Addicted to Oil?

I have a feeling that the president’s “addicted to oil” line will live on. It’ll be endlessly repeated, and soon become a part of our cultural history. The nineties had Clinton’s “the era of big government is yada, yada, yada.” (I’m quoting from memory.) This decade will have “you’re fired” and “addicted to oil.”
James Glassman has more thoughts:

And the President might have been straight with his audience instead of pandering with terms like “our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.” The truth is that the United States will never become energy independent. Even if we were, disruptions in the Middle East (or Venezuela or Nigeria) would still boost the price of oil — which is a global price since energy is a global commodity.
Also, it may surprise Americans to learn that, according to the most recent import statistics from the Department of Energy, the biggest petroleum exporter to the United States is Canada (at 70 million barrels in November 2005 vs. 41 million for Saudi Arabia, in a distant third place). Second is Mexico. Persian Gulf (including Saudi) oil amounted to about one-sixth of our imports and one-tenth of our total petroleum use last November.

I’m of the few lasting lessons I’ve learned from investing is to not worry about what everyone else is worrying about. The fact that they’re worrying so much, will almost certainly lesson any impact.
Inflation? Gold? Pensions? Debt? Nah, that stuff makes me yawn. The true things to worry about are usually not being talked about, hence the trouble.

Posted by on February 3rd, 2006 at 2:16 pm


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