Tag Archives: Oil

Bobby Jindal wonders why Obama is doing nothing about the oil spill

Bobby and Supriya Jindal

Editorial from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

The federal government’s response so far has consisted largely of scapegoating BP and ignoring its own responsibilities and lack of preparation, railing against Big Oil, while Congress makes plans to quadruple the federal gasoline tax, ostensibly to finance cleanups.

Never let a good crisis go to waste when there’s a chance to make big government bigger.

“We’ve been frustrated with the disjointed effort to date that has too often meant too little, too late for the oil hitting our coast,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said on Day 36 of the spill.

As of Tuesday morning, he was still waiting for the federal government to provide millions of feet in booms and to approve an emergency permit for a state plan to dredge and build new barrier islands to keep the oil from reaching the marshes and wetlands.

Jindal, who is so desperate for the islands that he says he’ll build them himself even if it means going to jail, states: “We need more booms, more skimmers, more vacuums, more jack-up barges that are still in short supply. Let’s be clear: Every day that this oil sits is one more day that more of our marsh dies.”

The leftist media was on Bush 48 hours after Katrina for “not doing enough”. But they’ve given Obama a pass for 37 DAYS (as of Thursday). Is that consistent? Well, it’s consistent with their enormous bias against conservatives.

I normally would not think that Obama should be blamed for this at all, because it’s not the federal government’s job to rush in and rescue states. But Jindal is no fool, and he seems to think that there are specific things that Obama should be providing. So why isn’t Obama providing them, and why doesn’t the media care about the environment now that Obama is President?

More here at Michelle Malkin.

How changing prices signal buyers and sellers in a free market economy

Here’s a lesson in capitalism from the New York Times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The oil industry has been on a hot streak this year, thanks to a series of major discoveries that have rekindled a sense of excitement across the petroleum sector, despite falling prices and a tough economy.

These discoveries, spanning five continents, are the result of hefty investments that began earlier in the decade when oil prices rose, and of new technologies that allow explorers to drill at greater depths and break tougher rocks.

“That’s the wonderful thing about price signals in a free market — it puts people in a better position to take more exploration risk,” said James T. Hackett, chairman and chief executive of Anadarko Petroleum.

And what do we learn from this? Do oil prices go up because of greed? No.

When supply is low or uncertain, but demand is high, then prices must rise. Rising oil prices signal consumers to curtail their consumption, and they signal producers to invest more and take more risks to find more oil.

The government must not interfere to set prices lower when prices rise due to a shortage. Lower prices means that producers will not invest or take risks in order to find more oil for consumers. We have to let producers have their profits in order to for them to invest and take risks to find more oil. And when more oil is found, the price of oil will go down naturally, without the government having to get involved. The more government gets involved, the more opportunity there is for corruption.

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Obama’s naive foreign policy increases likelihood of war in Middle East

The Wall Street Journal explains.

Excerpt:

Events are fast pushing Israel toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, probably by next spring. That strike could well fail. Or it could succeed at the price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle East war, and American servicemen caught in between. So why is the Obama administration doing everything it can to speed the war process along?

The article lists various elements of Obama’s weak stance against Iran, then continues:

[…]All this only helps persuade Israel’s skittish leadership that when President Obama calls a nuclear-armed Iran “unacceptable,” he means it approximately in the same way a parent does when fecklessly reprimanding his misbehaving teenager. That impression is strengthened by Mr. Obama’s decision to drop Iran from the agenda when he chairs a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24; by Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly opposing military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities; and by Russia’s announcement that it will not support any further sanctions on Iran.

In sum, the conclusion among Israelis is that the Obama administration won’t lift a finger to stop Iran, much less will the “international community.” So Israel has pursued a different strategy, in effect seeking to goad the U.S. into stopping, or at least delaying, an Israeli attack by imposing stiff sanctions and perhaps even launching military strikes of its own.

How do you think Iran would respond to such an air strike? Their entire land force would be left largely intact. Do you think they are just going to take that and do nothing to retaliate? This is a nightmare.