Senate Democrats push to end tax breaks for big oil companies to cut deficit

From WaPo:

Senate Democrats unveiled a plan Tuesday to save $21 billion over the next decade by eliminating tax breaks for the nation’s five biggest oil companies, a move designed to counter Republican demands to control the soaring national debt without new taxes.

That's it? This is the big plan? $2.1 billion a year works out to about .oooo nothing % of the deficit or the budget and the only real effect this will have is to raise energy prices and encourage more oil imports.

Look, the Democrats have no interest in reducing the deficit if it means reducing the power and money they steal from private citizens. They have no interest in reducing gas prices since that reduces mobility and makes you easier to control. They have no interest in reducing the inflation they have caused or increasing private sector employment since a robust private sector and a financially independent populace is direct threat to these two bit tyrants and their desire to rule.

Drilling Bans Cost Trillions

Do the Hands Across The Sand knuckleheads know this or even care? Probably neither. Math is hard, but it will be illustrated perfectly when no one can afford to come to Florida's beaches. We're the only country in the world that deliberately leaves energy resources in the ground and off limits. Countries from Canada to Saudi Arabia are more than happy to enable our stupidity by selling us theirs:

"From trying to stimulate jobs in nonexistent ZIP codes at great expense to worshiping the false gods of climate change, our biggest deficit these days may be in the area of common sense. A new study shows that many of our wounds are self-inflicted as we forgo the wealth and jobs to be found in our waters and under our feet.

The study by Science Applications International Corp. at the request of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Gas Technology Institute and others shows the U.S. economy will suffer $2.3 trillion in lost opportunity costs over the next two decades, monies that would go a long way to reining in runaway deficits and creating economic growth.

Critics will say this is another self-serving study paid for by oil industry groups, but unlike the climate change fantasies concocted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Britain's Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the study's data can survive fact-checking and the conclusions are rooted in reality.

Drilling restrictions in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in offshore areas such as the Chukchi Sea and Outer Continental Shelf, the report says, are denying us access to at least nine years' worth of total U.S. oil and gas consumption...

...These are not climate fantasies derived by running faulty assumptions and bad data through inaccurate computer models. This is simple math, common sense and Economics 101. Energy is expensive. We're leaving vast amounts in the ground while importing it from others. In a word: duh."

Drilling Protesters Gather at The Beach

SIESTA KEY - More than 250 people joined hands on the famous powdery sands of Siesta Public Beach on Saturday to show opposition to oil drilling as close as three to 10 miles offshore...The Siesta Key protest was one of around 60 across the state...Sarasota Mayor Dick Clapp joined the protests, saying that the local economy depends on the beaches to draw tourists.

Moss organized the local protest after hearing about "Hands Across the Sand" on local public radio.

Hands Across the Sand includes many local governments and various Chambers of Commerce. Obviously they have an interest in this but do they know or care who they are climbing into bed with?

Their website features prominent links to radical groups like Progress Florida and The Florida Green Party, which is part of the Green Party of The United States. Their mission goes well beyond protecting the environment as they are essentially Socialist groups that use environmental causes to destroy private property rights and the free market system.

There is a compromise here that could allow drilling up to say, fifty miles from shore, well over the horizon but much closer than the ridiculous distance of 225 miles now in effect. On top of the obvious economic benefits for Florida and the country, oil rigs will also provide much needed artificial reefs that will expand the fish population in the desert that is Florida's Gulf Coast.

But local governments and business groups will never find common ground as long as they associate themselves with Anti-American radicals that view them as a temporary ally.

Cuba To Continue Gulf Drilling

HAVANA—Cuban officials say that exploratory drilling to assess the potential for oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico is likely to resume in the second quarter of this year, a sign that lower world oil prices have not derailed efforts by the Cuban government and its foreign corporate partners to keep moving toward offshore oil production...Cuba believes it has major oil reserves in its waters. But the prospect of exploratory drilling—followed by likely future commercial drilling—in the Florida Straits has fired controversy in the United States, with the expectation that someday, foreign oil firms could be drilling as close as about 50 miles from parts of Florida."

No word on when U.S. Environmentalists will be travelling to Havana for protest activities. I haven't seen any opposition to drilling anywhere in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, Russia or any country other than the U.S.

That's because the environmental movement is not about the environment. It's about damaging and cutting the world's largest economy down to size. We're standing in the way of world socialism/corporatism and need to be hamstrung in order to achieve that goal.

