Is it time to start using...

[K Frame]

Food and medicine the way the OPEC nations are using oil?

When I was in college there was a huge debate among some of my friends about the ethics of using food and medications as a weapon against the Arab states in the same way that they used oil embargos against us.

More difficult now, given that oil is a publicly traded commodity...

Given OPEC's intransigence against raising output in an effort to moderate supply, may be it's time to start thinking about pushing back with the resources that we have at our disposal.

[Manedwolf]

Can we?

How many of the pharmas and the like do the sheiks in Dubai have large shareholder stakes in?

The food conglomerates? Most of our consumer food products come from Switzerland-based Nestle SA or ConAgra and a few others. Who has shares in those?

Also, Dubai Ports World controls and owns operations at 22 US ports. They could stop offloading operations at any time and lay a smackdown on us if we tried to do that.

The camel's nose is already in the tent.

[grampster]

Don't we get the major portion of our imported oil from Canada?  I don't think Canadians deserve being toyed with.  What about our hockey prospects?  Oh, the inhumanity!!!

[K Frame]

Canada isn't an OPEC nation.

Canada is also largely self sufficient in food.

And I'm not talking about finished, processed, food. Middle eastern nations import vast quantities of American grain.

[Manedwolf]

Canada isn't an OPEC nation.

Canada is also largely self sufficient in food.

And I'm not talking about finished, processed, food. Middle eastern nations import vast quantities of American grain.

And probably at least some of it through those 22 US ports that the UAE owns and operates.

I'm just not sure we're really driving the bus on most of our own corporations and commodities anymore, so I don't know that we have the option of doing that.

I strongly feel that if any corporation tried to comply with a directive to do so, that exec would get a call from some ultra-rich Saudi or Emirates shareholder on the board who would say "You will not do this.", and their reply, if they did not want to be ousted immediately, would be "Yes sir."

Especially pharmas, which have been a major target for foreign investment due to their potential as a growth market.

[K Frame]

Internationally, corporate wise, the situation isn't much different than it was in the 1970s and 1980s when grain embargos were levied against the Soviets.

Who operates US ports I don't see as being much of an issue. While the company is, certainly, run from Dubai, the people who actually operate the ports are largely American.

I agree that pharmaceuticals would likely be much harder to interdict.

[K Frame]

Hum...

Just now realized that I put this in Politics by mistake...

Sigh.

[roo_ster]

Persian Gulf oil goes east to Japan, China, & SE Asia.  We don't get or use much of their production.

We get most of ours from Canada, domestically, Mexico, & Venezuela.  Maybe Nigeria, too, IIRC.

If we were to stop food shipments to the ME oil producers, there would be an initial shock to them.  Eventually, though, we would end up selling it to someone who sold it to the ME.  A marginally higher cost to the end-user.  World markets & all that.

One thing, though:
It has been said that the ME oil-producers must sell oil, as they can not eat their oil.  Well, we can eat our grain.  And kick our farmers in the Jimmy, again.

[Tuco]

If i am a major US pharmacutical or food producer:
 

• Who is going to tell me where i can or can't sell my product?
  
• By what authority will they exercise this control?

Not a challenge, but a question.

[charby]

If i am a major US pharmacutical or food producer:
 

• Who is going to tell me where i can or can't sell my product?
  
• By what authority will they exercise this control?

Not a challenge, but a question.

Your shipment would be met with force, you'd be detained and water-boarded in a small room while Skeletor lets out a sinister laugh a 1000 miles away. I bet you would be made to breath in the smoke from burning floppies and have to spend many days in a room feeling the cold yet harsh burning power from the Rods of Ra. The intercom would have the voices of John Kerry and Hillary Clinton singing "Muskrat Love".

[Manedwolf]

If i am a major US pharmacutical or food producer:
 

• Who is going to tell me where i can or can't sell my product?
  
• By what authority will they exercise this control?

Not a challenge, but a question.

The people who are your majority shareholders and who sit on your board can and will tell you what to do. Just look at Disney, and the power struggle there. They managed to kick Roy, the last Disney, out of relevance completely.

A lot of extremely wealthy sheiks are shareholders in a number of US corporations.

[Werewolf]

Hmmmm... lets see?

While we're freezin' in the dark they're starvin'!

Seems pretty much like a toss up as to who gives in first.

There are of course - other options...

[charby]

Hmmmm... lets see?

While we're freezin' in the dark they're starvin'!

Seems pretty much like a toss up as to who gives in first.

There are of course - other options...

You can burn grain for heat. You can not eat oil.

[The Annoyed Man]

Uh, before we get uppity, we might figure out how much of our debt they own.  Not to mention agribusiness, big pharma and patents.

We've got a powerful military.  That's it. We don't invent squat.  We don't manufacture squat.  All we do is consume.  We're big fat lazy consumers.  Useless eaters.

[thebaldguy]

Food, especially grains, are on the same par as oil. The catch is that you have to have the grains like they have to have the oil.

It's too bad for us that we don't have an excess supply of grains to use as a bargaining tool. I think it might be a good time for increasing grain production to raise cash or trade for oil. I guess I'm surprised that it seems we don't have extra grains stored up for a rainy day or a bad harvest year. It might pay to be more prepared in the future.

[Gewehr98]

We could trade nukes for oil.

I'd even volunteer to deliver them again.   

