No doubt Dr. B will claim he's a lefty tool and come up with some logical (snicker) argument as to why he's missing the magic pixie dust which will make oil $80 a barrel.

M1EK, I do not dispute that oil is a fungible commodity.

Indeed, he keep trotting out that word like soeone would a maghic wand... even though nobody is disputing the point. Perhaps he wants to make this go away:

Any additions to the world market would have an impact just as minor disruptions to supply have an impact. I am convinced small increases in supply would do much more good than harm.

Or as I put it, small oilfields have a tendency to putpusnch their weight, because of the knee-kerk reactions from OPEC, particularly the Saudis.

Last time we got into this, I was told that the Saudis wouldn't be able to raise their output at all, because they couldn't... they're running dry over there, so our additions to the market wuldn't draw any monopolistic response from the Saudis. Of course now that the Saudis have raised by a substantial amount their daily output, we know they DO have the capacity to ract to other, competitive feilds coming on line, just as I said.

And of course the argument that the Saudis couln't react hasn't come up again. But M1EK still argues our additional oil woldn't make any difference.

Why's that, M1EK?

OK, yeah, they won't be able to pump at the rate. On what basis do you make that claim and on what basis do you assume that situation won't change?

Cool. Still, you didn't even bother to address the serious argument with which I responded to your request. Proving, I suppose, that what you really wanted to do was simply bitch and posture instead of have a serious argument.

Oh well.

Hal, my big brass ones have developed over time and grow even bigger as they feed on the nonsense of leftists. Thanks.

Bithead, the amount we could produce PER DAY from drilling those fields is trivial. You're conflating reserves with production capacity.

Whereas you seem set on only working in the moment, not down the road. It's that kind of non-thinking that put us in this position in the first place. I don't suppose it occurred to you that our production capacity would change?

What's that line y'all keep using about guns? Oh yes. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people". You'd think someone like you would be able to at least grasp that bit of logic and apply it in the present series of laughable comments you've squeezed out. But no.

roflmao.

Keep up the good work. I'm sure you'll be able to convince a wide swath of the American public with your finely honed debate skills.

The Saudis still have some fields left where it takes very little investment in equipment or money to get the oil out of the ground. We have nothing like that left; and it's thus going to be much harder to get each barrel/year out of the ground for us.

Um, that was actually my point - that it was the people, not some shadowy government conspiracy.

But again, USING the power of government. Did you miss that part the first couple times?

Let me know what you're smokin' dude. That's got to be some primo stuff.

Again, look at the quote presented from BID, and tell me that amount of oil woldn't cause price drops of at LEAST that order.

Yes, the DOE is famous for its myopic view of the world's energy markets and is unable to anticipate how the system will react, not to mention they have no expertise in this matter.

Heh. What you say with irony, I say with assurity... and I would include your 'expertts' in this, as well. After all, they managed to get us to the point of $4+ gas. Tell me about how well they predicted this situation and reacted correctly to it. Hell, I doubt they could have done worse had they tried.

45% and the second derivative is negative.

Yes, you're doing a bang up job.