Posted on 03/05/2011 6:20:06 AM PST by Son House
“Remember, the president is on record as saying he didn’t mind $4 a gallon.”
Easy to say if you never have to drive to work or have a fleet of government vehicles to cart you around.
Incidentally, many federal employees in Washington DC get transportation subsidies so $4 gas won’t hurt them as much as it hurts other taxpayers.
“Under my plan, energy prices will ‘necessarily’ skyrocket!” ~ B.O.
That’s one of the reasons why speculators aren’t afraid of “speculating” on higher prices.
‘Perhaps 60% of Today’s Oil Price is Pure Speculation’
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread356365/pg1
<>
Speculator talk:
March 2nd, 2011
http://www.wealthwire.com/aqx_p/24277?gclid=CLyzkbnGsKcCFUbf4AodiEVHSQ
Triple-digit crude prices will make an appearance in 2011, you can count on it. The problem for investors, however, is how to capitalize on the growing opportunity in the oil markets. You see, while oil prices were running higher, reaching a record $147 per barrel in the summer of 2008, all an investor had to do was blindly point to a stock. Times were good. It took a massive global recession to bring the oil bull crashing down. Within a matter of months, fear drove crude prices to a bottom of $33 per barrel.
Now, everything is about to change. Why? Ever since reaching that price floor, energy companies – and crude oil players in particular [speculators] – have made an incredible comeback, rising to $90 per barrel in 2010. If OPEC is already preparing for a surge in demand, are you? How? By identifying where the oil markets will head in the future. Remember, it’s not as easy as throwing a dart against a board of oil stocks. That’s why I’ve written my new report, Oil Outlook: Investing in 2011. Inside, you’ll pick up trends that will lead the oil markets next year. Not all oil stocks were created equal, and it’s critical that investors recognize the truly profitable opportunities.
<>
This is one of the big reasons WHY they aren’t a bit afraid to “speculate” on the future high price of oil:
Rising Gas Prices: All Signs Point to Obama
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2681684/posts
<>
03/02/2011
Haley Barbour: Obama Is Deliberately Trying To Drive Up Energy Prices
Barbour says Obama cheers for higher gas prices
By DINA CAPPIELLO | Published: 11:22 AM 03/02/2011 | Updated: 5:27 PM 03/02/2011
http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/02/barbour-says-obama-cheers-for-higher-gas-prices/
WASHINGTON (AP) Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential presidential contender, accused the Obama administration Wednesday of favoring a run-up in gas prices to prod consumers to buy more fuel-efficient cars.
But the recent rise in gasoline prices has been primarily driven by unrest in the Middle East, particularly Libya, where protests have diminished crude oil production.
Barbour cited 2008 comments from Steven Chu, now President Barack Obama’s energy secretary, that a gradual increase in gasoline taxes could coax consumers into dumping their gas-guzzlers and finding homes closer to where they work. Chu, then a Nobel Prize-winning professor, argued that higher costs per gallon could force investments in alternative fuels and spur cleaner energy sources.
“This administration’s policies have been designed to drive up the cost of energy in the name of reducing pollution, in the name of making very expensive alternative fuels more economically competitive,” Barbour said during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce breakfast across the street from the White House.
In 2008, while the head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Chu told The Wall Street Journal that energy prices were the lynchpin to an energy overhaul.
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Chu said in September 2008.
The administration has boosted fuel economy and placed the first-ever greenhouse gas standards on vehicles in an effort to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming and wean the country off foreign supplies of oil. Those regulations will result in less gasoline being used, but should have little to no effect on gasoline prices.
Others have accused the administration of driving up prices at the pump by placing certain areas of the country off limits to oil production, and placing a moratorium on drilling in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico after the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Drilling in the Gulf a major source of U.S. production has been slow to restart. The first permit for a deepwater well was issued just this week.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar dismissed the notion that changes in oil production in the U.S. would increase the price of oil.
“What we do here in terms of production is not going to affect the price of oil, which is set on the world market,” Salazar told a Senate energy panel examining his department’s budget.
Another proposal initially backed by the President Barack Obama would have put a price on carbon dioxide pollution, the chief gas blamed for global warming. The legislation failed in Congress last year, in part because it would have made it more expensive for industries that burn fossil fuels.
Barbour said higher energy costs already hurt workers in his state and any increase would cripple Mississippi’s economy.
“In 2008, $4 gasoline brought my state to its knees before Wall Street melted down,” Barbour said. “We’ve blown through $3 gasoline all the way to 4.”
Barbour said Obama’s energy team wouldn’t be happy until gas prices reached $9 a gallon.
