Questions on gasoline prices for Obama

What determines the price of gasoline is a question that for years I've been asking media representatives, public agencies, and government officials, including the Bush administration. I have yet to receive an answer or a show of interest.

I hope President Obama's policies of government transparency don't stop where the interests of energy profits begin.

If they don't, I will receive answers to the questions I asked of him today:

What and who determines oil prices?

How does lack of anti-trust-law enforcement affect those prices?

Who is in charge of setting prices at the pump?

What influences traders in the futures markets and who is guarding against price manipulation at that level?

We need tight regulation of futures markets

I've insisted in many journal entries that rules of supply and demand cannot be driving the price of gasoline. I've urged that competition be restored among energy producers and that big media would get over their stupid resistance to digging out the story, such as the con job presented by Associated Press 5/25/08. Look up my references to these observations by entering "energy" and "gasoline" in the search box at the top of the page.

Among ways the federal government is manipulating this market and others is by allowing the giant casino called "futures market" to continue unchecked - where trillion-dollar hedge funds cause prices to rise and fall at the behest of the trillionaires who are calling the shots for profit and more profit.

That such markets should be allowed to dictate prices I pay for gasoline, bread, and other essentials is nothing short of criminal. That these economic forces are not being fully regulated and/or secretly regulated is even more criminal.

On 5/29/08 the Huston Chronicle wrote about the fact that the regulators of oil traders had told the public about an investigation into the cause of abnormal oil prices. Read it here.

And yesterday, 6/6/08, the Washington Post wrote about that subject again at this link.

Citizens interested in regaining the advantages of a free marketplace - meaning, for example, affordable gasoline - should demand reform and tight regulation of futures markets from Washington.

We must require oil/energy competition

If you've wondered, as I have, where all the money goes when you pay nearly $4 for a gallon of gas, the answer is given - at least in part - by an article in the New York Times Business section.

Entitled "Exxon's Texas-size war chest," it tells how this company is hoarding its money, while preventing the value of its stock to rise much and avoiding the need to share most of the loot with its own shareholders.

It does this, in part, by buying back its own stock and has amassed a quarter-trillion-dollar war chest with which it is expected to swallow up other companies when the time is right.

All of which again points to the burning need to bust up this giant robber and others like it, to begin enforcing anti-trust laws, and to require competitive practices in multinational companies, especially those selling oil and energy.

Another con job on the price of gasoline

It was almost as though Associated Press set out to answer "Big Media and Big Oil - are they one and the same?" which was my question here 5/20/08.

AP wrote, and the Advocate reproduced 5/25/08, an article under the headline "What makes up the price of gas?"

The most interesting thing about this piece are the sources used by AP: There was Jim Ritterbusch, whose firm does consulting for oil companies; there was "the federal government;" and there was the American Petroleum Institute and that's all.

The article took up most of a full page and all it said was, in effect, prices are a function of the open market. What else might one expect from AP?

As though the "open market" can operate freely when a few gigantic, multinational corporations own the Bush Administration and its rule-making machinery, just as farmers own the agriculture regulators, and the drug companies own the FDA.

Instead of settling any question about whether Big Oil and Big Media are one and the same, AP wrote yet another con job on oil prices, and it served only to make my question more relevant.

Zack Space votes for consumers

Thanks to Zack Space, our U.S. Representative, for his affirmative vote on HR6074 that amends the Sherman Act to make oil-producing and exporting cartels illegal. It authorizes the Justice Department to pursue enenrgy antitrust and price-fixing cases. John Beohner and Jean Schmidt were the only two Ohio Congressmen to vote against this measure. You can read more here.

Watch for Bush to seal some Big Oil/Energy deals

In all this time since Bush took office and oil companies have been eating America alive, mass media still can't figure out how it's being done or by whom. America's representatives in government - local, state, federal - pretend they can't figure it out and/or refuse to acknowledge the reality of it.

Mass media stupidly continue quoting "energy experts" who stupidly persist in "supply and demand" theories that work only in a free market, to which oil and other forms of energy haven't belonged for decades simply because government interference and refusal to enforce anti-trust laws negates free-market principles.

