Big Oil Brought Before Congress – To Thank Them for High Profits Probably

Congress has a method of operation. They cause a huge problem and then call in the only people who can fix it - in order to blame them and threaten restrictions to make the problem worse.

Congress did yet another dog and pony show that was a complete waste of time. They brought the five Big Oil companies up before them to demand bribe money…oops, I meant extortion money…oops, I meant to explain their record profits.

If any of those CEO’s had any guts, they would say, “It’s because global demand has gone up and the United States government has restricted our ability to find, dill and refine more. We don’t have to spend a dime on research and development because you won’t let us. Just like you, we are able to get more money from the American people – even though we do less and less. And for this we say, thank you!”

Rush Limbaugh had this rant:

“I’ve about had it with people who say, “We need to put solar panels on the roof. We all need to be driving the light rail. We all need to be in mass transit. We need to alter the way we drive and the way we travel around.”

What happens if all the airlines just get put out of business? I’ll guarantee you what will happen. We’ll have a national airline like Amtrak. That’s what will happen, in the interests of “making sure that mode of transportation survives,” the government will come along and subsidize some airline, it will be run by them, and it’s going to be a mess.

There’s not a shortage, despite what anybody tells you, there isn’t a shortage. Can I give you an example?

The United Arab Emirates airlines or some such thing just bought 30 or 40 giant jumbo jets over the next 30 or 40 years. If you look at people planning their businesses and making these purchases of major equipment that is a major user of fossil fuel, people are buying. They’re upgrading.

If there wasn’t going to be any fossil fuel 30 nor 40 years from now, do you think people would be buying these airplanes? Do you think manufacturers would be designing new ones?

So all of the real-life indications are that there’s plenty of energy out there, and the bet is of the people in this business, it’s going to be plentiful, and it’s going to be affordably priced — all things being equal and relative — otherwise these kind of expansions wouldn’t be taking place.

If you look at real-life circumstances, you see that people whose job it is to factor years in the future are making bets on the positive side — while the Drive-By Media is telling everybody how worse it’s going to get, how rotten it is, how terrible it is.

And, of course, it’s Bush’s fault, or Cheney’s fault, or the war in Iraq’s fault, or what have you, and trying to turn it into a political issue. Or it’s the speculators’ fault. It’s somebody’s fault.

There are people that want you to suffer. There are people that want you to be challenged. There are people that want you to be mad about this, and there are people that want you blaming people and companies, industries, for this, ’cause they will benefit.

Nine out of ten times these are the same people who also try to convince you that they stand for you — “The Little Guy,” the average American — that you can count on them to make sure this kind of stuff doesn’t happen to you, and when it does, they’re the ones in private going, “We got ‘em right where we want ‘em!”

Those people are Democrats. What is bad for the country and bad for the citizens is good for them. – Hank Dagny