RickyBobby wrote:
>
> "Brembo" <disk@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:1_S7k.111272$fz6.50261@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> RickyBobby wrote:
>>>
>>> "Scout" <me4guns@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>> news:J_G_j.3100$u7.2763@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>
>>>> "RickyBobby" <nascar42@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>> news:bKG_j.62$RD5.53@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>>
>>>>> "Herb Martin" <news@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>> news:48359fc0$0$5149$4c368faf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "RickyBobby" <nascar42@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:EbcZj.1622$J75.253@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> <bradschaum@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>>>>
news:1ab415c8-3a61-4903-8581-cd41d3da048a@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR2008050902638.html
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Black Community Is Increasingly Protective of Obama
>>>>>>>> By Darryl Fears
>>>>>>>> Wa****ngton Post Staff Writer
>>>>>>>> Saturday, May 10, 2008; A04
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In black America, oh, how the mighty have fallen.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Bill Clinton is no longer revered as the "first black president."
>>>>>>>> Tavis Smiley's rapid-fire commentaries on a popular radio show
have
>>>>>>>> been silenced. And the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.,
self-described
>>>>>>>> defender of the black church, has been derided by many on the
>>>>>>>> Web as
>>>>>>>> an old man who needs to "step off."
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> They all landed in the black community's doghouse after being
>>>>>>>> viewed
>>>>>>>> as endangering Sen. Barack Obama's chances of being elected
>>>>>>>> president.
>>>>>>>> And the community's desire to protect the first African American
>>>>>>>> ever
>>>>>>>> to be in this position may only grow with his win in North
Carolina
>>>>>>>> and his close loss in Indiana this week.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Senator Obama will be elected. He has the numerical advantage of
>>>>>>> Senator Clinton and he will trounce Senator McCain.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So you are an expert in electoral college maps, right?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Or do you plan on whining about "popular vote" even if McCain
whumps
>>>>>> him in electoral votes AND while Obama says he has the delegates
and
>>>>>> Hilary's "more popular vote" is irrelevant?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Republicans will be punished for the failing economy and the
>>>>>>> failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The economy is in good shape actually. Amazingly good shape given
>>>>>> the price of oil which is due to Democratic foot dragging on
existing
>>>>>> supply and would be far worse if we didn't control the mid-east.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Energy is cheap at half the price. It comes out of the ground or
>>>>> out of the sky for free. The only reason that we are paying four
>>>>> dollars for a gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel is so that Exxon
>>>>> can make a record number of billions. Oil comes out of the ground
>>>>> for free, coal comes out of the ground for free, and natural gas
>>>>> comes out of the ground for free. Most people are too stupid to
>>>>> understand that.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry, but exploration, exploitation, infrastructure, facilities and
>>>> manpower to find and recover these are a significant cost. True,
>>>> Exxon still manages to produce extreme profits but that doesn't also
>>>> mean they don't have massive costs either. To ignore the costs is to
>>>> ignore reality.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Exxon has made it difficult or impossible for billions of people to
eat.
>>
>> They have done no sucj thing, you ****ing LYING MORON!
>>
>>> Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined did not do that much damage to
>>> innocent people.
>>>
>>> Billions of people live on less than two dollars per day. It may not
>>> be a great lifestyle, but it is living. Since Exxon has taken it
>>> upon themselves to make the cost of living three or four dollars per
day
>>
>> You're ****ing insane, STFU and drop damned dead.
>
> Oh, my. I guess I must have been wrong about all of that then.
Indeed you are.
>I
> suppose if everything was going along swimmingly when a barrel of crude
> oil (which comes out of the ground for free and belongs to everyone)
Huh?
What kind of drugs are you on there, Jed Clampet?
> was fifty dollars has collapsed into widespread panic when the same
> barrel sells for 134 dollars and drives up the cost of what people need
> to live it is nobody's fault. Silly me.
It's not Exxon's fault, period.
Look to OPEC and your congress critters:
http://online.wsj.com
Blame Congress for High Oil Prices
By MACKUBIN THOMAS OWENS
May 29, 2008; Page A17
Gasoline prices are through the roof and Americans are angry. Someone
must be to blame and the obvious villain is "Big Oil" with its alleged
ability to gouge consumers and achieve unconscionable, "windfall"
profits. Congress is in a vile mood, and has dragged oil industry
executives before its committees for show trials, issuing predictable
threats of punishment, e.g. a "windfall profits tax."
