from another blogger with foresight
...Today, American families are sacrificing their own sons and daughters, basically so that they they can end up paying more for gasoline at the pump. They died to make it more expensive for average Americans to commute to work every day. They died so that a CEO at EXXON-MOBILE with a double chin bordering on a goiter could receive a retirement package worth half a billion dollars. Americans have been so deceived, and what is going on in Iraq is so monstrous and cruel that it seems that most Americans cannot even bring themselves to believe it. Seeing Bush gush sympathy for average Americans this week was like watching an oily snake opening its mouth wide enough to devour its prey.
Then there’s the issue of gasoline refining capacity. Forget all the BS about how there are too many different fuel mixtures or that oil companies got behind because they were switching over for summer. This has nothing to do with any so-called 'Boutique Fuel' problem. It has everything to do with a clear, long-term and concerted effort by the oil companies to cut production in order to control the supply and raise prices.
“In the mid-1990s too much refining capacity, not too little, concerned the nation’s major oil companies. At that time, the oil and gas industry faced what they termed “excess refining capacity,”a circumstance they viewed as a financial liability that drove down overall profit margins. The industry reduced the total amount of potential supply by closing down more than 50 refineries in the past decade. Since 1995 alone, 24 refinery closings have taken nearly 830,000 barrels of oil per day.”
Finally there’s the issue of hedge funds. Most people don’t realize that the New York Mercantile Exchange only started trading oil futures in 1983. Since then hedge funds have played an increasingly large role in setting the price of a barrel of oil. Hedge funds are basically funds that manage money for rich people, and analysts like Mike Rothman estimate that they can drive up the price of a barrel of oil by as much as $20 a barrel. So what we essentially have is rich people using the huge tax cut they received from Bush and the Republican Congress, in order to drive up the price of oil and take their cut of every energy dollar spent. Wealthy people are essentially using their leverage in the marketplace to further enrich themselves by taxing average Americans at the pump.
But forget all that – forget about the hedge funds and the oil companies clear and obvious efforts to cut supplies. Forget about Cheney’s secret energy task force and why we really went into Iraq. Forget that this country is run by two oil men who never wanted anything more than to increase the price of oil. Just believe all the lies keep repeating to yourself …”Boutique fuels, shrinking world supply, China and India, SUV's, and more drilling in Alaska”. Because that's the mantra and the alternate view of reality that the corporate media will keep drilling into the minds of Americans. The sad thing is most of will end up believing this alternate corporate reality in which there is actual competition in the marketplace between the few oil companies that are left, and they are so harmless and patriotic that they would never try to influence public policy. That alternate reality in which Americans are still dying because Saddam refused to give up his weapons of mass destruction.
The skyrocketing price of gasoline is just one more element in a general redistribution of income that is making rich people much richer while most Americans keep struggling more and more. This isn’t happening because of some fluke, or because of shrinking supplies or some temporary economic dislocation – $3 gasoline is the direct result of laws and policies that were intended to do exactly what they are now doing. In the case of oil company price gouging – the quickest and easiest solution would be a a windfall profits tax. That would help to remove the economic incentive of the oil companies have to gouge consumers in the short term – though in the longer term the solution is to break up the oil monopolies that have been allowed to stifle competition. Then to remove their power and influence over government policy by publicly funding elections, and making sure that a secret energy task force will never again drag this country into a war for profit. But those are things the current Republican government will never do, inasmuch as everything they do is calculated to lead our nation in the opposite direction, and the Democrats don’t even have a coherent strategy to stop it.
We are in the midst of a transfer of power from democratic government to corporate government - government of, by and for the rich basically. The principal power of any government is the power to tax. The surcharge you are paying every time you stop to fill up is actually a corporate tax. Bush has even admited it, though he certainly isn't going to do anything to stop what he helped to bring about. That tax or tribute is collected by the oil companies at the pump, and then paid out to wealthy stockholders and corporate executives (like Bush and Cheney). Nor is this corporate tax you're paying limited to the gas you use directly, since ships, planes, railroads and trucks all have to pay the same tax on fuel to ship the products you buy. They then pass on their costs on to you.
Nor is the corporate tax on gas the only corporate tax in existence today. The most significant development of the last decade has been the endless stream of acquisitions and mergers combined with the end of government regulation that have contributed to the unregulated monopolization of every sector of the economy, and not just the oil industry. Inflated bank fees, high credit card interest rates, rising insurance premiums and doctor bills and declining health care benefits are some less obvious forms of hidden corporate taxes.
Though Republicans like Bush like to style themselves as tax cutters, what they are in the process of doing is transferring the power to tax from democratic government to corporate boardrooms. The corporate tax can be defined as the difference between what consumers would be paying if there was real competition in the marketplace and corporations didn't control the government, and what they are actually paying for goods and services today – as well as what they are paying in government taxes that go to subsidize corporations and eliminate their taxes. The beneficiaries of corporate taxes are primarily wealthy shareholders and corporate executives, rather than 'all the people' through the government programs and services they receive.
The inevitable effect of this corporate tax is to squeeze the middle class and increase the gap between rich and poor. And though you can vote to cut taxes levied by a democratic government, most Americans will have absolutely no vote or voice in the amount of tribute our shadow government chooses to impose upon consumers. After Bush gets through, there will be no opportunity to sue them in the courts either.
