The American Spectator : Obama's War on Oil

Text Size

Obama’s War on Oil

By Peter Ferrara on 5.4.11 @ 6:10AM

A campaign promise kept: he wants higher gasoline prices and his policies guarantee they will only go higher.

As a guest on a black radio talk show recently, I suggested that someone ask President Obama what his plan is for bringing down high gasoline prices.

What a gaffe that question would be. The current high gas prices, and more, are precisely the President’s plan.

President Obama’s Secretary of Energy is former Berkeley physics professor Steven Chu, who said in 2008, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” We still have a way to go to achieve Secretary Chu’s goal. The average price for a gallon of gas in Europe is over $8.

President Obama’s Secretary of Interior is Ken Salazar. When he was a Senator in 2008, he proclaimed on the floor of the Senate that he would oppose any offshore drilling no matter how high the price of gasoline rose, even to $10 a gallon.

When President Obama took office in 2009, the average price of gasoline in America was $1.83 a gallon. Today it is more than double that at $3.87. As the above quotes indicate, the Obama Administration’s policy is to increase it well beyond that.

Extremist Quackery

Why would President Obama want high gas prices? It’s a matter of ideology for him. He thinks it’s good for the environment for gas prices to be high. The higher gas prices are, the less you will drive.

Also, higher gas prices make his beloved “alternative fuels” more competitive. That is because these alternative fuels are inherently more expensive, and so can’t compete with cheaper gas. Note this is not a prescription for easing the financial burden on working people. High gas prices make it more likely you will buy expensive “alternative fuels.” But either way, your wallet will still be drained.

Worst of all, these “alternative fuels” are not anywhere near sufficiently viable to power the modern American economy into the 21st century. To sharply restrict and drive up the price of the traditional energy that can power our economy today decades before any possible alternative energy can take on the burden is a policy of national economic suicide. That is President Obama’s energy policy today.

Don’t even bring up the notion of global warming to justify President Obama’s high gas price policy. I have discussed the discredited science behind that phony ideological claim in this space in detail before. If you need a refresher course, check out the Heartland Institute’s definitive, 800-page tome Climate Change Reconsidered. The most advanced climate scientists such as MIT’s Richard Lindzen now have definitive proof that man-caused greenhouse gas emissions will not raise earth’s temperatures anywhere near dangerous levels. The increased CO2 in the atmosphere and the resulting slightly increased warmth will only improve agricultural productivity and human health.

These are the reasons why Victor Davis Hanson wrote in a recent column, “So much of this Administration’s talk about energy sounds similar to a bull session in the faculty lounge, or what we would expect from lifelong bureaucrats and public functionaries who have never experienced long commutes or struggles in the harsher, profit-driven private workplace.”

Supply and Demand

President Obama has raised gas prices by carrying on a war against U.S. oil production. One year after the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill, the environment in the gulf has mostly recovered, but the same cannot be said for the American economy. Instead, after a deepwater drilling moratorium declared illegal in several judicial rulings that still dragged on for months, and then a continuing drilling permit slowdown also judicially condemned, giant deepwater drilling rigs have now been uprooted from the Gulf of Mexico and sent to friendlier economic environments in the Congo, Brazil, and elsewhere. The Gulf of Mexico has been a mainstay of U.S. oil production for decades with little adverse environmental effects. But President Obama seized on the opportunity provided by the spill to shut down as much of the Gulf production as possible. Maybe that political opportunity is why the Administration was so slow to act to minimize damage from the spill.

Also never recovered from the spill has been the congressionally-approved offshore drilling plan for the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the South Atlantic, and the mid-Atlantic, which President Obama deep-sixed in response to the spill. That action alone deprives the American people of an estimated 7.6 billion barrels of oil and 36.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Just warming up, the Obama Administration also rescinded already issued permits for drilling in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska. Shell Oil recently discovered that after spending $4 billion to develop shallow-water drilling on vast tracts already leased from the federal government in the Beauford and Chukchi Seas north of Alaska, President Obama’s EPA has denied it permits to begin exploratory drilling. That leaves another estimated 27 billion barrels of oil in the ground.

Page: 1 2 3 >

About the Author

Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (160) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

oldfart| 5.4.11 @ 6:20AM

Why do we give money to Brazil (billions) to expand their oil production when they are moving to ethanol? Follow the money - who stands to make killing in the future by leaving our energy resources in the ground? That is where Barry is getting is marching orders.

Michael Tomlinson| 5.4.11 @ 6:52AM

"Why do we give money to Brazil (billions) to expand their oil production when they are moving to ethanol? Follow the money - who stands to make killing . . .?" Obama supporter George Soros who is a prime investor in Brazilian oil. I wouldn't be surprised if China gets a bundle of US taxpayer's money too.

Firozali A.Mulla DBA | 5.5.11 @ 3:54PM

Sin, guilt, neurosis-they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
-- Henry Miller
I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA

Clint| 5.4.11 @ 8:47AM

Obama seen squating to poop on the beach, after pooping on The American Economy.

Pass the Charmin.

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 10:13AM

Don't any of you know the full meaning of Peak Oil?

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 10:15AM

Google it, fer chrissakes.
Peak Oil:
some will make a killing, some we be killed- what else is new?

Teaghan| 5.4.11 @ 10:18AM

Libya: Blood for Oil.

Matthew Quigley| 5.4.11 @ 10:29AM

Libya: Blood for no oil...unless you mean the oil that goes to France and Germany, since the US hardly gets any from Libya.

All Obozo is doing is further weakening the US military. What a POS.

Clint| 5.4.11 @ 10:44AM

"Peak oil is a scam to create artificial scarcity and drive prices up. Meanwhile, alternative fuel technologies which have been around for decades are intentionally suppressed."

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 11:37AM

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. This concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells. The aggregate production rate from an oil field over time usually grows exponentially until the rate peaks and then declines—sometimes rapidly—until the field is depleted. This concept is derived from the Hubbert curve, and has been shown to be applicable to the sum of a nation’s domestic production rate, and is similarly applied to the global rate of petroleum production. Peak oil is often confused with oil depletion; peak oil is the point of maximum production while depletion refers to a period of falling reserves and supply.

M. King Hubbert created and first used the models behind peak oil in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970.[1] His logistic model, now called Hubbert peak theory, and its variants have described with reasonable accuracy the peak and decline of production from oil wells, fields, regions, and countries,[2] and has also proved useful in other limited-resource production-domains. According to the Hubbert model, the production rate of a limited resource will follow a roughly symmetrical logistic distribution curve (sometimes incorrectly compared to a bell-shaped curve) based on the limits of exploitability and market pressures.

Some observers, such as petroleum industry experts Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Matthew Simmons, believe the high dependence of most modern industrial transport, agricultural, and industrial systems on the relative low cost and high availability of oil will cause the post-peak production decline and possible severe increases in the price of oil to have negative implications for the global economy. Predictions vary greatly as to what exactly these negative effects would be. If political and economic changes only occur in reaction to high prices and shortages rather than in reaction to the threat of a peak, then the degree of economic damage to importing countries will largely depend on how rapidly oil imports decline post-peak.

Optimistic estimations of peak production forecast the global decline will begin by 2020 or later, and assume major investments in alternatives will occur before a crisis, without requiring major changes in the lifestyle of heavily oil-consuming nations. These models show the price of oil at first escalating and then retreating as other types of fuel and energy sources are used.[3] Pessimistic predictions of future oil production operate on the thesis that either the peak has already occurred,[4][5][6][7] that oil production is on the cusp of the peak, or that it will occur shortly.[8][9] The International Energy Agency (IEA) says production of conventional crude oil peaked in 2006

John Navratil| 5.4.11 @ 11:58AM

Alan Brooks,

Matt Simmons advanced this theory until the day of his death, even writing "Twilight in the Desert".

While it sounds great (like the Laffer curve), the reality is a bit more complicated. The amount of recoverable oil is a function of the current price and the state of technology. Each is affected, in turn, by public policy and the efficiency of use.

