Evelyn Pringle March 5, 2008
This election cannot be based on personal likeability. It matters not whether Barack Obama is a better speaker than Hillary Clinton or visa versa. Now is not the time or place for a popularity contest - the stakes are too high.
This country is in the midst of the biggest downhill plunge of the past 50 years and we need a President with a team of advisors ready to move into the White House with the most experience in every area of policy making the minute Bush leaves.
As personable as he is, and despite his good intentions, the fact remains; Barack Obama does not have the qualifications or experience for the job he is seeking.
Most importantly, his foreign policy experience is totally lacking, and for obvious reasons, this factor alone disqualifies him for the presidency at this time.
John McCain is in lockstep with Bush on Iraq, even if it means staying there for 100 years. The fact that Barack is doing as well as he is has recently led to a nagging suspicion that the Republicans are somehow aiding his campaign behind the scenes, totally unbeknownst to Mr Obama, because they believe John McCain would have a better shot at beating him than Hillary.
The country is in a do or die position in both Iraq and Afghanistan and we’re running out of money and second chances. Our soldiers have stuck in the senseless war in Iraq for five years, longer than either of the world wars.
A new book entitled, “The Three Trillion Dollar War,” by Nobel laureate and former chief World Bank economist, Joseph Stiglitz, and co-author Linda Bilmes, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, reveals the outrageous cost of the Iraq war.
Of course, in response to the book, the White House sent out a spokesman with the usual worn out mantra about 9/11 stating:
“People like Joe Stiglitz lack the courage to consider the cost of doing nothing and the cost of failure. One can’t even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9/11.”
In a broadcast interview with Democracy Now on February 28, 2008, the authors said the Bush administration has repeatedly low-balled the cost of the war in Iraq and a second set of records were kept hidden from the American public.
According to Ms Bilmes, “right now we spend $12 billion a month in Iraq alone, $16 billion if you include Afghanistan.”
“Which doesn’t include the cost down the line,” she said, “if you include just the cost that we’ve already incurred for veterans and replenishing equipment and so forth, it’s double that.”
“It’s $25 billion a month,” she explained.
During the interview, Ms Bilmes described what she called “really outrageous situations” when trying to get information about the war. Even today, she said, “if you go to the official DOD website, what you will find is a number around 30,000 wounded, but that is only the wounded in combat.”
She explained that if the non-combat wounded in Iraq are counted, for example, soldiers who are injured when they’re driving vehicles at night, because it’s unsafe to drive during the day; or soldiers wounded when they are being transported from one place and another, who never would have been there otherwise, the number of wounded is more than double the number listed on the DOD website.
“We had to use the Freedom of Information Act to get access to that number,” she said.
Mr Stiglitz discussed how the government ripped off kids who were lured into joining the military with the signing bonuses and had to pay the money back if they were injured soon after going to Iraq. “They signed a contract to serve for three years,” he explained. “The fact that they get blown up after one month means they haven’t fulfilled their contract.”
He noted that in the election campaign, people are looking at two issues: the economy and the war. “I think there’s one big issue,” Mr Stiglitz said, “and that’s the war, because the war has been directly and indirectly having a very negative effect on the economy.”
He noted that there is not only an economic opportunity cost, but also a security opportunity cost and points out that while we were focusing on Iraq, “the problems in Afghanistan got worse, and the problem of security in Afghanistan is much worse than it was five years ago.”
During the interview, Amy Goodman asked Mr Stiglitz, “Who is profiting from this war?”
“Well, actually,” he replied, “there are two big gainers in this war and only two: the oil companies and the defense contractors.”
“One of the big pools of wealth are in the Middle East,” he noted, “the countries that are the oil exporters.”
“We are transferring hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said, “from American consumers, businesses, to the oil exporters.”
Specifically the most money is going to Saudia Arabia, Iran and Venezuela.
In an article in the February 23, 2008 Times Online, Mr Stiglitz and Ms Bilmes describe how government officials frequently talk about the lives of our soldiers as priceless. “But from a cost perspective,” they write, “these “priceless” lives show up on the Pentagon ledger simply as $500,000 - the amount paid out to survivors in death benefits and life insurance.”
“In areas such as health and safety regulation,” they point out, “the US Government values a life of a young man at the peak of his future earnings capacity in excess of $7 million - far greater than the amount that the military pays in death benefits.”
“Using this figure, the cost of the nearly 4,000 American troops killed in Iraq adds up to some $28 billion,” the stated.
In conclusion, the authors note that their book represents the cost only to the US and does not reflect the “enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq.”
As of today, 18 former admirals, generals, and senior defense officials are supporting Hillary. In a conference call with reporters on March 2, 2008, Brigadier General John Watkins, Jr, stated:
“As I think about the challenges facing the nation and having been in uniform for almost thirty years, worked with a number of presidents to include the last four, I can’t think of a single person – those generals included – who is better qualified to walk into the Oval Office than Hillary Clinton.
“I don’t make that statement very lightly. She is more qualified, in my view, than her husband Bill was when he entered the office.”
General Wesley Clark said, “She has done her homework on national security and I know from my personal discussions with her and with many other friends that go in and brief her in her role in the Senate Armed Services Committee.”
“She knows the facts, she knows the details, plus she has the big picture,” he stated. “She is a strategic thinker but she has the building blocks of the strategy in her personal knowledge.”
“In this world that we face today,” says Admiral William Owens, “experience will be really at a premium, especially at the level of the Commander-in-Chief.” He explained that:
“There’s not time to learn. The phone rings and you have to be ready. You have to ready with intuition, with experience and with skills.”
He pointed out that, “this world will have the complexities that perhaps we’ve never before seen,” and “we need people with great judgment.”
Admiral Owens says he thinks Hillary “brings the best of talent, intuition and experience to handle these unknown threats in the future.”
According to Lieutenant General Frederick Vollrath, “we absolutely have to have a leader with the proven experience.”
“America, in the area of national defense, must be successful and Senator Clinton has that experience to create change, to understand the risk, and to get the job done,” he said.
On a personal note, Major General Paul Eaton said, “I have a Special Forces Captain son and a Sergeant Paratrooper both in Afghanistan and I find Senator Clinton the perfect choice to be their Commander-in-Chief and to display the loyalty to command our armed forces and to rebuild them after the conflicts in which we are engaged right now.”
Lieutenant General Claudia Kennnedy stated: “I think she’ll rebuild relationships with other countries that have been suffering for the last seven or eight years; those relationships have really been strained beyond anything I would have anticipated.”
The above testimonials provide enough evidence of her qualifications on military matters for this untrained military mind. Hillary, along with her top foreign policy advisor, former President Bill Clinton, offer the best hope for getting our soldiers out of the killing fields in Iraq in the shortest amount of time possible.
