It's Over $4 a Gallon -- Do You Know Where Your Senators Are???
Romping around with Big Oil execs, making damn sure that every penny they squeeze from your pocket at the pump stays in theirs!
WASHINGTON - Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.
Is that clear, boys and girls???
While you're busy deciding whether to drive your kids to the beach this weekend or put food on the table, these bastards are making sure that for the foreseeable future Big Oil can continue to slide their greasy little pumps into our pockets and suck the life out of our livelihoods unopposed.
GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won't do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.
"Americans are furious about what's going on," declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. He said they want Congress to do something about oil company profits and the "orgy of speculation" on oil markets.
But Republican leaders said the Democrats' plan would do harm rather than good — and they kept the legislation from being brought up for debate and amendments.
On world markets, oil prices retreated a bit Tuesday but remained above $131 a barrel. Gasoline prices edged even higher to a nationwide record average of $4.04 a gallon.
At the Capitol, Democratic leaders needed 60 votes and they got only 51 senators' support, including seven Republicans who bucked their party leaders. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a state tied closely to the oil industry, was the only Democrat opposing the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voted in favor of the measure, but for procedural reasons changed his vote to "no" so that he could bring it up again.
"We are hurting as a country. We're hurting individually as Americans ... and the other side says, `Do nothing. Don't even debate the issue,'" complained Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
"Average citizens are scratching their heads and saying, what's wrong with Washington," said Schumer.
I'll tell you what's wrong with Washington - they're corrupt to the core!!!
They're charged with protecting the rights of Americans to live their lives in freedom and happiness, but are busy doing the exact opposite on behalf of blood-sucking corporations!
That's why the image below is increasingly popular among average Americans.
GOP opponents argued that little was to be gained by imposing new taxes on the five U.S. oil giants: Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc. and ConocoPhillips Co.
While these companies may be huge, they don't set world oil prices and raising their taxes would discourage domestic oil production, the Republicans said of the Democrats' plan.
Of course, they don't set world prices - GREEDY TRADERS DO - they just benefit big time from the orgy.
Moreover, I'll bet anything that the top executives and shareholders in Big Oil companies are one and the same as the top executives and shareholders in international brokerages.
"In the middle of what some are calling the biggest energy shock in a generation ... they proposed as a solution, of all things, a windfall profits tax," Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky chided the Democrats. He called their proposal "a gimmick" that would not lower gasoline prices and only hold back domestic oil production.
This is such glaringly shameless BS. Big Oil cannot decrease domestic oil production if the government enforces the laws that makes it a crime to do so. It's called manipulating markets by monopoly stakeholders.
If Big Oil can be allowed to essentially rig the market by adjusting supply then the whole anti-trust system is totally useless - just window dressing.
"The American people are clamoring for relief at the pump," agreed Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., but "they will get exactly what they don't want" under the Democrats' plan — higher prices and an increase in oil imports.
The bill's supporters argued that their proposal was different from the windfall profits taxes of the early 1980s that thwarted domestic production and led to a rise in imports. The oil companies could avoid the tax by using their "windfall" to push alternative energy programs or refinery expansions, they said.
Shortly after the oil tax vote, Republicans blocked a second proposal that would extend tax breaks that have either expired or are scheduled to end this year for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. Again Democrats couldn't get the 60 votes to overcome a GOP filibuster.
So all that talk about energy independence is nothing but BS.
Our senators are hard at work making sure that for the foreseeable future no alternative source of energy exists for the American people.
WE ARE SLAVES TO THEIR SYSTEM AND WE WILL REMAIN SO - IF THEY CAN HELP IT.
Neither Republican presidential candidate John McCain nor his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, were in Washington to cast votes on the energy issue on Tuesday.
Obama, in a statement, said Republicans had "turned a blind eye to the plight of America's working families" by refusing to take up the energy legislation. Obama has supported additional taxes on the oil companies. McCain (that fucker) is opposed to such taxes and has proposed across-the-aboard tax reductions for industry as a way to help the economy.
