How do they keep a straight face? Last week, social missionary Democratic Senator Babs Boxer asked an oil executive if he planned to donate his performance-based bonus check to a national energy fund for the poor. The hypocrites just crack me up! This is the same senator who has been giving stump speeches for whatever Democratic presidential candidate happened to come along in favor of raising oil, gas and energy taxes every four years for the past decade and a half. As if people really care whether the premium price for a tank of gas goes into an oil company’s coffers (and from there into those of investors) or into the hole-riddled pockets of the government.
But right now it’s time for the toned-down democratic equivalent of totalitarian public trials. After all, ExxonMobil (XOM:NYSE) reported nearly US$10 billion in net earnings for a three-month period. To liberals, that’s what a camera is to Jesse Jackson: irresistible!
Yesterday, executives from Exxon, Conoco-Philips (COP:NYSE), Chevron (CVX:NYSE) and others were hauled in front of Congress to explain how they could in good conscience turn a 7% to 10% profit (yes, that's a profit of 7 cents for every dollar of sales) when high gasoline prices were hurting the US economy.
Now I grant you, US$10 billion is a staggering amount of cash. Especially for just three months. Just imagine what will happen when we see the results for the whole year. Industry-wide profits will exceed US$100 billion.
Brit Ryle, by profession the Chief Trading Strategist for Money-Flow Matrix, claims to have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists. After all, US consumers have been gouged by Big Oil before. But the bigger picture here is how dependent the United States is on fossil fuels.
He writes: “Fortunately, the ramp in energy prices is having a profound effect on the revitalization of the domestic oil production sector and the development of alternative and renewable energy sources. Global investment in renewable energy hit US$30 billion in 2004. That represents between 20% and 25% of the total investment in the power industry. At a global energy conference in Beijing that ended yesterday, China announced that it would meet 15% of its energy needs through renewable energy by 2020.
How is it that the communists get it while our elected officials would rather circle jerk in front of the camera?
In Nicaragua, we saw wind power systems costing $16,000 and capable of supplying over 900 KW hours per day, per home (check your electric bill next time and look at your average usage). What's different? These systems are located on the premises and owned and operated by the homeowner instead of some utility company with tons of taxpayer-provided campaign cash to donate.
If we took every single family home off the grid and swithed them over to 100% electricity for heat and cooking, we'd have enough domestic energy sources to power every city and munciple building for 100's of years, summer and winter. How about a tax credit for to cover the cost of installation, instead of subsidies for utility windfarms that cannot achieve 25% of those results?
But then, what would Sen. Boxer do with her spare time?
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