Think about this: currency speculation. If you are the richest people/ companies in the world, why couldn't you force people to use your money at gunpoint, giving you the power to raise and lower the prices of everything and effectively enslaving everyone.
In essence it's the same thing. How would you stop people from growing their own food?
I think the stock market is a rip off. Normal people are forced to "invest" due to constant inflation (you can't just save), and they get manipulated by the big players with more money and information.
Prices will not go down for any extended period of time except due to manipulation. Everyone knows we are using up the stuff. It is just a question of when. The speculators are doing the correct thing in assuming this. This is the "worth" of speculation. It assists in accurate price finding by providing liquidity.
If you want to limit the number of people who can invest in oil, you just create a market that is easier to manipulate. This brings with it its own problems.
I don't really like the idea of the government having any excuse for taxes other than to fund itself. Maybe instead the rules should be changed so it is easier for corporations to be sued over externalities or something.
Also the robotic overlord idea is too optimistic in my opinion. There is simply too much uncertainty, decentralization of decision making is the best way to deal.
Finally, all public monopolies I have dealt with suck bug time, so I am not convinced this is an ideal solution.
So, under your system, if I need to buy oil for some purpose, am I allowed to predict that it will be cheaper in a month and wait until then? This really makes no sense to me so I must be misunderstanding.
Say I am an oil refiner. I think the price is inflated right now due to the trouble with Iran. Should I buy oil at the current price, wait until the price drops, offer a contract to buy at a lower price in the future, etc? Is this not speculation?
Also what markets exist without speculation that show lower prices and greater stability? This seems very unlikely to me, but you may be right.
Aren't there practical issues with that? I mean doesn't it require a central power being able to assess "need" thus leading to corruption and inefficiency?
The thing is that everyone knows we will run out of the stuff eventually and in the meantime it is getting harder and harder to find and extract. There is no reason to think the long term trend is going to be anything but higher and higher. This leads leads to a positive feedback loop amongst the speculators, but actually this is a good thing.
If the government just set the price of oil we would literally just keep using it up until the point there is none left, it will never be in a politicians best interest to have higher oil prices. Allowing the market (not free) to have an effect on the price will at least put the brakes on (higher and higher prices) before we really run out.
Anyone who talks about the inevitability of runaway should be removed from the discussion. Please point me to some serious literature on that, I don't think anyone respectable is even claiming a runaway is plausible.
That the warming was going on, that warming was going on and CO2 was the cause, or that warming was going on, CO2 was the cause and it was going to cause us problems?
I agree, but we should acknowledge that for what it is. Argument from consensus and argument from authority. If the data showed a trend that people were getting dumber by.05 IQ points every year and this correlated with facebook use, would you recommend the government take action? Keep in mind that if you measure people's IQs over the course of the year, it varies by many times the yearly average.
The point is that there is a plausible mechanism, but we don't have enough data to know for sure. Setting wood on fire is a repeatable experiment, climate change is not right now. If you argue we should cut back fossil fuel use for the sake of science and being sustainable, I am totally with you.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe oil prices should be skyrocketing and the regulations on speculators is preventing this?
There are two reasons we should expect prices to be higher 10 years from now:
1) Inflation of the USD
2) We are running out of oil
What reason do you have to think the price should drop?
Think about this: currency speculation. If you are the richest people/ companies in the world, why couldn't you force people to use your money at gunpoint, giving you the power to raise and lower the prices of everything and effectively enslaving everyone.
In essence it's the same thing. How would you stop people from growing their own food?
I think the stock market is a rip off. Normal people are forced to "invest" due to constant inflation (you can't just save), and they get manipulated by the big players with more money and information.
Prices will not go down for any extended period of time except due to manipulation. Everyone knows we are using up the stuff. It is just a question of when. The speculators are doing the correct thing in assuming this. This is the "worth" of speculation. It assists in accurate price finding by providing liquidity.
If you want to limit the number of people who can invest in oil, you just create a market that is easier to manipulate. This brings with it its own problems.
So... limit the market to only a few government approved players? It sounds like a situation ripe for manipulation.
Here is what the rule you propose would say:
"You can't make money on oil unless you are already rich and well-connected"
I don't really like the idea of the government having any excuse for taxes other than to fund itself. Maybe instead the rules should be changed so it is easier for corporations to be sued over externalities or something.
Also the robotic overlord idea is too optimistic in my opinion. There is simply too much uncertainty, decentralization of decision making is the best way to deal.
Finally, all public monopolies I have dealt with suck bug time, so I am not convinced this is an ideal solution.
So, under your system, if I need to buy oil for some purpose, am I allowed to predict that it will be cheaper in a month and wait until then? This really makes no sense to me so I must be misunderstanding.
I agree, this anti-speculation concept is strange.
Say I am an oil refiner. I think the price is inflated right now due to the trouble with Iran. Should I buy oil at the current price, wait until the price drops, offer a contract to buy at a lower price in the future, etc? Is this not speculation?
Also what markets exist without speculation that show lower prices and greater stability? This seems very unlikely to me, but you may be right.
Aren't there practical issues with that? I mean doesn't it require a central power being able to assess "need" thus leading to corruption and inefficiency?
The thing is that everyone knows we will run out of the stuff eventually and in the meantime it is getting harder and harder to find and extract. There is no reason to think the long term trend is going to be anything but higher and higher. This leads leads to a positive feedback loop amongst the speculators, but actually this is a good thing.
If the government just set the price of oil we would literally just keep using it up until the point there is none left, it will never be in a politicians best interest to have higher oil prices. Allowing the market (not free) to have an effect on the price will at least put the brakes on (higher and higher prices) before we really run out.
Outlaw speculation... how will the price be determined?
I think it is all about water vapor feedbacks.
If you trust the proxy data, it has happened before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard-Oeschger_event
Are you aware that Climate /= Weather? Climate is about 30 year trends.
Sounds fine to me. I just think there are a lot of drones here posting: "See it's warming! I was right".
Everyone should know this is a crappy argument by now.
Anyone who talks about the inevitability of runaway should be removed from the discussion. Please point me to some serious literature on that, I don't think anyone respectable is even claiming a runaway is plausible.
I was talking about these by the way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard-Oeschger_event
That the warming was going on, that warming was going on and CO2 was the cause, or that warming was going on, CO2 was the cause and it was going to cause us problems?
Need moar data
I agree, but we should acknowledge that for what it is. Argument from consensus and argument from authority. If the data showed a trend that people were getting dumber by .05 IQ points every year and this correlated with facebook use, would you recommend the government take action? Keep in mind that if you measure people's IQs over the course of the year, it varies by many times the yearly average.
The point is that there is a plausible mechanism, but we don't have enough data to know for sure. Setting wood on fire is a repeatable experiment, climate change is not right now. If you argue we should cut back fossil fuel use for the sake of science and being sustainable, I am totally with you.
Why? Because 30,000,000 is a big number? I don't think you are wrong, btw. It is just your argument sucks. Do the math.
Would it be normal if the temp rose 8 C in 50 years?
And there has been record cold in Europe... so what is your point?
Yes, then I ask why and how? What do you do?
Thank you for ignoring feedback to "put things in perspective" for us.