Barbour is still weighing a presidential campaign and plans to visit Iowa twice this month. Barbour’s advisers say he won’t make a decision before the Mississippi legislature ends its session in early April and it could be May before he announces a decision.
In the meantime, though, he has honed his criticism of the president, particularly on economic issues. With pocketbook issues poised to dominate the 2012 election, prospective presidential candidates are focusing their messages on Obama’s stewardship of the economy and are seeking to cast his re-election as a referendum on the economy and jobs.
“We don’t have a $1.5 trillion deficit this year because taxes are too low,” said Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman who helped the Republican Governors Association make major gains in November’s elections as the group’s chairman. “It’s because we spend too much.”
He then turned his criticism to federal spending, a key concern among the conservatives who have great sway in picking their 2012 presidential nominee.
“This administration spent $7 trillion in the first two years and lost 7 million jobs,” Barbour said, then joked it was a good thing the government didn’t spend $12 trillion to lose 12 million jobs.
“The fact is: a bigger government means a smaller economy,” he said.
<>
Newt Gingrich in 2008 talked about how to handle the “speculators”:
3 Ways to Lower Gas Prices
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOpcPfAarjY&feature=related
bttt
[[
I wonder if reduced domestic drilling doesn’t also play an increased role in the price of gasoline regardless of the price per barrel of oil?
]]
Not really, what does howeverp lay a significant role is the FACT that the left in congress have repeatedly refused to allow more oil refinery plants, and have steadfastly refused to allow cheap alternatives like coal and natural gas drilling which, if allowed, would reduce our dependence on oil, and drop prices of gasoline eventually if there was more competition in domestic energy. We do infact have enough natural domestic oil reserves to become energy independent from foreign oil, however, from what I understand, because of congress’ refusal to allow more refinaries, we’re at peak oil refinary production already, and can’t handle more oil coing in, which means that because con gress is forcing us to produce less refined oil because we don’t have the faciklities to refine it, keeps prices artifically high. This is the basic reason why the Saudis are able to manipulate world oil prices, because they control howm uch oil is sent out, and how much our country can refine- Congress, in cahoots with the saudis, have made sure supply doesn’t meet demand- and congress has made sure of htis by refusign to allow enough refinaries to handle more oil
[[Incidentally, many federal employees in Washington DC get transportation subsidies so $4 gas won’t hurt them as much as it hurts other taxpayers.]]
Hell- most govenrment employees get $160 ‘allowances’ PER DAY for ‘expenses’- this is ABOVE AND BEYOND their exhorbitant salaries which MOST don’t even earn- beign absent from office almsot half the year-
I get $10 per day on my fixed income- it’s a damn good hting I don’t have to drive anywhere really- this $10 has to go for food, there’s NOTHING left over for Gasolin e these days- and prices of food is skyrocketing due to higher delivery charges bwecause of hte rise in gas prices
Congress didn’t give out Cost of livign increases for 2 years now- but they damn sure gave themselves raises- Yep- their motto is ‘screw the poor- we’re gettign ours while we can’
$160 per day ‘allowance’? I only WISH I had such a luxury!!!
[[This is another case where government intervention (drilling ban) creates problems that it takes more government intervention (raising gas-mileage mandates, dishing out electric car subsidies) to solve!]]
I forget who said it, but it’s apparapoe here:
“Never underestimate the ability of the left to create a crisis out of a non crisis situation”
That sounds about right...
Response: Of course, he and his apostles want to inflict the maximum damage on the middle class.
“Obama Wants Higher Gas Prices”
Of course he does. Just like he wants the coal industry dead. And the zombies just lapped it up.
The Republicans and the tea party need to make ads that show Obama saying this stuff. Hammer away on it and never let people forget that he is for high gas prices.
Good question, it’s almost as if you could wish you have to ask it rhetorically.
RUSH: As we pointed out yesterday, 15 stories, negative stories blaming Bush for the gasoline price rise in 2007 and 2008. One story on Obama for every 15 Bush stories. So the question becomes: Will the media ignoring the rise in gas prices be able to keep that from becoming a major factor in people's minds over the economy and Obama's role in it? Remember, now, everything is focused on the reelection in 2012.Not to pee in the punchbowl, but higher gasoline prices will do two things to benefit Zero -- number one, it'll give his proxies in Congress a pretext to blame oil companies, in particular BP with its Gaddafi connection; and number two, because rising prices means more money from the same margins, there will be a bit of a employment increase rippling through the economy. Oh, and number three, sales tax receipts (in states which have sales tax) will increase, which will be of indirect benefit to Obama.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.