A Gentle Reproof for Bill O'Reilly (oil prices)

The American Thinker ^ | February 25, 2012 | James G. Wiles

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Litigation isn't poker. It's chess. You have to think three or four moves ahead.

Economics is like that, too.

Nothing is ever actually ceteris paribus. All the little economic variables are always moving and changing. The world's largest economy (ours) is all interconnected. Touch one gizmo, and you affect several other gizmos. All the little widgets talk to each other.

It's even more so with our even larger, globalized economy.

[GREAT BIG IMPORTANT SNIP]

Do you have any idea where this leads? There won't be another refinery built in the United States. We will end up importing all our refined products to escape the controls. If the only way U.S. oil companies can reap the world price is to sell overseas, then you'll see this entire industry migrate out of the United States.

And almost all the high-paying jobs will go, too.

In twenty years, the U.S. petroleum industry will have moved overseas, corporate headquarters included, because the U.S. laws and regulations which Bill O'Reilly is suggesting will handicap them vis-à-vis their competitors. Their American shareholders will support these moves. All the high-paying jobs which used to be in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma -- not just the headquarters jobs, but also technical services as well -- will be in Dubai, Singapore, Holland, and all sorts of havens.

Maybe Brazil.

Natural resources is a global industry. The natural resource companies headquartered in the United States don't need to be headquartered in the United States. It's that simple. Controls always have this effect.

Bill O'Reilly is a thinking man, a well-educated man, and a highly intelligent man. Last night's Talking Points Memo was not his best effort.

I'm sure Bill O'Reilly will think this through.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I'm sure Bill O'Reilly will think this through.

Well, I'm sure he won't because he's always so cocksure of himself.

It's important to read this short and clear explanation to Bill.

We can learn and I expect that is the reason Mr. Wiles wrote it.

[BfloGuy]

I suppose so many people watch O’Reilly because he says stuff people like. I’ve never found him to be more than a populist — and somewhat ignorant — blowhard.

[TigersEye]

I have never seen anyone work so hard to be so ignorant on a subject as Bill 0'Reilly has on the oil industry.

He has had politicians explain it to him, he has had economists explain it to him, he has had oil industry experts from all levels of the industry explain it to him and just last night John Stossel tried to explain it to him but he couldn't get a complete sentence out before 0bloviator shut him down.

Even critics of the oil industry look bewildered at his irrational hatred of "Big Oil" and end up defending the oil industry trying to talk some sense into his concrete skull.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

On oil prices, O’Reilly’s a pinhead.

[BTCM]

I occasionally watch to see his guests but he irks me in always knowing more than Einstein about any subject and talking over anyone smarter than him,which is darn near everybody. He is definitely a pompous ass! Can you imagine the poor woman married to that opinionated S.O.B?

[DeaconRed]

BOR is so full of himself and is NEVER wrong - - - That according to BOR.

The pricing of gasoline here in this country is puzzling. It is not supply & demand this time. We have ample supply no unusual demand so cost should be (cost of oil + cost to refine & ship + 10-20% tacked on for profit).
Gasoline & diesel is kinda like food. It is needed and there is no alternative except electric cars. Most of us can't afford to abandon our gas cars and buy an electric model. So we are stuck and are at the mercy of whoever sets the price for gasoline & diesel.

[Recon Dad]

O’Reilly has been on this rant for years now. Bill believes that we still live in the age of Standard Oil and the complete control they held on the entire industry. Back in that day Standard had such control over the industry they could maintain an astronomical price of $0.10 to $0.20 and up to $1.00 a bbl at certain times, that boogie man is long gone.
I believe the answer to lowering the price of oil is for the United States to really become a player again. Speculators fear stability and free flowing oil and the United States has the oil what we don't have is a government willing to let it flow.
If an administration stated they were fast tracking the GOM, Alaska and various coastlines and Federal lands. Cutting regulations and legal challenges in half it would send a message to the world we were serious. I believe the price would drop by half overnight.

[LyinLibs]

Given that Iran is practicing closing the straits of hormuz (where 1 out of 5 barrels of worldwide oil passes every day), and given that Israel might attack Iran soon, oil sellers are expecting tighter supply in the near future.