The former President is admired all over the world. He is a natural-born diplomat and we also need him to help repair the damage done to our relationships with world leaders.
As far as the economy, the country was in dire straights when the first President Clinton took office after the first Bush left and the economy was in great shape when the second Bush stepped in
Hillary’s experience gained during the first Clinton Administration is verifiable. The country went from a deficit of $290 billion in 1992, to an expected surplus of more than $250 billion for 2001. Eight years earlier, the Congressional Budget Office had projected a $513 billion deficit in 2001. In 2000, the surplus was the largest in US history at over $200 billion.
Economic growth averaged 4% per year, compared to an average 2.8% during the Reagan-Bush presidencies. Inflation was the lowest since the 1960s, averaging 2.5%.
More than 20 million jobs were created and American workers saw double-digit earning growth, and the bottom 20% had the largest increase at more than 16%. Unemployment dropped to the lowest level in 30 years, from close to 7% in 1993, to 4% in November 2000. The country’s poverty rates were the lowest in 30 years.
The homeownership rate topped 67% in the third quarter of 2000, the highest rate on record.
With all that said, on February 4, 2008, USA Today warned that the “next president will inherit a deficit of about $400 billion, and maybe more,” which means the second Clinton Administration will take office faced the same financial disaster as the first time around.
In fact, the country is now worse off then when the first Bush left. According to Department of Labor Statistics released on January 16, 2008, real weekly earnings increased only 0.9 percent nationally in 2007, but food purchased at the grocery store was 4.2% higher than in 2006. This increase was the highest percentage year-over-year increase since 1990. The price of bread rose 7.4%, eggs 29.2%, and milk increased 13.1%.
The data shows college tuition and expenses increased by 6.2% in 2007, the cost of attending a technical or trade school was up 4%, and the fees for child care and nursery school increased 4.3%.
Health insurance costs rose 10.1% in 2007, medical care increased 5.8%, and the price of medical-care services rose 5.3%. In August 2007, the US Census Bureau reported that the number of Americans without health insurance rose to 15.8% of the population in 2006, or 47 million people.
On December 30, 2007, a report by Sam Zuckerman in the San Francisco Chronicle called 2007, “the year that the greatest housing boom of the post-war era turned into the greatest housing bust,” and explained:
“It started with a rising tide of foreclosures among subprime borrowers - those who took out loans with loose documentation requirements or little money down. By the summer, losses among subprime lenders spread to big banks around the world that had invested in securities based on subprime mortgages.”
“The result was one of the most severe lending lockdowns of recent decades,” according to the report in the Chronicle. “Banks stopped making loans, and when they resumed, they tightened requirements and jacked up rates for all kinds of customers, including other banks.”
“As credit dried up,” Mr Zuckerman notes, “home price stopped rising and then lurched downward, while the number of sales plummeted.”
When introducing former President Clinton for a campaign speech supporting his wife, at a Kirtland, Ohio high school, on March 1, 2008, Ohio’s Lt Governor Lee Fisher, summed up the best reason for sending Hillary to the White House in the following concise statement quoted in the Toledo Blade:
"Bill and Hillary Clinton for eight years set this nation on a new course and we have now the best chance we have since then, not only to take that course and set it right again, but to take it to new heights."
Hillary can beat McCain and no offense to Mr Obama, but with her knowledge and experience in the White House she is the most qualified person for the job in 2008.
Showing posts with label Big Oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Oil. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Clinton v Obama - Hillary Most Qualified for the Job - Part 2
Evelyn Pringle March 5, 2008
More than any time in the past fifty years, this country is in need of a qualified leader with a solid base of combined knowledge and experience. Barack Obama does not fit the bill. The first Clinton Administration provided disaster relief after Bush Sr left office and a first-rate team of responders is needed more now than in 1993.
Bush Jr’s torrid affair with the oil and defense industries has turned the US economy into a war zone with Americans running out of money to pay for the basic necessities in life such as housing, utilities, and health care.
According to Nobel Prize winning economist and former World Bank vice president, Joseph Stiglitz, so far, the war in Iraq has cost $3 trillion, instead of the $50 or $60 billion price presented to the American people in 2003. On February 28, 2008, he provided testimony to the Senate Joint Economic Committee and told lawmakers we are spending $50 billion in operations every 3 months.
But the most important costs, he said, that go beyond the operational costs are the expenditures required to provide health care and disability for returning veterans. “These are likely to be very, very high, and we will be paying these bills for decades to come.” he warned.
Professor Stiglitz also told lawmakers that our country and businesses are suffering due to America’s changed standing in the eyes of the world because of the war and the way it has been conducted and surveys show a clear relation between attitudes towards America generally and attitudes towards American businesses. “In many quarters,” he stated, “the supposed war for democracy has even given democracy a bad name.”
He pointed out that the mounting war debt means we have borrowed more and more money from abroad. “The fact that we borrowed rather than paid the bills as they came due does not mean that the war was for free;” he said, “it only postponed the payments.”
He criticized the “lose monetary policy,” a “flood of liquidity,” and “lax regulation” which allowed household saving rates to plummet to zero, the lowest since the great Depression, and fed a housing bubble, allowing hundreds of billions of dollars to be taken out in mortgage equity withdrawals that increased the irresponsible consumption boom.
He said, “the subprime mortgages and lending programs with slogans like “qualified at birth” meant that easy credit was available for anyone this side of being on a life support system.”
According to the Professor, we were living on borrowed money and borrowed time and the day reckoning has now arrived. “The games we played—which for a time allowed us to hide the true costs of the Iraq war—are now over,” he stated.
He noted the huge problem facing the social security system, and the jeopardy to the economic security of our elderly and said, “for a fraction of the cost of this war, we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half century or more.”
His prepared statement says the defense contractors and oil companies have been the only true winners in this war, evidenced by what has happened to their stock prices.
This assertion is proven by the August 30, 2006 report, “Executive Excess 2006, Defense and Oil Executives Cash in on Conflict,” by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, which shows that between 2002 and 2005, the CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors enjoyed average pay levels double the amount they received during the period of 1998-2001.
Defense contractor's pay was up 107% in 2005, compared to 2001, and the average compensation for the top 34 CEOs went from $3.6 million to $7.2 million. Halliburton CEO, David Lesar made $26.6 million in 2005, a bigger package than the $24.2 million send-off awarded to his predecessor, Dick Cheney, the report points out.
In stark comparison, the average pay for Army privates in combat in 2005 was only $25,085, and military generals with 20 years experience, only earned $174,452, with housing allowances and extra combat pay included.
According to the report, between the end of the year 2000 and the end of 2005, the share prices of the top 34 defense companies increased 48% on average.