Any big news machine could get to the bottom of all this in a hurry. But none of them have - not once that I remember - nor do I expect them to.

What's going to happen instead of that is a new push for oil/energy-friendly legislation. Not free market legislation. Not anti-trust law enforcement. No. What we're going to get is more oil/energy-friendly legislation.

And right now - today - you can go to the WCLT website and read "A Local Congressman Talks About the Current Energy Problems" and see how Pat Tiberi (Republican) would give us "relief" - not by enforcement of anti-trust laws but by freeing up energy reserves in Alaska and the Dakotas and goosing up nuclear energy. Exactly the things Big Oil/Energy has been wanting.

This is the Bush Empire's first move in a final drive to seal some deals for the oil/energy brethren before he departs. Watch it unfold.

Dispatch reader explains high gasoline prices

"It really steams me that not one presidential candidate has addressed the price of gasoline." So begins a letter to the editor of today's Columbus Dispatch, written by Jack Crowley of Nelsonville, OH.

Crowley has hit our country's economic problems head-on by enumerating the ways in which the United States government, at the behest of President Bush, is screwing Americans in the pocketbooks and in the comfort zones because he holds this magic wand over gasoline prices. It is universally explained away as the effect of "supply and demand," though such principles can apply only to an open, unfettered and unregulated marketplace.

It is astonishing that the Presidential candidates never mention the price of gasoline and diesel fuel as the basis of our economy's present catastrophe; nor does Congress; nor do mainstream media; nor are there demands for reform from citizens.

This sham operates from behind the smoke and mirrors called "supply and demand." That it goes unchallenged demonstrates the incredible degree of incompetency of our society. (For a plethora of thoughts on this theme, go to the search box above and type in "gasoline.")

We are simply eating the Big Weenie of Bush and his buddies - as though it's to be expected with an oil-rich President and as though nobody can reign him in.

Only one other person in the entire U.S. seems to understand that, and his name is Jack Crowley. Go read his letter.

Bush spends 53 minutes avoiding the real problems

President Bush spent 53 minutes talking about problems of the nation and the world. You can read a short synopsis and what writers thought of it at at theweekdaily.com.

Unfortunately, but as expected, you'll see no mention - not by the President, not by analysts, not by bloggers, not by Democrats or Republicans - of the obscene price of gasoline nor oil-company profits.

Foreign aid for Newark Ohio

Makes me all warm and fuzzy because those crazy people in Washington are giving foreign aid to people in Newark Ohio like they give it to other countries.

We're going to get paid with tax money for being taxpayers and it's going to cost $150 billion.

They all know, of course, that there is nothing in their federal pants pockets; nothing but debt, meaning they are creating even more debt to "pay" us.

There they were, in that bill-signing photo yesterday, all those crazy congressional leaders, sitting there with the craziest among all crazies, our very own President Bush, smiling at each other and signing this boondoggle and proclaiming it as a fix.

And never once mentioning - nobody ever does - the price of oil which has, and is, devastating our economy to the point where we get foreign aid to survive in Newark Ohio until the election.

Zack needs to address the cause, not the effect, of high gasoline prices

Zack Space may have his heart in the right place when he proposed legislation for tax credits to counteract over-priced gasoline. Thing is, even if it becomes law, which it shouldn't, it won't do anything but cost more tax dollars.

You can read about his proposal for legislation in an Advocate report here.

What must happen to solve the problem is to root out the cause behind the high prices - and that would be monopolization of the market with the blessings of our government.

I have written about it here, and Zack needs to read it, pass it around Congress, and try to attack the problem's cause, not its effect.

NSD wants opinions on a new tax. Here's one.

Newark School District officials are debating what form of increased tax burden Newark voters are most likely to swallow. They should read what I wrote here in January, 2006 about the financial burden that goes with living in Newark Ohio, remembering that since 2006 it has only gotten worse.

Government, monopolies are gonna get you: Bend over, taxpayer-consumer
1/9/06

My health insurance premium went up $155 per month this year, courtesy government policies, health care providers, and retirement insurance managers.

My property taxes will go up about 10 percent this year due to increased valuations, courtesy of Ohio government.