Waving "Peak Oil" around as the answer to every question is a gross oversimplification.

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 8:56PM

I am not concerned about reality, I exist to serve my master 'Obama the Great", master stateman, military genius and economic wizard.

Julie Amos| 6.1.11 @ 8:04AM

Obama a master stateman ? Where do you get your kool-aid ? More like you are the devils advocate,absolutely sick . Of course you care not about reality , your master leves in illiterate - ville as well .

Drunken Sailor| 5.4.11 @ 12:02PM

How can it be "Peak Oil" when we are not allowed to tap the oil we have?

Your own words: "Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached"
You can't reach the maximum rate of global petroleum without drilling in our own oild fields. Nice strawman though.

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 12:28PM

Americans don't want it because of NIMBY, same goes for nuclear, why do you think radioactive waste is shipped out to the most remote areas even though nuke waste is buried so well and so deep it is FAR FAR less dangerous than many other threats in our lives?
NIMBY is no straw man, it is real as anything, in every community everywhere..

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 12:30PM

.... NIMBY voids "drill baby, drill"

And you can't get out of THAT one.

Drunken Sailor| 5.4.11 @ 12:52PM

Sure you can. As energy gets more expensive NIMBY becomes less important.

Dagny Taggert| 5.4.11 @ 3:33PM

I'll take a small modular reactor in my backyard any day Brooksie. Distributed nuclear is the answer. "Peak Oil" is a theory, and since it is a negative (we don't have enough oil on Earth) it isn't provable by the laws of logic.

How do you explain the discovery of the 2 largest oil fields in history in the last 5 years? And how do you apply 'peak oil' when we are still discovering new reserves? (I.e. every well and field has a finite amount of oil, but we're a long way off from proving there are a finite number of fields.)

Just because it fits your slanted narrative doesn't make it so.

the refudiator| 5.5.11 @ 12:35AM

the earth is finite.

Richard| 5.4.11 @ 3:38PM

I don't mind oil wells in my back yard. In Wyoming where I live oil wells are everywhere. So what? They are no more unattractive than a corner 7-11 store. Hell, there are oil wells in the city of LA and nobody cares at all. Oil platforms in the ocean are great fishing spots too.

The Silver Bear| 5.4.11 @ 11:52PM

Alan, with all due respect, anyone with mineral rights WANTS a well drilled on their land. Checks coming from a producing well are welcome in any household.

Your NIMBY argument just doesn't hold water...

JP| 5.4.11 @ 4:30PM

Alan,
2.5 years ago oil was selling at $38/barrel. Six months prior it was selling at $150/barrel. Now it is back up to $112/barrel. These wild swings have nothing to do with peak oil, and everything to do with the weakening dollar. Oil is bought and paid for in dollars. The less the dollar is worth, the more oil cost regardless of supply. Besides the falling dollar, the Saudis have cut thier daily production by 600,000 barrels (this is thier way of punishing the United States for its devaluation of its currency).

The largest exporters of oil to the US are Canada and Mexico. Almost all of Canada's oil comes from its tar pits and shale. And speaking of northern areas, North Dakota sits on one of the world's largest reserves (and deepest). The US also has the world's largest supply of NG and coal. All in all the US could become energy independent if there was the political will. The Brazilians are exploiting thier offshore reserves (some 300 years worth of oil at today's consumption levels). And, if one factors in demographics (a rapidly aging global population), we probably hit our peak global consumption between 1998-2007. Older people consume less energy. The demand for energy will begin to drop by 2025.

Oldefarte| 5.4.11 @ 4:51PM

Brooks, you copied/pasted this from Wikileaks and did not use quotations or ID your sourse. Hopefully they will come after you for copywriting infringement. There's a distinction between your usual excrement comments and this, which stands out like a sore thumb [since you're not smart enough to have written the above yourself]!!!!

Trinacria| 5.4.11 @ 6:46PM

Would that a man's brilliance were measured by his ability to cut and paste; alas, it is not. Pity, isn't it?

Occam's Tool| 5.5.11 @ 6:09PM

Yes, Alan---but this does not cover shale sand oil extraction possibilities, which are huge. It is the price of gas which is going to bite Obama in the ass. If gas is $6.00/gallon in 2012 (as it will be) and he ISN'T expanding US drilling (which he won't), he stands the same chance of being re-elected as I do of becoming the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Kishego| 5.4.11 @ 3:16PM

Ya, what ever Allen. This theory is from the same group of leeches that gave us Global Cooling in the 70's, The Population Time Bomb when we were all supposed to be starving by the year 2000 (suppose that blows away the obesity epidemic since we're all starving to death), The Death of our Oceans by the year 2000, Global Warming (the current scourge of mankind), and so on, and so on........

the refudiator| 5.5.11 @ 12:41AM

you can have very large reserves but it is the rate of extraction that is the key. Alberta's tar sands will limit out at 2 mbpd due to water limitations despite the large reserves. This is the point some are not seeing. It is like having a million dollars in the bank but only being allowed $1o per day. Almost all of the easy cheap oil is gone. When you talk about tar sands & North Dakota you do not take extraction/production rates (and depletion rates) into account when you say we will be energy independent.

Oldefarte| 5.4.11 @ 2:48PM

Okay, MORON, I did [here it is]:
".....Some do not agree with peak oil, at least as it has been presented by Matthew Simmons. The president of Royal Dutch Shell's U.S. operations John Hofmeister, while agreeing that conventional oil production will soon start to decline, has criticized Simmons's analysis for being "overly focused on a single country: Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter and OPEC swing producer." He also points to the large reserves at the U.S. outer continental shelf, which holds an estimated 100 billion barrels (16×10^9 m3) of oil and natural gas. As things stand, however, only 15% of those reserves are currently exploitable, a good part of that off the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. Hofmeister also contends that Simmons erred in excluding unconventional sources of oil such as the oil sands of Canada, where Shell is already active. The Canadian oil sands—a natural combination of sand, water, and oil found largely in Alberta and Saskatchewan—is believed to contain one trillion barrels of oil. Another trillion barrels are also said to be trapped in rocks in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming,[150] but are in the form of oil shale. These particular reserves present major environmental, social, and economic obstacles to recovery.[151][152] Hofmeister also claims that if oil companies were allowed to drill more in the United States enough to produce another 2 million barrels per day (320×10^3 m3/d), oil and gas prices would not be as high as they are in the later part of the 2000 to 2010 decade. He thinks that high energy prices are causing social unrest similar to levels surrounding the Rodney King riots.[153] Dr. Christoph Rühl, Chief economist of BP, repeatedly uttered strong doubts about the peak oil hypothesis:[154] Physical peak oil, which I have no reason to accept as a valid statement either on theoretical, scientific or ideological grounds, would be insensitive to prices. (...)In fact the whole hypothesis of peak oil – which is that there is a certain amount of oil in the ground, consumed at a certain rate, and then it's finished – does not react to anything.... (Global Warming) is likely to be more of a natural limit than all these peak oil theories combined. (...) Peak oil has been predicted for 150 years. It has never happened, and it will stay this way.According to Rühl, the main limitations for oil availability are "above ground" and are to be found in the availability of staff, expertise, technology, investment security, money and last but not least in global warming. The oil question is about price and not the basic availability. His views are shared by Daniel Yergin of CERA, who added that the recent high price phase might add to a future demise of the oil industry - not of lack of resources or an apocalyptic shock but the timely and smooth setup of alternatives.[155] Clive Mather, CEO of Shell Canada, said the Earth's supply of hydrocarbons is almost infinite, referring to hydrocarbons in oil sands.[156] Engineer Peter Huber believes the Canadian oil sands can fuel all of humanity's needs for over 100 years.[156]...."

the refudiator| 5.5.11 @ 12:45AM

The earth is finite & so is its reserves of hydrocarbons, and water. To extract oil from sand, you need water. This is the limiting factor to daily production.