The oil industry contributed $2,627,825 toward the 2004 reelection of George Bush. In 2005, the top 15 US oil company CEOs were paid an average of $32.7 million, and received an average raise of 50.2% over their 2004 pay packages.
Lee Raymond, the outgoing CEO of ExxonMobile, was the third highest paid and he made $69.7 million, according to the report. Exxon reportedly gave Raymond a send-off package worth nearly $400 million, in combined pension, stock options and other perks, including a $1 million consulting deal, the use of a corporate jet for professional purposes, 2 years home security, and a car and driver.
Throughout his first campaign, Bush was critical of the Clinton Administration. He taunted President Clinton every chance he got for failing to get the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), to increase oil production.
During the first Republican primary debate, in December 1999, Bush said President Clinton “must jawbone OPEC members to lower prices.”
"What I think the President ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots," he said during a January 2000 debate.
"The President of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price," he stated.
“I think the president ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say: ‘We expect you to open your spigots’." he said in the Financial Times on February 2, 2000.
"And if, in fact, there is collusion amongst big oil, he ought to intercede there as well,” Bush told the Times.
On June 28, 2000, the New York Times reported comments Bush made the day before during a news conference while campaigning in Michigan and stated:
"Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude."
"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Bush told reporters.
Implicit in his comments, the Times said, "was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil-producing nations that they owed the United States something in return."
"Ours is a nation that helped Kuwait and the Saudis, and you'd think we'd have the capital necessary to convince them to increase the crude supplies," Bush told reporters.
When asked why the Clinton Administration had not been able to use the power of personal persuasion, Bush stated: "The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?' "
"I will be," he said.
"But until I'm the president," he told reporters, "it's going to be hard for me to verify that I think I'll be more effective."
He verified his effectiveness all right - to the oil companies. During his first 3 years in office, the top 3 US companies, ExxonMobile, ChevronTexaco, and ConocoPhillips, raked in more than $33 billion in profits.
During the first quarter of his second term in 2004, oil companies and refineries reported record profits for operations in the US. Earnings for domestic refining and marketing operations increased by 294% for Chevron-Texaco, 165% for British Petroleum, 125% for ExxonMobil, and 44% for ConocoPhillips.
On May 12, 2004, the International Energy Agency released a study warning that higher oil prices had hurt the global economy and would further depress economic growth, fuel inflation, and increase unemployment over the next two years if prices stayed near the current levels at that time.
Five months later, on September 24, 2004, oil topped a record level of $50 a barrel, and CBS News noted that, "Mr. Bush has shown no propensity to personally pressure, or “jawbone,” Mideast oil producers to increase output."
Ten months after the start of his second term, ExxonMobil posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion, "the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices," Reuters reported on October 27, 2005.
On October 28, 2005, the Wall Street Journal noted that Exxon's quarterly profits "amounted to a per-minute profit of $74,879.23 during the quarter." The Journal also reported that Shell said its third-quarter net income rose 68% to $9.03 billion.
The same week, Energy Information Administration data showed the price of a gallon of gas was up 28% from the year before.
A month ago, on February 2, 2008, the Washington Post reported that, “Exxon broke the record it previously had set for profits by a U.S. corporation, earning $40.6 billion last year.”
“Exxon's profit for the year came to $4.6 million an hour,” the Post calculated.
Twenty-five days later, crude oil prices hit a record high of $103 a barrel. On February 27, 2008, Nigel Gault, an economist at Global Insight, told the New York Times, “You’re adding an oil shock on top of a crunch on credit and a housing collapse.”
“Even the U.S. economy cannot withstand all of that at the same time,” he stated.
The skyrocketing energy costs have a trickle down effect on everything that happens in the US. On average, every time oil prices go up 10%, an estimated 150,000 Americans lose their jobs, according to calculations based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve Board.
In a survey conducted in June 2006, 75% of small businesses said increasing energy costs had impacted their businesses. Twenty-eight percent of those surveyed had to increase the prices they charged customers, and others coped by limiting production.
If the price of energy goes up, it costs more to turn on the power to run equipment and machinery in offices and manufacturing businesses alike. If prices go up, it costs more to heat and cool the buildings for businesses, schools, and government agencies.
The majority of products purchased in the US are transported by trucks, trains and ships that burn diesel fuel. A rise in the cost of diesel fuel can increase the price of nearly every product sold to consumers across the board.
Higher fuel prices increase the costs for every kind of service depended on by Americans in daily life, from school buses to taxi cabs to emergency vehicles to pizza delivery cars.
Bush’s Sham Energy Policy
Two and a half years ago on August 8, 2005, while signing a new Energy Policy into law, Bush lied through his teeth, when he told the country that the “Energy Policy Act of 2005 is going to help every American who drives to work, every family that pays a power bill, and every small business owner hoping to expand.”
According to an analysis of EIA data, when Bush took office in 2001, the average American family spent $3,300 on home heating, gasoline, and electricity combined.
In May 2001, the price of home heating oil was $0.76 per gallon. On February 25, 2008, the average residential heating oil price set a nominal high record at $3.46 per gallon.
The price of natural gas was $4.52 per thousand cubic feet in May 2001, and 6 years later, for the year-to-date through October 2007, the average price was $7.05, a 23.8% increase over the October 2006 price.
In 2001, the average cost of residential electricity was 8.62 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average price in November 2007 was 10.69 cents. The price of propane was $0.51 per gallon in May 2001, and on February 25, 2008, the average residential propane price reached an all-time high of $2.58 per gallon.
The Department of Energy estimates that heating oil costs would be up 26% this winter. In New Hampshire families are paying more than $3 a gallon, up from just over $1 in 2000. In Maine, one of the coldest states in the US, state officials have estimated that heating oil will cost more than $2,700 for the average household in 2008.
In November 2007, Senator Chuck Schumer released a report that showed New Yorkers would pay an estimated $830 million more this winter to heat their homes than last winter. His report included homeowners and renters who used gas, fuel oil, or electricity.
This year, Wisconsin experienced a 40% increase in home heating oil costs, according to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.
A December 2007 poll commissioned by CreditCards.com found that in 2008, two out of 3 Americans plan to cut back spending on other things, as a result of higher energy costs, and nearly 25% said they would cut back significantly.
As many as 27 million Americans will have to borrow money for home heating, and 20 million will use credit cards to pay utility bills. The poll found that 27% of adults who earned between $20,000 and $30,000 a year, believed they would have to borrow money to pay their utilities during the winter of 2008.
The average family uses 1,429 gallons of gasoline a year. On January 20, 2001, the day Bush was sworn into office, the price of gas was $1.44 per gallon. On February 29, 2008, MSNBC reported that the average price of gas was $3.16 a gallon.
