BUSINESS: Big Oil's Big Lies

Senator Barbara Boxer is making rare appearances in Scarborough Country lately, calling attention to what appears on the surface to be profiteering by the major oil companies during a time of national crisis. Sen. Boxer is working on getting big oil executives to come back to Washington to appear before the Senate under oath to answer tough questions about the shortages and other supply problems that have driven gas prices to record highs in the wake of the Iraq War and recent natural disasters.



Like it or not, say I'm biased or whatever, but the truth is coming out, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Look for some punitive legislation to get pushed through to bring the oil and gas profiteering back under control and redress the wrong done to consumers faced with the triple challenge of funding all this madness and still making ends meet around the house.

Next on the block, Halliburton and the other war profiteers.

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
politics.abovetopsecret.com...

WOW. Excellent find.

And another politician with integrity and cajones. Watta treat.

And another politician with integrity and cajones.

Barbara Boxer? Well, maybe cajones. The oil industry is in business to make money. Wal-Mart is in the business to make money. Your local mom and pop cat house is in business to make money. Why do people get bent out of shape because the oil industry makes a profit. I would bet that if there weren't so many taxes on gasoline and if there weren't so much regulatory legislation regarding gasoline and if people like Barbara Boxer would loosen the restrictions on domestic oil exploration, gas would be much more affordable.

Thanks soficrow. Just doing my job.

Had a lively debate on the refinery vote subject going over on PTS, turned on the tube tonight, and wouldn't you know, there's Boxer on MSNBC talking about the same thing. Call it coincidence, kismet, synergy, whatever you want. I found it inspiring and chased down the link.

peace.

I would bet that if there weren't so many taxes on gasoline and if there weren't so much regulatory legislation regarding gasoline and if people like Barbara Boxer would loosen the restrictions on domestic oil exploration, gas would be much more affordable.

Gas will never become more affordable if the oil jackals won't build more refineries and are trying to close the ones they have unless government rolls out the cash carpet and the public is willing to take a bigger shafting than it already has.

[edit on 16-11-2005 by Icarus Rising]

The refinery Boxer refers to was scattered over Bakersfield (it was actually broken up into five different physical locations) and could not be modernized, expanded, or improved to fit into Shell's supply chain on a long-term profitable basis (according to the company). They first tried to sell it and when they didn't find any ready buyers they decided to just close it. The California attorney general got involved, along with local citizen groups, and they eventually found a buyer.

Senator Boxer is being purposely misleading in her statements about it. If the politicians would loosen some of the regulatory restraints they have placed upon modernizing existing refineries and upon access to known petroleum bearing locations, they could have more gas for their constituents and have it cheaper.

The big oil companies neither need nor want more government cash because of all the strings attached to it. It is the small independent producers who need the government's help.

According to the companies with the money to build refineries, it is cheaper and makes better business sense to modernize and expand existing refineries before building new ones. I.e., they could do it quicker and cheaper and get just as much new capacity. Because of U.S., and state, permitting requirements it takes about twice as long to get anything done in the U.S. as anywhere else. It should not come as a shock; therefore, that oil companies are electing to build overseas instead of the U.S. The same goes for tapping and piping natural gas to consumers. Regulations and restrictions have made it so hard on the oil companies they have invested billions into building Liquified Natural Gas plants overseas instead. Much of that investment could have been in the U.S. and the difference in cost of getting the supplies to market would have been very great--thus reducing the cost of natural gas to consumers. U.S. politicians have no one to blame but themselves for the high cost of gas and gasoline.

[edit on 16-11-2005 by Astronomer68]

Boxer is siting one example of the strategy big oil is using to protect and increase its profits.

There are numerous others. There will be an investigation. Political pressure will be brought to bear on the only thing that really matters to big oil executives, control of their markets. They will compromise. More refineries will be built. Prices will stabilize for a while.

That's how the system works, when its working, which it hasn't been for a while.

Before we castigate the Oil Industry's earnings of 7.7 cents/dollar of sales during the second quarter of 2005, perhaps we should look at these industries' earnings :

1.Banks = 19.6 cents/dollar
2.Pharmaceuticals = 18.6
3. Software & Services = 17.0
4.Semiconductors = 14.6
5. Diversified financials = 12.2
6. Household & personal products = 11.3

And so on, down to Petroleum & natural gas in 15th place. I think we need to look at the pharmaceutical industry and finance institutions first, if we need to look at anything at all.

[edit on 11/16/2005 by eaglewingz]

Good point. Statistically, banks and drugs are running the show, and have been for a while now. I think big oil is in the spotlight and vulnerable right now because of the big spike in gas prices and the public outcry following the hurricanes.