Cuba Claims Huge Gulf Oil Reserves

BBC-The state-owned Cuban oil company says the country may have more than 20bn barrels of oil in its offshore fields - more than double the previous estimate.
Cubapetroleo's exploration manager said drilling in the offshore wells would
begin as early as the middle of 2009. Such reserves would place Cuba among
the top 20 oil producing nations. MORE

No word yet on whether US enviro-nuts will be running to Havana and filing lawsuits to stop the drilling. Don't worry. Nancy Pelosi is going to save the planet by preventing drilling on our side of the Gulf.

Palin's Alaska is OPEC?

Is Michael Kinsley a liar or just an idiot. That's the question I asked myself after reading this Gem:


Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.
Alaska is, in essence, an adjunct member of OPEC.

Alaska has a population of just under 700,000 but is by far the largest geographically, which means it's infrastructure is stretched tremendously. This is what's known as Economy of Scale, which is something Kinsley either doesn't understand or dishonestly ignores. In this context it means that every state will have certain fixed costs that can be measured across the population. Since Alaska's population is so small relative to its size, taxes and spending and taxes per capita will always be very high.

Alaska is an adjunct member of OPEC? WTF is this clown talking about? Again, Alaska has to tax that oil because it doesn't have enough residents to support the infrastructure required to get that oil to the lower 48 states. And to compare one of our states to Saudi Arabia or Venezuela is not only slanderous, it's just plain stupid.

Even more stupid is Kinsley's suggestion that dependence on Alaskan oil would no more preferable than dependence on OPEC.

Big Jewelry Posts Record Profits

NEW YORK (AP) - Jewelry retailer Tiffany says second-quarter profit doubled, beating Wall Street expectations as sales rose by double-digit percentages in Asia and Europe.

The New York-based Tiffany & Co. said Thursday it earned $80.8 million, or 63 cents per share, in the three-month period ended July 31. That compares with $40.5 million, or 29 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $732.4 million from $662.6 million in the year-ago period.

That's outrageous! While American families are struggling, companies like Tiffany are gouging consumers by taking advantage of record high gold prices. Congress should convene hearings to look into curbing speculation and find evidence of market manipulation.

No word yet from Democrats calling for a windfall profits tax on jewelry. That's not expected though, since the left has decreed that the laws of Supply & Demand only apply to things people don't need. But still, haven't we been told that "excess" profits are better off in the hands of government than the people who earned them?

I know congressional demagogues don't know the difference between profit and profit margin, but Tiffany's 11% return is much higher than Big Oil's average of 8.3%, which should be reason enough for Democrats to seize their property.

Mere Threat of Drilling will bring down Oil Prices

Don M. Chance at IBD has an excellent response to those who ignorantly tell us that attempts to increase supply will have no effect on prices. It's simple enough that even guys like Paul Krugman can understand it:

"Certainly increased drilling will not bring an immediate increase in the
supply of oil. But many people, even so-called experts, believe that the effect
on the pump price would not be felt until the oil is actually at the pump,
possibly years later.

In fact, the price will fall well before the first hole is drilled.
Even the possibility of increased drilling will bring down the price of oil. It
already has.

Almost everyone knows that supply and demand determine price in a
market. But that knowledge seldom goes beyond understanding how supply and
demand themselves are determined.

The belief that the current quantities demanded and supplied are the
sole determinants of price misses an important point. Both current and expected
future demand and supply interact to determine the quantity demanded and
supplied in the current marketplace.

That is true because oil, and indeed almost everything else, is
storable."

Vladimir Bonaparte

From the Wall Street Journal:

The farther Russia's tanks roll into Georgia, the more the world is
beginning to see the reality of Vladimir Putin's Napoleonic ambitions. Having
consolidated his authoritarian transition as Prime Minister with a figurehead
President, Mr. Putin is now pushing to reassert Russian dominance in Eurasia.
Ukraine is in his sights, and even the Baltic states could be threatened if he's
allowed to get away with it. The West needs to draw a line at Georgia.

No matter who fired the first shot last week in the breakaway Georgian
region of South Ossetia, Moscow is using the separatist issue as an
excuse to demolish Georgia's military and, if possible, depose its
democratically elected government.

Putin obviously doesn't view himself as a citizen of the world as Obama does unless he's in charge of it. This is a reminder that the world is a dangerous place and that some tribes will never let other tribes live in peace.

