Daily Office: Thursday
Morning
¶ Reserves: Help me out here: While Times Op-Ed writer Timothy Egan hails T Boone Pickens for his windfarming campaign against the idea that drilling for oil will lead to lower gasoline prices, Jad Mouawad reports, in Business Day, that the “Arctic may contain as much as a fifth of the world’s yet-to-be-discovered oild and natural gas reserves,” according to the United States Geological Survey. Which way are we going, here?
Noon
¶ Pathetic: We interrupt our non-political coverage to link to Jacob Heilbrunn’s comment at HuffPost: “Bush Bans State Department Officials From Obama Rally.”Â
Night
¶ Manipulation: If you read just the top of the story, it looks as though the pipe dreams of demagogues have come true, and speculators are making fortunes by manipulating the price of oil.Oremus…
Morning, cont’d
§ Reserves. The two items, while not contradictory, point in opposite directions. Mr Egan’s comment urges us to “get over” oil — preferably before we run out of it altogether. Mr Mouawad’s report massages our dependency with the promise of increased supply.
It may be standard among oilmen to treat “reserves” as a singular nown, but the Times ought not to allow it. “That equals Russia’s proven gas reserves, which is the world’s largest.” Ouch!
Noon, cont’d
§ Pathetic. The original report appeared in the Washington Post, but Mr Heilbrunn’s three lucid paragraphs unpack the story very efficiently. He concludes, “If it’s going to these lengths, the Bush administration must be really worried about Sen. John McCain’s prospects,” but I’m not sure that I agree. It’s an indication, rather, that the Bushies learn something new every day from the Chinese about free-market totalitarianism.
Night, cont’d
§ Manipulation. If you read the fine print, however, a clearer — less fabulous — picture emerges:
Of the five attempts that regulators said were successful, three slightly pushed down the final prices of all three commodities, while two resulted in slightly higher prices for gasoline and West Texas Intermediate.
It is not really possible for any investor to change the price of oil significantly enough to affect what consumers ultimately pay for it. Diana Henriques’s story might have been more lucid and less dramatic.