Another wind powered press conference by the leader of Gasbagistan does not make him an energy expert.
Barack Obama is now in full campaign mode. He tried doing the governing thing for two years. It did not work out, and now he needs scapegoats for his failed policies.
The price of gasoline is currently more than $4 per gallon as oil has skyrocketed to more than $112 per barrel.
Barack Obama knows that flowing rhetoric about “hope,” “change,” and “yes we can” will fall hollow in 2012 if people look to him to bring down the price of oil and he concedes “no he can’t.”
Since platitudes are long since worn out and solutions elude him, his path to reelection involves creating another conservative bogeyman to demonize. The flavor of the week are now those oil “speculators.”
Attacking speculators is as boring as it is misguided. Any moment now everybody from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to the Koch Brothers to British Petroleum will be blamed. Mr. Obama might as well blame Buddy Ebsen. After all, Jed Clampett and the rest of the Beverly Hillbillies made their money in oil. This may explain why Mr. Obama brought Los Angeles traffic to a standstill last week as thousands of cars idled away petrodollars. Somebody get Barnaby Jones to investigate.
Those wanting to blame speculators should buy a thesaurus and then look in the mirror. Somewhere in a nursing home there is a ninety year old grandmother who has a mutual fund containing a few shares of stock in some oil company she bought back when the Charleston was the latest craze. Have this woman arrested now. She is a speculator.
Speculators play both sides of all markets, and phony politicians only complain when the market refuses to cooperate with the public. When speculators drive the stock market higher, there is happiness. When the speculators drive it down, there are calls for investigations. Commodities provide the reverse reaction. When oil skyrocketed to $147 a barrel in 2007, people screamed bloody murder. When it crashed down to $33 a barrel, nobody blamed speculators.
(Silver and gold hit all time highs this past week, but nobody is screaming at speculators for that. Mr. Obama cares about oil because it affects him.)
So to all of those crybabies and the president desperate to appease them, the laws of supply and demand cannot be repealed. They cannot be declared unconstitutional. Barack Obama cannot part the seas and make the markets cater to his reelection efforts.
Yet there is one thing Mr. Obama can do to help lower oil prices.
He can stop being himself.
He needs to wake up tomorrow, and admit that his anti-oil policies are a major reason prices are so high.
When running in 2008, he pointed out that under his plan, oil prices would “necessarily” have to rise.
This is not complex. In the same way the war against tobacco companies led to higher cigarette prices, the Jihad against the oil industry is having the same effect.
In Mr. Obama’s mind, getting everybody off of oil is noble. He wants a green economy that operates on alternative energy sources. He wants Americans to give up their cars and rely on high speed rail. His entire energy and environmental agenda is meant to end dependence on oil.
Supporters find this laudable while critics find it impractical. Yet what is truly ludicrous is for a man to deliberately try to destroy the oil industry while then wondering why this would affect prices.
There are so many ways to bring down the price of oil, from domestic drilling to turning Iran into a 50,000 hole golf course and seizing their oil.
Mr. Obama has telegraphed that his policies are meant to get us away from oil. Therefore, any sensible gambler would play oil to the upside. The gamblers did not create the trend. They jumped on the bandwagon. Anybody criticizing this investment strategy should deliberately try to defy trends and see how they enjoy losing money. Politicians are often irrational, but markets in the long run are as rational as can be.
Mr. Obama is right to want to make America less dependent on foreign oil. He is wrong to try and enact policies that have an adverse effect on ordinary Americans needing cheap oil today. He is even more wrong to blame those engaging in sensible actions when his own senseless actions led to the problem in the first place.
Mr. Obama should do one of two things. He could go on television and explain why higher oil prices are good for America. He could scold Americans and shame them into giving up oil and driving. It would be political suicide, but a courageous, integrity-based stand.
He could also get out of the way. He could stop hijacking the permit process while pretending to support drilling. He could allow domestic drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and other techniques involving oil shale.
If he chooses to remain a leftist anti-oil ideologue, then he needs to have the honor and decency to justify his position.
This will not happen. Mr. Obama knows that his fantasyland approach to energy has failed, and hopes that he can fool just enough people to slink into a second term.
Speculators everywhere should buy and sell legally whenever and wherever they please. Risk takers built this nation. One obtuse and desperate politician should not be allowed to subvert centuries of global tradition and commerce.
Mr. Obama is the problem. The speculators are the solution.
So as people bet on 2012 oil prices, stock prices, and presidential prospects, Mr. Obama will continue to stew over what he cannot regulate, manipulate, or obfuscate.
It is called freedom. It existed long before leftist anti-capitalists, and will exist long after many more socialist models are discredited and reduced to the ash heap of history.
Based on historical trends, that is a very safe bet to play to the upside whether Mr. Obama likes it or not.
eric
Ya’ wanna hear something funny? If it weren’t for highly developed states like America, there’d be no place for specualtors.
JMJ
My car is decades old. It was made in the USA ( no foreign cars for me made in America but owned in Japan and Germany.
I get horrible mileage. Iam ashamed to say how much.
But, I dont drive much.
I purchased stock in Ford and Disney, when both were doing poorly.
I am smiling now each time I view my stock portfolio.
When people run up to me and offer to buy my car, like right now,
my asking price is 100,000.That startles them..and they get the hint.
However, if I sold, I would purchase a 3 year old Ford Focus. I want to
keep the money in the family.
When back East, I notice that one can travel anywhere, within a several state area, using public transportation. One can use the very good system
of subways, light rail, buses both Greyhound and smaller companies.
Anyone familiar with the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 10th Avenue
in Manhattan, knows from where I come.
But be careful of the crazies there who rush up to you, offer to carry your luggage, and then do, for a fee. God forbid you dont pay them.
I dont know the cost of using the buses and trains in NYCity, but its cheaper than taxis..which there is no shortage of.
Okay, so we have buses and trains in the Southland, if one wants
the time involved, difficulty of getting to them, and walking down
flights of stairs to the subways. Try the entrance at Hollywood and Vine
for starters. I mean, give me a break.
Every time gasoline goes up, we hear the same frustrations and
excuses.
Mr. Obama, why not just tell people to drive less, lets say 20% to start. Use car pool lanes and share passengers. Use public transporation.
I agree that instead of bombing Moammar and placating Iran, we could
make a deal with Saudi Arabia. We use B1a FOR A FEW days to take out Moammar, bomb 9 sites in Iran (land marines at their oil sites), and
tell Arabia that for all this protection..they must sell us oil at a discount.
Or better yet, hows about the Bear Mountain Boys or 5th Mechanized Division going into Arabia….surrounding their vast oil fields, and at the same time freeing one-half their population AND girls from being circumcised. You heard me right guys.
Speaking of oil, how much oil does Venezuela sell US I wonder?
Hmmmmmmmmmm.