If Russia is allowed to consolidate power in Georgia, it can intimidate other former Soviet countries into abandoning the West without firing a shot. Don't count on the wimps in the EU, who will rationalize it all, while blaming the U.S. from under their beds. They get about 25% of their oil from Russia anyway, which should be an object lesson on why we should develop our own resources.

Putin has also made strategic military agreements with the Islamo-Fascists in Iran that are normally natural enemies of Russia, which puts them in a de-facto war with the U.S. and Israel already with Iran as their proxy. The "enemy of my enemy is my friend" is apt here although that relationship will go south in a messy way at some point. They also have weapons and cooperation agreements with Venezuela and Ecuador on this side of the pond.

At least Russia has reduced its political prisoner population; opting instead to just assassinate the opposition all over the world.

In short, it's naive to think that Putin is up to anything other than a brute expansion of Russia's influence. The American radical left which includes Obama's circle of friends, is no doubt encouraged by this indirect challenge to the west. A weaker America is justified by the moral equivalence they see between us and every evil in the world, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

No-Nothing Krugman

One of the reasons The New York Times is going broke is that they pay fools like Paul Krugman huge sums of money to write the kind of drivel left wing moonbats post for free. His brilliant thesis today is...are you ready? Republicans are stupid! Next week he will probably call them pooh-pooh heads.

His evidence is unintentionally ironic and hilarious:

So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting: “Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad!” O.K., I added that last part...

"What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

Instant gratification? Isn't it Democrats who are telling us that drilling won't solve anything because it won't be available for years and won't do anything to lower prices today? Obviously, Krugman doesn't believe that the proposed repeat of Jimmy Carter's windfall profits tax disaster isn't the brute force of government confiscating private property because Democrats have decreed arbitrarily that oil companies make "excess profits". I guess he missed the class where the difference between profit and profit margin was explained.

Apparently, Krugman also thinks that scapegoating oil speculators for reflecting current events in bidding on future prices is also not "brute force" and is well thought through. I know the Democrat Party doesn't know or care how commodities markets work, but for someone who calls himself an economist to ignore that piece of Democrat stupidity is...well, stupid. I guess the opinion of just about every knowledgeable person up to Ben Bernanke that speculators have little or nothing to do with current prices is something Krugman thought through for about a second and then asked "What was the question?"

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.

The Republicans may be right, but Krugman dismisses them with an ignorant sneer. All speculation and investing is based on predicting future events based on current ones. Hence the name "futures market". What cereal box did this clown get his ECON degree from anyway?

Krugman then moves lazily along with the same shopworn nonsense about Iraq that ignores Saddam's support of every terrorist that came knocking, numerous treaty violations, the oil for food scandal, pre-war transports to Syria and most recently, the fact that we just removed 500 tons of yellow cake Uranium from that country. Joe Wilson call your office.

It's not surprising that The NYT would employ such a left wing ideologue as a well paid regular columnist. Although they could hire any number of Marxist hacks from the Huffington Post for half the price.

A Letter To My Congressman

The following was emailed to my congressman, CW Bill Young, serving Florida's 10th District in Pinellas County, Fl. Senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez were CC'd.

Dear Congressman Young: If you are already on the house floor this week, please disregard this mail. If not, then I urge you to go there immediately. I am expecting your support of increased drilling for oil and natural gas throughout the United States, wherever those resources may be found. That includes The Gulf Of Mexico up to 25 miles from our shore, which is well over the horizon. As a resident of your district who lives on the Intracoastal Waterway and a stone's throw from the Gulf, I obviously have a direct interest in this matter. However, I can find no rational basis for opposition to exploration and drilling in our waters and remaining the only country that places its oil and gas resources completely off limits.

The hundreds of rigs already in the Gulf have proved to pose almost no environmental threat, despite being battered by numerous storms. Indeed, far more oil and other pollutants enter the Gulf every day due to mere runoff from everyday activities on shore. Our tourism industry would not be harmed but helped, in that people could actually afford the fuel to get here. Additionally, oil exploration in our waters would not only provide greatly increased economic activity at the Port of Tampa, it would bolster our commercial and recreational fishing stocks as these rigs invariably become huge havens for marine life.

We must couple this with exploration and drilling throughout the Outer Continental Shelf and ANWR, additional nuclear power, coal to liquid, shale oil and any other technology that will increase domestic energy supplies.

