Posted on 05/21/2008 6:09:13 PM PDT by Kaslin
Energy: It's now a cliche: fat-cat oilmen control our destiny by holding back supplies, letting prices soar, then pocketing the profits. But if any fat cats are to blame for the energy crisis, it's those on Capitol Hill.
We raise this issue because, once again, Congress has dragged oil company chiefs to Washington for Star Chamber hearings where the innocent are presumed guilty before they even take a seat.
Democrats like Sens. Patrick Leahy, Herb Kohl and Dick Durbin are very skilled at the blame game. On Wednesday, they called on oil bosses to account for high oil prices and ripped them for their profits and pay packages. Everything, in other words, but propose real solutions to our problems.
"Do market forces alone explain the skyrocketing price of oil and gas?" Kohl wondered. We'll take that one: No, senator, market forces alone don't explain it; congressional incompetence does.
Of the "solutions" Congress has pushed — including limits on CO2 output, windfall profit taxes, restrictions on drilling on public lands and, most recently and absurdly, suing OPEC — all lead to less oil and higher prices.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Yes congress is the culprit but if you think they will change don’t hole your breath.
That farm package Bush vetoed was insane and now they are going to override the veto. Republicans and Democrats support the bill. That leaves this country and the people in it up the creek. An illegal alien has a better chance of survival in this country than our kids and grandkids will have.
Not enough people call and they feel more pressure from the environmental lobby.
Never have so few denied so much to so many.
Never have so few denied so much to so many.
BP-Amoco in Whiting, IN was granted permits by Indiana Department of Environmental Management, (IDEM), to expand its refinery to accomodate Canadian crude. Because of its location on the shores of Lake Michigan, politicians from Indiana and Illinois took turns "investigating" the increased pollution.
Whatever that "pollution" may be, another tree-hugging group has filed yet more appeals.
The watermelons will not be satisfied until there is no more oil.
Someone raised a good point. When the Democrats told President Bush to tell the Saudis to raise output, they basically admitted that increasing the supply will lower the price. So, I am patiently waiting for the Democrats to tell President Bush to tell American oil companies to increase output and refining capacity since both would obviously lower the price.
On another matter, the Democrats are telling us that we want "change." So, if energy and food costs are spiraling upwards, and people vote for the politicians who will do nothing to alleviate the problem, then they obviously don't want change.
If you like $4/gal, Thank Congress.
Pray for W and Our Troops
We need to start acting like we care about America first. Especially conservatives, who by all other measures are the ones actually concerned with our nation’s security and future - yet who have for some reason mostly, bought into the “offshore it all, and sell all the jobs” free trade foolishness.
Nay, the “free trade” treachery.
So-called “free trade” is directly responsible for this mess, and will keep making it worse until our country is destroyed! De-industrialized, wiped out financially, then taken over by purchase, and eventually by force. Yes, that is where we are heading, by not looking out for our country first.
Our trade deficit is the reason, our dollar is dropping.
Sending our factories to China (enabling 1.3 billion newly rich drivers to start buying the very same oil, we otherwise would) is the reason, oil is skyrocketing.
Which of those trends, is improving? (both are getting worse)
We really need to wake up. RIGHT. NOW.
We don’t have much time.
The momentum, is moving very quickly, to our enemies.
You can see it ... all around!!
Spare us the river of tears. Maybe pillorying these guys for "market forces" may not help oil prices, but common, these guys are not "innocent."
When demand of things is controlled by a limited supply, and consequently prices rise substantially above cost of productions, the "windfall" profits constitute what is known as an economic rent, the theory of which dates back to Adam Smith. Said "rents" are certainly fair game for taxes, and, no, taxes on such rents do not pass to the consumer, despite what the wags around hear think.
Exxon paid $23.3 billion in 2005, $27.9 billion in 2006 and $29.8 billion in 2007.
Look at the bright side: Congress will be on vacation soon. They can’t do much harm when they’re not in session.
Demand is demand. Demand is not “controlled” by supply except maybe in the fashion industry. People want oil because it’s useful.