In 2001, a family buying 1,429 gallons of gas would have paid $2,057. In 2008, the same family will pay $4,515, providing the gas remains at $3.16 per gallon for the year.
Families living in rural communities are worse off because they must drive long distances to work, to shop, to drop off kids at school, and to access healthcare. Rural households drive 28,000 miles a year on average, or 15% more than urban families, and use 22% more fuel, according to Economic Research Service/USDA. This means families living in rural areas will pay $5,779 for gas in 2008.
The Department of Energy predicts that gas prices will peak this spring near $3.40 per gallon but some energy analysts say the cost could be as high as $4 this summer.
Trucking Industry
Among the hardest hit by rising energy costs, is the trucking industry, which includes hundreds of thousands of small businesses. Eighty percent of communities in the US get their goods solely by truck.
As of November 2006, there were over 700,000 interstate carriers in the US classified as small businesses, with 97% operating 20 or fewer trucks, according to a June 14, 2007 statement before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, by Timothy Lynch, Senior Vice President of the American Trucking Associations.
Fuel is the second-largest operating expense for trucking companies, after labor. In order to haul the nation’s freight, Mr Lynch told the Senate Committee, the industry would consume 51 billion gallons of fuel, at a record cost of $106 billion in 2007, more than double the fuel bill of the industry in 2003.
Mr Lynch noted that Energy Information Administration analysts then estimated
that diesel fuel would average $2.75 per gallon in 2007 and $2.76 a gallon in 2008.
On November 29, 2007, the Bangor Daily News reported on a meeting in Damariscotta, Maine of 400 members of the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine and Coalition to Lower Fuel Prices in Maine with federal and state lawmakers, where truckers complained that diesel prices were already more than $3.50 a gallon.
Government had always squeezed logging truckers, they said, but diesel prices were pushing them out of business. They predicted a massive shutdown unless prices fall, according to Bangor Daily.
With diesel prices rising to as high as $3.65 per gallon, Brian Souers, president of a Lincoln logging firm, Treeline Inc, told lawmakers, costs had increased 23% in 90 days for some truckers. "We're not making 4 percent," he said.
"The people who work for us need more money, too," he pointed out, and asked, "Where's it going to come from?"
“The cost of diesel is putting us out of business one day at a time, one truck at a time,” said Larry Sidelinger, owner of Yankee Pride Transport in Damariscotta.
Scott Hannington of Wytopitlock said his company had 65 workers 2-and-a-half years ago and now only has 11. Robin Crawford & Son of Lincoln reported hauling 247,000 cords of wood in 2001, but said the company might handle 80,000 in 2007.
"Less than 10 percent of the people in this room will stay in this business if it keeps going like it is," businessman Dick Day told the lawmakers.
Maine's overall economy is dependent on the logging industry which contributes more than $10 billion a year.
The next month, half way across the country in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a group of truckers, loggers and industry shareholder met at community centers in the small towns of Mass City and Quinnesec, Michigan to discuss the effects of the rising costs of diesel fuel on the future of that state's logging industry.
“If things continue as they are, we’ll all be done by spring,” said Jason Tapani, an owner/operator and one of the meeting’s organizers at the Mass City meeting, according to a report in the December 3, 2007 Daily News.
During the meeting, Mr Tapani explained that 10 years ago, the industry standard was a formula of allowing 25% for wages, 25% for insurance and maintenance, 25% for truck payments and 25% for fuel. At $3.56 for a gallon, he said, fuel now account for 50% of his total expenses, according to the Daily News report.
“I’m working 85 hours a week and I’m barely surviving,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to work that hard and not see it in my business.”
The other organizer of the meeting, Marty DeHaan, told the audience: “Basically, by this point the weak have fallen.”
“We all know guys who were driving a year ago who are now out of business,” he stated.
The Daily News also reported on the December 10, 2007 Quinnesec meeting and quoted Mr Tapani giving an example of how hard it is to make a profit hauling timber.
“Let’s say I get paid $761 dollars for a one-way trip covering 160 miles,” he said. “The cost of fuel is going to eat up nearly 50 percent of that.”
“By the time I take money out for my truck payment, insurance, maintenance and other costs, I’m left with $22,” Mr Tapani stated.
On November 25, 2007, Nathan Phelps reported in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, that rising diesel prices, "just a tick under $3.58 a gallon in the Green Bay area," is one of the challenges facing truckers and the industry this year. "When you're putting in 107 gallons of fuel at a time, those costs add up fast," he pointed out.
On February 29, 2008, Ellen Simon, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, reported that Lebanon, Tennessee trucker, Robert Griffith, is on the road 3 out 4 weeks a month, but because the cost of diesel has doubled over the last four years, Mr Griffith's take-home pay has plunged from $50,000 to $11,000, in 2007.
Mr Griffith is literally burning money and "spent $64,000 on diesel in the last eight months," according to the Journal.
A one-cent increase in the price of diesel fuel costs the trucking industry an additional $350 million a year. In the latter part of February 2008, the average price of diesel hit a new record; with the on-highway retail average at $3.55 a gallon, according to the EIA.
Farm Industry
With higher energy costs, farmers are being hit from every which way. Increased prices means it costs more to grow and harvest crops because of higher prices for fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel.
Gasoline, diesel, natural gas and propane are needed to run the equipment used to plant, water, harvest and deliver crops to market. Poultry and pork producers use propane to keep chicken and hog houses warm.
The additional energy costs reduce the selling price and profits from crops because shippers and food manufacturers are also paying more for transportation and production.
According to the January 29, 2008 Rapid City Journal, the average net farm income for South Dakota's 31,300 farmers in 2006 was $28,400, down from an average of $58,000 a year earlier in 2005, citing the National Agricultural Statistics Service,
The costs for fuel and other energy-related expenses are offsetting good grain and cattle prices for farmers and ranchers, especially those who live long distances from nearby towns, Boyd Waara, vice president of First National Bank of Philip, and John Johnson, president of First Western Bank in Sturgis told the Journal.
In addition to the higher costs for fuel to run tractors, pickups and combines, farmers and ranchers are paying higher delivery charges on everything they buy, including fuel, livestock feed, fertilizer and equipment parts, according to the Journal.
Mr Johnson said the residents of rural towns are also seeing higher prices for groceries, clothing and other goods as well as for propane and electricity. "I think everybody is affected by it," he told the Journal.