This is not only an economic issue but one of national security. It is inherently dangerous to depend on oil supplies from governments that at best don't like us very much and in many cases are outright hostile toward the U.S. I'm old enough to remember what happened to this country during the Arab oil embargo of the 1970's. No matter how much we conserve at home, countries like China and India will continue to increase their energy usage at a rapid pace. That's over 30 per cent of the world's population. World demand for oil will go up drastically, no matter what we do or wish would happen. It will also go up here if we still want to grow our economy. Alternative sources such as solar and wind are at least decades away from becoming an efficient substitute for current technologies and as of now are nothing more than a pipe dream and a distraction.

Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat Party have obviously been co-opted by Eco-Marxists whose goals have far more to do with damaging our free market economy than protecting the environment. Democrats are unwilling to do anything that will help the little people they purport to care about and are just insulting our intelligence with silly platitudes and scapegoats.

Pelosi is vulnerable in that her refusal to allow a vote on this issue reveals an admission on her part that she will lose when many Democrats defy her will for their own political survival. As you are well aware, this is winning political issue for your party.

As a congressman whose district is literally on the front lines of this issue, your vocal and unqualified support will prove invaluable in moving this issue forward. I am confident that you have the courage to do what is right for Florida and the Country.

Very Truly Yours,
Cliff Waldron http://www.radclown.com/

American Oil Hypocrites

From The American:

"If you think that the issue of offshore drilling is only a matter of
interest to American environmental groups and the U.S. Congress, think again. At last month’s World Petroleum Congress in Madrid, the blatant
hypocrisy of U.S. energy policy—demanding that OPEC members expand their oil
drilling efforts while restricting offshore drilling here at home—was a
prominent topic of discussion. Indeed, the U.S. ban on drilling in the
Outer Continental Shelf was mentioned by three of the most powerful people in
the global energy business: the head of OPEC; the chief executive of Brazil’s
national oil company, Petrobras; and the Saudi oil minister. All of them said
the United States should start drilling in its offshore areas.

During a press conference in Madrid, Chakib Khelil, the Algerian
oil minister and president of OPEC, was asked what the United States could do to
lower oil prices. He mentioned three things: stabilize the value of the dollar,
increase energy efficiency, and “open up your exploration. In Algeria, we have a
bidding round going on. We are open. The U.S. also needs to open…offshore
Florida, offshore Alaska, need to be opened to exploration.”

The environmental movement's lack of interest in these other countries is rooted in both cowardice and the common ground they find with the the heavy handed governments in OPEC. The Eco-Marxist's focus on the U.S. is has less to do with the environment than it does with crippling the American economy.

H/T to Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

The Wisdom of Dear Leader Pelosi

Politiburo chief Nancy Pelosi lies and insults our intelligence with this vapid post:

"The president has failed in his economic policy, and now he wants to say,
'but for drilling in protected areas offshore, our economy would be thriving and
the price of gas would be lower.' That hoax is unworthy of the serious debate we
must have to relieve the pain of consumers at the pump and to promote energy
independence.

Today, the New Direction Congress will vote on legislation to bring down
gas prices by taking crucial steps to curb excessive speculation in the energy
futures market. The president himself could lower prices by drawing down a small
portion of our government oil stockpile, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The
New Direction Congress will continue to bring forth responsible proposals to
increase supply, reduce prices, protect consumers, and transition America to a
clean, renewable energy independent future."

Instead, she blocked a vote on drilling and then shut the joint down. As reported here before, blaming speculators for current gas prices is like blaming the dead canary for the gas in the coal mine. But this sounds good to her willfully ignorant base because if someone is making more money than them doing something they don't understand, then it must be evil.

This is the same type of warped warped logic that says the law of Supply and Demand is "a hoax" while believing that the theory of Global Warming is fact.

Pelosi also tells us that the idea of increasing our domestic oil supply by billions of barrels is unworthy of serious debate (sound familiar?), but then proposes to lower prices by releasing some of the 35 days worth of oil supply in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That will lower prices by at least a penny for five minutes.

She and Obama must have gone to the Salvador Dali School of Economics.

Tax Oil to Pay For Oil

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.
-- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Friday pushed for a windfall profits tax to
fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy
costs...

Can you feel the stupidity? It's a thrill running up my leg!

Wow! Can I really take money from a seller and give it to the buyer in order to pay the seller? "Won't the seller raise the price?" says the buyer? "Oh no", says Saint Obama. "For I have repealed the laws of supply and demand and have abrogated the human condition!"

