Filling up my gas tank now costs roughly three times what it did when President Obama was inaugurated. We were all treated to endless stories in 2008 how President Bush was responsible for gas prices. Now that a Democrat is in the White House, It is somebody else’s fault. “Big Oil,” gets the blame this time, those evil greedy business owners who work to bring a product to market which enables our entire economy to function. Question number one: What will we do when we successfully destroy every oil company in existence? The batteries on those hybrid cars are good for an average 25 miles per full charge, depending on where in our country you actually live. That electricity used was probably produced by burning fossil fuels anyhow, as very little of it comes from the green energy fairy.
So, Barak Obama, a man who among his campaign promises while running for President was that Gasoline would eventually hit $4.00 per gallon, thereby making his alternative green energy pill easier for Americans to swallow has set up a commission to investigate why Gas Prices have hit $4.00 per gallon. Steven Chu, his Dept. of Energy Secretary, a man who stated during the campaign of 2008 that he personally wanted to see gas prices hit $8.00 per gallon has vowed to hold those evil Big Oil CEO’s accountable. Please God, let those CEO’s grow a pair for a change and start really telling the truth while they are hauled in front of the inquisitors this time around. What won’t be investigated by the President’s commission or Chu’s charade, I bet this won’t.
Last December, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the lizard, a three-inch-long reptile native to the American Southwest, “faces immediate and significant threats due to oil and gas activities and herbicide treatments” and initiated the process to get it listed under the Endangered Species Act.
In 2002, the Center for Biological Diversity first petitioned to have the lizard, originally considered a subspecies of the common sagebrush lizard, listed as endangered. The Bush administration delayed consideration for six years. Last year, the Obama administration put it back on the fast track.
As director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Steven Chu, Obama’s secretary of energy, expressed a fondness for high European gas prices as a means of reducing consumption of fossil fuels. In a September 2008 newspaper interview, he said: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” Gas prices in Europe then averaged about $8 a gallon.
As gas prices here soar toward $5 a gallon, Chu’s friends at the Interior Department may help him and President Obama get the rest of the way toward their goal. If the dunes sagebrush lizard, now considered a separate species, is granted endangered status, oil and gas production in the Permian Basin in New Mexico and Texas may have to be shut down.
The Department of Energy says the Permian Basin has a quarter of the nation’s proven reserves and 20% of the nation’s daily production comes from there. It has a quarter of the nation’s active oil and gas wells and is home to 21% of the rigs actively drilling in the U.S.
Gulf oil production is expected to be down 20% in 2011, meaning the loss of 375,000 jobs. But that’s a drop in the barrel compared with the loss of production and jobs if America’s biggest oilfield is shut down to make a lizard’s life more comfortable.
The truth is, that since the Department of Energy was created for the express purpose of easing our dependence on foreign oil, it has exclusively worked to end our domestic production. The messaging has been that greedy Oil Industry Executives are somehow robbing us blind by having the temerity to make a profit, like any other business which operates in our country. One of the single most comical aspects of my existence is meeting the endless supply of people who are convinced that their own profession is the sole noble profession which actually deserves to be compensated. Talk of capping executive salary and state sponsored jealousy are nothing but the deflection of corrupt politicians who use their messaging to keep us from scrutinizing them. If an Oil Executive makes an obscene amount of money, it is because they have provided an obscene value to their fellow Americans. That is how our economic system works. If you do not believe me, try living your life for one week without using any oil at all. See how that works out for you.
Question number two: Who’s business is it what a CEO is compensated or how large his bonus may be? It does not help me in the slightest that a cap may be placed on someone else’s salary. If I make a CEO’s life miserable, it will put not one extra steak on my supper plate. As a matter of fact, it will have the opposite effect. This is due to something called the Laffer Curve. In economic terms it boils down to the concept that a rising tide raises all ships. When you penalize CEO’s, they will be disincented to risk their hard earned capital, thus hiring less people, and it will in fact harm us all.
Don’t fall for the messaging this time around. We don’t need repackaged verbal crap from our national leaders, we need leadership from them. When a Democrat states that they lost due to poor messaging, what that really means is that not enough people believed the lies.
