About the middle of February, the price of gasoline and gasohol at Tulsa area stations began to climb after a period of Tulsa having the “lowest in the nation” rates. Many in media and political office immediately began the usual attack on “big oil” for the price rises.
These actions serve to prove that they are either ignorant of the facts of business life or have an anti-business agenda. Perhaps it is the result of a continuing practice of “divide and enslave”‘ being carried on by those of the communist/socialist movement. Their agenda seems to be the destruction of our world-leading economic machine so that they can mislead the nonthinking and uninformed majority into accepting a change of the U.S. government form from the original representative republic as laid out in the Constitution.
The truth is that the price of domestic crude oil, which is based on delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma, is somewhat less now than the world-posted base price, which is based on what is called Brent and is produced in the North Sea off the Scottish shores.
That is as it should be, since it is less expensive to drill and produce oil on land than in the deeper seas or very remote areas. Further, it has not been admitted by the media nor government speakers that little, if any, of the oil imported into the United States comes from other than the American continents (north, central and south). Reports seen by me indicate that more than 50 percent (and rising) of the amount of oil consumed here comes from here. The rest comes from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and other South American nations.
Unfortunately for us, PRESBO has prevented exploration and new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but has given more than $10 billion to Argentina and/or Brazil to assist their “government-owned company” exploration and to buy oil from them. This seems to me to be tantamount to committing treason, at least to our domestic businesses. It should be remembered that the now departing secretary of energy (an unneeded department) was reported to have said, upon taking office in 2009, that he “wanted to see gasoline at a price comparable to that in Europe.”
Perhaps that attitude lies behind the actions of PRESBO.
Back to the price at the pump. For many decades it has been the practice of most, if not all, refineries have made a practice in the spring of what is called the “annual turnaround. This is a planned shutdown in a normal time of low demand to do an IRAN (inspect and repair as needed) so as to minimize the chances of an unexpected interruption in production during the normal peak use time of summer and fall. This make good sense to me, since any piece of equipment (and a refinery is full of such) needs to have on-going maintenance if it is going to last for very long.
It seems too bad that governments at all levels, including school boards, refuse to allocate funds to do the same to buildings and other equipment and instead allow it to degrade until very expensive repairs or replacement is required. Such results in the continuing calls for bond issues to provide funds for such. Business must operate at a profit or it will cease to exist. Many in government either do not understand that, or deliberately deny it so that they can have a straw man to bash, all to the confusion or ignorance of the voting public. It should be remembered also that the dividends paid to stockholders (owners) of corporations are paid before taxes and so are taxed and then taxed again from the stockholders who receive them.
That is a fact that receives little or no recognition from the media in their “destroy business agenda.”
Remember that when going to the polls at any time.
