Tom Friedman: Michele Bachmann Is 'Flat Out Nuts' Thinking We Can Have $2 Gas Again
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) caused quite a stir last week when she said if elected president she would bring back $2/gallon gasoline prices.
On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman - without supplying any economic data to support his claim - called Bachmann's pledge "flat out nuts" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Tom Friedman, among the things that you have written about -- in fact, you've written books about it -- is economics, international economics. In the presidential campaign we have Michele Bachmann the other day saying that she will make sure that America gets $2.00 gasoline once again. She didn't offer a lot of specifics. Her Web site says, well, she's going to ease restrictions on drilling, roll back federal regulations on the shale gas industry.
Is that a responsible pledge for a candidate to make, $2 gas?
TOM FRIEDMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: It's flat out nuts. There's no way that that's going to happen. We're heading just -- I wrote a book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded." OK? And I often hold it up when I'm going to talk about it.
KURTZ: You're trying to sell it.
FRIEDMAN: No.
KURTZ: You can sell it right now.
FRIEDMAN: Yes. I don't need to sell anymore. And I often say to audiences who don't believe in climate change, oh, you don't believe in hot? OK. Anybody done your research (ph) out there? Let's take hot off. But you better believe in flat and crowded.
What does it mean? It means more and more people out there can see how we live, in a flat world, aspire to how we live, and live like we live: American-size homes, driving American-size cars, eating American-size Big Macs. That's going on in Brazil, India, China, now all over. So the world is getting flatter and flatter, middle class is growing everywhere, and there are just more people.
Now, when you put flat and crowded together, more people and more people want to -- and able to live like us -- energy prices are only going to go one way, and they're not going to go toward $2.00 a gallon.
KURTZ: But, in fact, you don't think there should be $2.00-a- gallon gas, even if it could be achieved.
FRIEDMAN: Not at all.
KURTZ: You want more expensive gas, or a gas tax --
FRIEDMAN: Absolutely.
KURTZ: -- because you think we need to discourage consumption. That's not a very politically popular stance, which probably has something to do with the fact that it hasn't happened.
FRIEDMAN: And that's why she's playing to that. But it's so unrealistic.
And at the end of the day, let's think about it from the jobs point of view. If the world is getting flat and crowded, what's going to be the next great global industry?
It's got to be clean energy that can satisfy that huge growing middle class market. So do you want to be actually telling Americans, let's keep investing in this old technology and this fuel that's a diminishing resource, or should we be looking to actually create this whole new industry?
Let's do what neither Friedman nor Kurtz did, namely, look at some facts.
According to the Energy Information Association, crude oil inventories are currently higher than they've been throughout most of the past 30 years with some exceptions:
As for gasoline inventories, these are currently at about their average for the last 30 years:
As such, the rise in oil and gas prices over the past eleven years has nothing to do with the American supply of either.
But obviously, this is a global market. Therefore, what might be quite surprising to most readers is that according to the EIA, total world crude reserves have more than doubled since 1980. In fact, they go up virtually every year.
As a result, the international reserves to production ratio has stayed rather static for the past 20 plus years (interactive chart):
via chartsbin.com
What this means is despite increasing international demand for oil, producers are constantly finding more of it to match the increase.
Meanwhile, according to EIA, total world oil demand has declined since its 2007 peak, and likely will continue to do so if Europe and America go into a double-dip recession.
Add it all up, and apart from speculation and the weak dollar, there is absolutely no supply/demand reason for oil and gas prices to be as high as they currently are.
Even with such factors, U.S. retail gas prices were at $2/gallon as recently as May 2009, just a little over two years ago.
Why Friedman thinks this is impossible to return to is likely based more in his own biases than facts.
He did admit to Kurtz that he wants far more expensive gasoline to inhibit consumption. So why should his view of this natural resource be taken at all seriously?
As it pertains to Bachmann's pledge, any change in posture towards domestic oil drilling in America would further impact the supply/demand equation putting additional pressure on prices. Combine this with weaker demand caused by a slowing economy, and $2/gallon is easily attainable.
Finally, isn't it funny to hear Friedman discouraging investment in "this old technology" while pushing for "clean energy?"
I guess he hasn't gotten the memo that the whole idea of green jobs has been a total failure and that one of the reasons Texas leads the nation in employment gains since the recession "ended" is due to "this old technology."
