McCain: Offshore drilling provides beneficial 'psychological impact.'»

McCain: Offshore drilling provides beneficial 'psychological impact.'»

thinkprogress.org

I don’t see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist — and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts — is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have a psychological impact that I think is beneficial.

(visit the link for the full news article)

To funny! Yes Mr. McCain, there is nothing that makes me feel 'better' about the oil crisis than the thought of offshore drilling.

Offshore drilling makes me feel so much more 'safe' than say, investing in technology to improve efficiency, develop alternative energies, develop alternative modes of transportation, etc. All these ideas represent the 'unknown' and make me shake in my boots.
thinkprogress.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

edit to remove the word "poo"

[edit on 24-6-2008 by Animal]

That one is hilarious, occurs if this is how McCain plans to run the presidency if he wins I guess the propaganda machine is going to feed the American people happy thoughts so they forget how screw up the economy is and how much we need more wars and oil.

Well I guess we should all be put on Prozac that out to take care of the oil crisis.

BTW on a more serious note, what he actually may be thinking is that if US allow formally to drill more in our soil other oil producing nations that sells to America will be worry that we may strike enough to stop dependency.

Occurs is just a dream or like McCain say a psychological impact.

Off shore drilling needs to be done.
It should have been done YEARS ago, but the dems blocked it.

Mccain was partially correct. He didn't go to the logical conclusion that
it will have a psychological impact that in turn will have an impact upon
speculators setting oil prices.

reply to post by FlyersFan


The point of this thread is not a debate about whether or not we should allow offshore drilling, which we do, it is about John McCain's assertion that although it will do nothing to ease oil costs or production, in the short term, it will offer a 'psychological' benefit to people in the USA and how ridiculous such an assertion is.

In the OP I openly displayed my personal bias towards alternative energy and developing new strategies for cutting down on dependence rather than investing in trying to continue to meet continually growing demand.

In addition to this McCain could assure voters that he would impose regulation on the futures / speculation oil markets, something that would effect prices in the short term. Doing something that is actually going to address the problem ASAP should be his ambition, now trying to make us 'feel better'.

LMAO!

Isn't McCain the same guy, who a few months back, said something along the lines that suffering americans financial situations was "mainly psychological"? Forgive me if I'm wrong on that, but I could have sworn he said something along those lines.

"Hey, I'm still paying $4.50 per gallon, but guess what? I'm feeling great that OPEC is drillin' like hotcakes and keeping us addicted to their product! Yee-haw!"

Originally posted by FlyersFan
Off shore drilling needs to be done.
It should have been done YEARS ago, but the dems blocked it.

Mccain was partially correct. He didn't go to the logical conclusion that
it will have a psychological impact that in turn will have an impact upon
speculators setting oil prices.

The psychological impact is not limited to just speculators setting oil prices. It would send a message to the rest of the world that the U.S. is no longer going to accept being dependent on foreign oil. This in turn would shift investment back to the U.S. dollar, which would then regain value that's been lost.

So many threads have rightly described the price of oil being in large part the result of the devalued dollar. If the dollar increases in value, then the relative price of oil would decrease independent of supply and demand, or speculators. If global investment banks knew that the U.S. was going to become a major oil producer money would flow back into the dollar, and the price of oil, in dollars, would drop almost immediately.

So McCain's analysis was correct and relevant.

It would take at least four years to see any impact from any oil that was drilled offshore. This is not helping anyone anytime soon. McCain is reaching here.

Well, since we didn't quite get the psychological effect from the other leases given out, maybe we need more leases given out. Here, drill on my grandmother's grave, if it will help!

Ahhhh, I haven't heard such talk about psychological effects since the 1987 Harmonic Convergence.......that didn't seem to work either......

I appreciate the fact that you're ignorant to economics and love that bull# biased thinkprogress site (and yes, it is biased, people use it time and again). Economics is actually sort of a study of psychology, perceived supply and demand. Knowledge is an important part of it. It's nice to see someone slandering McCain for bull# reasons instead of real ones, isn't it?

I think that this site is infested with trolls who just dig up dirt.

Give McCain this, he has vision. The vision of a 90 year-old fat-cat for certain. Im surprised he is not laughed out of the building.

reply to post by Johnmike


Hey Johnmike, how about you show me something that actually backs up what you are saying mate. I admit I only had to take macro and micro economics in college, but still I remember nothing about "psychology" how about you back that up with some facts.