Congress Moves to Do Nothing on Oil

First it was the Oil company profits, then it was OPEC. Speculators are the latest scapegoat offered to the ignorant masses in order to cover up congress' incompetence and cowardice.

On Tuesday, Sen. Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota, called that "excessive, relentless speculation."
In 2000, 37 percent of the people in the oil futures market were speculators, Dorgan said. Now, speculators make up 71 percent of the market.
"They've broken the market," Dorgan said.

The fact that more investors are participating in the market has nothing to do with the current price spike. If anything, it reflects increasing investor recognition of underlying supply and demand issues economic idiots like Dorgan continue to ignore. Futures speculators can make just as much money betting the market will go down as up. Additionally, the purchase of a contract requires a seller. That seller is obviously standing pat on the current price. Further, the fact that most of the new money in oil futures is coming from pension funds and other large investment pools is obviously lost on congressional demagogues.

Harry Reid complains about Republicans coming to their senses:

"Forty-seven different Republican senators have spoken at one time or another on the need to do something about speculation," Reid said. "That was before they heard from the oil companies, and I guess some people on Wall Street.
"Now, suddenly, they don't think speculation's a big deal."


The Horror! You mean Republicans listened to the people who actually do this for a living? How dare they? Don't they understand that facts get in the way of Democrats no growth Euro-Socialist agenda?

One of things Republicans heard was this:

"Yes, speculation is a big deal, said Sen. John Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, but he warned that curbing speculation in the United States could mean that foreign markets will take over."

That's right. Democrats either don't understand or don't care that oil is traded on futures markets throughout the world and that hamstringing American trading will just chase capital to friendlier places.

Then we have the venal T. Boone Pickens mucking up the conversation with his dishonest promotion of wind power that is really designed to protect and expand the publicly funded subsidies and tax breaks for his huge investment in that technology.

Another Senate panel heard Tuesday from Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens. He warned lawmakers that the smart response to the oil price shock is not to drill more, but to expand solar and wind power.

And when congress listens to a real expert and economist like Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, they just stick their fingers in their ears and shout "la la la":

Bernanke: Another concern that has been raised is that financial speculation has added markedly to upward pressures on oil prices. Certainly, investor interest in oil and other commodities has increased substantially of late. However, if financial speculation were pushing oil prices above the levels consistent with the fundamentals of supply and demand, we would expect inventories of crude oil and petroleum products to increase as supply rose and demand fell. But in fact, available data on oil inventories show notable declines over the past year.

Then a Democrat asks for advice he can ignore:

Question from Senator Tom Carper (D-DE): "The third factor that we keep coming back to is the role that speculation is playing. We've touched on this at least indirectly here today. Just give us some advice. I think we're going to debate -- seriously debate, probably before the beginning of next month, legislation dealing with speculation to try to curb the excesses that may be occurring there. If you could give us some advice, it would be timely and much appreciated."

Bernanke:

Well, I think, as I said, based on the evidence that's available, I would not estimate that speculation or particularly manipulation is a significant part of the rise in oil prices. That said, the CFTC and others are looking at the data and trying to evaluate that. These are very difficult matters. We don't want to do anything that will stop the futures markets from having their legitimate functions, serving their legitimate functions of providing liquidity and hedging.
So, you know, my advice would be to go slow and carefully and to take the insights that you get from the CFTC and others who are directly -- associated directly overseeing these activities. I would -- despite the concerns -- and I fully understand the concerns about high gas prices -- I don't think it's likely that you can have a big effect on gas prices with short-term moves in the futures markets. And I would urge careful and deliberate action in this area.

Mel Martinez, the feckless and pusillanimous GOP Senator from my state obviously doesn't like what he's hearing. So he'll rephrase the question, hoping for a different answer:

And a question from Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL): "I wonder if you might dwell just for a moment on the speculation side as to why you don't see that as a fundamental part of the problem, but then also what we could do to be more helpful in the area of transparency and oversight."

Bernanke:
Well, there would be -- there are a number of pieces of evidence against the view that speculation is a primary force. I mention in my testimony the absence of hoarding or inventories that you would expect to see if speculation was driving prices above the supply/demand equilibrium. There are a number of studies which show that there is little or no connection between the open interest taken by noncommercial traders in futures markets and the movement -- subsequent movements in prices. It's also interesting to note that there are many commodities, or at least some commodities, that are not even traded on futures markets, like iron ore, for example, which have had very large increases in prices. So I think the evidence is terribly weak.