And his colleague at the Times, Paul Krugman, wonders why voters are so ill-informed.
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Comments
Flatulent orifice says What?
Submitted by BBallleaper on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:39pm.
Thomas, excuse yourself!!
I don't doubt that we can see $2 gas again
Submitted by shawn. on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:43pm.
I doubt Bachman can be directly responsible for it. What can she do? I can see many members saying we can drill in our own backyard. However to do this, she has to have enough votes and a super majority and even then it will still be tough. Bush sure could not do it.
Actually, President Bush had
Submitted by robert108 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:00pm.
Actually, President Bush had the price of regular gas down to less than $2/gal at the end of his administration. Since obama re-instituted the drilling bans and created further obstructions to our domestic oil development, the prices skyrocketed to around $4/gal. When he did that head fake of announcing the use of the SPR, oil prices dropped $5/barrel almost immediately, clearly indicating that a big increase in domestic oil production would be very effective in lowering prices to a reasonable level. President Bachmann could accomplish $2/gal gas very easily and quickly. President Bush did it with an obstructionist Dem Congress.
Agreed
Submitted by Galvanic on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:18pm.
There are so many factors going against it, not the least of which is Fed-induced inflation from printing more $$$.
Oil prices are driven by global demand, and China will keep taking as much oil as it can.
Unless Bachmann wants to subsidize gasoline prices with taxpayer money. ;-)
"Oil prices are driven by
Submitted by robert108 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 12:04am.
"Oil prices are driven by global demand...."
Keynesian nonsense. As has already been illustrated, supply is the factor unable to rise to meet existing demand, so supply changes determine the price right now.
Ramping up domestic production also prevents the OPEC cartel from fixing prices at a high level.
You're right, robert108
Submitted by Galvanic on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:39am.
I should have written "supply and demand."
What I meant was that not knowing the details behind Bachmann's statement, I don't know what she was calculating, if anything.
But if she was referring to the opening ANWR and more offshore drilling, I think that's a good strategic move and worth exploiting, but it doesn't necessarily bring the price of gasoline down below $2/gal. because the increase in supply doesn't necessarily meet the high global demand, particularly if China is stil chugging along and the US and Europe are recovering. OPEC has a habit of reducing supply when demand is low in order to keep prices high; occasionally, the US persuades the Saudis and others to up supply, but this is a political factor.
What I mean is
Submitted by shawn. on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:08pm.
.....a President cannot control the price of oil or gas. Gas is dropping right now because the price of oil is dropping. Oil was around 150 a barrel during his Presidency.
When President Bush announced
Submitted by robert108 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 12:06am.
When President Bush announced the end of the Presidential drilling ban, and then the Congressional ban expired, the price dropped from $147/barrel to $33/barrel in a few months.
When president Bush announced
Submitted by me_nana2 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 11:25am.
I think just by stating and starting to get the things rolling that she proposes, will start lowering the gas prices. They know with Obama and his thugs, they don't want off shore drilling, they won't drill in anwar, and want to keep the prices up.They're basically telling the oil companies to charge what they want, because we're not gonna do anything to fix this.
Drilling in the United States
Submitted by Avitar on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 5:59am.
Bush came very close even with his overly full plate. He also had the Bush family curse. He tried to talk people around to a mutually beneficial agreement.
In Washington DC that is just plan dog nuts! This is a city that has been in mutual annulation mode since the Democrats took the Confederacy out of the Union to preserve slavery and the Republicans went to war to make them return.
You mean this Thomas Friedman?
Submitted by HelloDare on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:51pm.
NYT's Friedman: 'Way too soon to tell' if media blew it vetting Obama the candidate
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/#ixzz1VibQzvQI
Yes the Thomas Friedman Who Got His Engineering Degree by Mail
Submitted by Avitar on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 6:22am.
A BS from the Harvard Petroleum Engineering College of Martha’s Vineyard no doubt. If people understood what is possible to do in the way of production they would hang the media for not talking to real working engineers.
A simple majority in the house and a filibuster proof majority for one vote in the Senate would be all that would be required to bring oil back on line. And it wouldn’t take ten years. We were pulling 600,000 barrels a day out of west coast deposits when they froze them. We know right where those deposits are and could drill production wells from shore with slant drilling in less than a year. Michele Bachman could probably get it done by just stepping on some New York toes and cutting money toe the EPA just slower.