Oldefarte| 5.5.11 @ 8:22AM

WWe have tons of oil within this country [as any oil geologist will gladly inform you] which is not being produced/drilled. Why, because Democrats historically have been in political bed with environmentalists who deplore oil drilling [according to them its detrimental to the caribu, spotted owl, endangered spicies, etc]. Well if we don't begin producing our know/abundant quantities of oil in this country, WE WILL BECOME ENDANGERED SPICIES ALSO!!!!!!

Occam's Tool| 5.5.11 @ 6:13PM

You know, we DO have an oil expert here. Ken? Comments on "peak oil," etc?

Kurt in S.L.C.| 5.4.11 @ 5:31PM

Yes,I do know the meaning of "Peak Oil " and we are along way from it,being in the the oil business might give me some insights you don't have,what do you do besides spout drivel?

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 6:03PM

"being in the the oil business might give me some insights"

As to how corners can be cut to maximize profits? as JR Ewing said, "get rid of integrity and you can do anything you want." (and yes, I know he was a fictional character).
Bottom line is so many trillions are invested that you do not want to disturb the status quo no matter what.

Trinacria| 5.4.11 @ 6:50PM

Why, pray tell, is it called gouging and maximizing profits when a private company makes 4% on a gallon of gas, and responsible public policy when the government makes 18% on the same gallon of gas (without, by the way, exposing any capital to risk in order to reap such profits)?

Oldefarte| 5.5.11 @ 8:26AM

Wow Brooksie-Boy, you're against the Bushes, oil drilling, etc and you supposed live in Texas. What, did the Bushes take away your tinker-toy as a child, beat you up on a west-Texas playground or what? Why don't you move if you're so anti-Texas/South and take your liberal views to Massachusetts where you will be more welcomed? Also, FYI the NYT etc have blog sites also, okay??????????????????

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 11:02PM

Yes, I do. I also know that "proved resources" is a very changeable term, one that could fluctuate up and down, annually, for any field, based on which country develops the data, who's in power there, the state of the world economy, etc.

Groad| 5.4.11 @ 10:48AM

Brazil isn't moving to Ethanol. They use Ethanol as they did not have any significant oil. Now that they have a huge reserve they will be moving to Gasoline as it is far more efficient and can scalp the Oborg for exporting Ethanol. Obama is a sucker. We are in deep doo-doo.

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 11:46AM

"Libya: Blood for Oil."

Is was that way under Gaddhafi, too. He killed quite a few to maintain his position--
but who doesn't?

Oldefarte| 5.4.11 @ 2:50PM

Gadzooks, what a brilliant statement! Next, why don't you quote John Conyers!!!!!

Richard| 5.4.11 @ 3:40PM

Diplomacy and even war to obtain or maintain a country's natural resources are the story of humanity. It won't (and shouldn't) change soon if ever.

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 5:50PM

Men are murderous pigs.

mames| 5.4.11 @ 8:01PM

Obama is not the bumbling idiot many of we conservatives think he is. He is a manic, evil, smart tactician and strategist who know exactly what he is trying to do. Remake America. Remake it via Alinskite means into a accelerated (not just progressive) Marxism. He is an enemy of this country, hates the constitution and is doing everything he can to overturn it. Brazilian oil? Brazil governance is his dream for USA where the oil companies are owned by the government. Notice these central marxist planners never have to live by the rules they impose on us. AND WHY IN THE HELL CAN ONE MAN DETERMINE THE DIRECTION OF OUR OIL COMPANIES?

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 11:05PM

Agree, mostly, re: Obama.

He remains the clearest and most present danger to America.

He, his thugocracy and the puppet media who no longer deserve the lattitude granted by First Amendment rights.

Michael Tomlinson| 5.4.11 @ 6:28AM

In the summer of 2008 Barack Obama didn’t think high gas prices constituted a problem for Americans. He believed the rapid increase in prices, not the prices themselves was the problem – he claimed Americans would accept “gradual adjustment” in the rise of gas prices.

Wrong again Barack.

SpiralArchitect| 5.4.11 @ 2:21PM

Being an American living in America I have yet to see a single American stop using gas or establish a boycott...

Anyone seen anyhting that may be contrary to my observation?

Drunken Sailor| 5.4.11 @ 4:25PM

Not all americans live in a area with mass transit. And just how in the hell do you expect long haul truck drivers to stop using Diesel? Let's not even mention all the petroleum used in making plastics. Petroleum is here for a long, long time. Get over it.

RAMIII| 5.4.11 @ 5:16PM

Is this an example of *circular* logic?

RAMIII| 5.4.11 @ 5:17PM

The above question is for Mr. Spiral!

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 11:11PM

Approximately 50 percent of the population lives in what might be considered urban areas. They may have, probably do have access to mass transit that the remaining 50 percent don't.

Further, the boycott will be one that comes--actually, has already begun--by people driving less.

For some of us, though, we commute and, not being able to move our employment to where we live or, for whatever personal/family reasons, not moving to where the employment exists, or not being able to join carpools for whatever reason--we will have to continue to drive.

The boycott also comes already through people beginning to spend less money. That will accelerate as prices of consummables continues to rise, due to high diesel costs.

gladius| 5.4.11 @ 8:20PM

If you want to see the price of gas go down all Obama has to do is make a statement that America is going to start drilling for our own NG and oil. OOPS ! that would mean he would be copying another Bush policy. We all know that isn't gonna happen. If we want cheaper oil we need a new Pres.

Pecos Pete| 5.4.11 @ 7:07AM

At $4 per gallon, I'm down to two trips for groceries per month. Living in the rural New Mexico mountains requires lots of rugged miles. By January 2012 with $5 per gallon, I'll be down to one trip for groceries per month.

But it is nice to know that a new electric car will improve my life. I will be able to drive down hill to town, spend the night while the car charges, then drive half way back up the hill before I have to charge the car again. That is if the weather cooperates.

I'd be better off with a horse and buggy. Come to think of it, that's what King O probably wants.

Michael Tomlinson| 5.4.11 @ 8:24AM

Pecos to quote another Democrat loser, "I feel your pain."

Anthony| 5.4.11 @ 9:09AM

Dear Pecos, Apparently you didn't get the memo from the LSM. Media whores like Tom Brokaw from the Upper West Side have weighed in on this subject and have concluded that Americans are o.k. with $4.00 a gal gas.
Have you become like Nancy Pelosi and now have changed your mind, like she's done on the death of Osama?
Tisk, tisk; as Joe Biteme said upon awaking in a deserted AMTRAK car at 3:30 am, everybody has to have skin in the game.
But don't worry Pecos, Obozo has plans for the USA, including a complete transformation into Afghanastan.
We're all goatherders now!!! At least you'll have a head start on the rest of us, being in the rural moutains of New Mexico.

Matthew Quigley| 5.4.11 @ 10:32AM

Been there...the mountains, I mean. Try living in the Chuskas, doing day work on four ranches, and having one town thirty-five miles away, the other sixty. It ain't easy, and Hussein's oil policies make it even worse.

They need to start putting hitch rails up again, because at this rate we'll be back on horses for more than working cattle.

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 11:42AM

"Living in the rural New Mexico"

Then move. Obama isn't forcing you to live out in the desert. Blacks don't have to live in ghettos, do they? the ones who are savvy can move elsewhere rather than commplain that the "Man' is keeping them there.
In your case, you are using Obama as a scapegoat, he your 'the Man'.

Pecos Pete| 5.4.11 @ 12:02PM

Alan, you be de Man. You'd have me, and the rest of rural America, living in concentration camps to satisfy your emotional needs to be better than others.

Pecos Pete| 5.4.11 @ 12:21PM

Jeez, I forgot ... Alan ... when you make me move say goodbye to the meat and veggies we produce in rural America, and that you buy at your local grocery store.

Ed| 5.4.11 @ 12:39PM

Libs like Allan want everyone to live in their urban gulags under DemocRAT rule.

SpiralArchitect| 5.4.11 @ 2:24PM

It must be said, Alan is one brilliant guy with the anwsers to all that troubles us.

