An excellent piece via the Investor's Business Daily puts all the pieces in the puzzle together.
Energy: Senate Democrats, dragging executives from five major U.S. oil companies before them for a second day, say they're alarmed by our "failed" oil markets. What they should be is ashamed.
After all, it's mostly the fault of the Congress that we're in this mess. True, the Big 5 announced profits of $36 billion in the first quarter, as oil breached $100 a barrel and just kept going. This prompted nothing but contempt from Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin this week: "Where is your corporate conscience?" he asked the oil executives, forced to sit and listen.
Others concluded that this must be a market problem. "We need to get prices under control," said Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin. "We can only conclude that the oil markets have failed."
And how will you get the price "under control" as you put it, Mr. Kohl. You want to try it the Jimmy Carter way? How easily you people forget.
Well, markets have failed. But the failure is due to Congress' refusal to let oil companies drill on federal lands, thereby cutting sharply into our supply of crude as world demand grows and prices soar both here and abroad.
Cha-Ching! And we have a winner here! That is exactly correct. We need to start drilling. End of story.
Congressional ignorance of basic laws of supply and demand is at once bizarre, breathtaking and frightening. For example, the American Thinker Web site this week took note of a speech delivered by New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer on May 13. In it, he urged the U.S. to force Saudi Arabia to pump a million barrels a day more of oil — which Schumer claimed would slash the price of crude by $25 a barrel.
Mr. Schumer is a god forsaken schmuck. He knows nothing about basic economics. He's simply in a panic. Why? He knows who the real cause of America's high gas prices really are. He just doesn't want to admit it. So, in typical liberal Democrat fashion, he'll blame someone else for the problems he and others of his political party created.
What Schumer didn't say was that 1 million barrels is exactly the amount of extra oil the U.S. would today be pumping if President Clinton hadn't vetoed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1995. Despite this, Schumer still opposes drilling in ANWR.
Cha-Ching! Again, exactly right. Schumer is in denial, he doesn't want to hear facts. After all, when you're a Democrat, facts don't matter.
As for those massive oil profits, Democrats want to slap Big Oil with a "windfall profits tax." In fact, since 2002 the U.S. oil and natural gas industry has earned about 8.1 cents per dollar of sales — exactly the same as all U.S. manufacturing, excluding autos. Not much of a windfall.
Welcome to the United Soviet Socialist States Of America. Where making a profit is now shunned upon, where capitalism has died, right Mr. Schmucky Schumer? Actually, the reality is Democrats like Mr. Schmucky Schumer cannot fess up to their total screw up of listening to the environmentalists after all of these years. Once again, a big "thank you" goes out to the environmentalists.
To listen to Congress, you'd think oil companies don't pay taxes. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2006 alone, according to the American Petroleum Institute, U.S. oil companies paid some $138 billion in taxes to the IRS — and that doesn't include special oil severance, sales and use taxes companies also had to pay.
This is just another thing the Democrats don't want you to know about when it comes to the oil companies.
The total effective tax rate on oil is about 40%. This compares with a top income tax rate of 35% for all corporations. If anything, Big Oil is overtaxed.
Any Democrats care to leave a comment on this? Anyone? *crickets chirping*
A recent study by Ernst & Young notes that the same Big 5 oil companies that Congress harshly criticized this week earned $662 billion from 1992 to 2006. A lot of money, to be sure. But keep in mind that they invested $765 billion over the same stretch to bring us more oil from ever smaller pieces of the Earth's surface.
We are in the midst of a major global oil-supply crunch — one that can only be broken by Congress and other governmental bodies around the world taking concrete action.
Indeed. And the only "concrete action" to take is to start drilling now. No more excuses. No more blame games. No more whining. Drill. Now.
A report released Thursday by the Department of the Interior notes that most of the oil and 40% of the natural gas under public lands in the U.S. is off-limits to drilling. That's about 19 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.
How nice. So what are we supposed to do? Well, we are all supposed to "remain patient" as the alternative and renewable energy resources are developed, tested, and put to market. Sounds reasonable to me. How about you? It does if you're an someone who refuses to acknowledge this country (and its economics) depends on oil every single day. It's a simple case of denial when it comes to these people.
A separate report, this one from the International Energy Agency, warned of a looming global supply crunch resulting from the failure of governments — not private oil companies — to invest more or open up their lands for exploration and development.
Once again, I was right. But then again, I am labeled an evil Neocon, so what do I know?
One of the oil business's dirty secrets is that only 6% of all reserves are controlled by investor-owned oil companies such as those demonized by Congress. The rest are controlled by governments, one way or another. And 11 of the 15 largest oil companies are government-owned. Government is the problem, not "Big Oil."
What an interesting little tidbit that is indeed, wouldn't you say? So much for you liberals calling the oil companies "evil," wouldn't you all say? Now, who is the real "evil" at work here?
That's why this ridiculous blaming of oil companies must stop, and why the companies must be allowed to get back into the business of pumping oil. Once this happens, we'll find that the markets that ignorant and demagogic politicians called "failed" will once again turn out plentiful energy at prices people can afford.
Quite true, but Democrats cannot grasp the elementary economics of supply and demand. If we had the supply to meet our demands, the markets would act accordingly, and prices would fall on their own. But no, we're supposed to cut consumption if we listen to the Democrats. Take Barack Hussein Obama for instance when he said:
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."
And there you have it. But I am sure Barack Hussein Obama will continue to be carted around in his jet planes and limousines, as well as eat as much as he and his wife and kids want, too. Isn't it lovely that we're all expected to change our way of life while these power hungry socialists refuse to change theirs? Barack Hussein Obama and Al Gore must be talking.
I've officially had enough of these imbeciles in Washington, each and every single one of them.
The harshly worded letter I sent to my congressmen proves it.