Gas Gougers
Why are we being gouged at the gas pumps? The problem is the rising price of crude oil. What makes the price rise? The market - the law of supply and demand. Did the supply go down? No, the suppliers just jacked up the price. So who jacked us up?
According to the Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy report of import dependence, one quarter of all imported oil in the world is imported by the US, but the US only depends on imports for about half of its oil. So half of the jacking is being done by domestic oil producers - those same folks who want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As Walt Kelly of Pogo fame said on the 1970 Earth Day poster, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
So who does our US Government blame for rising oil prices in the US? Why, the rest of the world of course, those demanders who are allowing themselves to be gouged by the Middle East oil suppliers. Here is how the EIA of DOE puts it: "Yet, although U.S. dependence on the long-haul Middle East has fallen sharply, this has not made U.S. prices less vulnerable to a disruption in Middle East supplies. Since oil is a global market, the relevant measure for that vulnerability is not U.S. dependence, but world dependence on Middle East oil -- and that has not shrunk."
The main reason we protect the Saudi Princes from their own people is because they agree not to gouge us for oil as bad as they gouge the rest of the world. Maybe after some of their people perpetrated the 9/11 attacks we should have told the Princes they need to gouge us a lot less. Or maybe we should have told them it is time to cut their people in on some of the gouge profits. In fact, if the people of Saudi Arabia were in control of their own oil, maybe we could get lower prices from them by exchanging goods the Saudi people want rather than sending military resources to keep the Princes in power.
So what do we do about the domestic gougers, you know, the guys Dick Cheney met with in secret to plot an "energy policy"? The Bush Administration wants to help them drill more oil to gouge us for, and to violate ANWR in the process. Jacking up the prices around the time of the final push to get ANWR drilling allowed appears to be acceptable under the Bush policy, because it fools Americans into believing ANWR oil will be cheaper than Middle East oil. I guess the Energy Information Agency has not done a very good job of explaining to us that as long as we keep supporting the Saudi Princes, they will keep gouging the rest of the world, and then the US oil producers will have to protect themselves from "vulnerability" by gouging us to the same extent. That is how free markets work, if you forget that Saudi Arabia is not a free country or a free market economy.
We need to phase the Saudi Princes out of the oil business and empower the Saudi people. And instead of allowing domestic oil producers to rape our environment, we need to seriously consider adopting price controls on oil in the interests of national security.
According to the Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy report of import dependence, one quarter of all imported oil in the world is imported by the US, but the US only depends on imports for about half of its oil. So half of the jacking is being done by domestic oil producers - those same folks who want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As Walt Kelly of Pogo fame said on the 1970 Earth Day poster, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
So who does our US Government blame for rising oil prices in the US? Why, the rest of the world of course, those demanders who are allowing themselves to be gouged by the Middle East oil suppliers. Here is how the EIA of DOE puts it: "Yet, although U.S. dependence on the long-haul Middle East has fallen sharply, this has not made U.S. prices less vulnerable to a disruption in Middle East supplies. Since oil is a global market, the relevant measure for that vulnerability is not U.S. dependence, but world dependence on Middle East oil -- and that has not shrunk."
The main reason we protect the Saudi Princes from their own people is because they agree not to gouge us for oil as bad as they gouge the rest of the world. Maybe after some of their people perpetrated the 9/11 attacks we should have told the Princes they need to gouge us a lot less. Or maybe we should have told them it is time to cut their people in on some of the gouge profits. In fact, if the people of Saudi Arabia were in control of their own oil, maybe we could get lower prices from them by exchanging goods the Saudi people want rather than sending military resources to keep the Princes in power.
So what do we do about the domestic gougers, you know, the guys Dick Cheney met with in secret to plot an "energy policy"? The Bush Administration wants to help them drill more oil to gouge us for, and to violate ANWR in the process. Jacking up the prices around the time of the final push to get ANWR drilling allowed appears to be acceptable under the Bush policy, because it fools Americans into believing ANWR oil will be cheaper than Middle East oil. I guess the Energy Information Agency has not done a very good job of explaining to us that as long as we keep supporting the Saudi Princes, they will keep gouging the rest of the world, and then the US oil producers will have to protect themselves from "vulnerability" by gouging us to the same extent. That is how free markets work, if you forget that Saudi Arabia is not a free country or a free market economy.
We need to phase the Saudi Princes out of the oil business and empower the Saudi people. And instead of allowing domestic oil producers to rape our environment, we need to seriously consider adopting price controls on oil in the interests of national security.
posted by Tom Blake | 4:49 PM
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