Oldefarte| 5.4.11 @ 2:53PM

Shazam, what a philosopher! "Savvy", what's bees that, bro?

Oldefarte| 5.4.11 @ 2:55PM

Wait, you mean to tell me that I/we can move [Then move. Obama isn't forcing you to live out in the desert]? Golly, gee-horse-a-fats!!!!!!!!!

Curtis Rasmussen| 5.4.11 @ 3:21PM

Ghettos know no color barrier, asswipe.

If the clown Obama gets reelected, then expect bicycle sales to soar. Buy stock now while its cheap.

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 5:57PM

No way- what you Repuglicans and libertopians secretly think is: many trillions are invested in petroleum and you want to keep it that way.

Curtis Rasmussen| 5.4.11 @ 6:58PM

Alan Brooks brings out the straw argument once again. I never said anything about investment in oil.

And who says I am a Republican, asswipe? I most assuredly did not.

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 11:17PM

You know, Alan, you don't really have to be a narrow-minded hard-hearted moron. That's a choice, too.

"Then move."

What liberal/leftist arrogance and elitism. Ignorance, too.

As for calling those with whom you disagree "Republigans and libertopians"? Childish and your default because you cannot access anything else.

Trinacria| 5.4.11 @ 6:53PM

Hang in there, Pecos Pete - we're gonna get you high speed rail by 2050! (of course, it will be run by Amtrak, so I'm not sure I'd risk buying ice cream on your trip to the grocery store...)

Occam's Tool| 5.5.11 @ 6:17PM

Pecos,

I lived in Las Cruces and ABQ for about a year. Rural NM is one of the most glorious places to live on Earth. The light is very good, very good indeed. Alan, there is a reason Santa Fe has an art market rivaled only by NYC and LA. It is a stunning place to be, and the scenery is breathtaking.

Gordon W.| 5.4.11 @ 7:12AM

The premise in the article that alternative energy sources are not competitive with oil is false. This is because the article avoids one crucial fact, oil is heavily subsidized. Speaker Boehner even said that he wants to repeal all of those subsidies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07.....bptax.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....ax-breaks/

One estimate is that gasoline prices would raise 8 dollars a gallon without such subsidies. If that were to happen alternatives would be competitive.

The current price is still lower than the peak during Bush's term in office. But the article goes to far in the last paragraph when it says we could be anywhere near the largest oil producer. I don't know of any estimate that even puts us in the top 5. I guess when you have an idea and a point to make, you just hope the facts line up on your side.

Pecos Pete| 5.4.11 @ 7:24AM

I'll leave to others to factually refute your comment that " I don't know of any estimate that even puts us in the top 5."

But, there are huge subsidies for "alternative fuels" that would have to be eliminated in order to compare costs between fossil fuel and alternative energy. Eliminate subsidies for alternative energy, build a new fossil fuel refinery of reasonable size and then let's compare costs.

Gordon, I guess when you have an idea and a point to make, you just hope the facts line up on your side.

Chalkdust| 5.4.11 @ 8:07AM

Both horse and car produce methane gas, if anybody besides the loony left cares.
I suspect the price of gasoline will fall to a seemingly bargain basement price of (+ -) $3.25/gal just before the next election. Will that be proof of gum'mint manipulation?

Michael Tomlinson| 5.4.11 @ 9:11AM

A few facts will show the fallacy of your Obama thinking.

Of the $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act wasted on "green energy" 80% of that money went to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines. That's foreign jobs and no energy produced in America. $1.6 billion went to Obama's friends in China (its estimated that 6,000 slave labor jobs were created in China).

As of last month nearly $6.9 billion in Treasury grants had gone to wind farms. Many of them owned by rich Democrats like Tom Carnahan the brother Democrat politicians Russ and Robin Carnahan. The list of Democrats involved in this scam who are linked to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama is too long to post here.

As to you foolish statement, "The current price is still lower than the peak during Bush's term in office." Let’s compare apples with apples. In Bush's first 24 months in office the price of gas dropped 8% during the same time period in Obama's failed Presidency they went up 55%.

Another factoid Obama doesn't want Americans to know. In the Senate he voted for an energy bill in 2005 that extended the 14.6 billion in subsidies and tax breaks for oil and gas companies. A bill passed the Senate 74-26 with solid bipartisan support.

Reality trumps Obama myths.

Chalkdust| 5.4.11 @ 1:27PM

Besides the purchase of wind turbines from non-American sources, the installation and maintenance was/is preformed by non-American sources. A lose/lose for uncle Sam.

George True| 5.4.11 @ 11:32AM

There are no "subsidies" for oil producers. There is a tax deduction that ALL manufacturers of products in the US are allowed to take. It is a nine percent deduction off their gross income. Except for the oil industry, which is allowed to deduct only six percent.

Did you know that our government makes twenty four times more "profit" per gallon of gasoline produced (in the form of gasoline tax) than the manufacturer does?

Rather than the oil industry being subsidized by the government, our government is heavily subsidized by the oil producers. Do you think our ruling class would ever consider repealing THAT subsidy? Not a chance!

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 5:53PM

"Except for the oil industry, which is allowed to deduct only six percent."

A tax break is a de facto subsidy, no matter who the tax break is granted to.

Trinacria| 5.4.11 @ 6:58PM

Thanks, Milton Freidman. Now, try addressing the fact that it is actually less than the "defacto subsidy" granted to other manufacturers, or the fact that the goverment makes 18% per gallon compared with the 4% per gallon earned by the oil company...

Occam's Tool| 5.5.11 @ 6:18PM

Trin,

you sir, are awesome. Beautiful post.

The Grey Piper| 5.4.11 @ 11:39AM

Uh, yeah, because "alternative"* fuels aren't subsidized at all, are they? At least the oil industry is self-sustaining, that is, makes a profit. Subsidizing "alternative"* fuels doesn't work for the same reason there's no such thing as perpetual motion.

*Code for "It don't work no-how."

Drunken Sailor| 5.4.11 @ 12:05PM

"oil is heavily subsidized"

And green energy isn't? Please.

George S| 5.4.11 @ 12:35PM

You cannot compare fossil fuels to alternative energy sources on an equal economic footing. The former enable a base load to be established that guarantees that the lights come on whenever you flip the switch; the wall outlets are energized 24/7/365. Americans will settle for nothing less.

Alternative energy sources cannot compete with fossil fuels because the can never deliver the same final product no matter how much they are subsidized. The entire economy is cemented to the fact that energy flow is uninterrupted. Freedom cannot not exist otherwise. Maybe that should be the buzz word here.

Pecos Pete| 5.4.11 @ 4:52PM

George, well said. Freedom!

RAMIII| 5.4.11 @ 5:27PM

Exactly!! In the tyrant controlled nations guess who controls the *energy* resources. It IS about freedom.

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 6:10PM

But you say Obama is a tyrant, which would make America a tyranny by your lights-- what games you play!

Richard| 5.4.11 @ 3:50PM

Are you kidding? Oil is heavily subsidized you say! Oil is the life blood of the world. It not only fuel for transportation but is the base for:
fertilizer
plasitc
tar and asphalt
lubricants
adhesives
What the hell, looking around my office oil is used to produce my computer, desk, wall paint, floor covering, table, typewriter, my eyeglasses, the customer's pacemaker, shoe soles, storage boxes and on and on. Like Thomas Sowell said: "You don't have to know anything to be an environmentalist".

Alan Brooks| 5.4.11 @ 6:14PM

"Like Thomas Sowell said: "You don't have to know anything to be an environmentalist"

Thomas Sowell is becoming old and senescent.

Margie| 5.4.11 @ 11:13PM

Ok~ let's see a debate between you & Sowell, then.
Got his number?

JP| 5.4.11 @ 4:34PM

And speaking of "subsidies" (the oil firms enjoy a combined $10 billion/year to cover exploration costs), who is subsidzing whom? The oil companies combined paid over $120 billion in federal taxes last year. That is a 12-1 ratio in the oil companies favor. Without Big Oil, the federal government would be $120 billion poorer.

