Price controls?

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high prices serve two essential functions: they encourage production and conservation. Spurred by the lure of windfall profits, oil companies will move heaven and earth to get more gasoline to consumers. Shocked by the tab when they fill up a 5,600-pound SUV, motorists look for opportunities to leave the Suburban at home. They may even commit a sin not covered by the Ten Commandments: coveting their neighbor's Prius.
Controlling prices, by contrast, would have exactly the opposite effect: Telling consumers they should waste fuel to their hearts' content, and telling producers to leave the black stuff in the ground.

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/comme...5858-6566r.htm

I agree. It's time to drive a wooden stake through the heart of the doctrine
of price controls, before it returns from the grave and drags us back to
the dismal experiences of 1973 and 1979.
:cool:

I have mixed feelings on this, but for me it seems the most idiotic thing we can be doing is trying to bring gas prices down. I say let 'em go up. Perhaps that would light a fire under the developers of renewable fuel sources. We can't play this oil game forever, and as the resources start to dry up, tensions will get higher. WWIII could easily be fought over dwindling oil reserves.

Don't rule out oil yet.

The higher prices make remote reserves economically viable.

Off the west coast of scotland there are apparently large oil and gas reserves that haven't been touched because they're in deep water. High prices are pushing on the development of technology to tap those reserves.

Also in the North Sea more exploration licences were granted this year than for decades.

Oil won't last forever but it's not finished yet.

Q>The big oil and gas companies must see the writing on the wall for the decline in reserves. What are they planning to do to earn profit when these natural reserves are gone?

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Originally posted here by Aspman
Q>The big oil and gas companies must see the writing on the wall for the decline in reserves. What are they planning to do to earn profit when these natural reserves are gone?

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My guess is that corporate leaders can't be concerned with the extremely long term goals. The market is much too fluid to plan on contingencies 15 or 20 years in the future. From my experience, most corporate strategies only extend out between 5 and 10 years. Most scientists agree that we should be doing okay on oil for the next 10 years at least. 40 years is questionable, and 100 years is right out at the current rate of consumption from the estimates I've heard.