Imagine That - Crazy High Oil Prices After A Couple Oil Men Get Re-elected To The White House

There Is No Gas Shortage

But Washington, Wall Street, and ethanol and oil and gas
companies want you to think there is, says automotive expert Ed
Wallace

"It should be obvious to you all that the [gasoline] demand is
outstripping supply, which causes prices to go up."

- President George W. Bush,
Associated Press, Mar. 5, 2008

One wonders if verifiable facts ever get in the way of this
administration's statements on issues that are critical to the average
American's wellbeing. After all, last time I checked, when politicians are elected to public office, or appointed, as is Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, they must take an oath to the American people before assuming their new positions. How can they forget a sacred oath so quickly? Were they daydreaming when theytook it, so it never meant anything to begin with? Maybe it's just another promise you have to make to get into office: When you're securely incumbent you can ignore even solemn oaths you took.
............

1. There Is No Shortage

Gasoline reserves on hand are at the highest levels since the early
1990s, which is remarkable considering the nation's refineries have been cutting back on the production of gasoline because their margins have declined. In fact, average gasoline reserves on hand have risen since this past October, while oil reserves in this country have gone up virtually every week this year-and only fog in the Houston Ship Channel that kept oil tankers from unloading their crude one week kept it from being every week........

Here's the scorecard, in case you missed it. There's no shortage of
gasoline or oil in the U.S. today, and we have near-record reserves on
hand. Meanwhile the Congressional mandate for ethanol has jacked up the price of chicken feed for Pilgrim's Pride, which is the U.S.'s largest processor of chickens and turkeys-by $1.3 billion. And that's for just one company processing chicken. This is what passes for acceptable to our Energy Secretary?

2. Demand Is DOWN, Yet Prices Are UP

Just so we can all get on the same page, here are the verifiable facts
on oil supplies, production, and gasoline demand.

In January of this year, the U.S. used 4% less petroleum than we did a
year ago. (Oil demand was down 3.2% in February.) Furthermore, demand has been falling slowly since July of last year. Ronald Bailey of Reason Online has pointed out that worldwide production of oil has risen 2.5% in the first quarter, while worldwide demand has grown by only 2%.

3. Speculation is Up, and the Dollar Is Down

........ no less an authority than ExxonMobil Chief Executive Officer Rex
Tillerson was quoted by Marketwatch as saying, "The record run in oil prices is related more to speculation and a weakening dollar than supply and demand in the market." He added, "In termsof fundamentals, fear of supply reliability is overblown."

As for the speculators, in 2000 approximately $9 billion was invested in oil futures, while today that number has gone up to $250 billion. Now, if any publicly traded company had an additional $241 billion put into its stock in the same period, its stock would rise out of sight too-even if the company was not worth anywhere near that amount of market capitalization.

Moving on to the weak U.S. dollar as a primary cause for skyrocketing
oil prices-there is "some" truth in that statement. But consider this: The dollar has depreciated 30% against the world's currencies since 2002, while the price of oil has gone up 500%. So is it the weak dollar that has caused a 500% increase in the price of oil, or is it the extra $241 billion worth of speculation? You can make the call on that one.

Possibly just to ensure oil prices don't respond to real-world
marketconditions, Goldman Sachs forecast on Mar. 7 that turbulence in the oil market could cause oil to spike as high as $200 a barrel. This flies in the face of all known information-but then again, Goldman Sachs is the world's biggest trader of energy derivatives, and its Goldman Sachs Commodities Index is a widely watched barometer of energy and commodities prices.

We're Paying for What?

When it became undeniable that poor decision-making by company
executives had put a respected 85-year-old U.S. institution in financial peril, why did the Federal Reserve rush in to save investment bank Bear Stearns Of course, we need to restore confidence in our financial institutions, but why protect the personal assets of those who were responsible for the mess? Both the corporation's officers and its board members should contribute their personal assets toward saving the bank they put in the ditch-the bank all of us are going to pay to bail out.

Instead, the Bush administration is protecting those responsible for creating yet another speculative bubble in oil futures, and is protecting investors in the ethanol industry-much to the detriment of food-processing companies such as Pilgrim's Pride. And the net result of all this is that the prices of crude and gasoline rise ever higher thanks to a "shortage" that does not exist, while food costs are soaring thanks in part to the ethanol mandate.

The Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, but the cost of mortgages goes up six weeks in a row-and last month Bank of America credit-card holders started being charged more than 24% interest on new purchases.

This is what they call "Republican Prosperity?" Ronald Reagan was both right and wrong when he said, "Government is not the solution, government is the problem." And government is still the problem. Instead of a fair and open market they gave us a free-for-all marketplace with no regulations at all, which lately these "bubble boys" have sent south for all of us.

One would guess that Washington missed the obvious: Protect all
U.S.consumers and you're also protecting business expansion.

This is payback time for George and Dick, pay off to their rich Oil friends
who funded their election campaigns in 2000-2004, now that they do not have
to worry about re-election, nor carrying the party through a midterm, they
can focus on what they really desire, forcing the country into a modern day
serfdom, With the working class toiling away to pay the exorbitant prices
charged by the wealthy class for goods and services