For the record, Obama has made numerous hypocritical attacks

This campaign has shown that Obama hypocritically attacks his opponents for things that are equally true of himself.

As a few of many examples:

In the primary, he attacked Hillary Clinton for "taking money from oil companies", but by the same standard by which he leveled his attack, Obama, too, was "taking money from oil companies".

Now in the general election campaign, he has attacked McCain because's McCain's chief strategist own a lobbying firm ... but the same is true of Obama's chief strategist.

He even attacked both McCain and Clinton with this line back in February: "Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven't taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs," which was just outright false.

One of the most recent attacks has been against McCain running negative ads, but Obama's spent more on negative ads than any other candidate in history.

The extent of Obama's hypocrisy even goes so far that he smears people while trying to "fight the smears" about himself.

The Democrats Think You're Stupid

At least, that's the only explanation I can come up with.

The Democratic National Committee is running smear sites peddling outright distortions any informed voter should be able to see through.

The first DNC smear site is "ExxonMcCain":



The premise of that site is to distort McCain's proposal to lower the overall corporate tax rate (which would benefit all corporations, so ExxonMobile - being a corporation - benefits as a side effect) into some huge hand out to oil companies. Biden and Obama like to talk about McCain's "tax cut for the oil companies" too, which is a deliberate effort to mislead; but this site takes it to a whole different level.

(And, by the way, for 2007, if you combine amount of taxes paid by the bottom half of all tax filers, you'll come to an amount that's still less than the amount of taxes ExxonMobile paid. [1])


The second DNC smear site is "The Next Cheney"



Sarah Palin = Dick Cheney. Riiiiiight. The conventional wisdom among the DNC is that Cheney is in cahoots with Big Oil, and the biggest stretch they make on this smear site is that Palin is too. In fact, Palin pushed for (and succeeded with) a $1200.00 Alaska Resource Rebate paid for out of oil company profits. Give me a break.


They DNC is at best twisting the truth and it would not be unfair to say they're lying. That should give you pause about letting their candidates take control of both chambers of the Congress and the presidency.

Palin Knocks It Out of the Park

Not bad for an "inexperienced mayor" (as the Democrats are smearing her as), eh?

She favors alternative energy but has the good sense that we need to ramp up domestic production of oil for the short term until we have those alternatives in place.

Plus, she takes it to the three B's: Biden, 'Bama, and Bush.

(H/T: Allahpundit @ HotAir).

Update: The full interview is available here. It's so refreshing to listen to a politician communicate clearly and in depth about an important issue of the day.

Palin on Drilling

Sarah Palin, via Senator Cornyn's blog:

What will it take for Congress to enact comprehensive energy policy that includes increased domestic production of oil and gas, renewable and alternative energy, and conservation? It seems to us outside of the Capital Beltway that virtually every effort to accomplish this is met with criticism and failure.

In my opinion, the debate about energy policy is no longer theoretical or abstract. Our failure to enact an energy policy is having real consequences for every American in their daily lives and has begun to affect America's place in the world. Alaska is ready, willing, and able to assist the nation in addressing our acute and expanding energy needs. Like many other states, we would like the opportunity to help.

Congressional approval of responsible petroleum development in the coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) - the most promising unexplored petroleum province in North America - would be of incalculable benefit to my state and our nation.

In the last few weeks, proposals have been tabled to permit oil exploration and development in the 80 percent of the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)which is off-limits to such activity. I strongly support OCS development in Alaska and elsewhere as a necessary component of a sound energy strategy. However, it makes no sense to consider the OCS and to ignore the possibility of exploration and development in highly perspective upland areas,including ANWR.

As this is written, the Alaska Legislature is considering proposals to commercialize and transport the vast quantities of clean-burning natural gas that are located on the North Slope.

Already, 32 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves have been identified, and many trillions of additional cubic feet are thought to exist on the North Slope and in off shore areas of Alaska.

This gas is important to consumers in the lower 48 states, as prices rise and we are increasingly concerned about the carbon footprint resulting from energy utilization.

If we don't move now to enact an energy policy that includes more oil and gas production from domestic sources, including ANWR and the federal OCS, we may look back someday and realize that we failed to perceive a critical crossroad in the history of this nation. I don't think it's overly dramatic to say that our country's future and the quality of life for every American depends on the decisions that are made or not made in the next few months.

Common. Sense.

McCain, are you paying attention yet?

Speculation v. Supply & Demand

It's starting to feel like every 15 minutes I hear a politician, pundit, or friend proclaim the conventional "wisdom" that today's oil prices are due to "speculation, not supply and demand".

