Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
- Looks like the MuNu server is down for the count.
- Coming Anarchy has a handy graphical breakdown of German politics. Elections there are coming up soon and it looks like a change is gonna come.
- There’s more news from Westerville, the Red State Lake Wobegone over at Dennis the Peasant’s. This time he’s received a visit from the CIA.
- Well, I found this post from Harry’s Place hysterically funny, anyway. And, sadly, too true.
- For those of you who’ve just tuned in, the dean of milbloggers, Greyhawk of Mudville Gazette, pens an introductory post.
- May I remind everyone who’s concerned about U. S. oil imports that most of our oil imports are not from the Gulf? Should we conserve more? Of course. I’ve supported a stiff gasoline tax for thirty years now and voted for candidates who supported one. But if Gulf oil production were put on the kibosh we wouldn’t be the ones feeling the most pain.
- Pundita raises her head from posts about pig diseases in China long enough to post an excellent entry on the prospects for the UN Millennium Challenge project(s) to ameliorate poverty amongst the poorest of the poor.
- An, er, analysis of CAFE fuel economy standards from Knowledge Problem.
- Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings suggests an appropriate salute for remembering the debut of Windows 1995, ten years ago today. I can think of another.
That’s the lot.
just a quick post on oil…it doesn’t make a bit of difference where the oil comes from. We live in a global market. If Iranian oil is taken off the market, then everyone who was buying it will be bidding UP for Saudi oil or Venezualan oil, etc. We would pay the higher price too. Sure, if there is a global meltdown of some sort then where the oil is located could be important but otherwise it doesn’t make a difference.
I understand about what’s referred to as the fungibility of oil. My point about the Gulf not being our sole supplier is that, since the Gulf only supplies 20-30% of our oil, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that a little conservation (and that’s all you would get by dumping SUV’s) would only have a very small effect on our oil imports from there.
But it’s actually more complicated than that. Oil is not strictly fungible. Mexican crude, for example, is heavy and sour while Saudi crude is light and sweet. As the price of crude rises oil’s proportion of the total cost of gasoline does, too. So as the price of oil rises nearby oil should look more attractive, at least at the margin. If conservation resulted in lowering the cost of oil, it might perversely increase the proportion of Gulf oil in our market basket of oil imports.
Increasing the country’s refining capacity would increase crude oil’s fungibility. Any new refineries would be better able to process a variety of feedstocks than one which dates to the ’70s and has only undergone intermittant updating.