Election-year politics hung over the debate. Democrats know their energy package has no chance of becoming law. Even it were to overcome a Senate GOP filibuster — a longshot at best — and the House acted, President Bush has made clear he would veto it.
But there was nothing to lose by taking on Big Oil when people are paying $60 to $100 to fill up their gas tanks.
So, essentially we're paying these fuckers to sing a song and dance on our gravestones, as we drop like flies from all the blood-sucking leaches that have established themselves in our economy at the invitation and coddling of our corrupt government.
In addition to the proposed windfall profits tax, the Democrats' bill also would have rescinded tax breaks that are expected to save the oil companies $17 billion over the next 10 years. The money would have been used to provide tax incentives for producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.
In an attempt to dampen oil market speculation, the legislation would require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets and would provide authority to regulate U.S.-based trading in foreign markets. And it would make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.
After Tuesday's defeat, Democrats did not rule out pushing the issue again.
"This was politics at its worst," complained Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "This was a refusal to debate the biggest problem confronting the American people. ... That takes nerve."
Enough is enough, people.
When are Americans going to wake the fuck up?
"Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky chided the Democrats. He called their proposal ‘a gimmick’ that would not lower gasoline prices, and only hold back domestic oil production."
How to explain the oil price? Why is it so high? Are we running out? Are supplies disrupted, or is the high price a reflection of oil company greed or OPEC greed. Are Chavez and the Saudis conspiring against us?
In my opinion, the two biggest factors in oil’s high price are the weakness in the US dollar’s exchange value and the liquidity that the Federal Reserve is pumping out.
The dollar is weak because of large trade and budget deficits, the closing of which is beyond American political will. As abuse wears out the US dollar’s reserve currency role, sellers demand more dollars as a hedge against its declining exchange value and ultimate loss of reserve currency status.
In an effort to forestall a serious recession and further crises in derivative instruments, the Federal Reserve is pouring out liquidity that is financing speculation in oil futures contracts. Hedge funds and investment banks are restoring their impaired capital structures with profits made by speculating in highly leveraged oil future contracts, just as real estate speculators flipping contracts pushed up home prices. The oil futures bubble, too, will pop, hopefully before new derivatives are created on the basis of high oil prices.
There are other factors affecting the price of oil. The prospect of an Israeli/US attack on Iran has increased current demand in order to build stocks against disruption. No one knows the consequence of such an ill-conceived act of aggression, and the uncertainty pushes up the price of oil as the entire Middle East could be engulfed in conflagration.
Now that Obama has pledged allegiance to AIPAC and adopted Bush’s position toward Iran, the high oil price could be a forecast that US/Israeli policy is likely to result in substantial supply disruptions. Still, the recent Israeli statements that an attack on Iran was “inevitable” only jumped the oil price about $8.
By pumping out money in an effort to forestall recession and paper over balance sheet problems, the Federal Reserve is driving up commodity and food prices in general. Yet American real incomes are not growing. Even without jobs offshoring, US economic policy has put the bulk of the population on a path to lower living standards.
The crisis that looms for the US is the loss of world currency role. Once the dollar loses that role, the US government will not be able to finance its operations by borrowing abroad, and foreigners will cease to finance the massive US trade deficit. This crisis will eliminate the US as a world power.
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06112008.html
That's right. The money the Fed is giving to the Wall Street banks that are teetering on the edge, due to their Mortagage Backed Securities mess, that money is being used to speculate in the oil market, driving the price at the pump steadily higher.
The Federal Reserve has their printing presses running at warp speed, pumping hundreds and hundreds of billions into Wall Street, to keep that gang of cuthroats afloat and they're taking that money and using it to artifically inflate the oil market so those greedy bastards can get their banks back on an even keel.
Roberts blames the weakening dollar for runaway fuel prices. The weakening dollar adds fuel to the fever of speculation, but the most pressing and immediate cause of wild oil prices is wild speculation, caused by total deregulation of the oil trading market.
See...
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/7075