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!
A President or a Movement….
April 15, 2008
Take a look at this great blog posted by Mark Karlin, the editor and publisher of BuzzFlash.com:
Some excerpts…
…Ronald Reagan made many working class and rural voters proud to be Americans again, but meanwhile, behind the scenes, corporate lobbyists and Reagan’s aides (who were really running the show) went about dismantling factories in places like central Pennsylvania and moving them overseas, sometimes — literally — in the dark of night.
It was the Republican version of “Let them eat cake.” Only, in this case, it was: “Let them eat God, Guns, and Patriotism.”
….I was always surprised by how little connection Reagan appeared as an adult to have with home state. During his presidency, he rarely returned here, and his persona was tied to the myth of the cowboy, the triumphant rugged conqueror of the West. Illinois was just part of his early biography. He seemed to have no strong emotional attachment to the very Midwest roots that he so championed. It just didn’t fit in with the mythic figure that came out of his films, Western ranch (which was the inspiration for Rove getting Bush to buy his Crawford spread and do a Reagan “cut the brush” imitation), and heroic GI movie roles during WW II (which he never actually fought in.)
I’ll take it one step further, that in addition to Reagan being a mythical cowboy fraud, the man was a criminal that should have spent time behind bars. When you subvert the Constitution to do an end around Congress as the President of the United States, you should spend a long time behind bars. That’s exactly what Reagan did and this country has only exalted him for it instead of punishing him.
We can have our differences over which political candidate’s policies offer the best hope for America but I think that it is becoming clear that Barack Obama, from the perspective of the Left, offers a vision of what it would mean for this country to move that way.
Reagan went from a “B” movie career to an “A” career as a political salesman for corporate wealth and control of the government. In the turbulent social climate of the ’60s, his wealthy backers (who regarded him as a prize race horse for a right-wing coup for the super rich and corporate welfare) watched as Reagan won the governorship and masterfully was guided in the use of wedge issues such as “Guns and God” to lure the emerging displaced middle class into voting Republican….
In contrast, what’s remarkable about Obama’s methods is that he doesn’t make it ideological, his rhetoric is notably practical, much like Reagan’s, except without all the messy manipulation. You know, the truth he’s now dishing that’s getting him into trouble?!? Many voters want to go one believing that there must be some other reason for the way they feel (I don’t know, “bitter” perhaps?) And while Reagan had his Soviet and liberal scapegoats and welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and Clinton has her “plans,” Obama seems to be the 1st candidate to come around in a long time that is capable of moving this country in the reverse direction to the Right shift of the “Reagan Revolution.”
Obama shouldn’t be so concerned that his political honesty and albeit at times, clumsy rhetoric, is alienating voters, he should be wary of the free-marketeers and conservatives who have been getting a free ride on the backs of the taxpayers through massive corporate welfare programs - the true “Reagan Revolution.” If they come to understand just how dangerous a figure he could become to their way of exploitation, he may just become a liability to them and warrant “liquidation” (surely just a business term).
Obama’s presidency could be a foundational event, a long awaited wholesale movement of voters to the Left in this country. This eventually could mean that families finally get social and financial relief and actualize the promise of equality of opportunity that far too long America has pretended that it provides.
If the cold front of a Clinton candidacy doesn’t stop Obama first, his election could portend the beginning of a perfect storm capable of washing away much of the present political atmosphere of conservative harshness that has existed for so long and it could usher in a left-leaning twilight era of American politics.
On the other hand there always John McCain.
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