The Enron Loophole

I had meant to blog about this earlier this week, but got sidetracked by other stories. Now I don't need to as Keith Olbermann has done it for me. People, THIS is why oil is as high as it is right now. Supply and demand has NOTHING to do with it! Watch, learn, and be sick to your stomach:

Barack Obama on Gas Prices, in Indianapolis

Nothing's Changed

Taking it up the, err. . .tank!


I remember when gas first surpassed $1 per gallon in 1980. I was 16 years old and driving a 1967 Bonneville ragtop with a big-block 400 topped with a Carter automatic four-barrel carb. I got 10 miles per gallon. That was bad, but Dad paid for my gas, and I couldn't understand what the big deal was. After all, gas was $.80 the year before!

These days, however, I can relate more to Dad's grumbling about paying a mere $.25 per gallon 8 years before. When I first entered the transportation industry in 2000, diesel fuel was $1.39. Now, in the same timespan that Dad referred to, diesel has increased to $4.19! My fuel costs have risen from a monthly average of $300 to over $200 per week!

You'll have to excuse me if I feel no sympathy for Exxon-Mobil and their record profits donated by myself and the rest of you fine folks.

Barack Obama on oil prices:

House votes to repeal "big oil" tax breaks

Enough is enough!

After the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to repeal $18 billion in tax breaks for big oil companies to help pay for developing renewable energy sources, Bush threatened to veto the bill, saying that it "unfairly targets the oil industry". Read that last line again, and recall that Exxon Mobil, by itself, recorded record profits of $40.6 BILLION last year. These bastards have gotten fat (particularly the fat bastard pictured) off us, reaping windfall profits while George Bush hands them back billions of our tax money!

Even you conservative, pro-business, common market folks must find fault with subsidizing an industry that requires no help in the first place! "Nothing wrong with making a profit" is the talking point that I keep hearing from these people. I agree, to a point. But I take exception at obscene profits that are made merely to make obscene profits - big oil has had no unexpected increased expenses, no shock waves. They are directly fucking the American people, while their enabling lackey in the White House not only protects them, but hands them more of our money via tax breaks.

In 2007, the price for a barrel of oil jumped from $50 to $100. I don't recall hearing that the supply fell by 50%, nor did I receive any information regarding a huge increase in expenses for the oil companies. What I HAVE heard is that big oil was given billions to offset THEIR usual and customary expenses, while those of us in the transportation industry not only got screwed at the pump, but received no in-kind government assistance to help us like the oil companies got. My annual fuel costs have increased from $3.5k in 2001 to $10.5k last year - where's MY big tax break? Somewhere on Exxon Mobil's tax return, apparently. . .

Darth's surpise PSA visit

Darth Cheney paid a surprise trip to Baghdad today to deliver a tough message to the Iraqi government – "Get busy on signing the profit-sharing agreements we discussed! As soon as those are signed, you can take a permanent vacation for all that I care!"

The dark lord has been livid since discovering that Iraq’s fledgling parliament was planning to take a two-month summer recess, postponing work on a bill designed to steal Iraq's oil reserves while further enriching foreign oil companies, and leaving nothing but a sore and greasy situation for the nation and it's citizens.

"Look here, al Maliki, I've got Democrats in the woodwork at home, a 9% personal approval rating, and an American public that's ready to hang me from the nearest oil derrick. And you guys just voted to throw us all out of here as well!"

"Give me what I want and we'll go away" snarled Cheney after ordering staff to kick the press out of the room.

The new American ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, nervously told reporters that the vice president merely wanted some "alone time" to share some music with his Iraqi friend and convey American displeasure over the planned vacation. Here's a swiped security cam video of that meeting:



al Maliki's only comment after the rendezvous was that he had been offered a deal that he could not refuse, and was suffering from an earache.


Cheney was supposed to be in Abu Dhabi today for a photo op, according to his public schedule. Reporters had pressed Cheney staffers for days about whether he would go to Iraq on the current trip. The staffers never denied it outright, but didn’t tell the reporters accompanying Cheney until after Air Force Two had lifted off from Andrews Air Force Base. No reports as of yet of fare discounts for the unannounced detour, but the International Reporters Against Cheney group is considering action against the vice president. . .