Utter foolishness.

And these politicians, pundits, and friends all come from varying sides of the political aisle. ... It's not just foolishness, it's bi-partisan foolishness. Economically ignorant bi-partisan foolishness.

So why is it foolishness? Basic economics. That's why.

You have to start with the assumption that "the oil companies" want to maximize their profits. But that's a given for the "evil oil companies", right?

Well, to do that, you want to price your product at the optimal price point (aka "the equilibrium price"). That's the price at which the amount of a good they are willing to sell (to supply) is equal to the amount of a good consumers are willing to purchase (that they demand).

If the seller sells at a lower price, they miss out on revenue from customers that were willing to pay a higher price. If the seller sells at a higher price, they lose sales from customers unwilling to pay such a high price.

So, if the oil companies ignore supply and demand for their pricing, they miss out on profits. But we've already established they're evil, err, I mean, smart and interested in maximizing profits.

OK, so it is "supply and demand" that's being used to determine the price of oil/gas/etc (just about every good in a free market). What about "speculation"?

"Speculation" (which I've come to the conclusion that a good chunk of the Congress (and maybe even some number of my friends) aren't even sure what is) you can loosely think of as just a fancy name for betting on what the future price of something will be. You can do this in various ways. For instance, you could buy a barrel of oil now and hold on to it for a while and then sell it (you would hope at an increased price) later. What the pundits are probably talking about though is trading futures contracts.

Again, dramatically bringing that concept back to earth - suppose I think that next year oil is going to be $200 / barrel. Well I don't want to pay that much. You have the ability to be able to provide me oil in one year and think oil will only be $150 / barrel then. So, we sign a contract that you will provide me with one barrel of oil in one year's time for $175. Based on what we believe about what the future price will be, we both feel we are coming out ahead.

So, can this speculation affect the price of oil today? Of course it can.

Suppose I'm selling oil and I can see that I can get $100 for a barrel today, but the futures market indicates in a year I can get $175 for that same barrel of oil. I could choose to take that barrel off the market today and hold onto it. (Removing that barrel from the "spot market" (today) so I can sell it in the future.) That reduces the available supply, affecting supply and demand, impacting today's price.

I suspect that maybe when people say "it's speculation, not supply and demand" they actually mean "it's speculation manipulating supply and demand" or "it's speculation, but not any other factors of supply and demand."

Of course, if that's what they mean, they're still wrong.

Why? Because we don't see suppliers hoarding (storing for the future) any significant amount of their oil. Effectively all of it is getting sold today to be consumed today. Thus, no affect on supply, thus no effect on price.

Now, I'll grant that the above all simplifies things considerably. A full treatment should get into if/how speculation in the futures market could affect the demand in the spot market and other such things. But the basic principles dictate that unless you see oil producers dramatically drop how much oil they are producing (so they can leave it in the ground to be sold later) or start storing significant amounts of oil (again, so it can be sold later), the price of oil is not being dramatically increased by so called "speculation."

Advise those that tell you otherwise to enroll in an Econ 101 class.

Holy Goodness... Dems calling to Nationalize Oil Companies

It took me a while to pick my jaw off the floor for this one:

Link: sevenload.com

So, that sneaking suspicion conservatives have that liberals really do want to socialize things is apparently not too far off...

Good write up on this by McQ over at QandO. And several gems from McQ in an earlier post on gas prices, including:

When confronted with the reality that oil must be an integral and growing part of at least the short-term solution to our energy problem the usual suspects retreat into the cave, begin banging their tribal one-note drum and resort to petulant insult rather than signaling a willingness to discuss changing their mind for the good of their fellow citizens. A typical example of that would be the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who, while respectfully calling the Vice President “oil man Cheney” said this:

"So all that Cheney can talk about, the Oil Man Cheney can talk about, is drilling, drilling drilling. But there is not enough oil in America to make that the salvation to our problems."

Of course the 1.5 trillion barrels sitting in western US shale alone, not to mention the 89.5 billion barrels offshore, show Harry Reid to either be incredibly ignorant, in which case he should just keep quiet, or a plain old liar. The fact is the shale reserve alone would fulfill all our energy needs for about 200 years.

"The Oil Man Cheney"? Falling back on an ad-hominem? Give me a break! I would hope for so much better from any Senator, especially a majority leader! Ugh.

And people want persons like Harry Reid to build and operate refineries and/or America's entire oil industry. Genius!