Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

Well, here we go again. The price of oil hits another high and, guess what? It's not the fault of "BIG OIL". Here we have a combination of market forces due to normal supply and demand coupled with speculation on the future price of oil due to political events, and government intervention.

Normally, when a product is in high demand and the supply is limited, the price goes up resulting in the producer increasing supply to sell more product at the higher price. Eventually, the increase in supply will meet demand and the price will stabilize or fall if demand decreases and, in a free market environment, the cycle continues. However, oil as a commodity, unfortunately does not exist in a free market environment.

Our governments (federal and state) have chosen to limit production of raw oil and its by-products, such as gasoline, heating oil, etc. through environmental regulations and, more recently, the man-made global warming myth. OPEC which is a consortium of foreign oil producing countries exacerbate the problem by controlling production to keep the price as high as possible. This would be considered price fixing in our country and would be illegal, but our government essentially ends up doing the same thing through regulation. Thus, when the supply is limited artificially, and demand remains high, the prices will remain high as well.

Government also effects the cost of energy by subsidizing products that compete with oil, such as, ethanol, wind, and solar power, and the like. Most of these products cannot exist without subsidies and research grants because the costs of such new technologies cannot be sustained in a free market at the present time. Even if oil companies could produce more oil, they have a hard time justifying an increase in the product because of the unknown effects of the use of other forms of energy. Why would you invest more millions or billions of dollars to increase production when you weren't sure how much competing subsidized products may reduce demand for your product, even if these products may cost substantially more to produce than yours.

When we combine these market factors with the perversion of science that has embedded itself into the political process, we approach what I call a "perfect storm" - the combination of an self induced increase in the costs of energy with the fanatical belief that man is ruining the world and changing the world's climate. If this process continues and we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot, our economic system and standard of living will be drastically reduced to a mere figment of itself. Maybe this is what many of the global warming fanatics really want - a destruction of the capitalistic system and along with it, democracy.

We have to understand that oil at the present time is the only source that can produce the amount of energy that this country needs to sustain our economic growth. Oil reserves are plentiful enough to sustain the planet for many years to come. Nuclear power is a great alternative to our electric grid but we are so blinded by the word "nuclear" that our country resists any increase in its use. Many other alternative sources will take a very long time to become an affordable and practical product in a free market. All this hype on bio-fuels is causing world food prices to rise exponentially and is inefficient compared to oil.

The so-called Third World nations are unnecessarily stifled economically because the developed nations don't want them to use oil for fear of global warming. Do people really want windmills in their backyard and huge solar panels on their roofs that cost more to install and maintain than the money they pay to the power company? Do people want to give up the number of TV sets, computers, electrical appliances, cell phone chargers, video game players, etc.? Think of it. Most of the people you hear who are demagoging the environmental issues have large cars, a lot of home electronics and appliances, huge living spaces, and use personal jets. Will they give all these things up? Not a chance. But they want YOU to give them up and limit your choices in what you buy.

When are we going to realize that this self-induced hatred of oil will cause our economic downfall? It is amazing that our politicians are reluctant to speak out on this issue, probably because they think that everyone has accepted the man-made global warming myth and the blaming of "BIG OIL" for the world's woes, and are afraid to lose votes and be hated by the mainstream media. It is time for some political leadership calling the environmental myths for what they are and stopping the demagoguery on the evil of oil. If this doesn't happen soon, the results may be irreversible.

OneConservative