Oil Company (Profit) Equation: High Gas Prices + Campaign Contributions = Control
August 6, 2008
If offshore drilling is truly seen as viable band-aid to lowering gas prices, following the same logic why shouldn’t we just colonize the moon to deal with the foreclosure crisis?
I find it utterly amazing at just how far and wide fascist propaganda travels when it has enough money and ignorance behind it. Analyst agree, offshore drilling would have no effect in the short-term and hardly any effect in the long-term on gas prices.
“It would take at least a decade for oil companies to obtain permits, procure equipment, and do the exploration necessary to get the oil out of the ground, most industry analysts say.”
New offshore drilling not a quick fix, analysts say
Has this problem arisen for merely political reasons? No you say, there is actually an underlying, fundamental problem here? Hmmm? Then don’t you think we should address that fundamental problem and ask why the oil companies and the Republican Party are pushing offshore drilling so hard? After all the oil companies are already sitting atop millions of acres of land and offshore drilling permits, yet they aren’t presently drilling. Well, why not?
I think the better question is, why would they want to?
If this was merely a case of free market fundamentals than why would the oil companies want to add more oil supplies to the market when the price for their product is peaking? Am I missing something?
IS THERE A SHORTAGE OF OIL?
Are they not able to keep up with demand?
There are no gas lines or shortages of oil-based products at our stores. For the American consumer the price is the problem and not the availability of oil and oil-based products. That’s what makes this a political problem.
But from an economic standpoint the consumers are continuing to pay the price. Sure, there has been a slight decrease in demand but that only works to stabilize the price and ensure that more people continue paying that high price. Then if we put ourselves in the shoes of oil executives whose sole job it is to increase profits for their company, and we follow fundamental principals of supply and demand, why would want to increase supply? After all the price for oil is stabilizing and we’re not having a problem meeting demand.
The economic reality is that the oil companies are making record profits - and why wouldn’t they? They have a monopoly on a finite resource that is in high and growing demand by every society on earth!
Why would they want to add additional supply to the mix if that was in fact possible by drilling offshore? Why would they want to lower their prices and thereby decrease their own profit? It doesn’t make economic sense. No company would want to do that, especially when they know that there’s no place else for our country to go to satisfy its demand for energy.
Doesn’t it make sense that the oil companies want additional permits to drill offshore because they want control over these resources and the profits that they will yield in the future? For-profit companies don’t want there to be a decline in prices for the main product they sell. They want a monopoly and they want to control the price. That’s econ 101.
Wake up and smell the hydrocarbons. We’re locked in to these guys and they know it. Unless we start doing things radically different its only going to get worse. Offshore drilling is not the answer. And drilling 10 years ago would have had a negligible effect on prices today.
Creating a solution to decentralize energy in the form of alternatives that work most effectively in the geography where they are needed would have had a tremendous effect on prices if that policy had been adopted just 10 years ago.
Take it a step further and if we would have listened to Jimmy Carter 31 years ago (”Carter Tried To Stop Bush’s Energy Disasters - 28 Years Ago“) we wouldn’t be in this predicament today.
“With the exception of preventing war,” said Jimmy Carter… “this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes.
…It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.
…We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.
…We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.
…The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation.
… He called the new energy policy he was proposing, [T]he ‘moral equivalent of war’ — except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.”
You may have heard similar sentiments coming out of the mouths of conservative oilmen like T. Boone Pickens. Isn’t it funny how conservatives suddenly become progressives when they finally see a profit motivation? Who knows, hopefully one of these guys will finally see the light ($$$) in global warming to start doing something about that too!
Agroterrorism and the Food Industry
March 18, 2007
According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/agchron.htm) the number of actual biological attacks and their corresponding effects has materially been very small and ineffective. On the other hand the World Health Organization (WHO) (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs237/en/) estimates that in the U.S. alone an astounding 76 million cases of food borne diseases occur each year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. WHO also reports that food borne diseases have been known to affect hundreds of thousands of people in a single outbreak. For instance, in 1994 an outbreak of ice cream contaminated with salmonella affected an estimated 224,000 people. And while the U.S. dairy and cattle farmers earn upwards of $50 billion a year, WHO reports that the medical costs and lost productivity associated with food borne illnesses due to just the major pathogens are estimated at $35 billion annually (1997).
The numbers of potential persons affected by a deliberate biological attack may or may not result in any more casualties than past contaminations. Additional problems arising from a biological attack on the food industry would be psychological and would result in nearly catastrophic domestic economic repercussions for an industry which comprises 9.7% of the GDP. Additionally, the economic effects would have detrimental international ramifications.
According to a Congressional Research Service report entitled “Agroterrorism: Options in Congress,” (http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RL31217_12192001.pdf) it is a “widely accepted view among scientists that livestock herds are much more susceptible to agroterrorism than crop plants.” (CRS-4) The reason for this is that plant pathogens are technically difficult to manipulate and even skilled plant pathologists have difficulty in creating diseases in optimal conditions. Plant infections are also relatively easy to contain. Conversely, livestock pathogens are relatively easy to obtain and disperse. Once a contamination occurs it is difficult to pinpoint the origins and track and contain the outbreak especially within the disorganized, decentralized and wholly unregulated industry.
Unfortunately, closing the gaping industry wide security holes isn’t going to be easy. There are a whole host of problems that the domestic and international food industry must overcome before they can begin to address the problems posed by a potential terrorist attack. First of all, the industry must address the very real problems posed by the non-deliberate outbreaks. In order for there to be continued long term confidence in the food industry, national standards for preparation, production, tracking, sanitation and security must be enacted and enforced by the federal government. Additionally, governmental, academic and industry groups including the CDC, USDA, AVMA, NCBA, WHO, etc. should collaborate and centralize its methods of security breach, outbreak and threat tracking communications. A system should be created that rewards industry for early acknowledgement of outbreaks so that they can be more readily isolated and identified.
Given these recommendations it may seem that the problems are insurmountable but they must be overcome for the economic and physical security of the U.S. and the safety and health of its citizens. In fact, more resources have been spared on policies that have yielded less of a return on investment than required to implement these recommendations. The present unwarranted circumstances and the future potential threats are just too great to ignore.
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