An Italian company has a much cheaper more efficient system for converting coal to gasoline. An American company has a similar process for converting the gas from cracking into liquid fuel. We would have to build the plants (a three year process) but anyone who thinks that the US can't do two dollar gas including fifty cents for taxes is just too ignorant to talk to.
"Hot, flat and crowded"? This
Submitted by ant on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:53pm.
"Hot, flat and crowded"? This is what happens when you live in a bubble in the shape of New York City. Get out once in a while, dumb-ass. Oh, and this 'ever-growing' middle-class around the Globe,.. does this include Somalia and the like? or the poor, under-served, self-appointed 'wealth re-distributors' rioters in England? The 12 million added to the Food stamp rolls in the US? People are either poor and oppressed or comfortable and 'middle-class', you can't have it both ways, depending on what you're argument du jour is, Mr. Freidman.
"Hot, flat and crowded."
Submitted by robert108 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:01pm.
"Hot, flat and crowded." Sounds like Carter redux(reduced expectations).
It's the dollar!
Submitted by povertypimpin on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:55pm.
Oil and gas would be much cheaper right now if the dollar hadn't been devalued with QE1, QE2 and massive deficit spending.
(free) $0/bag Food Stamps
Submitted by neutron on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:00pm.
Communist (oops columnist) Tom Fried-Man says $2/gallon gas is impossible, and Bachmann is a nut-case for suggesting it.
I am stunned at how many new enrolls there are to the free $0/bag Food Stamps!
Says the guy who lives in a castle.
Submitted by NeoKong on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:03pm.
Can we all live in homes like Freidman....?
He rails on over American consumption while he lives in a house the size of a hotel.
Typical leftie hypocrite.
Can you say "rectocranially inverted liberal New Yorker"?
Submitted by drsamherman on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:19pm.
Tom is another NYT liberal idiot who refuses to acknowledge civilization exists beyond the Hudson. To him, everything that happens in New York City somehow translates to Wichita, San Antonio and Bremerton, WA. Newflash to clueless liberal media idiot: you can't go anywhere in some states WITHOUT a car. There is no public transportation in places like Eagle Pass, Texas and there is no bus, train or subway convenient to every day life in most of rural America. Considering how much disdain NYT columnists have for the rest of America (you know--the 90% who do NOT live in the NYC metro area), he comes off as a delusional patient that would require a Level III SCID (structured clinical interview) during an acute inpatient psychiatric admission. Even when I am the attending in these facilities, cases like his are ones that cause psychiatrists to groan because they so stubbornly refuse to acknowledge reality.
Get a colorectal surgeon to de-impact your cranium from your rectum, Tom. Goodness knows that you would keep a team of them (along with a team of anesthesiologists) busy for a few days figuring out how your self-important, inflated cranium managed to impact itself so deeply in your bowels.
Nice.....
Submitted by jon_torlin on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:44pm.
Damn, doc sam, I just love reading your stuff on here. Very colorful image evocation with your words!
Nicely done again!
-Jon
Just curious, Tom
Submitted by notinstl on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:25pm.
Since you are so intelligent...have you questioned the sanity of the democrats and the presidents' spokesman that say unemployment checks stimulate the economy?
Socialist moron responds,
Submitted by ant on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:56pm.
"Yes, you see for every dollar used in UC, two are actually created benefitting the economy and, by extension, the government, so a $2 gallon of gas can actually be purchased using only $1 of Unemployment compensation, thereby the consumer is actually getting double the gas he could've purchased if he were working in the private sector, so his gas will go farther, meaning it's economy has improved, which means it's environment-friendly, and the private sector, ie. the oil industry, is stimulated by that extra dollar we made by taking money from someone else and then giving it to ourselves and then giving it to somebody else,...but no..wait...we don't want to make big oil richer...bad example... If gas prices stay high, it doesn't matter.. in fact, the government should take over these industries and ration it out, because then..every gallon will really be two, maybe five.. because government is magic and makes life a utopia... and if you ask for any facts, you're a racist."
How to reduce the price of gas?
Submitted by pockets64 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 10:59pm.
Drill here. Drill now. More refineries. Change in tax policies. Reduce size/scope of government. Reduce currency supply.
The amount of oil in our own back yard possibly dwarfs what they have in the Middle East.