He said the sales of large-ticket items such as vehicles, kitchen appliances and television sets have all been slow over the past 5 to six months. "We have to assume that some of that is due to less spendable income caused by the price of oil," he added
On November 16, 2007, Capital Press reported that energy costs are taking a big bite out of farm businesses across the West, from keeping crops in production and moving products to markets. Propane prices at the Cal-Nevada Wholesale Nursery, near Sacramento, had increased to $2 a gallon from $1.50 the year before. The owner told Capital Press that even though it would add 25 cents to the price of each plant, he had no choice but to keep 6 heaters running at night to keep the temperature from dropping below 65, or he'd lose the crop.
He also said the nursery business has been hurt by higher freight charges to ship flowers by air. "It used to be $12 to $13 a case and now it us up to $24 a box," he told the Press.
The president of the Washington Apple Commission told Capital Press that the rising cost of fuel to power equipment to pack, process and ship the state's $1.4 billion apple crop has become a major concern. Apple shippers saw surcharges on overseas containers rise $100 per container in 2007, according to the Press.
Travel Industry
When Bush took office, the price of jet fuel was $0.86 per gallon. With a usage rate of 19.5 billion gallons of fuel a year, each penny increase per gallon adds $195 million in annual costs to the airline industry, according to the Air Transport Association.
In 2006, airlines spent a record $38 billion on fuel, 3 times the cost in 2002. Airlines raised fares a total of 12 times in 2005, and in the first quarter of 2006, American Airline raised domestic round-trip tickets by $10, and both Continental and Southwest reported a 5.4% increase.
In the fall of 2007, Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean began charging a fee of $5 per day per passenger and both companies applied the fee to future and already existing reservations. Norwegian Cruise Lines added a fee of $7 per day to future reservations
Americans do not have the money to pay these ever rising costs. Statistics released by the Department of Labor in January showed real weekly earnings increased only 0.9 percent nationally in 2007. Median weekly earnings increased only 0.9 percent between 2000 and 2006, compared with 7.1% between 1996 and 2000, under the Clinton Administration
The Bush tax cuts have paid off well for those intended. IRS data shows that the wealthiest 1% of Americans, those with an average income of $1,316,000, earned over 21% of all income in 2005, while the workers in bottom 50% earned less than 13%.
And as far as job creation, Bush is competing with his old man to see who ends up with the worst record since Herbert Hoover over 70 years ago. As of October 5, 2007, Labor Bureau statistics show that non-farm payroll jobs increased by 5.6 million since Bush took office. More than 20 million jobs were added during the Clinton Administration.
In January 2009, we need a team of qualified experts on the ground in the White House ready to clean up the disaster that Bush left. The first Clinton Administration faced the same daunting task in 1993. Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in the race with enough knowledge and experience to get the job done.
More than any time in the past fifty years, this country is in need of a qualified leader with a solid base of combined knowledge and experience. Barack Obama does not fit the bill. The first Clinton Administration provided disaster relief after Bush Sr left office and a first-rate team of responders is needed more now than in 1993.
Bush Jr’s torrid affair with the oil and defense industries has turned the US economy into a war zone with Americans running out of money to pay for the basic necessities in life such as housing, utilities, and health care.
According to Nobel Prize winning economist and former World Bank vice president, Joseph Stiglitz, so far, the war in Iraq has cost $3 trillion, instead of the $50 or $60 billion price presented to the American people in 2003. On February 28, 2008, he provided testimony to the Senate Joint Economic Committee and told lawmakers we are spending $50 billion in operations every 3 months.
But the most important costs, he said, that go beyond the operational costs are the expenditures required to provide health care and disability for returning veterans. “These are likely to be very, very high, and we will be paying these bills for decades to come.” he warned.
Professor Stiglitz also told lawmakers that our country and businesses are suffering due to America’s changed standing in the eyes of the world because of the war and the way it has been conducted and surveys show a clear relation between attitudes towards America generally and attitudes towards American businesses. “In many quarters,” he stated, “the supposed war for democracy has even given democracy a bad name.”
He pointed out that the mounting war debt means we have borrowed more and more money from abroad. “The fact that we borrowed rather than paid the bills as they came due does not mean that the war was for free;” he said, “it only postponed the payments.”
He criticized the “lose monetary policy,” a “flood of liquidity,” and “lax regulation” which allowed household saving rates to plummet to zero, the lowest since the great Depression, and fed a housing bubble, allowing hundreds of billions of dollars to be taken out in mortgage equity withdrawals that increased the irresponsible consumption boom.
He said, “the subprime mortgages and lending programs with slogans like “qualified at birth” meant that easy credit was available for anyone this side of being on a life support system.”
According to the Professor, we were living on borrowed money and borrowed time and the day reckoning has now arrived. “The games we played—which for a time allowed us to hide the true costs of the Iraq war—are now over,” he stated.
He noted the huge problem facing the social security system, and the jeopardy to the economic security of our elderly and said, “for a fraction of the cost of this war, we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half century or more.”
His prepared statement says the defense contractors and oil companies have been the only true winners in this war, evidenced by what has happened to their stock prices.
This assertion is proven by the August 30, 2006 report, “Executive Excess 2006, Defense and Oil Executives Cash in on Conflict,” by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, which shows that between 2002 and 2005, the CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors enjoyed average pay levels double the amount they received during the period of 1998-2001.
Defense contractor's pay was up 107% in 2005, compared to 2001, and the average compensation for the top 34 CEOs went from $3.6 million to $7.2 million. Halliburton CEO, David Lesar made $26.6 million in 2005, a bigger package than the $24.2 million send-off awarded to his predecessor, Dick Cheney, the report points out.
In stark comparison, the average pay for Army privates in combat in 2005 was only $25,085, and military generals with 20 years experience, only earned $174,452, with housing allowances and extra combat pay included.
According to the report, between the end of the year 2000 and the end of 2005, the share prices of the top 34 defense companies increased 48% on average.
The oil industry contributed $2,627,825 toward the 2004 reelection of George Bush. In 2005, the top 15 US oil company CEOs were paid an average of $32.7 million, and received an average raise of 50.2% over their 2004 pay packages.
Lee Raymond, the outgoing CEO of ExxonMobile, was the third highest paid and he made $69.7 million, according to the report. Exxon reportedly gave Raymond a send-off package worth nearly $400 million, in combined pension, stock options and other perks, including a $1 million consulting deal, the use of a corporate jet for professional purposes, 2 years home security, and a car and driver.
Throughout his first campaign, Bush was critical of the Clinton Administration. He taunted President Clinton every chance he got for failing to get the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), to increase oil production.
During the first Republican primary debate, in December 1999, Bush said President Clinton “must jawbone OPEC members to lower prices.”
"What I think the President ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots," he said during a January 2000 debate.
"The President of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price," he stated.
“I think the president ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say: ‘We expect you to open your spigots’." he said in the Financial Times on February 2, 2000.
"And if, in fact, there is collusion amongst big oil, he ought to intercede there as well,” Bush told the Times.
