Patriotranter's Weblog

As all citizens of the United States are aware, the price of gasoline has reached costs that are increasingly troublesome. Many people like to blame the government for these problems and the truth is the government IS responsible for the high cost of oil, but not for the reasons you may think.

You see, the real problem is not what the government has done but what it is not doing. What it is not doing is stepping in and forcibly regulating the prices oil companies are allowed to charge for a gallon of gas.

With many industries, if certain corporate policies are followed that would be detrimental to the consumer the government often steps in and gives said company and ultimatum. You see this most frequently in the Airline Industry. Whenever there is even the remotest talk of a pilot strike the President of the United States simply steps in and forbids such action. Why ? Because a nationwide pilot strike would cripple the nation in such a way as to bring us to a nearly complete and utter standstill.

Now if we take a brief look at some historical data we can see that the government used to regulate many industries specifically the telecommunications industry and once again the airline industry.

With the telecommunications industry it was in 1984 that the government split up “Ma Bell” AKA American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) into seven different entities and began letting independent companies provide the necessary services. Until this point Ma Bell essentially had a monopoly on the primary means of communication for most of the U.S.  The reasons for this divestiture are mainly due to illegal practices by the bell company to stifle competition. (Read the wikipedia article here : Ma Bell Wiki ). Examining todays world, what industry has a choke hold on the American public whilst stifling competition such as power derived from solar, wind or other interesting means. But also a few minutes spent at any shopping mall in the United States will reveal a cornucopia of telephone service providers and the inexpensive plans they offer it is quite obvious that deregulation was the perfect answer. Yes there were some hard times on the road to this point as anybody who tried making a collect call to New York from southern Florida in the late 1980’s can attest to.

With the Airline Industry deregulation took place in 1978 with the Airline Deregulation Act to remove the air transport industry from governmental control and by exposing it to certain market forces competition would bring the prices down and the services up. Those two benefits are now steadily being eaten away by the costs Airlines are forced to pay by the monopolistic behavior of oil companies.

You see deregulation is a good thing when there is a government backed monopoly but when that same monopoly is corporate backed such as the oil industry it only costs more for the consumer.

Face it, you really don’t have much of a choice. You must buy gas. Some claim that there are many ways to reduce your fuel consumption but are there really ?

Lets quickly discuss the falsehoods of carpooling.

A. How many people are there  who not only live near you but also work close enough to your work  to make car pooling actually efficient. If you are at all like me that answer is ZERO.

B. Let’s assume that the above criteria have been met – they live near you they work near you. Now do they work hours similar to yours as well ? I didn’t think so

C. Again, let us one more assume that the above criteria are met. They live near you, they work near you and have a similar work schedule as yours. Now comes the Dagwood Bumstead effect - how many times a month do they either cause you to be late or do they suddenly depart work early due to a family emergency stranding you without homeward bound transportation? I thought as much.

So even though carpooling make work fine for a few hundred thousand lucky groups, for the other two hundred million of us it just DOES NOT WORK. Period. This conversation is over.

Now that we have confessed our need for gas and we have discussed the monopolistic behavior of oil companies lets quickly address a few other issues

First there is Price Per Barrel. Oil companies have convinced the American public that the Price Per Barrel you see oil being traded at is what it actually costs to pump the oil. This is the biggest lie in history. Price Per Barrel is just an arbitrary number created by commodities traders who are hoping that the price of gasoline will continue to rise which it does because the commodities traders have so grossly artificially inflated the Price Per Barrel in their trading. Remove Oil from the commodities market and you will suddenly see the costs plummet because it costs no more to pump and transport oil in todays world than it did in 1992.

Simply put, commodities traders are erroneously speculating that the cost of pumping oil has increased and the amoral oil company execs are cashing in on this fantasy.

If you think the war in Iraq is influencing the cost of oil in any way shape or form you had best think again. You see OPEC could easily increase the flow of oil to the States reducing our costs but they refuse to do so ( CNBC OPEC leaves Oil production unchanged ) Why ? Because these Arabs are making a killing selling us oil that is being pumped by American companies.

Why should OPEC have to increase it’s oil production ? In one word CHINA. China demand on oil has increased dramatically over the last decade and will eclipse US consumption in a few years Resource Consumption US vs China but you see China has a distinct advantage over the US in that it’s oil industry is wholly subsidized by it’s communist government so the gas prices are considerably lower than those in the U.S. You may ask how the Chinese government can afford to subsidize the oil industry and that is yet another simple answer. You the American People are paying for the Chinese to have cheap gas. Every time you shop at WalMart and buy some Chinese made product you are  doing a number of things

1. You are causing the loss of a job to one of your fellow US citizens

2. You are enriching the Chinese government so they can continue to harass Tibet and Taiwan with their military.

3. Due to lack of Chinese pollution regulations your taking yet another bite out of the sustainability of this planet.

4. You are increasing the cost of fuel in the U.S. by making it more affordable in China

Enough about China for now.

Let’s get back on track with US oil companies. If they were truly independent organizations there would be huge fluctuations in the cost of gas from company to company but they always collude to price points within a few cents of each other. If oil and gas were actually expensive as they want us to believe there would not be a huge discrepancy in price from region to region, It would cost the same at every gas station nationwide. Why doesn’t it ? Because oil companies are trying to charge the maximum amount they can get away with and due to geo-economical influences and regional inflation oil companies know they can charge more in California than they can in say Arkansas.

It is high time for the government to step in, analyze the gross and indecent near criminal profits the oil companies are making and set a standard nationwide gas price also eliminating the profits oil companies are reaping and especially those dishonest oil executives

Oil Companies MUST BE STOPPED but it takes you the people to do it

Write your Senators and Representatives in Congress and demand that the government seize control of oil company assets and begin marketing affordable gas

It can be done. But it will take all of us

Good Luck America

patriotranter