Drugs and money are going to be tougher nuts to crack, because they are at the heart of what's gone wrong in our society. The myth of the Federal Reserve and the grip of the opiate culture are the two main control mechanisms operating in society today, imo. They are deeply entrenched, and ably defended against all perceived threats.

There's a little more to this story that isn't being presented here. I'm sure theres a ton more to this story that isn't being presented anywhere, yet.

But here's what I found regarding the 'under oath' senate hearing..

There's an investigation into the secretive energy task force run in 2001 by Vice President Dick Cheney. The oil tycoons denied ever attending such meetings, and even lied about it in the very recent senate hearings.

Apparently, the Washington Post recovered some White House documents proving they attended the meetings and it's stirred the democratic hornet nest..

"I want to be certain that this gets an appropriate review, so I've written to the attorney general asking him to investigate whether any of these oil company CEOs broke the law by making false statements to the Congress," Senator Lautenberg said.

"Whatever was discussed at that White House energy task force meeting, it seems to turn out very well for the big oil companies, but it's been disastrous, daily disastrous for the American public."

Lautenberg added: "We need to know what went on at those meetings, and find out whether this administration permitted the interests of big oil to stand ahead of the needs of the American families, small businesses."

This could be huge..

.. or it could be a political game show..

These problems didn't exist until government regulators allowed them to merge competition out of existance. And with a little practice it is very easy to fix prices. Price fixing happens. A friend of mine is building a service station. He told me that the suppliers tell him what to set the prices to. That strikes me as highly illegal. If his supplier can force him to set a price then there is no reason for me to believe that the suppliers aren't in communication constantly or haven't come up with a system for rigging prices. A silent system. Why is it that gas prices across the board jump on the same day by the same amount of money regardless of what station it is. When you hold the nations energy supply for ransom you are no longer entitled to protection under a free enterprise system.

Consumers need to go on strike. Not a day strike or a week strike. Something longer. Long enough to cause serious damage to the oil industry. Something severe enough to make the shareholders yank the directors from the board. Americans are lazy though. We won't do it.

How can you beat them?

Don't go anywhere.
Carpool to work.
Walk or use public transportation.

Attempt to cut your fuel consumption by 75%. I think you can do it. Most of us waste an incredible amount of gas.

Do that for a month and the oil market will crash. If 50,000,000 Americans shaved 10 gallons of gas off their weekly consumption and did it for 4 weeks they'd create a glut of 2 billion gallons. You'd have gas down to a dollar before you know it.

Originally posted by Icarus Rising
Drugs and money are going to be tougher nuts to crack, because they are at the heart of what's gone wrong in our society.

Drugs is the difficult one. The banks are easy. There is a formula that banks use to determine the amount of money they are allowed to lend. Correct me if I am wrong but it is called the reserve rate. For every dollar you deposit the banks can lend out approximately $9. You want to bring the banks back in line start pulling out your money. Pay cash for your purchases. Its time to bring greed back in check and we have the power to do it.

Not sure what to do about the "pay or die" mentality of the drug manufacturers.

QuietSoul,

Thanks for bringing the story up to date. What you are getting at is exactly what prompted me to post this story, but the latest dialogue between Scarborough and Boxer wasn't available yet, so I went with some older quotes.

The whole 'energy task force' thing Cheney put together stunk to me of government collusion with big business to defraud the American public to begin with. No wonder the big oil exec's lied about being involved. They have adapted Enron tactics to the oil industry and are doing to America what the power companies did to California in 2000-01. I hope they get busted for it.

Indy,

Great insight into the dynamics in play here. The 'fractional reserve' system allows banks to loan out ten times more money (or something like that) than they have to secure their loans, guaranteed by the Fed. That's how they create wealth and hoard it for themselves. They would bar the doors in a hurry and cause a terrible depression if we tried to pull out all our cash at once, though, I think.

The 'throw pills at the symptoms' approach to medicine in the US has really put us at the mercy of the drug companies. Dull the pain, lower your blood pressure, control your cholesterol, now go be a good sheep. A fundamental change to a cause based treatment system is needed in the medical field. Less silver bullet magic pills, more clean living. The trend has already started.

I like your solution to the gas price gouging, and I think a large scale, long term reduction in demand would definitely bring prices down. It will be a difficult transition for a commuter society based on personal vehicles, but it can be done.

What's the big deal about big oil's profits? I didn't hear all this shimsham about bigoil when oil was $10 a barrel. Like every business in this country, there is ups and downs, bigoil just happens to be on the upside of things. Taxing won't help as it will be passed on to consumers?

Also I have never seen an exec set the price of oil, it set in the U.S . on The New York Mercantile Exchange. Those are the people you should be looking at. The oil price is based on the traders' perception of risk or disruption of supply and so on. It could go up $10 per barrel one and fall $10 on the next for no good reason other than traders becoming jittery. So is it fair to blame the oil companies, based on something that they have no control over?