On June 28, 2000, the New York Times reported comments Bush made the day before during a news conference while campaigning in Michigan and stated:
"Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude."
"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Bush told reporters.
Implicit in his comments, the Times said, "was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil-producing nations that they owed the United States something in return."
"Ours is a nation that helped Kuwait and the Saudis, and you'd think we'd have the capital necessary to convince them to increase the crude supplies," Bush told reporters.
When asked why the Clinton Administration had not been able to use the power of personal persuasion, Bush stated: "The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?' "
"I will be," he said.
"But until I'm the president," he told reporters, "it's going to be hard for me to verify that I think I'll be more effective."
He verified his effectiveness all right - to the oil companies. During his first 3 years in office, the top 3 US companies, ExxonMobile, ChevronTexaco, and ConocoPhillips, raked in more than $33 billion in profits.
During the first quarter of his second term in 2004, oil companies and refineries reported record profits for operations in the US. Earnings for domestic refining and marketing operations increased by 294% for Chevron-Texaco, 165% for British Petroleum, 125% for ExxonMobil, and 44% for ConocoPhillips.
On May 12, 2004, the International Energy Agency released a study warning that higher oil prices had hurt the global economy and would further depress economic growth, fuel inflation, and increase unemployment over the next two years if prices stayed near the current levels at that time.
Five months later, on September 24, 2004, oil topped a record level of $50 a barrel, and CBS News noted that, "Mr. Bush has shown no propensity to personally pressure, or “jawbone,” Mideast oil producers to increase output."
Ten months after the start of his second term, ExxonMobil posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion, "the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices," Reuters reported on October 27, 2005.
On October 28, 2005, the Wall Street Journal noted that Exxon's quarterly profits "amounted to a per-minute profit of $74,879.23 during the quarter." The Journal also reported that Shell said its third-quarter net income rose 68% to $9.03 billion.
The same week, Energy Information Administration data showed the price of a gallon of gas was up 28% from the year before.
A month ago, on February 2, 2008, the Washington Post reported that, “Exxon broke the record it previously had set for profits by a U.S. corporation, earning $40.6 billion last year.”
“Exxon's profit for the year came to $4.6 million an hour,” the Post calculated.
Twenty-five days later, crude oil prices hit a record high of $103 a barrel. On February 27, 2008, Nigel Gault, an economist at Global Insight, told the New York Times, “You’re adding an oil shock on top of a crunch on credit and a housing collapse.”
“Even the U.S. economy cannot withstand all of that at the same time,” he stated.
The skyrocketing energy costs have a trickle down effect on everything that happens in the US. On average, every time oil prices go up 10%, an estimated 150,000 Americans lose their jobs, according to calculations based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve Board.
In a survey conducted in June 2006, 75% of small businesses said increasing energy costs had impacted their businesses. Twenty-eight percent of those surveyed had to increase the prices they charged customers, and others coped by limiting production.
If the price of energy goes up, it costs more to turn on the power to run equipment and machinery in offices and manufacturing businesses alike. If prices go up, it costs more to heat and cool the buildings for businesses, schools, and government agencies.
The majority of products purchased in the US are transported by trucks, trains and ships that burn diesel fuel. A rise in the cost of diesel fuel can increase the price of nearly every product sold to consumers across the board.
Higher fuel prices increase the costs for every kind of service depended on by Americans in daily life, from school buses to taxi cabs to emergency vehicles to pizza delivery cars.
Bush’s Sham Energy Policy
Two and a half years ago on August 8, 2005, while signing a new Energy Policy into law, Bush lied through his teeth, when he told the country that the “Energy Policy Act of 2005 is going to help every American who drives to work, every family that pays a power bill, and every small business owner hoping to expand.”
According to an analysis of EIA data, when Bush took office in 2001, the average American family spent $3,300 on home heating, gasoline, and electricity combined.
In May 2001, the price of home heating oil was $0.76 per gallon. On February 25, 2008, the average residential heating oil price set a nominal high record at $3.46 per gallon.
The price of natural gas was $4.52 per thousand cubic feet in May 2001, and 6 years later, for the year-to-date through October 2007, the average price was $7.05, a 23.8% increase over the October 2006 price.
In 2001, the average cost of residential electricity was 8.62 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average price in November 2007 was 10.69 cents. The price of propane was $0.51 per gallon in May 2001, and on February 25, 2008, the average residential propane price reached an all-time high of $2.58 per gallon.
The Department of Energy estimates that heating oil costs would be up 26% this winter. In New Hampshire families are paying more than $3 a gallon, up from just over $1 in 2000. In Maine, one of the coldest states in the US, state officials have estimated that heating oil will cost more than $2,700 for the average household in 2008.
In November 2007, Senator Chuck Schumer released a report that showed New Yorkers would pay an estimated $830 million more this winter to heat their homes than last winter. His report included homeowners and renters who used gas, fuel oil, or electricity.
This year, Wisconsin experienced a 40% increase in home heating oil costs, according to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.
A December 2007 poll commissioned by CreditCards.com found that in 2008, two out of 3 Americans plan to cut back spending on other things, as a result of higher energy costs, and nearly 25% said they would cut back significantly.
As many as 27 million Americans will have to borrow money for home heating, and 20 million will use credit cards to pay utility bills. The poll found that 27% of adults who earned between $20,000 and $30,000 a year, believed they would have to borrow money to pay their utilities during the winter of 2008.
The average family uses 1,429 gallons of gasoline a year. On January 20, 2001, the day Bush was sworn into office, the price of gas was $1.44 per gallon. On February 29, 2008, MSNBC reported that the average price of gas was $3.16 a gallon.
In 2001, a family buying 1,429 gallons of gas would have paid $2,057. In 2008, the same family will pay $4,515, providing the gas remains at $3.16 per gallon for the year.
Families living in rural communities are worse off because they must drive long distances to work, to shop, to drop off kids at school, and to access healthcare. Rural households drive 28,000 miles a year on average, or 15% more than urban families, and use 22% more fuel, according to Economic Research Service/USDA. This means families living in rural areas will pay $5,779 for gas in 2008.
The Department of Energy predicts that gas prices will peak this spring near $3.40 per gallon but some energy analysts say the cost could be as high as $4 this summer.
Trucking Industry
Among the hardest hit by rising energy costs, is the trucking industry, which includes hundreds of thousands of small businesses. Eighty percent of communities in the US get their goods solely by truck.
As of November 2006, there were over 700,000 interstate carriers in the US classified as small businesses, with 97% operating 20 or fewer trucks, according to a June 14, 2007 statement before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, by Timothy Lynch, Senior Vice President of the American Trucking Associations.
