The United States of 1%

http://mattbruenig.com/2012/03/05/the-1-captured-93-of-income-gains-in-2010/

This is where owning congressmen, the Supreme Court, lobbyists, etc. comes in very handy. You don't have to twist a single wrench, or have a single thought in your head, to make yourself fabulously wealthy.

 

Call Warren Buffet. He'll be making hundreds of millions of dollars from Obama's decisions that he paid for! Think Keystone XL Pipeline...

 

Don't worry......Canada is most likely going to cave to activists and not allow the pipeline. So it won't be built.

 

We don't need that pipeline; that is certain enough.

 

...and the skyrocketing gas prices prove it!

 

That's their standby argument ... facts are not required.

 

I'm trying to imagine why anybody would WANT that pipeline except to be in opposition to the Obama administration. Those oil sands are going to be refined in Houston, the gas loaded on barges, and shipped to China. Since the U.S. is already a net exporter of gasoline, and since the refiners have already shown that they would rather export gas than increase domestic supply (and maybe drive down pump prices), where is the win for me? Or you?

 

Explain how the pipeline will reduce gas prices noticeably.

 

What we need is for more funding for solar power research to find ways to make it more cost effective. The sun is the most potent energy source in the solar system and if we could fund ways to tap into it more effectively, we would never need anything else.

 

Get with reality. As a child, I knew that supply/demand, didn't really seem to explain the horrendously extreme changes in price.

 

Yep. If MONEY hadn't paid for so many of our politicians up to this point, we'd have a LOT MORE solar and wind power being generated in America.

I hope people get behind THIS and related legislation.

It is time for us to clean-up America from the top down.

 

Originally Posted by Phoebe Bump
http://mattbruenig.com/2012/03/05/th...gains-in-2010/

"This is where owning congressmen, the Supreme Court, lobbyists, etc. comes in very handy. You don't have to twist a single wrench, or have a single thought in your head, to make yourself fabulously wealthy."

Wow. Pheobe has explained why you can't get a decent day's work out of a union.

 

It won't. If anything prices will go up to cover the costs of building a pipeline, that can and will have disastrous effects on the water supply and the environment eventually in general. It will however help increase profits since the government will give them tax breaks and gas will be higher.

 

You're right; more "supply" won't help a darned thing.

 

Brilliant! Perhaps we need to concentrate on forking over more millions/billions from the socialist obama to spend on green start up industries like a solyndra etc to see how fast they can go bankrupt and then turn around and seek a bailout for those same failed industries from our generous messiah, before developing that pipeline that will create thousands of jobs and start the road to energy independence. Good thinking.

 

Why not? We're already forking millions/billions of dollars over to big oil.

 

You do realize that 1% only accounts for about 2.5% of the vote right? Why blame them when you elected the politicians that let themselves become puppets of corporate America?

 

Who is buying candidates with Super PAC money? (Hint: Not the 99%)

 

Use your brain. Energy independence means no more forking money over to big oil. Try following the process here.

 

We have plenty of supply, it's refineries we are lacking in. And the industry purposely limited the existence of refineries to make costs higher. There are two more refineries AWOL at this moment which is why $5 gallons of gas are predicted for this summer.
　
　
When regulations (imposed by the best government corporate money can buy) didn't increase the costs enough to suit the US oil industry, they eliminated some of their refineries (who were not the target of the regulations imposed to eliminate competition) to boost the costs in the decades that followed. It just amazes me that people who think they understand supply and demand economics are totally oblivious to an industry that manipulates the world's governments like puppets on a string to achieve the price gouging that has created record breaking profits year after year for well over 3 decades now. It's a scam that just keeps working time and time again.
　
　
The first oil "shortage" was perpetrated around WWI, and there has been at least 5 more in the last hundred years that artificially stimulated the profit margin, basically using the exact same tactics, that can only be accomplished by an industry that is a government approved monopoly.

 

Please explain how the pipeline will make us energy independent.

 

hopefully we stop giving them money , it is wrong when others suffer

 

Don't worry, it will trickle down any moment...wait for it, wait for it.........

I'm starting to think that Reagan lied to all of us, and an entire cross section of gullible, stupid voters bought it. Hmm.

 

It isn't just the pipeline we're talking about here. The Republicans have been trying to drill baby drill for decades now in places like Anwar and offshore, but were always blocked by liberal policy bemoaning the life of spotted owls or seals or some other crazy insignificant side bar issue. Its the Republicans that want to build more nuclear power plants, build more refineries, open up the countless acres of natural gas areas so as to become energy independent. You libs rely on a futuristic game of green energy alternatives, investment in failed industries like Sylindra that may or may not come to fruition; but you can't seem to grab onto the idea that we need this energy now, and since fossil fuels still reign supreme in this realistic world...I'll continue to push for the most expedient means for America becomming energy independent from foreign oil. Lets not forget obama putting a clamp on oil production and exploration in the Gulf and elsewhere since he's more concerned about an oil spill then he is about creating jobs and using our own energy.

 

You would use every drop of oil today in order to get a 10% increase in a quarterly report, disregarding the possibility of leaving our nation completely devoid of an oil source.

Did you ever think that there is a incredible strategic opportunity for the US to NOT drill right now or anytime in the near future? Think about it this way. The US is still, by far, without question the most wealthy nation on hand. If there is any commodity we have to offer the world, it's cash, and lots of it. Meanwhile, oil all over the world is getting sucked out of the ground at record levels, much of it coming here by way of us trading our most abundant commodity, one that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

At some point, whether the right wants to accept this or believe it or not, some of those foreign wells will dry up. It will absolutely happen. Maybe not in our lifetime, but eventually. Then what? If the US wants to remain a superpower for centuries on end, I say we take the long term strategy of using our disposable commodities, ie cash, while preserving our finite commodities, whose value will rise exponentially when other nations run dry. We don't lose anything by giving money directly to oil rich nations that won't compete in other economic avenues with the US. We do however, risk our future as a power if we lose all access to oil.

I say, use everyone else's first, and then we can look at using our own. Why is that not a fair strategy to consider? And try and look at it not from a pro/anti environment position, but a fiscally sound one.