I expect I will be writing a lot of these.
Have you wondered why cancelling the Keystone Pipeline was so urgent? Initially it might have appeared to be simple pandering to environmentalists, but everything Biden is about money or politics.
The Keystone was intended to safely transport Baken oil to pipeline hubs and then to refineries for use. Currently, the oil is delivered by rail car, which is many times more dangerous than by pipeline.
So, who owns the current rail tankers? And who owns the Union Tank Car company, which makes the upgraded tank cars being phased in? None other than Warren Buffet, who has donated millions to the Democratic Party congressional candidates and party funds
Finishing the Keystone would have sidelined hundreds of tankers and cancelled orders for hundreds more upgraded cars.
Now it makes sense.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Oh my! You people are slipping. No mention of George Soros.
If this “information” is accurate it is now very clear that “conservatives” have been lying. Building the pipeline won’t create jobs. It will eliminate them. Good paying manufacturing, railroad and trucking jobs. Typical.
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The pipeline jobs sound great until you realize that when completed, it would leave a few dozen permanent jobs.
How many permanent jobs in the listed current oil transport industries would be lost?
Good point.
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And if you required the oil be moved by men carrying buckets, you would create even more jobs, but the high price of the oil at the user would kill ten times more jobs.
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But we don’t carry oil in buckets. The infrastructure for oil transport is already in place.
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Sure, and we used to move grain with horse drawn wagons, but as more efficient means became available we used them, making bread cheaper and allowing people to spend on other things.
There is NEVER a net gain from forcing an inefficent choice.
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Not to mention all those jobs cleaning up the inevitable oil spills that result from moving mass quantities of oil by tank car.
Of course, I’m sure you know that forcing uneconomic choices never results in prosperity. Pipelines are both more efficient and safer. The added cost of moving oil by rail will create some visible jobs, but at the same time kill many more less visibly.
“At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.” Milton Freidman (and earleir versions by others) as reported by Stephen Moore
Inefficiency never boosts jobs in the long run.
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Jobs are a red herring, although Joe Biden probably thinks that enriching Warren Buffet is a net job creator and tax revenue generation machine.
The real issue here is corrupt politics — and, ultimately, corrupted thinking. If protecting the environment is the issue, the pipeline is obviously better than transportation by wheel. If reducing consumption of fossil fuels is the issue, restricting the supply is a dumb way to do it.
That Buffet is a big contributor to the Democratic Party is the best explanation for Biden’s otherwise inexplicable decision. Still, one shouldn’t rule out pure incompetence.
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Jobs are a red herring.
Then why did your Dear Leader talk about almost nothing else with respect to this pipeline?
The principle environmentalist opposition to the pipeline has been that it would make the dirtiest form of petroleum more economic and thus destroy more of the environment where it is mined, refined and burned.
Actually, the simplest explanation for President Biden’s completely explicable decision to stop this pipeline is that he promised that he would do so if elected. I know you do not want to hear this, but Biden won the election handily and is now keeping his promises as best he can.
You and Tabor jumping onto the “Biden is corrupt” bandwagon based on nothing but conspiracy crap like this says a lot more about the two of you than it does about Joe Biden. And what it says about you is kind of ugly.
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RE: “The principle environmentalist opposition to the pipeline has been that it would make the dirtiest form of petroleum more economic and thus destroy more of the environment where it is mined, refined and burned.”
Like I said, “If reducing consumption of fossil fuels is the issue, restricting the supply is a dumb way to do it.”
Biden’s campaign promise was either malicious or incompetent. Since there is a clear self-interest in preserving political donations from Warren Buffet, I see malice as more likely.
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Like I said, “If reducing consumption of fossil fuels is the issue, restricting the supply is a dumb way to do it.”
Well, there you go again displaying a child-like understanding of what you are talking about. Let me try to help. One of the bedrock principles of economics is the Law of Supply and Demand. If the supply of a given commodity is reduced then the price will increase until the demand again matches supply. Reducing the supply of shale oil available to the market works two ways for the environment. Less use of very dirty shale oil and slightly reduced supply of oil overall thus raising the price and lowering consumption.