Presumably this is on top of the new school tax of $180 per year per $100,000 property tax for the next 28 years, courtesy Newark Schools and voters.

My American Electric Power rates are going up by as much as $72 per year, courtesy of this monopoly and the Ohio government.

My gasoline bills have more than doubled in the past several months, courtesy of George Bush and the energy monopolies.

My Alltel rates could go up by 20 percent per year, courtesy of this monopoly and the Ohio government.

I would have been paying $15 a year more for auto licenses, courtesy of Newark City Council and Mayor Bain, if it hadn’t been for citizens’ revolt at the polls.

I am paying 1/2-cent more county sales tax, courtesy of County Commissioners Tim Bubb and Doug Smith who levied the tax without seeking voter approval.

I am paying 12 percent more for sewer services this year, courtesy Newark City Council.

I will be paying 3 per cent more for water service this year, courtesy of Newark City Service Director Tim Weisert, according to a published statement attributed to him.

I will be paying God knows how much for a new storm water utility program by the city, courtesy city council and Mayor Bain.

All this on top of a half-percent income tax increase not so long ago for city police and fire services, courtesy of city council and Newark voters.

And how much more income am I going to have this year to pay for all this? Not even as much as last year, and I bet there are many others in the same situation.

Your tax dollars at work ... for ethanol

What exactly is E85 and what is the federal government saying is so good about it? Read it here.

Though the federal push for ethanol gets all the publicity, your Ohio taxes are being used in a big way too.

And you'll be amazed at how public money is being spent from Washington to make this feel-good boondoggle pay off for businesses. Read it here.

More funding opportunities for E85 opportunists here.

Just so ya know where your money is going.

Rest easy Bunky, the FTC is watching Google

The Federal Trade Commission is poking around in Google's affairs on the fear that this company may be cornering the market on personal data collection. It's called an "anti-trust review" in a news article today. So have no fear.

Meanwhile, the National Farmers Union reports that four beef packers dominate 83.5 percent of that business, four pork packers control 66 percent of that market, and the top four poultry companies process 58.5 percent of this country's broilers. Also, five companies control 48 percent of U.S. food retailing, compared to 25 percent a decade ago.

But where the FTC really shines forth in true colors is in its attention to the oil industry.

A letter to the FTC by Senators Feingold and Feinstein in October 2005 criticized regulators who permit consolidation of oil refineries, such as Valero Energy and Premcor, giving it a 13-percent market share.

"In 1993, the five largest oil companies operating in the U.S. controlled 34.5 percent of domestic oil refinery capacity; the top ten companies controlled 55.6 percent," the letter said. "By 2004, the top five controlled 56.3 percent and the top ten refiners controlled 83 percent. As a result of the FTC’s policies, the largest five oil refiners today control more capacity than the largest ten did a decade ago. ... We request that the FTC explain how the mergers the agency has allowed have not harmed consumers, and, contrary to GAO findings, have not decreased competition."

That, apparently, ended the senators' responsibility to American consumers. This fine display of PR news-making notwithstanding, we are still getting screwed at the gas pump, the grocery store, the meat market, and everywhere else government regulators permit unbridled non-competitive business practices.

Rest easy, Bunky. The FTC is right on Google's case for hoarding information. That'll help.

Gasoline prices are coming home to roost

The really scary thing about the current price of fuel is that we will pay even more dearly when those high costs are fully charged back to the marketplace, to retailers and grocers for instance.

As has happened in every other case of runaway energy prices within my memory, this is sure to inspire a new level of inflation. There are signs that it's happening. Wholesale prices increased by 1 percent in March and by .7 percent in April - which included wholesale food costs that jumped .4 percent

The former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, has warned us twice about a possible recession. There are already signs of this, too. Sales of autos, hardware, specialty clothing, and department stores are off.
Read a news report on how gas prices are draining consumer dollars.

Meanwhile, we citizens - because of a lazy, do-less media - are still ignorant about the causes of high fuel prices, about who pulls the strings to this non-competitive market force.

I wrote about the way big media reports on energy prices last 9/25/06 and everything I said then (except references to current prices) is still true and still point to mainstream media at its laziest. Read it here.