In short, we have a corrupt, incompetent and craven congress holding the future of our economy and national security in their hands, doing everything in their power to stand in the way of the people's economic and political needs and desires. They can try to place blame wherever they want, but they and the thinking American public know exactly where it belongs.

Hypocrites and Idiots

Great video of the scene surrounding one of Al Gore's Snake Oil pitches. There's seems to be a lot of people who talk a great game and not much else. Al obviously believes some are more equal than others.

Another Oil Company Show Trial

It's becoming clear that Democrats are hellbent on destroying the US economy with their latest round of demagoguery, as they once again call oil execs on the carpet while doing absolutely nothing but stand in the way of increased domestic production. This is all to divert blame from themselves and appease their kook base with anti-free enterprise rhetoric

"Where is the corporate conscience?" Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the top executives of the five largest U.S. oil companies.

How does this jerk walk around with those big brass ones clanging around? Where is his conscience in refusing to allow more drilling and exploration within our own borders while mandating that we burn 25% of our corn. By now Durbin and his cronies must know the difference between profit and profit margin, but they pretend they don't. It's more important to score points with the economic morons back home than think about the country's security and future. What's going on here is nothing less than criminal malfeasance.

Speaking of crimes, National Review makes the point that congress is violating the very law it passed last week whereby they are trying to criminalize OPEC. That law, which I'm sure has been the source of much amusement in Ryadh, says in part:

"It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act . . . to limit the production or
distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product . . . or to
otherwise take any action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas, or any
petroleum product when such action, combination, or collective action has a
direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply,
price, or distribution of oil, natural gas, or other petroleum product in the
United States."

That's exactly what congress is doing right now.

The Truth About Oil

Is the world running out of oil? Well of course! Everyone knows that! If by everyone you mean the sheep that lap up every bullcrap sandwich fed to them, then that's true. If you want actual facts then here they are.

A Windfall of Idiocy

Hillary Clinton has is the latest entrant in the stupid economics tricks contest with her own version of a windfall profit tax on oil companies. Caution: If you don't know the difference between profit and profit margin, stop reading and go educate yourself. You'll be doing a great service to the country.

Hillary correctly counts on the fact that most people don't remember how this same policy not only didn't work in the 1980's, but reduced domestic production and increased dependence on foreign oil.

But she doesn't stop there in her demagoguery disguised as policy. She also wants to crack down on mythical price gouging and further regulate commodities markets with Soviet style command and control economics that have such a long record of failure that only fanatical collectivists and democrats fail to recognize it.

Remember folks: Every tax and regulation imposed on anyone is ultimately paid by individuals one way or another in the form of higher prices, shortages or any number of other costs. In short it means less freedom and more government.

Of course, no Democrat proposes to increase our own production in ANWR, the outer continental shelf or the Gulf of Mexico, where the Cubans and Red Chinese are exploring right now. Build our first new refinery in 30 years? Forget it. How about cutting down on the dozens of special blends required for dubious environmental reasons that cause refineries to shut down and drive up prices every spring and fall? No way. Expand nuclear power? Don't make me laugh. More coal production and gassification? You must be kidding.

No, The left's only solution to supply is the government mandated use of inefficient alternative sources of energy. That subsidized and tariff protected ethanol thing is working out great isn't it? There's a reason why no other civilization in history has burned its food for fuel. Because it's a really dumb idea. When an alternative fuel can replace oil on a level playing field, I'll be the first to use it. When they are forced on people artificially, you get what we have now. Higher food prices, starvation, riots and yes, deaths.




Related Note: The Fed reduced interest rates again yesterday, which will raise the cost of oil imports further as our dollars buy even less on the world markets. If the dollar was worth what it was five years ago, oil would be at least a third cheaper than it is now.

Congress Demagogues Capitalism Again

Last month it was CEO pay. Now we're back to demonizing profits as congressional leftists call oil company CEO's on the carpet again to appease their Marxist base and exploit the economic ignorance of the American public. Even more frightening, I think some of them actually believe the crap they spout.

I'm still trying to found out where in the constitution the government has the right to question how much money any private enterprise makes, much less dictate how they should spend their profits. Most oil company shares are owned either directly or indirectly by ordinary Americans. Democrats know this and it betrays their motive as just another attempt to undermine the free enterprise system.

Having said that, I'm all for eliminating subsidies to oil companies and everyone else, including farmers, third world kleptocracies et al.

BTW- I didn't notice anyone from Chavez' Citgo hauled in front of this kangaroo court.