"Falling oil prices are also leading private-sector oil companies to cut back on investment in new production. Goldman Sachs (GS, news, msgs) calculates that $50 a barrel is the oil industry's cash cost. Below that level, oil companies with above-average production costs will seriously consider shutting wells, because pumping oil is a money-losing proposition."

Wrt/ "McCain argued, correctly I think, that our energy strategy has to include more offshore oil and gas drilling and more nuclear power plants."

The first part of this statement is simply incorrect. And this is something that no oil-man/woman will be willing to discuss and talk about....but there is a fixed cost to get oil out of the ground. Period.

The problem has been that the fixed cost to get oil out of the ground in Saudi, Venezuala, Iraq, Iran and other extremely low-wage, easy access (sand / light sediment geo formations) and technology end-user nations requires far less in resources. Just go look up the cost to get a barrel for the Saudis. Add in shipping cost and even account for high-sulfur (low-yield crude) and what you will find is that it will always be cheap for these guys to beat us at getting out of off-shore platforms, Colorado or Canadian tar sands. At the current price of $69 a barrel, it will become unprofitable very soon to keep mining tar sands. Let alone going out into the continental shelf to drill through deep water, hard sediment, a layer of salt, etc...but I think you get the point.

Drill, baby, drill....is just silly because it must be put in a larger context. Further, it must be considered what the price of the product will be 10 years later when the first production comes online. I'm in oil/gas so I know what I'm talking about here.

Sorry, but I just can't let people go on thinking that getting oil out of the ground is as simple as digging a water well in your back yard. 1000x more complex, expensive and risky even under the best of circumstances.

Can't you make the opposite case with equal validity? I understand that there is persuasive empirical evidence that the economy and the stock market perform measurably better in Democratic administrations despite the tendency of Democrats to push higher taxes on high earners.

I really didn't you had this level of wankery in you.

You know damn well that all you've done is define fundamentals in a certain way -- that very few would agree is the definition -- and then say "hey, McCain and Palin were right."

It's just plain stupid. I have lost all respect for you.

Go rot in hell with Fred Hiatt and Ruth Marcus.

"Glenn Beck: Economy could get worse"

It's possible the GBCI is showing a false signal but..

On health care, Obama's plan actually does fit together, but its a bad and unworkable, and his "cost reductions" aren't going to come close to reducing premiums by 25%. Of the two plans, McCain's has more potential to work -- if McCain would be willing to say that his tax credit could only be made available to insurance companies that met certain criteria -- but because McCain actually thinks that the "free market" is the answer to health care, his plan is as bad as Obama's.

On budget issues, I think McCain did far better than Obama -- a "spending freeze" is not a bad basis for a first year Presidential budget when that budget is out-of-control. And McCain is credible on the question of reducing costs at the DoD (and scored by pointing out that we have the most expensive education system in the world, and that throwing more money at it won't solve the problems)

On taxes, its a;most a wash -- Obama's middle class tax cut is as unrealistic as McCain's fat cat tax cuts are just plain stupid. Obama wins on taxes because McCain consistently fails to explain why the rich need lower taxes.