[roo_ster]

We've got a powerful military.  That's it. We don't invent squat.  We don't manufacture squat.  All we do is consume.  We're big fat lazy consumers.  Useless eaters.

Speak for yourself, O Projecting One.

[K Frame]

Uh, before we get uppity, we might figure out how much of our debt they own.  Not to mention agribusiness, big pharma and patents.

We've got a powerful military.  That's it. We don't invent squat.  We don't manufacture squat.  All we do is consume.  We're big fat lazy consumers.  Useless eaters.

No, you don't invent anything. You wish to consume Big Brother direction that will remove the need for you to think or act for yourself.

Your fondest desire seems to be to join the ranks of intellectual wastrels.

[taurusowner]

OPEC nations aren't first on the list of America's oil suppliers.  Not even second.  Those titles go to Canada and Mexico.  Not to mention that the US has nearly a trillion barrels of untapped un-drilled oil that the eco-nazis are and have been (successfully)lobbying to keep us from using.


The "oil shortage" is no one's fault but our own.  We have oil.  We can build refineries.  We choose not to.

[charby]

Uh, before we get uppity, we might figure out how much of our debt they own.  Not to mention agribusiness, big pharma and patents.

We've got a powerful military.  That's it. We don't invent squat.  We don't manufacture squat.  All we do is consume.  We're big fat lazy consumers.  Useless eaters.

Speak for yourself, I have a whole notebook that gets added to each month on invention ideas. I just wish I was the engineer (and had money) to create them.

[SomeKid]

I see this as a useful tool, especially now.

Corn and whatnot is going up in price. Simply ban the exportation of food items from America to those countries. It lowers out internal prices, while raising their food costs. Tell them if they want more money, pump more oil.

If that isn't enough force, do to them what we do with Cuba, except no exception for food. After a few days, weeks at the most they will have to cave because of food consumption. We however have that strategic oil reserve do we not? IOW, we CAN outlast them.

Lastly, if they do decide to go to the end and starve themselves to death, we can always walk in take over the oilfields. It isn;t conquest, just expansion into empty lands.

[wmenorr67]

What about this guy.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356606,00.html

SELMA, Ind.   It's just a drop in the global oil bucket, but an eastern Indiana man is operating an oil well in his backyard in an effort to capitalize on soaring crude prices.

Greg Losh's rig produces three barrels of crude oil a day, though he told FOX News that he hasn't started selling it yet. For now, he and his partners are keeping it in storage containers.

He declined to say how much oil they've collected in the two weeks they've been pumping.

But as oil is going for about $127 a barrel on the international market, three daily would yield just under $400 a day for Losh on the global spot market  or 1/100,000 of the daily production increase the Saudis agreed to earlier this month.

Still, in spite of those returns and the $100,000 it costs to drill a well, it's worth it to Losh considering the current price of oil, he told WISH-TV in Indianapolis.

The oil his well produces comes from the Trenton field that fueled the growth of east-central Indiana cities more than a century ago, he told the station.

He expects to drill four more wells soon on his property in the town of Selma about 55 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

"It's a money maker. It is paying off," Losh told FOX.

The oil is stored in a tank and transported to Ohio for sale, he said. His oil well also produces natural gas to heat his home and several others.

[Antibubba]

The problem with holding back is that someone else will happily step in, like the Russians.  Then, what little influence we have there will be gone.  I think, though, that the reasonable* Arab states, like Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, and even the Saudis, much prefer our presence to that of Russia or China; they understand that we do not have "Imperialistic" designs.


* Reasonable being, that they don't alternate declarations between "Kill the Great Satan" and "Death to the Joos!".

[The Annoyed Man]

Simply ban the exportation of food items from America to those countries.

So you want government intervention in the free market?

Statist.

[Manedwolf]

What about this guy.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356606,00.html

SELMA, Ind.   It's just a drop in the global oil bucket, but an eastern Indiana man is operating an oil well in his backyard in an effort to capitalize on soaring crude prices.

Greg Losh's rig produces three barrels of crude oil a day, though he told FOX News that he hasn't started selling it yet. For now, he and his partners are keeping it in storage containers.

He declined to say how much oil they've collected in the two weeks they've been pumping.

But as oil is going for about $127 a barrel on the international market, three daily would yield just under $400 a day for Losh on the global spot market  or 1/100,000 of the daily production increase the Saudis agreed to earlier this month.

Still, in spite of those returns and the $100,000 it costs to drill a well, it's worth it to Losh considering the current price of oil, he told WISH-TV in Indianapolis.

The oil his well produces comes from the Trenton field that fueled the growth of east-central Indiana cities more than a century ago, he told the station.

He expects to drill four more wells soon on his property in the town of Selma about 55 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

"It's a money maker. It is paying off," Losh told FOX.

The oil is stored in a tank and transported to Ohio for sale, he said. His oil well also produces natural gas to heat his home and several others.

He should put the oil up for bids, send sample tubes to all sorts of companies to see what they'll pay for it. A lot of indies are doing that all over the upper midwest, from Kansas farmers to North Dakota landholders. Some have their own well and sell the crude to people who have seen what the composition is and will bid, then stop by with a truck, others will license an oil company to drill and put a pumpjack up that they get a set percentage of the profit from.

Doesn't crude lose something if it sits in an aboveground tank where it can continually lose vapors for too long?

Three barrels a day is not bad at all for a homemade well! That could probably be really increased with a larger, more powerful (and more expensive) pumpjack.