Fuel is the second-largest operating expense for trucking companies, after labor. In order to haul the nation’s freight, Mr Lynch told the Senate Committee, the industry would consume 51 billion gallons of fuel, at a record cost of $106 billion in 2007, more than double the fuel bill of the industry in 2003.
Mr Lynch noted that Energy Information Administration analysts then estimated
that diesel fuel would average $2.75 per gallon in 2007 and $2.76 a gallon in 2008.
On November 29, 2007, the Bangor Daily News reported on a meeting in Damariscotta, Maine of 400 members of the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine and Coalition to Lower Fuel Prices in Maine with federal and state lawmakers, where truckers complained that diesel prices were already more than $3.50 a gallon.
Government had always squeezed logging truckers, they said, but diesel prices were pushing them out of business. They predicted a massive shutdown unless prices fall, according to Bangor Daily.
With diesel prices rising to as high as $3.65 per gallon, Brian Souers, president of a Lincoln logging firm, Treeline Inc, told lawmakers, costs had increased 23% in 90 days for some truckers. "We're not making 4 percent," he said.
"The people who work for us need more money, too," he pointed out, and asked, "Where's it going to come from?"
“The cost of diesel is putting us out of business one day at a time, one truck at a time,” said Larry Sidelinger, owner of Yankee Pride Transport in Damariscotta.
Scott Hannington of Wytopitlock said his company had 65 workers 2-and-a-half years ago and now only has 11. Robin Crawford & Son of Lincoln reported hauling 247,000 cords of wood in 2001, but said the company might handle 80,000 in 2007.
"Less than 10 percent of the people in this room will stay in this business if it keeps going like it is," businessman Dick Day told the lawmakers.
Maine's overall economy is dependent on the logging industry which contributes more than $10 billion a year.
The next month, half way across the country in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a group of truckers, loggers and industry shareholder met at community centers in the small towns of Mass City and Quinnesec, Michigan to discuss the effects of the rising costs of diesel fuel on the future of that state's logging industry.
“If things continue as they are, we’ll all be done by spring,” said Jason Tapani, an owner/operator and one of the meeting’s organizers at the Mass City meeting, according to a report in the December 3, 2007 Daily News.
During the meeting, Mr Tapani explained that 10 years ago, the industry standard was a formula of allowing 25% for wages, 25% for insurance and maintenance, 25% for truck payments and 25% for fuel. At $3.56 for a gallon, he said, fuel now account for 50% of his total expenses, according to the Daily News report.
“I’m working 85 hours a week and I’m barely surviving,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to work that hard and not see it in my business.”
The other organizer of the meeting, Marty DeHaan, told the audience: “Basically, by this point the weak have fallen.”
“We all know guys who were driving a year ago who are now out of business,” he stated.
The Daily News also reported on the December 10, 2007 Quinnesec meeting and quoted Mr Tapani giving an example of how hard it is to make a profit hauling timber.
“Let’s say I get paid $761 dollars for a one-way trip covering 160 miles,” he said. “The cost of fuel is going to eat up nearly 50 percent of that.”
“By the time I take money out for my truck payment, insurance, maintenance and other costs, I’m left with $22,” Mr Tapani stated.
On November 25, 2007, Nathan Phelps reported in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, that rising diesel prices, "just a tick under $3.58 a gallon in the Green Bay area," is one of the challenges facing truckers and the industry this year. "When you're putting in 107 gallons of fuel at a time, those costs add up fast," he pointed out.
On February 29, 2008, Ellen Simon, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, reported that Lebanon, Tennessee trucker, Robert Griffith, is on the road 3 out 4 weeks a month, but because the cost of diesel has doubled over the last four years, Mr Griffith's take-home pay has plunged from $50,000 to $11,000, in 2007.
Mr Griffith is literally burning money and "spent $64,000 on diesel in the last eight months," according to the Journal.
A one-cent increase in the price of diesel fuel costs the trucking industry an additional $350 million a year. In the latter part of February 2008, the average price of diesel hit a new record; with the on-highway retail average at $3.55 a gallon, according to the EIA.
Farm Industry
With higher energy costs, farmers are being hit from every which way. Increased prices means it costs more to grow and harvest crops because of higher prices for fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel.
Gasoline, diesel, natural gas and propane are needed to run the equipment used to plant, water, harvest and deliver crops to market. Poultry and pork producers use propane to keep chicken and hog houses warm.
The additional energy costs reduce the selling price and profits from crops because shippers and food manufacturers are also paying more for transportation and production.
According to the January 29, 2008 Rapid City Journal, the average net farm income for South Dakota's 31,300 farmers in 2006 was $28,400, down from an average of $58,000 a year earlier in 2005, citing the National Agricultural Statistics Service,
The costs for fuel and other energy-related expenses are offsetting good grain and cattle prices for farmers and ranchers, especially those who live long distances from nearby towns, Boyd Waara, vice president of First National Bank of Philip, and John Johnson, president of First Western Bank in Sturgis told the Journal.
In addition to the higher costs for fuel to run tractors, pickups and combines, farmers and ranchers are paying higher delivery charges on everything they buy, including fuel, livestock feed, fertilizer and equipment parts, according to the Journal.
Mr Johnson said the residents of rural towns are also seeing higher prices for groceries, clothing and other goods as well as for propane and electricity. "I think everybody is affected by it," he told the Journal.
He said the sales of large-ticket items such as vehicles, kitchen appliances and television sets have all been slow over the past 5 to six months. "We have to assume that some of that is due to less spendable income caused by the price of oil," he added
On November 16, 2007, Capital Press reported that energy costs are taking a big bite out of farm businesses across the West, from keeping crops in production and moving products to markets. Propane prices at the Cal-Nevada Wholesale Nursery, near Sacramento, had increased to $2 a gallon from $1.50 the year before. The owner told Capital Press that even though it would add 25 cents to the price of each plant, he had no choice but to keep 6 heaters running at night to keep the temperature from dropping below 65, or he'd lose the crop.
He also said the nursery business has been hurt by higher freight charges to ship flowers by air. "It used to be $12 to $13 a case and now it us up to $24 a box," he told the Press.
The president of the Washington Apple Commission told Capital Press that the rising cost of fuel to power equipment to pack, process and ship the state's $1.4 billion apple crop has become a major concern. Apple shippers saw surcharges on overseas containers rise $100 per container in 2007, according to the Press.
Travel Industry
When Bush took office, the price of jet fuel was $0.86 per gallon. With a usage rate of 19.5 billion gallons of fuel a year, each penny increase per gallon adds $195 million in annual costs to the airline industry, according to the Air Transport Association.