Brian Mc| 5.4.11 @ 7:16AM

It used to be that "tree-huggers" were here only for our amusement. The spikes in trees, tree-sitting, save the seals boats ad nauseum, I always got a good chuckle and in some instances, (in the case of the tree spikes), outright astonishment at the level of dementia and fanaticism displayed by the pony tail crowd.

Now, with one of their own having taken over the White House, they have become something else...dangerous. To sacrifice every facet of our culture and submit that culture to what should be construed as a vulgar farce justified for the sake of "Mother Earth" leaves me to wonder how much farther this will get milked before revolt ensues.

The smugness inherent on the left that was once entertaining has metamorphosed. It is now a monster bent on destroying our very culture into something sinister and far-reaching and must be reversed if we can even consider recovering from this debacle.

Teaghan| 5.4.11 @ 8:23AM

And the one who is most smug is our president.

What can we do?

SpiralArchitect| 5.4.11 @ 2:27PM

Well, we could call seal team 6 to eliminate the threat to America once again... but that is probably illegal.

Dee See| 5.4.11 @ 7:31AM

BTW---speaking of petro and 'sustainability'
WHY is the matter of the deliberate saturation
of our food, products and enviornment with
the petro-waste product --PLASTIC, never
EVER mentioned?----even as plastic waste comprises the
very core of our waste problem?

Brian Mc| 5.4.11 @ 7:41AM

"It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare."

Ray| 5.4.11 @ 1:50PM

The main reason for the increasing use of plastic packaging for our food is one of sanitation. Freshly formed plastic, being heated to relatively high temperatures in the forming process, that about 190 degrees Fahrenheit and higher, eliminates pathogens from the packaging, thus contributing to to over-all heath of the consumers by eliminating the risk of pathogen transmitting though packaging.

The wast that is generated after the use of that plastic packaging can be and is being, reduced significantly by recycling. Although it must be noted that plastics, unlike metals, can not be recycled indefinitely as the plastic's molecules naturally break down over time. But, unlike metals, that plastic, being of hydrocarbon origin, can be used to generate energy when burned. Since that used plastic is inherently flammable, it will generate more energy than it takes to combust it, thus providing net gain in energy.

So, with the use of plastics, we get a health benefit as it is inherently sterile after the forming process and, since it doesn't take much energy to manufacture and form that plastic as opposed to how much energy the combustion of that plastic generates, we get a net gain in energy as well. Plastics are a benefit to mankind overall.

I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear, but it is the truth, one that people like yourself never seems to accept.

Intelligent Design| 5.4.11 @ 7:43AM

Obama's plan is to keep the U.S. highly dependent on foreign, often hostile, sources of oil. We have made no progress toward reducing this dependency since he was elected. Indeed, we have made no progress since 9/11/01.

benny havens| 5.4.11 @ 7:47AM

The bump in the polls after the UBL raid will be short lived, especially as gas prices climb. As this article stated, “this is just what Obama wants”. Be careful want you wish for Mr. President. You could be working on your presidential library sooner then you think.

The Silver Bear| 5.4.11 @ 11:59PM

That library will have only two books. Everything else is locked in a vault somewhere and sealed...

the refudiator| 5.5.11 @ 12:58AM

I suspect a commodity crash is in the works, now. I would not be so certain about an ever increasing price of gas. The way this will work is five waves up, 3 waves down in price with a general upward trend for many years. We'll go back down to $2.50/gal by winter & then to over $6/gal in 18-24 months. If they are serious about ending QE, gas will go below $2/gal for a while.

Dee See| 5.4.11 @ 8:10AM

"Forget the messenger --and grab the message!"
D H Lawrence
essays 1920

---AND if you want a pub, GO to a pub!

Alert1201| 5.4.11 @ 8:16AM

Actually Gordon the U.S. Fossil Fuel Resource: Terminology, Reporting and Summary produced by the Congressional Research Services says otherwise. When we take all fossil fuel reserves into consideration that is coal, natural gas and oil we have more than any other nation, 972 billions of barrels. The closest to us is Russia with 955. This does not even include non-conventional resources like, Shale Oil and Gas, Methane Hydrates, and Heavy Oil. See page 16 and 17 of the following report. http://epw.senate.gov/public/i.....a5eaead952

Also as far as the subsidies, I would not say they are heavily subsidized. I’ve read about 4 billion dollars which is really nothing for such massive industry and most of the 4 billion are subsidies that other companies get, others simply allow taxes to be spread out over time and most of the companies that benefit from the subsidies are smaller oil producers not large scale ones like MobileExxon. For some truth about the subsidies read the following http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2011/TWTW 2011-4-30.pdf. See page 2.

Mimi| 5.4.11 @ 8:23AM

By curtailing our movement to go where we want or wish is...." STEALING OUR FREEDOM". To continue to reduce supply and increasing PRICE is...." STEALING OUR PROPERTY"
No matter how many bad guys in the world they KILL they will never win any ELECTION in 2012. The widow cannot travel the hours drive to visit the GRAVE of her husband. The children can not see the OCEAN this year...shopping trips are cut ....We dare not cook our favorite foods, jobs are cut, spending is cut , we sacrifice (not from WAR) but a severe bad choice of a LEADER in 2008. REAL people are effected, The LOSS of every-day taken for GRANTED....FREEDOM is being stolen.....ARE YOU TOO MAD, AS ME ???

Margie| 5.4.11 @ 6:28PM

Yes Mimi, I'm as mad as you are. And saddened by it all. It's discouraging but I refuse to remain discouraged. The American spirit WILL prevail. We love our freedom too much to ever quit fighting, and having the Obummer regime in office only serves to strengthens our resolve.

And it's people like you who post here who make me feel like I'm not alone.
You are beloved, Mimi. :^)

WRTolkas| 5.4.11 @ 8:26AM

Eric "Algonquin J. Calhoun" Holder leading an investigation. I expect as much success from him as I would Helen Keller leading a Seal Team.

The Bishop| 5.4.11 @ 8:50AM

C'mon, WR, Eric facilitated a last-minute pardon for fugitive Marc Rich at the close of Pres. Bubba's reign. Surely he is qualified to ferret out wrong-doing in the energy markets.

Anthony| 5.4.11 @ 10:36AM

Good one WR!!! I have bootlegged copies of the great Amos N' Andy Show. Great comedy n' talented and wonderful actors.
However, you demean and impune the reputation of the great Algonquin J. Calhoun, Esq. by comparing him to Hack Holder Esq., defender of al qaeda terrorists and friend to Marc Rich.
Yes, Holder will hold Big Oil's feet to the fire, for us Americans, don't you know, with his Star Chamber inquisition. Maybe another $50B in payoffs to Obozo will grease the wheels of justice for the oil companies to remain in existence.
Big Oil has become like the R party, timid, accommodating, and scared of Obozo's shadow. You'd think one of these highly paid executives would take Holder and Obozo on. Gee, how about a chart showing government profits (taxes) from a gal of gas ,fed, state and local, to the tune of 60 cents per gal, with oil profits 2-7 cents per gal?
I remember those gas line, things were pretty dicy then, now, forget it, it would be bloody riots!!!A precurser of things to come.
I'd give Helen Keller a 50/50 chance of leading a successful seal team over any Democrat seeking the "truth".

JP| 5.4.11 @ 8:36AM

What Mr Ferrara doesn't mention is the weakness of the dollar. The dollar has dropped consistently against other currencies, gold, and commodities. Wall St call this the dollar premium which is now built into everything from the price of corn flakes, clothes, gasoline, frozen food, and synthetics. And as most people realize the steady increase in prices mirrors both the Federal Reserve actions and the historic federal budget defecits.

Obviously, the President believes he can weather this storm.

Mattled| 5.4.11 @ 8:56AM

JP,

I have told my neighbor about the lizard, Shell being denied the permit, and the Gulf drilling moratorium as well as Salazar not issuing new permits for the next five years. This is firmly (along with the Fed weakening the dollar) the fault of-----Obama.

