Those Oil Men In The White House ...

Those Oil Men In The White House ...

I tire of political confrontation any more. Blowhards can just be blowhards. I have no real desire to get into half-baked conversations with people who are not really listening. Sometimes though, one finds oneself in one of those conversations inadvertently. The challenge is to get out of it quickly, or at least quickly enough to keep one's composure.

A couple days ago I found myself in one of those conversations and was trying to get out of it ... I finally just made a vague comment and walked off, likely leaving him feeling like he had won or bullied me away, when in fact I just tired of him and knew it was pointless to talk to him.

It went something like this. The conversation turned to oil prices and I made a quip about having two oil men in office being a contributing factor. This, apparently, really pissed him off. After a bit of harranguing, it just seemed clear that I should walk away since he was absolutely convinced that the oil men in office has nothing to do with anything.

Never mind that oil companies have had record profits. In a period when Americans are using mass transit more and more and are driving less and less the profits keep going up. This only happens because they are working on a higher margin. The profits would remain consitent or dip if the price of gas related to the price per barrel was consistent given the current use and demand. The oil men in office are buds with these guys so they know they have a short window of opportunity to maximise this profit period with impunity. Bush doesn't care and doesn't do anything about it.

Never mind that we have a sudden infustion of cars that get better mileage, etc ... the oil men haven't really cared or done anything to promote public policy in this area for the better part of eight years. Instead of using tax breaks (their favorite thing in the entire world) to encourage the production of these vehicles and technologies, they have simply ignored it, exacerbating the problem instead of being proactive.

And of course the increased consumption in places like China and India due to increased industiralization, coincidentally where American companies keep sending manufacturing jobs, has not abated during the past two terms ...

And then there is the war in Iraq. I just don't remotely want to even go there very far. But, wasn't this war supposed to pay for itself and guarantee us access to cheap oil?

Nope, those oil men haven't had anything at all to do with how oil prices have impacted our economy.