Remember that next time you see the price of gas shooting up at the pump. Because it isn't just Saddam who's been screwed, and it isn't only Lee Raymond who's laughing all the way to the bank.
Then there’s the issue of gasoline refining capacity. Forget all the BS about how there are too many different fuel mixtures or that oil companies got behind because they were switching over for summer. This has nothing to do with any so-called 'Boutique Fuel' problem. It has everything to do with a clear, long-term and concerted effort by the oil companies to cut production in order to control the supply and raise prices.
“In the mid-1990s too much refining capacity, not too little, concerned the nation’s major oil companies. At that time, the oil and gas industry faced what they termed “excess refining capacity,”a circumstance they viewed as a financial liability that drove down overall profit margins. The industry reduced the total amount of potential supply by closing down more than 50 refineries in the past decade. Since 1995 alone, 24 refinery closings have taken nearly 830,000 barrels of oil per day.”
Finally there’s the issue of hedge funds. Most people don’t realize that the New York Mercantile Exchange only started trading oil futures in 1983. Since then hedge funds have played an increasingly large role in setting the price of a barrel of oil. Hedge funds are basically funds that manage money for rich people, and analysts like Mike Rothman estimate that they can drive up the price of a barrel of oil by as much as $20 a barrel. So what we essentially have is rich people using the huge tax cut they received from Bush and the Republican Congress, in order to drive up the price of oil and take their cut of every energy dollar spent. Wealthy people are essentially using their leverage in the marketplace to further enrich themselves by taxing average Americans at the pump.
But forget all that – forget about the hedge funds and the oil companies clear and obvious efforts to cut supplies. Forget about Cheney’s secret energy task force and why we really went into Iraq. Forget that this country is run by two oil men who never wanted anything more than to increase the price of oil. Just believe all the lies keep repeating to yourself …”Boutique fuels, shrinking world supply, China and India, SUV's, and more drilling in Alaska”. Because that's the mantra and the alternate view of reality that the corporate media will keep drilling into the minds of Americans. The sad thing is most of will end up believing this alternate corporate reality in which there is actual competition in the marketplace between the few oil companies that are left, and they are so harmless and patriotic that they would never try to influence public policy. That alternate reality in which Americans are still dying because Saddam refused to give up his weapons of mass destruction.
The skyrocketing price of gasoline is just one more element in a general redistribution of income that is making rich people much richer while most Americans keep struggling more and more. This isn’t happening because of some fluke, or because of shrinking supplies or some temporary economic dislocation – $3 gasoline is the direct result of laws and policies that were intended to do exactly what they are now doing. In the case of oil company price gouging – the quickest and easiest solution would be a a windfall profits tax. That would help to remove the economic incentive of the oil companies have to gouge consumers in the short term – though in the longer term the solution is to break up the oil monopolies that have been allowed to stifle competition. Then to remove their power and influence over government policy by publicly funding elections, and making sure that a secret energy task force will never again drag this country into a war for profit. But those are things the current Republican government will never do, inasmuch as everything they do is calculated to lead our nation in the opposite direction, and the Democrats don’t even have a coherent strategy to stop it.
We are in the midst of a transfer of power from democratic government to corporate government - government of, by and for the rich basically. The principal power of any government is the power to tax. The surcharge you are paying every time you stop to fill up is actually a corporate tax. Bush has even admited it, though he certainly isn't going to do anything to stop what he helped to bring about. That tax or tribute is collected by the oil companies at the pump, and then paid out to wealthy stockholders and corporate executives (like Bush and Cheney). Nor is this corporate tax you're paying limited to the gas you use directly, since ships, planes, railroads and trucks all have to pay the same tax on fuel to ship the products you buy. They then pass on their costs on to you.
Nor is the corporate tax on gas the only corporate tax in existence today. The most significant development of the last decade has been the endless stream of acquisitions and mergers combined with the end of government regulation that have contributed to the unregulated monopolization of every sector of the economy, and not just the oil industry. Inflated bank fees, high credit card interest rates, rising insurance premiums and doctor bills and declining health care benefits are some less obvious forms of hidden corporate taxes.
Though Republicans like Bush like to style themselves as tax cutters, what they are in the process of doing is transferring the power to tax from democratic government to corporate boardrooms. The corporate tax can be defined as the difference between what consumers would be paying if there was real competition in the marketplace and corporations didn't control the government, and what they are actually paying for goods and services today – as well as what they are paying in government taxes that go to subsidize corporations and eliminate their taxes. The beneficiaries of corporate taxes are primarily wealthy shareholders and corporate executives, rather than 'all the people' through the government programs and services they receive.
The inevitable effect of this corporate tax is to squeeze the middle class and increase the gap between rich and poor. And though you can vote to cut taxes levied by a democratic government, most Americans will have absolutely no vote or voice in the amount of tribute our shadow government chooses to impose upon consumers. After Bush gets through, there will be no opportunity to sue them in the courts either.
Remember that next time you see the price of gas shooting up at the pump. Because it isn't just Saddam who's been screwed, and it isn't only Lee Raymond who's laughing all the way to the bank.
posted by Edklesiastes at 7:14 AM
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