We’ll Ease Suffering By Raising Energy Bills [Iain Murray]
That, in a nutshell, was the point of the speech. For all the talk about an independent third party adjudicating compensation claims (we have one of those, it’s called the Court) and regulating companies (by making them even more dependent on government for favors), the oil spill is simply an excuse to kick-start a stalled policy. He admitted that no one knows how to replace oil, but his chosen policy vehicle is more expensive energy. That’s really going to help the victims of the second man-made disaster, the people put out of work by his drilling ban. This is the day that President Obama opened his second front in his war on the middle class. He’d already succeeded in his plan to raise their health-care costs. Now he’s going to raise their energy costs, which will be far more dangerous, because energy costs affect everything else — food costs, household goods costs and, yes, health care costs too. This amounts to a sacrifice to angry gods, as Bob Nelson pointed out last week. It’s the people who are going to get really angry, though.
But here’s the real kicker. Tomorrow he’s going to meet with the people who stand to benefit most from raised energy prices — BP, whose policy goal this idea has been for years. You couldn’t make it up.
06/15 09:00 PM Share
What I saw here in the midwest was that $4 gas triggered the first wave of foreclosures. People still had to go to work; people overextended on mortgages were the first wave of victims.
The resultant job losses created more force behind the wave.
Energy prices will kill us quicker than taxes or health care, IMO.