“Everyone knows…” are words I’m getting tired of hearing.  It is a subtle form of manipulation by forcing one to either immediately agree or disagree and by disagreeing become an outsider.  Katie Couric this evening says “The world’s oil problems all come down to the laws of supply and demand”.  Careful here.   On the face of it, the statement says something that seems very simplistic to most people (”it’s all about current supply and current demand”), and therefore lacks credibility, and manipulates people (or attempts to) into believing that long-term solutions won’t solve our immediate price problems.  The reality is, the perceived future demand and perceived future supply are the real drivers.

If every major news anchor got up in the morning and lied to the world by saying Congress had voted to open up drilling offshore and in ANWR, the price of oil would plummet, perhaps for only an hour, but it’s the idea, the belief that we can get to these resources without having to go through foreign interests that would bring the price down immediately.  Again, the thought that demand will disappear is enough to impact the price.  Because it scares OPEC and others who control the foreign sources of oil.

Professor Morris Coats of Nicholls State University, who was mentioned yesterday in our post about the price of oil, left a comment on our post with a link to the paper that he and Assistant Professor Gary Pecquet of Central Michigan University had written about the impact of that plans for domestic drilling, specificaly in ANWR, would have on the price of oil.  He also references an excellent article by Kevin Hassett at Bloomberg News which references their paper.    The paper is only 10 pages of content, so it should be an easy read.  I need to get to bed, so I’ll get a look at it tomorrow.

Oh yeah, so why did the price bump back up by $4.00? I’m guess just like BitHead: the move to open up drilling seems to be losing steam, the MSM is making big bold statements about how Congress has already decided to not open up drilling.  Congress, by its mess of little meaningless actions going nowhere, is showing its Congressional flair for doing what’s best for the Congresswomen/men instead of what’s best for America.  And that stinks.