hey I was having an interesting discussion today with a gentleman who remembers fuel rationing back during WWII (and to a lesser extent, during Vietnam) and opened my eyes as to why the heck we are all paying record high fuel prices... because we are at war.

apologies if this was and is obvious to some members, but for some reason, the fact that a military actively engaged uses up massive amounts of oil and fuel, and thus leaves scarce resources for the rest of us, seemed to elude me. back during WWII, people had to have gasoline rations, but in this day and age, with enough oil from other sources, and a "robust enough" economy, fuel is now a scarce resource and is priced accordingly. it seems so obvious to me now, but before our discussion today, I had thought it was primarily due to OPEC cutbacks, as the media seems to indicate. but those cutbacks are a small fraction of the massive rise in fuel prices, so the remainder of the fuel (and oil) must therefore be in use by our military forces.

however you feel about us being at war, I sort of believed that it was funded primarily through our taxes, and thus impacts those in higher tax brackets more so. but higher fuel prices directly impact low and medium-income families (those that have to commute, and thus have fuel expenses as a greater percentage of their monthly expenditures). additionally, higher fuel prices make the movement of goods more expensive, but that seems to impact all people fairly equally.

don't mean for this to be a political thread-- and would certainly not like it if it had to get locked-- so please keep the Bush-bashing flames to a minimum. just making a point after I had an epiphany . probably obvious to many of you, but just a heads-up to others (like me) who didn't put 2 and 2 together.

$.02

Please refrain from flaming political rants, because that'll just get this thread locked.

 

i'm bias since i am in the military..but one thing i dont understand is...how people say "we shouldnt go to war just for gas/oil!" and then they say "gas price is so high, government is not doing their job, etc etc"

too many americans are Hypocrites.

 

well my sole point was that fuel prices are high because we are at war.

so therefore, by extension, if we didn't go to war, fuel prices wouldn't be so high.

I will reserve my opinions as to all the motivating factors for why Bush took us to war in Iraq, so as to prevent this thread from being locked. just wanted to give an FYI, "hey here's a little economics trivia for those of us coping with higher fuel prices."

$.02

 

i read your thread and i understand but what i'm saying is...

if you remember Desert Storm...people were saying we went to war for gas/fuel.

do you remember that?

 

oh yeah desert storm was in 90's btw

 

yes, I remember. and I remember then, as now, that it was a "war for oil" as many said. (well, we were liberating Kuwait from Saddam's invasion forces.)

my only point is: when at war, our war machine uses up a lot of fuel and oil. that is part of the reason why our fuel prices are at record highs (and going higher).

whether this current War on Iraq is justified is not an argument I'm making, just making a minor (and often overlooked) point.

separately, the Gulf War in the 90s to liberate Kuwait from Saddam's invasion was justified in the sense that Kuwait was and is an ally, and also, frankly, the US did not want to have an enemy and tyrant in control of more of the world's scarce oil reserves. if the US has no political/financial interests in a country, our government couldn't care less who invades who, what genocides are commited, etc.

it is very fair to say that all politics, esp. geopolitics, are about the money (and the scarce resources that equate to money).

$.02

 

you make some good points.

you say,

"US has no political/financial interests in a country, our government couldn't care less who invades who, what genocides are commited, etc."

dont you think that reason why goverment is like this because the "people" are like this??

btw, i'm not arguing with you or anything, i think you make very good point and i'm liking this conversion.

 

yes, absolutely.

my over-riding point is that these higher fuel costs are a direct result of our ongoing war (with no comment as to whether the war is justified or not). my secondary point is that this is another way that we are funding said war-- not just through our taxes-- and that higher gas prices tend to impact those with lower to moderate incomes more greatly, since fuel expenses are a greater percentage of their cash outflows.

to expand further, and take this example to some of it's logical conclusions, we can see war as a rapid consumer of numerous resources, such as steel, aluminum, copper, etc.

many of the same resources that it takes to build your future vehicles, are also being used to replace the Hummers, tanks, helicopters, etc. that are being used in Iraq. whether a vehicle is destroyed in hostile actions or not, the use of said vehicles creates wear-n-tear on them, esp. in a desert environment, and thus parts of these vehicles would need to be replaced far more often than in a non-wartime environment.

while certainly this does benefit the massive defense corporations who get to build and sell the replacement vehicles, in the manner that steel, aluminum and copper are also used to construct civilian vehicles, these resources are made more scarce, and thus result in higher overall costs for the consumer. this likewise impacts those with middle and lower incomes more greatly, along the same lines of my point earlier about increased fuel costs.

carry these thoughts over to building materials used to rebuild Iraq (concrete, more steel, etc...), by corporations such as Bechtel and Halliburton. there is a certain amount of resources available in any part of the world at any one time. if a tremendous chunk of it is needed rapidly during and after a war, they become more scarce, and the costs of ALL goods rise accordingly...

food for thought.

 

Interesting topic. Did a little search on the fuel spending in desert storm and found this article.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/conte...36/b3747102.htm

 

World oil consumption is about 3billion gallons/day. The army used about 4 billion gallons in Iraq last year, the Air Force about the same. I'm not sure that using up a couple days worth of oil is the reason that gas is 50% higher than what it wa a couple years ago. (but still cheaper than it was in 1980). There may be other factors. We are filling up the strategic reserve. The economy is recovering (so gasoline consuptions is rising).

[QUOTE]
to expand further, and take this example to some of it's logical conclusions, we can see war as a rapid consumer of numerous resources, such as steel, aluminum, copper, etc.
many of the same resources that it takes to build your future vehicles, are also being used to replace the Hummers, tanks, helicopters, etc. that are being used in Iraq.