You are welcome.
As for your observation that Biden’s campaign promise was “either malicious or incompetent” I would respond simply by noting that – as shown above – you do not know what you are talking about and that you just like spreading baseless slanders about leaders you disagree with. So very, very Trumpy!
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RE: “One of the bedrock principles of economics is the Law of Supply and Demand.”
Your help is ignorant: There is no such thing as the “Law of Supply and Demand.”
But in this case, restricting supply is dumb because the attempt is arbitrary. Someone else will provide it, whether the price changes or not.
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If it were really about reducing CO2, they would be demanding we use pipelines to move crude. Trains and trucks, run on diesel, not unicorn farts. Moving that crude by rail and truck is going to burn A LOT of fuel that could be saved or put to other use.
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RE: “If it were really about reducing CO2, they would be demanding we use pipelines to move crude.”
Agreed. Last month, Forbes reported, “there are 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipelines in the United States and the Keystone XL pipeline would add another .05% to that amount.”
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Uh, as I stated the Law of Supply and Demand is a bedrock theory of economics. Your saying there is “no such thing” reflects very, very badly on the sort of intellect you are bringing to this and every other discussion.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/law-of-supply-demand.asp#:~:text=The%20law%20of%20supply%20and%20demand%20is%20a%20theory%20that,the%20buyers%20for%20that%20resource.&text=Generally%2C%20as%20price%20increases%20people,versa%20when%20the%20price%20falls.
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You should read your own link. It states, “The law of supply and demand is a theory…”
A theory is not a law.
Your link goes on explain the “Law of Demand vs. Law of Supply,” but technically neither of these are laws, either. They are axioms, and they are not universally true. For a variety of reasons, for example, the Law of Demand rarely produces the standard “demand curve” your so-called Law of Supply and Demand requires.
Nor does the Law of Supply and Demand fully explain how prices arise. It cannot explain, as Adam Smith pointed out, why diamonds are higher priced than water.
So, no, there is no such thing as the Law of Supply and Demand. Economists call it a theory or a model.
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I stand by my observations about the level of intellect that you bring to this discussion. Of course the “Law of Supply and Demand” is a theory. That is true of every “law” of every science. Duh.
Now with that out of the way and applying the Law of Supply and Demand, your initial comment – “If reducing consumption of fossil fuels is the issue, restricting the supply is a dumb way to do it.” – is just plain silly.
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Not silly.
Reducing fossil fuel consumption by driving up the price through restraints on supply results in tremendous hardship on those least able to adapt to it.
And that makes it pretty dumb.
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Dr. Semantics. His theories are laws; everyone else’s are just theories.
Typical hypocritical libertarian thought.
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RE: “Reducing fossil fuel consumption by driving up the price through restraints on supply results in tremendous hardship on those least able to adapt to it.”
There’s that. There’s also the fact that demand for oil is sufficiently inelastic that restricting supply may have no effect on consumption.
One can pretend that some layman’s theory of economics will force consumption to change, but the real world is under no obligation to conform to theory.
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LOL!
Oh my how the poor will suffer if people don’t adopt your views about raping the environment.
But, according to Mr. Roberts’s “analysis” the supply of oil will be the same. Because, you know, there is no such thing as the Law of Supply and Demand. Or something. But, if he is right, instead of coming from the dirtiest source there is, it would come from cleaner ones. The environment wins again.
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What makes you think Braken oil is dirtier than alternatives?
It has a high natural gas component, but nautral gas is clean. The residual favors a higher percentage of bunker oil, but its not the only source, Those users of bunker can get it elsewhere.
In any case, how is Braken oil delivered by pipeline dirtier than delivered by rail car?
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https://www.citizen.org/article/tar-sands-dirtiest-fuel-in-the-world/
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I just have to laugh at all of the “corruption” arguments about Biden when REAL corruption was ignored by the same parties the past years.
Not surprising that the hypocrites are out in full force.
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