[vaseline2008]

As the price of oil and gasoline continue their upward trend, the natives are getting restless demanding a quick fix to the situation. Politicians are catering to their anger and frustration saying anything and everything to try to calm down the masses (and perhaps win an election). The sad truth that most of us here on PO.com knows is that there is not a damn thing anyone can do to stop oil prices in an Open Market. Short of killing off all users of said oil/energy, thus killing off demand, there is nothing any president or candidate can do, except pander to the masses and let the oil companies laugh all the way to the bank with ever more profits.

Obama, GOP vie for upper hand on energy
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ooing a nation of increasingly angry motorists, President Barack Obama and his Republican rivals are all plunging into gas-pump politics, seeking the upper hand as energy becomes a driving issue in the election campaign.

[Wootan]

You sort of imply that democracy is not the right "mechanism" to deal with resource depletion?

Btw, they're calling it ineptocracy: A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

[Wootan]

pstarr, I assure you, my intention was not to imply anything.

But in a way the free market has a great solution to high oil prices, it is - wait for it: High prices. A brilliant solution, sort of.

Modern democracy is in a way part of the great cheap-energy-bubble. People can vote for a lot of nice goodies to come floating in their direction. In an inflating bubble, that is. Not so when energy gets expensive. You can't vote energy into existence. Was that what you meant?

[Newfie]

I think that this is talking about a "free market" approach that is working in a "democracy" of sorts. It surely is NOT talking about a centralized and controlled resource.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')ragedy of the commons

The "tragedy of the commons" is one way of accounting for overexploitation.

The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen. This dilemma was described in an influential article titled "The Tragedy of the Commons", written by ecologist Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968.

[beamofthewave]

Well unfortunately there is no free market, that is a myth and after Gore really won the presidency and Bush did not step down, the US anyway is a long way from a democracy. In fact we are carefully protected from democracy.

[Tanada]

Democracy is ten hungry cannibals voting on who gets to be supper. The USA is a Representative Republic, unfortunately the representatives are not doing the right thing for the voters, they are doing the right thing to retain their own power.

[Revi]

I think a lot of people know something's wrong. They all think fracking nat gas is going to save us however. They are waiting for their leaders to come up with some miracle energy source so they won't have to change their lifestyle at all. I think we may get a little more natural gas, but the quantities aren't going to make up for what we are losing from going over the sweet crude peak. There are going to be a lot of angry voters this November, and they think that if the Republicans win there will be more oil magically appearing. They will be disabused of that notion quickly, but they don't know that yet.

Then when the new guy can't make oil magically appear at $2.50 a gallon there will be real trouble.

At least the election gives them the illusion of some kind of control.

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'T')here are going to be a lot of angry voters this November, and they think that if the Republicans win there will be more oil magically appearing. They will be disabused of that notion quickly, but they don't know that yet.

Then when the new guy can't make oil magically appear at $2.50 a gallon there will be real trouble.

At least the election gives them the illusion of some kind of control.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', ' ')Libya, Syria, Iran?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '.').... rich boy......

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')Who invaded Afghanistan?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I')f you were a reasoning anti-war anti-imperialist (or even a ole' timey republican isolationist)...

[PrestonSturges]

So much for the PO "new attitude"