Thus, when oil buyers approach them to buy contracts/futures (used to plan ahead and avoid surprises), those contracts/futures are getting more expensive. Everybody except Omoslem and O’Reilly understand that when Israel/Iran go to war, “oil market hell” will break loose.

And since humans have foresight, these higher prices/risk are already being reflected in the prices. An idiot might watch Israel bomb Iran, then wait 90 days before he realizes that the bombing might have an effect, THEN adjust his expectations on supply/demand of oil

But most oil companies, distributors, traders and refiners aren’t idiots.

[Texas Eagle]

Bill O'Reilly is a thinking man, a well-educated man, and a highly intelligent man.

HA! It took him a Harvard education to learn how to read a teleprompter?

[jazzlite]

...”On oil prices, O’Reilly’s a pinhead”...

I totally agree. His lack of understanding of the big “oil” picture is stunning.

[nathanbedford]

Of course it is O'Reilly's blatant egoism that is so obnoxious, but to us conservatives it is more interesting to think about its cause. Apart from the psychological drives which compel O'Reilly to interrupt and bloviate, he is the victim of an egoism which denies any syllogism but one that he himself creates.

This, incidentally, is a condition found in most independents. These are people who do not accept a framework, such as the Constitution, conservatism, the fundamentals of capitalist theory, for example, but approach every issue de novo. It is up to them to fashion anew the principles, such as the law of supply and demand, and decide whether they apply or not.

Usually, when picking a presidential candidate, they do not school themselves on the issues but merely for my snap judgment based on a television image, whether they think the individual "looks presidential." Most independents are not as egregiously and blatantly egotistical as O'Reilly but they are victimized nonetheless by the same rootlessness. This is why the work that Mark Levin does is so vital. It is needed today just as was the work of Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson in their day.

If you throw away the paradigm, whether it is the Constitution or the Old and New Testaments, you end up with Jim Jones or David Koresh in the religious sphere and Bill O'Reilly in the political.

On the other hand, if you are a prisoner to dogma or in bondage to a false dogma such as Barack Obama, you end up with a tyrant or a Torquemada.

Every time I watch O'Reilly, I am renewed in the conviction that we have to be very careful what we believe.

[Recon Dad]

You go back to his childhood days I will bet you find Bill surrounded by a family of NYC union employees, who as I can attest would be virulent anti big business. And the biggest business of all in the early portion of the century was Standard Oil. They would have been the poster boy for everything union hate.

[PubliusMM]

Developing crude supplies is really only half the battle, though. Without additional refining capacity, without the excessive regulation brought on by the enviro-whackos and various other assorted nut jobs in the bureaucracy and the media, we’ll never fully gain energy independence.
We have the technology to extract, transport and refine these resources safely and efficiently.
Plus, there is no Constitutional authority for the feds to be engaged in this business at ANY level.

[TigersEye]

Ironically unions exist solely because big corporate businesses exist.

Even more ironically unions are a big corporate business.
For which there is no union to protect the little guy from.

[wita]

“I have never seen anyone work so hard to be so ignorant on a subject as Bill 0’Reilly has on the oil industry”.

I’d kind of want to put the occupier of the White House up against Mr O’Reilly on this one.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Can you imagine the poor woman married to that opinionated S.O.B?

The last personal info I read about O'Reilly was that his much younger wife left him for a policeman.

[Recon Dad]

Who wants to build a refinery anyway with the hoops and costs imposed in the process, easier to build a Nuke plant.

Wait until they lose about half the refining capacity up on the East coast, they'll be screaming their bloody heads off.

[wita]

If an administration stated they were fast tracking the GOM, Alaska and various coastlines and Federal lands. Cutting regulations and legal challenges in half it would send a message to the world we were serious. I believe the price would drop by half overnight.

...and the cost to get this started? Virtually N O T H I N G a news conference! So why isn’t it done you ask? The answer is simple, just like the one who’s desk has the sign “the buck stops here”. (No pun intended)

[wita]

Well said IMHO!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.....Plus, there is no Constitutional authority for the feds to be engaged in this business at ANY level.

Bill O'Reilly should have Hugo Chavez on his program. They seem to hold similar views of big oil.

Venezuela is a good example; Chavez took control of PDVSA (and then everything else) to loot and finance social program vote buying. Now PDVSA is crumbling, so he's making deals with China (with terrible conditions placed on Venezuela long term).