Also, rather thank focusing on Thnkprogress being "bull#" how about you show us, in this instance, how they are reporting "bull#" rather than facts. Yes they are biased, but I would say 99% of all media is biased, all it takes is a critical mind capable of critical analysis to be able to process the information.

reply to post by jamie83


Yes, for the reasons you indicate, McCain is correct. I'd like to find a transcript of that speech, rather than a useless 30 second soundbyte intended to make him look like an idiot in order to determine whether McCain actually explained this or not.

DimensionalDetective, yes. McCain said on FOX News that "a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological... the confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home."



We're not really hurting. It's psychological. You people who are living under a bridge because you lost your home? Those of you who are eating dogfood so you can feed your children human food? You people who are paying more for gas than your mortgage payment? Bah! That's just psychological! Now CHEER UP!

Think Progress has the video of the FOX News comment:

Source

Originally posted by vor78
I'd like to find a transcript of that speech, rather than a useless 30 second soundbyte intended to make him look like an idiot in order to determine whether McCain actually explained this or not.

Here

Hope that helps.

Yes, McCain is correct, but for the wrong reasons.

Up until the 1980's, I pretty much took the world around me at face value, meaning I relied on what I perceived to be true as "truth". Yes, there was talk of government deception/cover ups (Tonkin Gulf/Watergate) and electing US presidents as if buying products, but if the Saudis said there were "X" amounts of barrels of oil, there were "X" amounts of barrels of oil.

I became greatly disillusioned during Ronald Reagan's campaign, when one of his advisers was proud to announce that democracy was just an "illusion", in other words it was ok to manipulate Americans to gain power in Washington. Since then, the world has been turned into Shakespeare's stage all right...with illusionists being the show!

Thus, I am not surprised to hear "psychological effects" being touted so highly. There is truth to what McCain is saying; just the perception of a shortage or windfall can effect markets. It can even make a citizen think happy days are here again. I'll pump gas today at this price, because tomorrow, or the next day, it will come down, I know it will because someone in power is doing something about it...if I can just hang on a little longer.

However, we should separate actual supply and demand, shortages etc., and those created by these "psychological effects". One can run their gas tank on fumes only for so long! The economy can run on fumes only for so long.

There is such a thing as market manipulation, not for the good of any citizen or country but for investors. Let the illusion/perception exist that something is being done, when it just could be to keep a price high. Rationalize it on the nature of capitalism, free market, free trade; we're not manipulating the market, we're just taking advantage of profits. What is happening now is like asking a child molester to babysit your child.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


It may or may not. It certainly appears that he did not further explain his statement on the 'psychological impact' of it, but its difficult to be entirely sure. The video ends immediately after that statement, though it certainly could be the end of his response. If he didn't explain it, then he obviously needs to clarify it now for some people.

[edit on 25-6-2008 by vor78]

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Thanks for your reply to vor78, I found it rather amusing! Check out the context of the 'psychological' comment! (emphasis added).

I don't, except to tell you that I'd love to provide you with a little relief, just a little relief for a couple of months in the summer. This was the much derided gas tax holiday.

Oh my goodness, this was the end of western civilization as we know it. My friends, those tax dollars are going to a bridge to nowhere in Alaska and 9,000 pork barrel projects, and I think we could give you a little relief from the 18.5 cents a gallon that you're paying for every gallon of gas every time you fill up your gas tank.

But I would also like to make sure that we don't raise your taxes. [unintelligible]

I also want to make sure that we will take concrete steps towards eliminating our dependence on foreign oil.

And I am confident that uh, the, the conflicts that we are in in both Iraq and Afghanistan have also a bearing on that.

So I don't see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist -- and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts -- is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial.

So funny, this guy is just worthless, apparently anyway you cut it. Why do I say this? Because right before he makes the proposition that our woes are 'psychological' he talks a bunch of # about giving us a 'summer tax break 'of 18.5 cents on each gallon of gas.

How the hell does he plan on doing that? I will tell you, he does not plan on doing anything except saying what ever he thinks is going to get him elected.

Actually this must be another example of McCain trying to ease our 'psychological' suffering by telling us he is going to give us a little break on taxes. What a guy.


[edit on 25-6-2008 by Animal]

Oh joy. I can't wait to try and run a car on psychological benefits.

I bet they'll figure out a way to bill us for it too.

So the McCain campaign clarifies the "psychological impact" comment by saying offshore drilling could drive down oil futures. Isn't that an admission that SPECULATION is driving prices up, not SUPPLY?

If so, can't we focus on regulation of the market to prevent speculation instead of pretending we are increasing supply in the short-term? McCain digs himself so deep into a hole I'm sure he'll find oil soon.