Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hater Depot]

By forming a buyers' cartel to counter their sellers' cartel.

http://www.slate.com/id/2131024/

[Wangja]

Or reduce demand?

Pricing petrol (gasoline) at realistic levels - around 8 USD a gallon - would reduce demand in US by, at a guess, 60%. This increased tax - around 6 USD a gallon - would also go some way to paying for the "stabilising" forces in the oil production areas.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Kuros]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[hypnotist]

How about investing in public transport now, whilst slowly edging up the price of 'gas' to realistic levels?

Are Americans allergic to it, or something?

[Ya-ta Boy]

[mindmetoo]

[Wangja]

[dulouz]

Would it be patriotic for Ya-Ta's mom to move where she could use
public transportation?

[hypnotist]

[Hater Depot]

I think the US rural population is much closer to 50%. Declining though of course.

[bucheon bum]

eh no. 17% of the population is in rural areas.

http://www.demographia.com/db-usa-staterural.htm

[JongnoGuru]

I've been to America before, so I'm an expert, yes I am.

If you're thinking that putting in bus routes for America's rural population is going to make a difference, you know less about America than the Guru does. Anyone besides myself ever been to some of their cities? And I don't mean just the big scary ones that we all sort of knew were big and scary, but ... Albuquerque???? Do you know where Albuquerque is? (And who besides me knows how that's pronounced?) I didn't, until I went there for a convention. And when I asked my hosts for a bus map, they all gave me this big and . I eventually did get a map of the city finally, and they showed me where the "safe areas" are (30% of the city), the "no-go areas", and there wasn't anybody who didn't warn me AGAINST using the bus system for however short a journey. I ended up having to have people drive me around the whole time.

Great. Jack up petrol prices, tax the driving public mad. But if you can't make the existing bus systems -- even those in the cities -- a safe option, then admit that this is nothing more than mean-spirited social engineering. I don't care how much you tax people, you cannot force them to place themselves in harm's way. They'll rebel and vote you out of office.

[Rhoddri]

When you ask: "how do we stick it to OPEC", I think you miss one big factor: oil companies. Of course, there is a lot of geopolitics involved, the Yom Kippur war in 1973, the revolution in Iran etc...

There were a few people claiming before the Iraq invasion that one of the major reason for going to war was to abolish OPEC. The idea being that, with Iraq free from the OPEC cartel, they could underprice nations therfore introduce more competion between oil rich states (many in OPEC states, encouraging them to leave the OPEC union), hence bringing oil prices down.

There's one thing that oil companies don't want, and that's lowering prices. It doesn't matter where oil corporations were chartered, they focus on the bottom line, and to abolish OPEC would mean compromising profit.

There was an opportunity to free Iraq from OPEC, but it hasn't happened. The oil lobby in London and Washington is very powerful. And, as we have to understand, lobby groups contribute hugely to political parties and political campaigns. They don't do this because they believe in the merits of any random party, they back political parties which they believe will give them the freedom and opportunity to aquire the highest profit. When parties accept their donations, they have to find some way of making them happy. Record profits for BP etcetc would seem to suggest that the oil corporations are more than happy..

Of course it would be better for countries with oil deficits if OPEC was abolished, but not for the oil companies that may have been chartered in those countries.

Political decision have, and are increasingly becoming, dictated by powerful lobby groups, or "think tanks" camped in Washington and London.