It’s fairly obvious that the limited supply of which you speak is created by the politicians. For example, ANWR could increase the supply, but the politicians are blocking it. Let’s assume what you are saying is true and the “windfall” from the restricted supply should be taxed. In that case the politicians are getting control and benefit of a “windfall” created by their own policies. This creates an incentive for the politicians to further restrict supply and get more “windfall.” Why not just nationalize the oil industry like Venezuela and be done with it? Then the government can fully control where to drill and how much profit is acceptable by fiat.
Go read Adam Smith, again, if you ever did. Oh yes, under many circumstances, demand is set by supply, because that is all there is. Land in Manhattan, or San Francisco north of Twin Peaks is controlled by supply. There ain't no more of it. The question is not demand, but cost.
Oil supply is pretty much fixed too. I know you hyperfoolish anti-democrats fantasize that there is an enormous pool of oil out there for the gittin' if you could just grab your gun back from some liberal and stomp him into submissions. ANWR is a pimple on the world's demand. It would help for a decade until it ran dry, and then we still have the same problem.
But hyperfantasizers like you don't like to think about our children or grand children. You just want to go along in your liberal hating fashion, drive your Pick'm'up gas guzzler and screw the world.
I never said that Exon or other companies don’t pay taxes. I am merely explaining a bit of two century old economic theory to the unwashed here. I presume you already know all this stuff.
Although I don't use this product, since people are starting to use bicycles more, people might be interested in this autoshifting bicycle.
Autoshifting bicycleAlso, I'm keeping an eye on developments in bio-fuel production.
First, the bad news about ethanol. Ethanol fires are evidently harder to control than gasoline fires.
Ethanol fires hard to control 1Hopefully, ways will be developed to make controlling ethanol fires easier.
Ethanol fires hard to control 2
On the brighter side concerning ethanol, there's now evidence that people might get as much, or more, bang per buck for their gas dollars with gas / ethanol mixtures.
Gas-competitive gas / ethanol mixturesAlso, I was surprised by the introduction of a machine (popularly known as a still) for making home-made ethanol.
EFuel100In stark contrast to the 1700 gallons of water required to make one gallon of corn-based ethanol as indicated by the OP, the EFuel100 uses only 170 gallons of water to produce 35 gallons of ethanol In other words, the EFuel100 uses less than 1% (about 0.2%) as much water as corn ethanol, under five gallons, to produce one gallon of ethanol.
But also note that the water used in the EFuel100 process does not take into account the water needed to grow the sugar that is used for this process.
And watch out for fines for violating biofuel regulations.
Fines for violating biofuel regulationsAlso, progress is being made in the development of other non-corn ethanol production technologies as well.
Non-corn ethanolFinally, I've also been hearing good things about biodiesel production but need to find some links.
This is the assumption that the Democrats have any sort of integrated belief system. They believe what they believe for the moment it's being said and then it is forgotten. The country is being run by psychotics.
But that decade would buy us some time to develop lower-cost alternative energy supplies.
Your type of thinking is part of the problem. Forget about the “doing it for the children” justification and focus more on what needs to be done to solve the immediate problem, just like when the plane is in trouble they tell you to put your oxygen mask on before the children’s. We should start drilling immediately in all available sources and developing the largest source of oil shale in the world that is in our own backyard. I would expect that this alone would have a psychological effect on the market and drive prices down. According to empirical evidence, over the longer run we should see new technologies emerge to compete with oil and provide new alternatives “for the children”.
Well, balls to you. I actually care about what kind of world I am leaving to my kids and grandkids. I will, however, exclude your spawn from any further consideration on my part. Second, why do you think that you will solve the problem with new drilling and shale. New drilling will come on line, slowly, solve some problems slowly, and disappear off again pretty quickly because easily recoverable reserves in the US are already being recovered for the most part. Shale is not exactly free and not exactly easy. You forget that your main man Carter already failed at that one once. Can it become marginally economic - perhaps. Will it compete with $5 per barrel out of the ground and shipped to the US Saudi crude - nope. And therefore, one of the problems with a lot of these solutions is that if you actually manage to make them work and drive the cost of oil down, many of these projects will go bankrupt again - again.
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