We have enough oil in our own back yard to flood the market, making supply far exceed demand.
Once we empower ourselves, we remove our interest in the Middle East. We do that, we neuter the terrorists without firing a shot.
So, yes... Drill here, drill now would be a dramatic shot in the arm.
"Obama's Plan for $10 Gas"
Submitted by Red Jeep on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:04pm.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/obamas_plan_for_10_gas.html
Columnist, New York Times...
Submitted by packman on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:11pm.
Didn't have to read any further.
"...Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread..." ~Thomas Jefferson
EPA shutdown = jobs for hundreds of thousands
Submitted by Slyrr on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:21pm.
Under THIS president, it would be nuts. With Obama shutting down energy production without thought for the consequences... But in 2012 if we get someone with brains in the WH, we can turn all that around and get back to work.
I LIKE the idea of the EPA being the place that gets shut down an padlocked. Give those government fatcats a taste of their own dang medicine and make them go through the same misery they've been putting everyone else through.
Put 100-odd corrupt politicians out of work - and get energy security plus tens of thousands of new jobs. Sounds like a good deal to me.
You want to know what's really 'flat out nuts'?
Submitted by Phryj1 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:38pm.
Actually believing 'clean' energy will ever be affordable and cost effective enough to keep costs-of-living from skyrocketing as it's implemented. Clean energy simply cannot support a growing middle class. Costs-of-living will go up, and quality of life will go down. Upward mobility will be negatively impacted as well. Trying to shoehorn clean energy into everyone's lives is one of the biggest causes of the decline of the middle class. As for the rest of the world trying to achieve our standards of living, they won't be able to get there if energy costs go up, and so far, the only thing clean energy investments have accomplished is making energy more expensive.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
Actually Only Obama Clean Energy Is Impossible
Submitted by Avitar on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 6:45am.
California has super volcano site, a caldera at Mammoth Lake. Geothermal plants could be drilled and produce energy for millennia. The same is true at Yellow Stone transporting the power to locations where it is needed is the one expensive item there.
Hydroelectric dams are always clean energy which is why the EPA likes to knock them down and create "free flowing rivers,"
The Nuclear plants aren't bad if we would plan for reprocessing the spent fuel and the next generation of nuclear plants with more than double the technical knowledge that we had for the first generation will be much cleaner than any of today’s nuclear plants.
Those Japanese plants were designed and built GE engineers with slide rules less than thirty years after the first atom bomb. We have been building naval reactors for forty years since. A kid with his home computer could do better.
That's a good point, Avitar
Submitted by Phryj1 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 12:49pm.
Proven forms of clean energy such as hydroelectric and geothermal are being shelved by the very environmentalists who are trying to force us to make the green switch. Even though they are the only forms of green energy that actually have a track record of creating jobs and providing affordable energy, Obama's greenies are standing in the way.
Modern nuclear plants are also clean and completely safe, and newer reactor technology utilizes fuel more fully and thus produces far less waste. Again, envirozealots stand in the way of building new nuclear reactors. Even European countries with stronger eco-lobbies than our own are building and using nuclear reactors.
Obama and Co. have sunk billions into green/clean energy sources that simply don't work. If they'd put that money into hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear, we'd already have an affordable clean energy infrastructure in place. Doesn't help anything that green funding has been awarded based primarily on campaign contributions to Dems, instead of how effective and beneficial a given energy program is.
And then you have those leftist dopes who actually do want costs-of-living to go up, as a form of social justice/wealth redistribution. For them, it isn't about the environment at all.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
$2 a gallon would render all
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 12:41am.
$2 a gallon would render all of these hacks irrelevant and send them back into the abyss of obama's bowels from where they came. This moron still hasn't figured out we have no gasoline fired power plants.
Hot, flat and crowded. If
Submitted by Reaver on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 12:56am.
Hot, flat and crowded. If Friedman had his way the United States would live in energy poverty, the third world would live in forced poverty for perpetuity and there would be a worldwide one child policy. That’s not a world I want to live in.
Would somebody please cut off the power to the New York Times?
Submitted by needle on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:16pm.
After a few days of no electrical power at the NYT, preferable in July, it would be a good time to interview Thomas to see what effect the experience had on him. Dufus!
- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.
it's an odd promise to make
Submitted by OffTheLows on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 1:10am.
