Again, the Senate vs. the CEO’s of the five oil companies were supposed to assure you, the taxpayer, that the government was doing something about high gas prices.
Let’s analyze the two groups. On the senate side you had a group who could not ask one intelligent question about the problem being discussed. They had questions formulated by aides who designed the questions to stir the emotions of the viewing public. On that side you had a group responsible for a debt ceiling that must be raised and soon. You had a group that created a housing crisis by trying to force lenders to give mortgages to people who couldn’t afford to pay them. In the process, they have taken tax dollars to subsidize the government run Freddie, Fannie, and FHA with no end yet in sight. They run Amtrak with huge losses with no end in sight. They run the Post Office with huge losses with no end in sight. They have created an entitlement system that can’t be paid and must be changed. Undaunted they created another bigger entitlement plan(ObamaCare). They have let the educational system in the US deteriorate with no conscience. To pander the the unions.
They have caused a big part of the high gas prices. Their answer is to raise taxes on five companies without raising them on other businesses that have most of the same tax breaks. By doing this they tell you they will cut gas prices?
They call the other side unpatriotic for not being more sensitive to the pain the higher gas prices cause the average American. They ignore the fact that oil is a global commodity and other countries are building economies that require more oil.
On the defensive side are five CEO’s who have responsibility to shareholders, boards of directors, and employees to run successful businesses. They must produce when oil prices are $50 a barrel and when they are $100 a barrel. They must seek replacement hydrocarbons in a world where they are far harder to find. They must compete against countries, since the ten biggest oil companies are countries, not companies. They must invest in technology to find oil in more hostile environments. They must put up money for leases hoping there will be a return on that money. Their expertise and technology is the envy or the world. No country nor any company in any country can do the things they have learned to do to find and convert oil to finished products.
The have kept 100 year old refineries running in this country. They have used technology to extract more gasoline from less desirable crude oils to keep gas prices low in this country.
They have recruited top talent to achieve success. They have kept their unions happy in good times and bad and made money despite the unions. See GM and the UAW.
I promise you if the teams switched sides, we would have lower gas prices. First of all, not one senator would last six months as a CEO. Hence, all fired and replaced the oil companies would still be OK. The CEO’s would stop the nonsense the senators practice and get this country headed in the right direction on energy.
The human mind has made America what it is today and hopefully will keep it headed in the right direction. Great minds in every industry in our history has produced amazing results. If we are to continue to be great as a country we need to keep this going.
The great minds were not on the senate side of this discussion. If there was a fair and open debate on the energy problems of this country between the senators and the CEO’s it would be a rout. You see, the CEO’s must know what they are doing and get results, the senators must read from notes and can know very little about anything. Their track record proves that.
