Will Gas Reach $15 per Gallon?

Now, of course, there is a big argument over this, with some people suggesting that it is a matter of Big Oil scaremongering in order to drive up prices and drive up profits. After all, we were told that the world would run out of oil a lot earlier than this.

There are still recoverable reserves out there, such as the Bakken Reserve on the border of North Dakota and Montana. But that is nothing, given the fact that the world uses about 30 billion barrels of oil per year and rising. And even if we could extract 100% of all the oil reserves out there  with new, undiscovered technology, we could only supply the world for the next nine years or so before we would have to turn to something else.

But, having said that, we should always check the veracity of our sources. For instance, Mr. Hirsch works for Science Applications International Corporation. This company has an innocent-sounding name, but in fact, they are one of the more corrupt companies around. For instance:

--In 2006, they were yanked from a psy-ops contract for poor performance;
--They have been involved in every stage of the occupation of Iraq; they have been one of the key masterminds behind the lies of Iraq. Their work in Iraq involved massive violations of normal contracting procedures.
--They have invaded Wikipedia and turned normal articles into right-wing propaganda.

In other words, it is a legitimate question to consider whether Big Oil is blowing the Peak Oil theories out of proportion to justify high prices and record profits.

This corporation also employed anthrax suspect Steven Hatfill:

Before Hatfill's grant expired, he took a job with Science Applications International Corp., a defense contractor with an office in McLean. Glasberg said Hatfill became lead instructor for a course in national preparedness for weapons of mass destruction, developed a biological warfare curriculum for the State Department and helped the Air Force design a biological weapons defense program.

This corporation helped the CIA investigate psychic phenomena:

The studies the CIA sponsored were conducted first at die Stanford Research Institute (SPI) in Menlo Park, California, and later at the nearby, privately owned Science Applications International Corporation. Even before the studies started, CIA scientists knew their work was cut out for them. Most laypeople have at one time or another tested themselves for extrasensory abilities, by guessing what card has been picked from a deck, say, or what number between one and ten another person has chosen. For the CIA however, which was not likely to be confronted by a Third World despot dropping clues like "I'm thinking of a brush war between Afghanistan and Zambia... " the methods would have to be a little subtler.

The problem is that people and companies like this will only tell us what they want us to hear. Whether or not they are telling the truth or not is a totally different matter. And while it is a matter of debate whether we are at Peak Oil or not, the fact of the matter is that we must be very careful to ascribe veracity to sources like this, who are among the same people who told us The Big Lie about Iraq. This is a simple trust issue -- do we trust the same people who lied to us about Iraq to talk to us about why gas prices are so high? Are they really trying to prepare us for war with Iran?

There are those who argue that unless world population is reduced, we will never get a handle on the world's oil problem. But how would these people go about doing it? Should we pass laws against having children? Should we ignore the plight of places like Darfur and Sudan, arguing that we need to reduce the surplus population anyway? These arguments wreak of the same kind of stench that Scrooge was serving up. Thus, we are left with sustainability -- if we, as a world society, can become more sustainable, then we can get a handle on the world oil crisis. And that means getting off of the control of Big Oil and getting into alternative energy like wind and solar.

A question to be asked is, is peak oil part of a strategy by Bush and his corporate interests to justify world dominance? It may very well be. If there is peak oil and $15 gas is around the corner, then we need to attack Iran if we are to maintain our lifestyle, so the twisted reasoning goes. But just because it is being used by the Bush administration for their twisted purposes does not mean that it does not exist. The fact that they are exploiting it does not mean that we should throw out peak oil theories altogether. The same theory can be used to justify our need for alternative energy and a new green economy that is not dependent on oil.

While Peak Oil may be a matter of debate, what we must do is listen to academic scientists of whatever side of the debate they are on, not to some Bush administration propagandist who may be engaging in psy-ops to get us into war with Iran. When we fall for right-wing propaganda, that is when this country slides down the slope of disaster, such as Iraq and Vietnam.

CIA misinformation types and oil industry propagandists have a vested interest in keeping prices high. They reason that it is better to create excuses about Peak Oil to justify their high prices rather than have the mobs and pitchforks coming after them for the way that they rip people off. The main question in listening to these types is, who benefits? The answer is the same people who benefited from the lies and crackpot conspiracy theories that were told by the Bush administration during their leadup to war with Iraq and the same people who would benefit from the McCain Doctrine of perpetual warfare in Iraq.

There is another angle to consider -- what was the real reason for the Bush/Cheney visits to Saudi Arabia? Could it be that the real reason was for them to get the Saudis to keep the price of oil artificially high so that John McCain could justify an attack on Iran? Ever since their theft of the 2000 election, they have kept power and conducted policy through dishonest means; this would not be surprising at all given their previous record of dishonesty.

Another fair question to consider is, if we are really in Peak Oil, then why have the big automakers been pushing SUV's and other low-mileage gas vehicles for the last few years? I suggest that it is because of the worldview of the people involved. For instance, take the apocalyptic views of John Hagee, McCain's pastor:

A few weeks ago, to little notice, Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee, founder of the new "apocalypse now!" national lobbying group CUFI [what is CUFI? see story footnote] met with Presidential candidate and US Senator John McCain and, over breakfast, discussed Israel and "other matters" Pastor Hagee declined to detail in the email he sent out to members of the CUFI mailing list because "This newsflash goes to the ends of the earth and I don't want to read it in the media tomorrow". At July 19th, 2006 Washington DC inaugural event for CUFI, after recorded greeting from George W. Bush, with four US Senators and the Israeli ambassador to the US in attendance, Pastor John Hagee stated : "the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West... a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."

So, in the twisted reasoning of Bush and McCain, the world is going to end anyway, so we have to get as much as we can. Peak Oil may well be a fact -- don't get me wrong. It may well be that Bush and Cheney, oilmen, know that the world is going to run out and that it is therefore smart public policy to attack Iraq and Iran so that we can get our hands on as much as possible. But it is also true that oil companies are currently experiencing record profits, which means that it might not be here just yet. In other words, there is still a window of opportunity for us to turn to a green economy and end our dependence on foreign oil. It also may well be that Bush is setting things up so that if/when McCain attacks Iran, it will maximize our profits when the apocalypse is triggered.

One possible answer to that question is, yes, we could see $15 gas. The fact of the matter is that there is a lot of rampant speculation in oil, like there was with the housing market a few years ago and with the dotcoms back in the 1990's. In each and every one of these instances, there was a belief that the markets were going to go up forever and that they were never going to go back down again. But in each one of these instances, they were wrong. We could see gas go up to $15 per gallon, and then plummet down to $2. Back at the turn of the century, Enron was a Wall Street darling and the place to put your money in. Even as the scandals surrounding that company broke, there were still people saying that Enron was a good deal for investors.

In other words, there may very well be falling oil production in key reservoirs; however, there will be a lot of bumps along the way.

And there are a lot of factors that can drive down demand. People may simply decide to travel less and less as gas prices soar. Prius has taken off, sparking a lot of investment in lithium-ion batteries; that will create downward pressure on demand. Obama would get us out of Iraq; that would also drop demand because of our massive use of oil to prosecute the war. He would also work to bring about more world stability; instability at major oil plants typically panics the markets and drives oil prices up.