She is black.

She went and told her family. They will tell their friends and neighbors. This is how it begins. Once the African American community turns against him, he is toast. I know several blacks who own businesses-----businesses that require them to use trucks. Landscaping, fence builders, masonry, painters, foundation and driveway installers. They need big trucks. Big trucks need lots of gas.

By the mid summer, they will turn against him. The NAACP can demonstrate against "price gouging" all they want.

But if we tell the truth, one person at a time----he's gone. Unless he reverses course----which he has done a few times (LOL).

PolishKnight| 5.4.11 @ 11:24AM

The black community have been the useful dupes of the Democrats for years. The main reason they're in love with the Democrats is the association of the Democrats with affirmative action. They think that they'll get free jobs and government contracts at the expense of middle class white men. And to a certain degree, that's not unreasonable. BUT, it's not the big picture:

There are far more white women who qualify for those jobs and government contracts than black men hence affirmative action put more black men out on the street than Jim Crow. In addition, the left built alliances of other non-white entitlement groups and they all helped to shove blacks to the back of the line.

The black family has been decimated by leftist economic and racial policies but like a victim of spousal abuse: They can't leave because now the Democrats are all they think they have.

In addition, the Democrats are probably starting to think that since the black vote is such a shoe in, they can start neglecting them. Sound familiar? It's what happened with working class white men in the 1940's. After FDR bought them with some social security money, he shoved them in front of the bus. Many of them never "got it." Some slowly are getting it as they see their grandchildren not having families because they can't afford gas hence Obama is thinking of shoving THEM in front of the bus too.

Where all this is leading, really, is that the elites in control of the government really only care about themselves. If it was possible to get rid of people and replace them with taxpaying robots, they would. Once a government is socialist and no longer needs a democratic electorate to stay in power, what's to stop them from becoming like China and drowning children in stream beds?

SpiralArchitect| 5.4.11 @ 2:46PM

Control. Simple and straight forward.

The minorities like the big gov folk for the handouts - AKA the wellfare state.

Once on the gov's embillicle cord they are destined to remain there, unfortunately.

The big gov class wants and needs the 'loyal' followers to remain competitive politically.

Like I said, it's simple.

Pete| 5.4.11 @ 11:32AM

I listened to a great interview with the head of the "Black Chamber of Commerce" who admitted that he voted for Obama "because he is black." He was quick to add, however, that it was the biggest mistake of his life, given Obamas anti-business policies, and that he was devoting all of his energy to convincing the $1.2M black business owners in the chamber to vote against Obama next time. That's hope for you.

Pete| 5.4.11 @ 11:39AM

that's 1.2 million people, not dollars...or votes, hopefully.

Trinacria| 5.4.11 @ 7:13PM

Yeah, hold your breath on that one, Mattled! Here's what really happened after you talked to her - she went and told her family and friends, and they immediately dismissed your comments as racist, at which point they all agreed that this is precisely the reason they need to support Obammy, regardless of his incompetence.

Occam's Tool| 5.5.11 @ 6:33PM

JP, checked the CIA factbook. You are correct, Latest Data for Mexico is 2.29 kids per woman.

Louis Jenkins| 5.4.11 @ 8:40AM

Well Ferrara, you're right. Obama didn't campaign on lowering the cost of energy. He campaigned on raising its price. And people, we're stuck with Obama for another two years at least. America is loaded with energy, but forget it. Soros has invested heavily in Brazilian oil although they don't need it. Remember, Obama and Soros are joined at the hip so don't expect anything like progress in that area. America is a consumer of energy and we need it. But with Obama at the helm we can expect another two years, possible another six, of the same. Not all of us can liberally trade for a new Leaf, it's too costly. Answer- Don't re-elect Obama!! Plain and simple.

DonW| 5.4.11 @ 8:59AM

American Thinker published a graph showing that some 98% of oil companies are state owned. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and other statist regimes finance their tyranny with oil revenues.
It is rediculous to assume that we have the only statist that hate oil. Like the rest worldwide, they hate capitalism. If they are successful nationalizing oil companies, they will drill like banshees.

A. C. Santore| 5.4.11 @ 10:55AM

"They hate capitalism," indeed!

Obama got his stated wish from me - I drive less and still pay more at the pump.

But everything I buy, starting with the fuel to heat my home, is dependent on transportation, and that takes fuel. Thanks to their policies, and the trashing of the dollar, the price of everything I buy is going up, including price of lies out of Washington!

The real goal is to destroy American capitalism and replace it with - you can put whatever name on it that you want - a less free economic system, a less free political system, and a less free society.

It will be their way, period.

We can but pray for a new broom to sweep out the rot in Washington in 2012. And a high-powered hose with a strong disinfectant to try to remove any traces of their having been there.

If we last that long.

George S| 5.4.11 @ 11:32AM

That's the whole point in all of this -- the Democrat crime families do not have a cut of the action as they do in Venezuela, et al. That is also the reason for ObamaCare -- to divert the revenue stream of the health care industry (1/6 of the economy) to government first.

High prices = crisis. Crisis + Obama = Bye bye freedoms.

John Navratil| 5.4.11 @ 9:00AM

Excellent article! It's probably old news to the readers here, but it should be required reading before voting.

Ahem... there is no 'e' in ExxonMobil

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 5.4.11 @ 9:27AM

While the liberals in the MSM continue to rant about Obama's "transformative moment," they would garner more news travelling to web sites around the country.

The majority of the public appears to blame Obama and by this fall the economy should really be stumbling thanks to Obama and his idiotic energy policies.

When the stock market finally takes a well deserved tumble this fall, Obama will claim it's not his fault. The public won't buy that.

crooked wren| 5.4.11 @ 9:32AM

I'll tell you why O. wants to get those oil prices way, way up -- but not for the oil companies here at home to reap the "benefits."

Obama wants a globalist "redistribution of wealth." Why? Maybe it's just one of the "dreams" he got from his father. Maybe it has something to do with the banking and oil businesses his mother and grandparents were involved in -- along with their Marxist philosophies. Maybe it's the desire of his precious Unions. Maybe it's to feed the Soros' "hope & change" fund, part deux. Maybe it's all of the above.

But it's plain as day to me. Redistribution of American wealth -- not to just other Americans, no. Mostly send it on to other parts of the world.

Which leads me back to something I've been thinking about a great deal -- the need for a president of the U.S. to have UNDIVIDED ALLEGIANCE to just one country: the U.S.

Does Obama have such an allegiance?

Mimi| 5.4.11 @ 9:55AM

DOES OBAMA HAVE SUCH AN ALLEGIANCE ??
There is not to be seen anything he has done, that looks like he is for us....only that he is against us. LOOK around.... see the harm!

crooked wren| 5.4.11 @ 10:54AM

Mimi,

Thanks for picking up on my rhetorical question. Purely rhetorical -- because evidence -- in O's past and present -- points to a divided allegiance at best.

His allegiances are vital for us to understand and for those who are asleep, fatigued, preoccupied, indoctrinated to begin to see and hear and know!

Petronius| 5.4.11 @ 10:08AM

only to His tribe.

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 10:57PM

Obama has never exhibited undivided allegiance to America. Will he ever? Would not bet a used Kleenex that he will.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 5.4.11 @ 10:38AM

The real question here is why is the ruling class so silent on this issue?

Both parties have had a part in higher energy prices but the Republicans could use this as a wedge issue.

The problem is both parties are controlled by the ethanol mafia and perhaps that's what keeps both parties quiet on this issue.

In the meantime the ruling class continues to engage in deceitful behavior and little is done on Capitol Hill that helps the public.

Almost all that is done on Capitol Hill helps the ruling class and to Hell with the public.

crooked wren| 5.4.11 @ 10:51AM

Question: Did the major oil companies give $$$ to "Drill, Baby, Drill" McCain's campaign? If so, which ones? How much?

Comment: One of the facts that has recently come to my attention via Cavuto (thanks, Neil!) is that many of the oil companies who will be hurt by the EPA's favorite lizard are smaller companies. They aren't the big names: Exxon, BP, Shell, etc.