Yeah, we cold drill more domestically and provide additional supply, but nobody knows 3-4 years from now what the global supply vs demand will be or how the market will price oil. Bachmann should have just said I will take steps to increase domestic oil production and create jobs while putting downward pressure on oil prices, but tying it to a gas price dollar amount to me is naive.
Peak Oil Is A Rainbow Connection
Submitted by Avitar on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 7:07am.
It is a Rainbow Connection because where it appears to be depends on where the observer is and the observer himself. People who are color blind do not see the same edge of a rainbow as somebody with high color perception. Walking 100 hundred feet across the path of the sun also moves the rainbow. The same is true if an account, a geologist or a petroleum engineer does a peak oil estimate. Each brings a different knowledge to the problem and will address it with different estimates. The technology base that each professional uses changes over time to change the meaning of “recoverable oil.”
Add to the problem mix that business men lie about the capacity to produce oil, you can't blame them if they told the truth then some sleazy politician would come along and try to levy property taxes on oil that they may never get out of the ground. Nothing is as crooked as an honest politician.
The processing of old soundings have shown that the old oil domes are filling back up and in another two hundred years there will be as much oil seeped through the rocks back into them as we have already taken out.
Speaking of old technology
Submitted by ckc1227 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 2:27am.
Finally, isn't it funny to hear Friedman discouraging investment in "this old technology" while pushing for "clean energy?"
It is especially funny to hear him discourage this old technology considering he dreams of replacing it with windmills.
That's weird. Gas is about 25
Submitted by jessieH on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:47am.
That's weird. Gas is about 25 cents a gal. in South America, thanks to Ubama stealing our money & giving it to Chavez. And, I can see how some idiot that lives in NYC doesn't care how much gas prices go up, since he doesn't drive anywhere. But, I can see gas at $2.00 a gal, if we start drilling & stop buying from other countries. If they can't sell it, the prices will, nessesarilly, tank. Of course it will also cut into the kickbacks that our elected servants recieve, but I considder that a plus.
Here's the thing
Submitted by mandrake on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:01am.
Pesky as it may seem, Those gas companies in South America are government owned..as in socialism. Now you don't want that do you?
So, mandrake---
Submitted by matthewdean on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 12:45pm.
if the socialist punk in the White House had even more control, gas prices would be magically lowered?
I seriously doubt that.
MD
MD so do I.
Submitted by mandrake on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 1:33pm.
I was making a /sarc comment..sorry to interrupt.
Never an interruption, mandrake---
Submitted by matthewdean on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 1:45pm.
when you are setting the record straight.
MD
Considering socialist
Submitted by ant on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 1:25pm.
Considering socialist countries, especially those in Latin America, receive a great deal of money from us, how well would they or the US do if we eliminate our capitalist society?
How about interest rates ?
Submitted by creekrat on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:54am.
I was trying to sell real estate back when Carter was around and interest was up to 20%. Would have bet money we would never see 9% again, let alone 4%. One news release of drilling for our own would do it, I'd bet !
Just who does this oil-hating comrade think he's kidding?
Submitted by Dave. on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 9:58am.
If it were up to him and that commie in the White House, we would be paying $10/gal.
And we may end up there yet.
If you want gas prices back under $2/gal, then run off the America-hating commie in the White House, reverse ALL of his idiotic policies, and then rip the financial guts out of the EPA and the DoE until they are parylized, and thus cannot put out their hideous, economy-destroying regulations any longer.
And be sure to remove the current regs, too.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
tom friedman
Submitted by jerry lee on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 11:57am.
i think friedman is nuts he is also on the global warming band wagon,for us to go green like the g,w nuts want,that would take decades to do,so they want us to keep paying higher & higher prices for foreign fuel which pays for terrorism,because they dont want us to drill here,so in essence they want us to pay the terrorist
Yo Tommy
Submitted by donabernathy on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 7:21pm.
There was a time when salt was an extremely valuable commodity ... so much so wars were fought over it.... there was a time when manure was an extremely valuable commodity.... so much so among other things in 1856 the U.S. Congress passed a law known as the Guano Islands Act which allows American citizens to lay claim to any island for bird poop..... now manure is dirt cheap..... Good thing for you huh... sport.
What an Idjet..... I's gots ta get me one O dem Ivy League DeeeeeeeGrees.
roflmao