But if there is a villain in all of this, it is Congress itself. That
venerable body has made it impossible for U.S. producers of crude oil to
tap significant domestic reserves of oil and gas, and it has foreclosed
economically viable alternative sources of energy in favor of unfeasible
alternatives such as wind and solar. In addition, Congress has slapped
substantial taxes on gasoline. Indeed, as oil industry executives
reiterated in their appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on
May 21, 15% of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while
only 4% represents oil company profits.
To understand the depth of congressional complicity in the high price of
gasoline, one must understand that crude oil prices explain 97% of the
variation in the pretax price of gasoline. That price, which has risen
to record levels, is set by the intersection of supply and demand. On
the one hand, world-wide demand has accelerated mainly due to the rapid
growth of China and India.
On the other hand, supply has been curtailed by the cartel-like behavior
of foreign national oil companies, which control nearly 80% of world
petroleum reserves. Faced with little competition in the production of
crude oil, the members of this cartel benefit from keeping the commodity
in the ground, confident that increasing demand will make it more
valuable in the future. Despite its pious denunciations of the behavior
of U.S. investor-owned oil companies (IOCs), Congress by its actions
over the years has ensured the economic viability of the national oil
company cartel.
It has done so by preventing the exploitation by IOCs of reserves
available in nonpark federal lands in the West, Alaska and under the
waters off our coasts. These areas hold an estimated 635 trillion cubic
feet of recoverable natural gas – enough to meet the needs of the 60
million American homes fueled by natural gas for over a century. They
also hold an estimated 112 billion barrels of recoverable oil – enough
to produce gasoline for 60 million cars and fuel oil for 25 million
homes for 60 years.
This doesn't even include substantial oil shale resources economically
recoverable at oil prices substantially lower than those prevailing
today. In an exchange between Sen. Orin Hatch (R., Utah) and John
Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Company during the May 21 Senate
Judiciary Committee hearing, the point was made that anywhere from 800
million to two trillion barrels of oil are available from oil shale in
Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
If Congress really cared about the economic well-being of American
citizens, it would stop fulminating against IOCs and reverse current
policies that discourage, indeed prohibit, the production of domestic
oil and natural gas. Even the announcement that Congress was opening the
way for domestic production would lead to downward pressure on oil prices.
There is an historical precedent for such a step: Ronald Reagan's
deregulation of domestic crude oil prices at the beginning of his first
term. At the time, thanks to the decision by the Organization of
Petroleum Ex****ting Countries (OPEC) to curtail output, the price of oil
was at a level that in real terms is only now being matched. Domestic
price controls ensured that the OPEC cartel would face little or no
competition in the production of oil.
Price controls were exacerbated by other wrongheaded policies stimulated
by the two "energy crises" of the 1970s. One of the most egregious was
the infamous "windfall profits" tax, designed to punish oil companies
for alleged profiteering. But since it applied to even newly discovered
oil, its main impact was to discourage the exploration and drilling that
would have increased oil supplies.
Although the energy problems of the 1970s were traceable to government
policies, Reagan's decision to deregulate oil prices was ridiculed by
policy makers, especially those who had served in the previous
administration. For instance, Frank Zarb, who had been Jimmy Carter's
"energy czar," predicted that decontrolling the price of crude oil would
lead to gasoline prices of $10 a gallon. Instead, the world price of oil
plummeted, helping to fuel the extraordinary economic growth of the 1980s.
Reagan's deregulation of crude oil prices created incentives for
domestic producers to invest in exploration and to increase production.
The threat of increased output by non-OPEC producers destroyed the
discipline among OPEC members necessary to restrict production to
maintain high prices. Facing the likelihood that an increase in supply
would lead to lower future prices, OPEC producers increased output in
the hopes of maximizing profits before prices fell. The cascading effect
caused oil prices to tumble.
As in the 1970s, U.S. energy policies have essentially restricted the
exploitation of domestic sources of energy. Curtailed supplies have
combined with rapid, world-wide energy demand to increase the price of
oil and other sources of energy. This provides leverage to foreign
producers and threatens U.S. energy security. Freeing up domestic energy
resources will do today what President Reagan's decision to deregulate
oil prices in 1981 did then: cause oil prices to fall, thereby enhancing
U.S. energy security.
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