These smaller companies will be put out of business by this EPA thing, but the bigger ones, though they may leave the U.S. of A. will survive and flourish in other countries -- until the globalists "nationalize" everything.

Just an observation.

Ken (Old Texican)| 5.4.11 @ 11:16AM

Well guys,
the very first Republican caucus/primary is in Iowa.
The R candidates are not going to shoot themselves in the...well...the "foot" vis a vis ethanol (corn).
As I posted the other day, energy is the foundation of a solid economy. Obama and crew certainly know this.
So,
They are PURPOSELY choking our economy!
Why?
Hell, pick a number!
One thing that has begun to itch in the back of my mind is that Obama and crew want to be sure to complete the wreckage before the next election, while extracting their personal $$$ in the meantime.
Folks,
it is very very simple. We have traitors in our highest offices. REPEAT AFTER ME! WE HAVE TRAITORS IN OUR HIGHEST OFFICES.

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 10:55PM

Indeed. And if we do not take action soon--personally, I think we've exhausted the words route--we will see our Republic fall.

As for Obama and his sedition: He will not escape the consequences.

LarryK| 5.4.11 @ 11:26AM

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Petronius| 5.4.11 @ 12:03PM

Second tier oil stocks are down 10-15% after reaching a short term peak. Those companies with lots of debt will be takeover plays.

Oldefarte| 5.4.11 @ 2:17PM

Whenever I think that Peter's articles can't possibly get any better, he makes me out to be a liar by writing an even better editorial. This one is pure literary GOLD. Game, set, match! Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! The only thing that I'll add/opine to is that, as Peter's Title implies, it is Obama's [and DEMOCRATS as well] desire to economically/financially destroy this country! Yes, folks, let's be un-politically correct here and speak the truth! This country is on a path to destruction and [as Peter exclaims in his last sentence] there is one and only one solution and that consists of you, me, our families, neighbors, work associates, fellow church members, friends, relatives, etc all going to your respective voting polls on November 4, 2012 and voting REPUBLICAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike Daly | 5.4.11 @ 2:38PM

The upshot is with all that Obama is likely to lose his war on oil because of that pesky real world, where oil is persistently more plentiful and efficient than the ecofascists want it to be and alternative fuels consistently prove unreliable and inefficient.

SpiralArchitect| 5.4.11 @ 2:50PM

Agreed. Yet the Demos continually win elections of all shapes n sizes.

Oldefarte| 5.4.11 @ 2:57PM

NOT if voters use the brain that the Almighty gave to them in November of 2012!!!!!!!!

firebrand| 5.4.11 @ 4:17PM

Why do we always quote gasoline prices for the cheapest area of the country? Or the "average"? If only we in CA could pay somewhere near the average. Cheapest I saw yesterday was $4.74 a gallon. Most was a lot higher.

I think the trick is - start at $2. 57, with gradual increases up to $5.48. then let it go back to $3.96 and everyone will be so thrilled it is no longer over $5, they will quiet down and quit bitchin' and we will be calling it an Obama victory for the people! He has solved our Energy problem.

Dan| 5.4.11 @ 4:38PM

If gas prices remain high come the 2012 election, it will be just one more reason to not return Obama to office.

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 10:53PM

If gas prices remain high, or go higher even, until the 2012 election, we won't have much of an economy, nor will the world once America gets crippled.

JP| 5.4.11 @ 4:44PM

As I posted above, globally the US and the rest of the developed (and developing) nations are rapidly aging. With the exception of the US, all G-20 nations have birthrates way below replacement levels (the US comes in just below the 2.1 births per female at 2.08). Aging populations do not consume as much as younger ones. The demand for energy, therefore, will begin to drop during the next 15 years. The period 1983-2007 saw the strongest and quickest global GDP growth in history. I seriously doubt if we will ever agin match those numbers (at least in our lifetimes). Japan already is so old that its population is shrinking by 270,000 per year; China, India, Russia, as well as Mexico and South America have birthrates that are plunging. Mexico, which had a birthrate of 6.2 children per female in 1970, now has birthrates below 2.5 children per female. At the current rate, Mexico will be below replacement levels by 2020. The global population is pegged to peak around 2052 due to mainly longer life exptectanices. The global population will continue to grow, but also get much older.

If anything, there will be too much energy capacity by 2025 (ditto for food, clothes, consumer goods, etc...). Don't let the "experts" fool you. Demogrpahics don't lie. There is no such thing as "peak oil"; but there will be something called "peak babies". We will soon reach that point. That future problem will not be scarcity of resources, but a scarcity of people - especially young people.

Occam's Tool| 5.5.11 @ 6:22PM

JP,

there may be more energy. But there will NOT be too many goods, or, if there are, you won't like it very much. The problems of decline are much worse than the problems of growth.

And there are youths with different thoughts and ethicswaiting to take over. We won't be declining in a vacuum.

Occam's Tool| 5.5.11 @ 6:24PM

Excellent points made, JP. But I believe Mexico is already below replacement.

John II| 5.4.11 @ 5:03PM

"Victor Davis Hanson wrote in a recent column, 'So much of this Administration's talk about energy sounds similar to a bull session in the faculty lounge, or what we would expect from lifelong bureaucrats and public functionaries who have never experienced long commutes or struggles in the harsher, profit-driven private workplace.'"

Whenever I want confirmation of what I suspect the Professor is really up to, all I need do is glance around my own workplace and open a random sampling of the institutional emails I normally delete.

In years past, I always calmed my nerves with the reassuring thought that academia had evolved into a relatively humane mental asylum in which a certain stripe of delusional smugness is kept busy and off the streets, so that normal human beings can go about their business unmolested.

Cracks in the walls of that asylum started showing a few generations ago, at just the time (roughly the late 1960s) when the inmates started taking over the administration of the asylum. The walls have now collapsed. Behold the Obamanation.

And now back to "Bedtime for Bonzo" (1951), in which a liberal Ronald Reagan inadvertently fantasizes about the future of academia.

Nick| 5.4.11 @ 7:04PM

John II,

Would you give me your best guess-timate, how many of these credentialed inmates are Useful Idiots, actually believing their own clap-trap; and how many are agent provocateurs, spewing lefty dogma only to get what they really want: money and prestige?

John II| 5.4.11 @ 9:27PM

Hey Nick. Both logic and experience suggest to me that it's not necessarily an either-or scenario. I think I've encountered quite a few who, over time, have parlayed their idiot political enthusiasms into comfortably gainful careers: propagandists writing unreadable dreck and masquerading as teachers.

What Arthur Koestler called the Left Babbitt is, I believe, more Babbitt than even Koestler himself imagined. Undergirding the Lefty pose is a prim narcissism and vulgarity, and it's clear that many of them are a tad more emotionally disturbed than the average.

I don't think we're splashing in very deep waters here, but the details are complicated enough to have attracted studies by social-science scholars such as Paul Hollander, Martin Anderson, Thomas Sowell--and grotesque enough to have attracted much commentary from public thinkers such as Roger Scruton, Theodore Dalrymple, Joseph Epstein, Bruce Thornton, the late Ralph McInerny, and many, many others, to no apparent avail.

The keynote among the inmates, whatever their dominant motives, is an utter imperviousness to argument. They are essentially sophists, smug and incurious--without any interest whatever in the life of the mind, much less in the possibility that there is any truth to be sought.

Nick| 5.4.11 @ 11:45PM

Thanks, John II.

Love your posts.
You always put things just....so.

Nunya| 5.4.11 @ 5:58PM

Obozo is a liar, and a hypocrite. His extending billions to Brazil to bolster their oil extraction while denying our own companies the ability to drill is just the most obvious example of how this SOB is harming this country. He is a mental lightweight, no matter how much the media fawns over him, that's pretty obvious when he is sans the teleprompter. Problem is, he's doing exactly what he said he wanted to do, because somewhere in his vacuous mind he thinks it's "fair" to the rest of the world.

