"In March 2003, Donald Rumsfeld engaged in a little bit of amateur philosophising: "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." What he forgot to add was the crucial fourth term: the "unknown knowns", things we don't know that we know - which is precisely the Freudian unconscious. If Rumsfeld thought that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the "unknown unknowns", the threats from Saddam we did not even suspect, the Abu Ghraib scandal shows where the main dangers actually are in the "unknown knowns", the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values. To unearth these "unknown knowns" is the task of an intellectual."

-Slavoj Zizek
http://www.lacan.com/zizekempty.htm

We went to war for a number of reasons, most of which are irrelevant to this discussion. Oil, however, was almost certainly one of those reasons. But we didn't go to war to avoid the volatile price swings of oil markets, but to secure long-term access to a geostrategic resource. Oil is (second perhaps to water) the most important resource in the world. The middle east is one of the most important sources of oil in the world. To a certain extent it doesn't matter what the price of oil is because the global economy is almost entirely reliant on it. Until there is a satisfactory replacement, oil will be a preeminent issue in international security for some time to come.

I doubt the geologist is at fault. However, his defense rests on really shaky ground.

Worst metaphor ever.

Unless the interest rate is higher than the rate of inflation.

If prices are based solely on the marginal cost, then no revenue is being devoted to recouping fixed or operating costs. By definition, the investment will be a net loss. Part of the "reasonable markup for profit" will have to be spent on costs incurred by producing the original good and running the business.

Did you catch his UID?

"I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility... for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it. You want to sell it!"

-Ian Malcolm