Well…I think I got lucky this morning when I decided to fill up the car at $2.69 a gallon and then noticed, when I was out on the bike, that the price has shot up to $2.95 a gallon…and since the repubs always blamed Obama for any price increases, I will do the same with the idiot trump…thanks, trump. Hey, trump voters, where’s your tax cut now? Just this price rise is over double what the tax cut was for most people…and when you couple it with the cost increases for health care that is entirely the doing of the repubs, you have been taken for the saps that you are. This doesn’t even factor in the nonsense on tariffs on Chinese steel that the Chinese have just responded to by raising tariffs on our crops by up to 156% which will put a bunch of farmers out of business this year. This is what you get when you put a moron in charge of economic policy who has no frickin clue what he is doing…cripes, he has no clue about anything…trump is just one of the most stupid people I have ever seen…and we are all paying the price for that stupidity…impeach…
Tag Archives: gas prices
Either you are for capitalism or not…
This is a placeholder of the idea that the repubs can’t have it both ways…you can’t tout capitalism on one hand and then want the president to intervene in the economy to bring down gas prices….
Okay..it’s really early in the morning but I feel obligated to finish this one since placeholders guilt me pretty well…first…we have the repubs actually making the case in the press and on fox news that the president can intervene to lower oil and gas prices…the clips on Keith’s show last night from 2008 were just hilarious where we had the usual suspects at fox falling all over themselves protecting ole GW from gas prices that were higher than they are now….going on and on how the market will correct the prices and that the president couldn’t and shouldn’t intervene….then the cut comes to all of the repub candidates repudiating the free market by saying they would all promote more drilling, etc. etc…..to bring prices down…and that the president now has the magical powers to lower prices…..let’s get few things straight first….the oil companies are wallowing in profits with things just the way they are….why would they drill more, even in the leases that are open and they hold, that are not being used if to do so would increase supply and lower prices? How would approving the Keystone pipeline lower prices when all of it’s output would be sold into the world market? How would approving more refinery construction lower prices of gas when two of them have been closed in the past year by the oil companies to “support prices”? Short of nationalizing the oil companies holdings here in the US, there is just not much that any sitting president can do on oil or gas prices in the increasingly globalized market….any repub that says anything different is either ignorant or a liar…you choose which…geez…
Let’s kill the Keystone XL nonsense…
Well…in the past couple of weeks, the repubs have latched onto gas prices as being one of the weapons that they are going to use to try to defeat Obama in November and get the Keystone XL pipeline approved. One of the lies they are telling is that the pipeline will have the effect of lowering prices to consumers across the US when they know it’s not true…even the pipeline company has said in sworn testimony that Keystone will not have any effect on gas prices and may even raise them in the midwest since it will allow them to move the glut of oil from Oklahoma to refineries in Texas for export. The noted oil economist, Philip K. Verleger had this to say in today’s Washington Post:
“Overall, the pipeline will have no impact on prices consumers pay. None. The reason is that the products produced from the crude will be sold into the world market — exported — if prices fall below world levels,” he said in an email. “This means that consumers outside the Midwest will get no benefit from the line while consumers in the upper Midwest may pay more.”
This isn’t even the worst of it…in testimony to Congress for approval of the pipeline, Trans-Canada (the company that wants to build the pipeline) admitted that it will use the pipeline to manipulate prices; just giving the oil companies one more tool in their bag to keep prices artificially high and steal more from you and I. So, whenever you hear the repubs lying about the pipeline and it’s effects, just remember who owns a large piece of the republican party, and who will benefit from its building……geez….
Gas prices are the GOP’s silver bullet?
Well…I’m not sure if this one is going to be the good one that I promised this morning but it bears repeating since the repubs seem to be making gas prices a centerpiece of their attacks on Obama…let’s just remind everyone of one thing when the talk starts to move to the Keystone pipeline and drilling in ANWR…consumption of oil and its products continue to decline while production is at a 6year high…but, what the repubs don’t mention is that we have become a net exporter of refined oil products…what does this mean to you and me? It means that any new capacity coming from the tar sands in Canada will never be used in the US…it will all be exported with the risks of spills and environmental degradation absorbed by the US public while the profits will all go to the repubs best friends, the oil companies. The reason that gas prices are rising have nothing to do with supply and demand…in the new global economy where oil is an investment to be flipped…the commodity traders can manipulate to market to ensure that no matter what happens, they will make obscene profits by using the same fear, gloom and doom tactics that the repubs use to win elections….I hope that day is coming to a close….and it can be hastened by applying transaction fees to every trade and raising the margin dollars required to make those trades…something the oil company purchased repubs will never do…
One last thing…where are the jobs plans from the repub controlled House? They have controlled the House for over a year and nothing from them other than the normal nonsense on social issues…the last I heard, limiting contraception for women hasn’t created one job….
I was right about oil and gas prices…
Well…it’s red letter day here at “Overqualified & Unemployed” when I have been proven right by no less than the crooks at Goldman Sachs…should I feel good or bad about this? In today’s Free Press, there was a long article where it reported that the commodities people at this large trading house did a study of oil and gas prices and found that 27 dollars of the 110 dollar price of oil is directly attributable to speculators that are trading in the oil futures market…that is over 25% of the cost of a barrel of oil…and the traders have a neat little scam running on all of us….that when the traders bet that the price will go up in the future…it always goes up….you heard me right, these guys have so distorted the normal rules of supply and demand that they no longer have any bearing on the price of oil. I’m sure that with just a few phone calls amongst the big traders, they alternate daily who is going to be the one to bid the price up and who is going to just sit and rake in the profits. Now, who among you out there are for more deregulation of the economy? This crap started when the Bush administration pushed for rules that allowed traders to never take possession of the commodity they are trading…allowing oil and gas to be commoditized and made just another financial instrument like sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps….where there is no risk for the traders and guaranteeing that all of the benefits fall to the traders while the rest of our country pays for it….geez….but what to do about it? Normally, I just bitch about this stuff but this time I’m going to offer suggestions….let’s make these guys that are paper trading actually take possession of the commodity they are trading and put up, in real dollars, the total amount of the transactions. This will push the risk back on the traders that are distorting the market and make them less likely to continue to rake in billions in profits off you and me….