This empty suit shill for George Soros needs to go away. Here's "hoping for a change" in Nov. 2012.

Who Knows?| 5.4.11 @ 6:44PM

Truth will out.

Despite the best WORST efforts of the power elite, with needed focus on Bernanke and the money printing mavens at the Federal Reserve, which is not FEDERAL or a RESERVE, America still functions economically under a market system.

So, mostly honest PRICES for valued products are regularly decided by buyers and sellers, and oil is no exception.

Actually, Remember the "Einstein", or what he should be most famous for---that energy and mass are simply different forms of mass-energy.

As slowed down "energy", so many overweight MASSES of humans, these days, in America, continue to plant their bodies in the front seat of MASSIVE gas guzzling machines, to take too many trips that if push came to shove would be eliminated in a New York minute.

Yes, I confess---for over a year I've been in bike-riding mode, and LOVING IT! It is such a hoot to view hefty people exploiting their ability to transform gas energy into motion, so they can get from here to there. Want to bet that a lot of that motion involves FOOD, at least for the vast majority of people who don't really need wheels for productive work?

Remember, even with about a 90% employment rate, there are still way more people who aren't currently gainfully employed. I'll bet only about 40 or 45 percent of Americans are at any given time earning their own way in a job.

Anyway, the market adjusts, and the PRICE of "oil" and all other forms of "energy", aka "food", including doctor expenses, will surely result in bringing about lawful changes.

This 500 pound tewnty-something guy, yesterday, who I shared some therapy pool time with, epitomizes the PRICE America is about to pay.

Doubtlessly, he has no job and is supported by OTHER WORKERS, and get this---he believes he deserves it: as does his also gross mother!

Yes---OIL or ENERGY or FOOD or whatever: the market is, even as we complain, working its magic!

Indeed, what can't continue must stop. Maybe Obama and his yearning for high gas prices is the Universe's way of trying to bring about the required change, because, folks, we can't REALLY survive as a free country, if the prediction about 2020 is true, to wit, that 3/4 of us will be overweight or obese.

America is ALREADY too fat!

Tex Expatriate| 5.4.11 @ 6:52PM

When we finally get to the end of this long essay on a subject on which everyone else is already informed, here's the question (don't ask me to supply the answer): why didn't the Conservatives and Republicans jump on this a long time ago? Obama, the socialist, could have been defeated so easily with this idea and other ideas of his ideaology. Don't say it is because they could not get air time. They can always buy air time.

Hamilton Lucas| 5.4.11 @ 8:56PM

"I have discussed the discredited science behind that phony ideological claim in this space in detail before."

Phony ideological claim:

I am about 98 degrees F just sitting here in my room. I am hotter than the room around me. I am heating the room, and in turn, I am heating the world. Neglect the Co2, neglect the fuels we burn, neglect everything else and consider only the calories we consume: 6.75 billion people at 1200 calories a day is 8100000000000 (8 x 10^12) food calories.

That's the energy equivalent of 5 539 581 barrels of oil. Imagine burning that every day. The heat produced is equivalent to the heat produced by the human species every day.

To think that we aren't affecting the environment around us is naive. To convince others of this is wrong.

JP| 5.5.11 @ 8:26AM

That was kind of a pointless post. Like your stawmen concerning the human effects on the enviorment. No one said humans have no affect. But you refused to address the Alarmists contentions of Anthropogenic Global Warming (aka Climate Change). Don't blame you, as that narrative was debunked almost a decade ago.

Hamilton Lucas| 5.5.11 @ 6:02PM

My post was not at all pointless. The point is this: humans are responsible for warming the earth each day just by eating food and being alive.

When you consider all of the other things we do that produce heat, the numbers just become staggering. Climate change as a result is inevitable.

Speedypete| 5.4.11 @ 10:31PM

Thanks to Mr. Ferrara and The American Spectator. The other congratulations that go to Obama and his henchmen is the devaluation of the dollar with $1.6 trillion/year deficits. Every oil nation in the world is trading in the currency of that nation instead of the previous standard, the U.S. Petrodollar. It is deliberate but when they have the fake journalists that report with no investigation the blame goes to big oil or some flaw in our national character to drive larger vehicles.

Nite| 5.4.11 @ 10:36PM

Some of the comments seem to be a liberal wish list come true. However, the fact is that Obama does not have a clue and if he does, he simply does not care what happens to this country. Higher prices on energy, food, physicians etc. will lead to high unemployment, increased loss of homes, decrease in the ability to buy food and on an on. Obama stated what he was going to do, but the people who voted for him apparently did not listen. A second term will finally destroy this country. However, apparently that is also his plan.

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 10:47PM

"Obama stated what he was going to do, but the people who voted for him apparently did not listen."

I wonder: Did those who voted for Obama even care what he said, but only that he was the anti-Bush?

Dan| 5.4.11 @ 11:29PM

It was certainly an anti Bush vote, but also a chance for many independents and liberals to show how enlightened they were by voting for a black man for the highest office in the world. Now he must run on his record.

FLIT ANDERSEN| 5.9.11 @ 5:02AM

Who says? A "record" is only as damaging as the MSM want to make it, or limit it, depending on the party in question. Most people are idiots. They haven't clue. I'm tired of explaining to morons that, no, Obama is NOT a Muslim.
He's just a good old-fashioned, garden-variety communist employing lots of Cloward/Piven to our economy because you can't get people to abandon their capitalism if it's working, now can you?

When the GOP gets tired of dicking around with the losers currently being shat out as "contenders" for 2012 perhaps they'll wake up and DEMAND Rep. Paul Ryan do the right thing.

PAUL! THE NEXT PRES WILL KILL YOUR PLAN NO MATTER WHO.

UNLESS IT'S YOU!

C.K.Amos| 5.4.11 @ 10:46PM

As we sit, Obama has embargoed 85 percent or so of the potentially economically and technically recoverable oil, especially offshore.

The American Petroleum Institute suggests that if Obama released all non-federal-park onshore and offshore lands for exploration and development, that would give us about 60 percent of our requirements.

Further, if the State Department would stop obstructing the pipeline from Canada's tar sands, that would add another 5 percent to the 12 percent we already get from Canada.

That combined with biofuels would give us about 90 percent of our needs.

It would take five to 10 years if we started today, given the time it takes to explore and produce.

Also, about only one in every 100 wells in leases produces.

One other thing: It appears that neither Obama nor any of his crack czars and czarinas understand to the extent to which crude oil and its derivatives penetrate our society and economy.

The only conclusion I believe we can make is that Obama and his puppeteers want to destroy our economy.

That's not just because of their hostility to crude oil, but also coal, natural gas and nuclear power.

chaussures puma mihara | 5.5.11 @ 3:24AM

nice job!

Firozali A.Mulla DBA | 5.5.11 @ 3:51PM

Sin, guilt, neurosis-they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
-- Henry Miller
I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA

Latest Headlines

We Will Remember

Roger Kaplan|26 comments

Real Immigration Reform Requires Free Markets

Ross Kaminsky|80 comments

Enough With the Bipartisanship

Matt Purple|45 comments

The United States of El Norte

Larry Thornberry|60 comments

Vodka = Vodka = Vodka

Daniel J. Flynn|94 comments

Laying Down My Pen

Quin Hillyer

Tornado Chasers

Claire Healey|35 comments

The Chinese Waltz

George H. Wittman|2 comments

The Spectacle Blog

Jimmy Wray, R.I.P.

Aaron Goldstein | 4:19PM

The Spectator’s Spectacular: May 18-May 25

Patrick Ryan | 10:45AM

Updated: NBC News: Holder Personally Approved Fox Reporter Warrant

Ross Kaminsky | 5.24.13

Felonious Attorney General?

Kaylin Bugos | 5.24.13

Did the Boy Scouts Cave to Pressure?

Claire Healey | 5.24.13

BBC World Survey Ranks Israel Near Bottom in Global Popularity

Aaron Goldstein | 5.24.13

Obamacare is a Big and Growing Problem for Democrats