

I stand to be corrected if someone has it different.

...lets say they do and Obama has to work for them............

...lets say they do and McCain has to work for them............

Ok, Ok!!!!!!! Who has to work on them????

Who has to work on them is Congress. They have to limit Fannie and Freddie to $250 billion each or get rid of them. Think about FHA and VA. You have not heard much about them yet they were under the same mysterious regulation as everyone else but they are not as far as I know looking for hand outs. They were exempt from the stupidity of the the Community Reinvestment Act and were not allowed to change as did Fannie and Freddie. We have to get back to good lending practices to individuals. Let the businesses deal with loans between themselves and if they go bust let them go under. FHA and VA were operating like your local bank lending money to people who can pay it back.

We are numb now, when a Politician stands up and says he is going to take $500 billion dollars of our money and just give it to someone else so the can own a home we don't even blink. This is very good for Pelosi and Reid. Today she has decided that before the election she want to take another $150 Billion and pass out checks to everyone. So that makes $700B for wall street, $150B for earmarks and Pork and now a new $150 for free means tested money. We opened our eyes at he $700 but we did not say a peep about the second $300 billion.

We have to incentivze the oil companies to develop drill rigs for the ocean drilling. We have to stop this nonsense about obscene profits and open up the areas for drilling where there is oil instead of the dumb thing Obama said about them not drilling on what they have. There isn't known oil on those leases. It is going to take an incentive to get them to build the rigs. They are not going to spend when some nut case in the Presidents chair could decide he doesn't want to drill because of the snubnosed dolfin. It takes a few years and several billion dollars to build a rig. Why take the chance. If you want to build them here in the US then create the market by making them US only but we have to make up the difference in costs.

I should not have been so quick on the FHA. On October 1st Congress started to pressure FHA to start picking up more and more of the sub prime market . We should start hearing about them pretty quick. This you can blame on Congress they just do not want to stop the social engineering.

Maybe they are not exempt and maybe someone closer to it can explain the difference.

In mid November OPEC is meeting to discuss a serious cutback in oil production, with the intent of getting their incoming money back up to fund their own internal projects (Iran, Venezula, and etc). Interesting projects these guys have going, no?

My opinion is that if we are not on the fast track to producing our own sources of energy, we will not be prepared to face the inevitabilities that our detractors will be nailing us with. We have been able to buy our way out of the confrontations, but that is not likely in the future.

We are on a track to do nothing about oil supply. The next Obama administration will do nothing. He was clear in the debate when he said they are not drilling on acres they already have under lease. He and the Congress will say until they drill in the current leases there will be no new ones. They won't drill and he wins and we lose. His intent is to conserve us to something I am not sure what. Meanwhile he quite comfortable with $4.00 gas getting there.

A bunch of money will be spent and if I understood him last night his plan is to do the Manhatten type operation and that will be very bad. Very slow and very expensive. A huge new bureaucracy. But it does fit his philosophy.

No, the banks do. It started in 1913 when credit was crowned a Prince that grew into King Credit. The advertisement that says, "I want it all and I want it now", tells the attitude that got us where we are today. Too easy credit finished the job.

John, right now it may be weird but think of a world witout credit. We would be back in the stone age living in caves. Moderation is the key to life.

There are some things about which some cannot exercise moderation, Richard. You and I on this site being two of them. :D

jackMG, actually I am very moderate. I don't take extreme positions on anything. I love to study each side. I have said I have changed my stance. But the problem is everything is so extreme. Each side can give no quarter. So even a moderate has to be a right winger if he has a right wing position on three things.

If I am pro life or if I don't believe in Univeral health care and I believe int the 2nd ammendment then I am a right wing nut on every other issue.

Have you noticed those questions are out of bounds in the dabates. The moderators will not let them come up. We can't hear about Obamas abortion views in a debate with 60 million peope listening. We can't hear his stand on guns. They people will get what the networkd news wants them to hear.

It is very difficut being a moderate, there is no camp for them. As soon as the word abortion comes out over to the right bull pen you go.

I've lived in a world without credit for 25 years. Took out a small loan I didn't need to on a car about 6 years ago just to get rated and paid it off in 8 months. My house is small but certainly more than a cave. My wife and I never topped what is now called poverty wages in these times but we're both retired and doing quite well thank you. I could be in style, be in debt, and unable to retire, but like it the way I am.