In 2006, airlines spent a record $38 billion on fuel, 3 times the cost in 2002. Airlines raised fares a total of 12 times in 2005, and in the first quarter of 2006, American Airline raised domestic round-trip tickets by $10, and both Continental and Southwest reported a 5.4% increase.
In the fall of 2007, Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean began charging a fee of $5 per day per passenger and both companies applied the fee to future and already existing reservations. Norwegian Cruise Lines added a fee of $7 per day to future reservations
Americans do not have the money to pay these ever rising costs. Statistics released by the Department of Labor in January showed real weekly earnings increased only 0.9 percent nationally in 2007. Median weekly earnings increased only 0.9 percent between 2000 and 2006, compared with 7.1% between 1996 and 2000, under the Clinton Administration
The Bush tax cuts have paid off well for those intended. IRS data shows that the wealthiest 1% of Americans, those with an average income of $1,316,000, earned over 21% of all income in 2005, while the workers in bottom 50% earned less than 13%.
And as far as job creation, Bush is competing with his old man to see who ends up with the worst record since Herbert Hoover over 70 years ago. As of October 5, 2007, Labor Bureau statistics show that non-farm payroll jobs increased by 5.6 million since Bush took office. More than 20 million jobs were added during the Clinton Administration.
In January 2009, we need a team of qualified experts on the ground in the White House ready to clean up the disaster that Bush left. The first Clinton Administration faced the same daunting task in 1993. Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in the race with enough knowledge and experience to get the job done.
Bush-Cheney Attacks on Kerry - Fact or Fiction?
Evelyn Pringle May 2004
In campaign 2000, Bush promised Americans an energy plan that would reduce prices at the pumps. But here we are 3 years later, saddled with the highest gas prices in US history. Bush's failed energy policies have already cost the average household $500 a year. And even though higher oil prices pose a serious threat to America's overall prosperity, Bush has not lifted one finger to stop the escalating costs.
The Bush-Cheney team now claims to be opposed to higher oil taxes. Well then, to use their favorite term, Cheney sure has flip-flopped since 1986, when he introduced legislation to create a new import tax on oil that would have dramatically raised gas prices and caused 400,000 American workers to be laid off.
On February 3rd, 1987, Kerry and 15 other Senators, from both parties, cosponsored a resolution in opposition to Cheney's bill. In support of that opposition, Republican Senator Heinz, cited a study done for the Federal Reserve Bank that showed a $5 per barrel fee could lead to the loss of 400,000 jobs and cause inflation to soar, while Senator Pell pointed out that "An oil import fee would impose heavy new costs on all who use oil and oil products in manufacturing and production. It would also impose higher costs on all who heat their homes with oil or use oil-generated electricity."
By all accounts, those predictions were accurate. According to an article in the NYT, the Congressional Research Service and staffers from the Senate Energy Committee, have since studied the effects of Cheney's bill and found it would have cost consumers $1.2 trillion had it been enacted.
The Bush Campaign refuses to comment on this issue. When specifically asked about Cheney's bill, Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel, completely evaded the question by saying: "President Bush and Vice President Cheney want to keep taxes low and keep the economy moving. They have proposed an energy plan that will provide for a stable, affordable and secure energy supply." How's that for a none answer?
Additionally, according to a May 24, 1999 article in Fortune magazine, Bush's present Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Gregaory Mankiw (not Kerry), did support a 50 cents a gallon hike as late as 1999.
Higher oil prices have cost consumers over $25 billion since Bush took office. That money has gone directly into the coffers of oil companies and oil producers, including OPEC. The big three American oil companies, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobile, and ConocoPhillips, have realized profits of $33.6 billion over the past three years.
The public distress over skyrocketing costs, translates into enormous profits for Bush, Cheney and all their oil buddies. According the Wall Street Journal and CNN Money, during the first few months of 2004, top oil companies have seen a gain in profits of close to 40%. For example, ConocoPhillips has made a whopping $1.62 billion so far this year.
While oil related companies are booming, rising energy costs have hurt other American industries. Farmers are now paying $1.3 billion more in annual fuel costs than when Bush took office. This year they will likely spend $7.2 billion on gasoline and diesel fuel for agricultural needs.
The situation is also creating a crisis in the airline industry. Every 1 cent increase in jet fuel costs $180 million a year. Prices are now $.42 a gallon higher than when Bush became president. Increased costs could potentially cost the industry $7.5 billion in 2004.
According to the American Trucking Association, the trucking industry is also experiencing major problems. Truckers use about 30 billion gallons of diesel fuel a year. Every 1 penny hike for fuel adds $300 million a year to operating costs. Since Bush took office, there has been a $0.21 increase per gallon. This will cost the trucking industry approximately $6.3 billion in 2004.
In 2000, Bush claimed he knew how to handle OPEC. He said Clinton had to "jawbone" OPEC members. "What I think the president ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots. One reason why the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven up. OPEC has gotten its supply act together, and it's driving the price, like it did in the past. And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the prices," he said.
Well, Bush sure is singing a different tune nowadays. On February 10, 2004, OPEC announced its intention to cut its output by 1 million barrels a day. By Mid-March, crude oil had reached a 13-year high of $38.18 a barrel. Its now 2 months later, and there has been no "jawboning" by Bush.
In the Democratic weekly radio address, Kerry pointed out the dangers of the current crisis, "First, soaring energy prices are putting our economy at risk and second, our dependence on Middle East oil is putting our national security at risk," he said.
As part of the solution to this problem, Kerry thinks the US should temporarily divert the oil being used to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and bring it to market to drive down prices. He also believes that our leaders should be making demands on Saudi Arabia, and other major oil producing nations, to increase the supply.
The SPR, it is the largest stockpile of government owned crude oil in the world. It provides a powerful response capability should a disruption in oil supplies threaten the US economy. Bush is mismanaging the SPR by diverting oil to fill it, at a time of extraordinary tightness in the market. Kerry would temporarily suspend that process until oil prices return to normal.
Once Kerry takes office, he will immediately pressure OPEC to increase supplies. And he will engage in meaningful diplomacy with OPEC members to ensure that US consumers are not held hostage to their price fixing tactics.
Kerry's long-term strategy for breaking our dependence on foreign oil, includes investments in alternative fuels and new technologies that are more fuel efficient. He understands the dilemma we are facing. "We're at war and families are struggling to make ends meet, especially with rising gas prices," Kerry said. "For our security, our economy and our environment, we must make America energy independent."
Kerry believes vehicles can be made cheaper to operate and manufactured more efficiently. He will offer tax incentives to companies who are willing to convert factories to build these vehicle. This plan will not only strengthen the auto industry, it will also create and protect jobs.
Kerry will set a goal to create renewable fuels that will ensure that 5 billion gallons of renewable fuel is part of our supply by 2012. In reference to our troops being forced to protect oil supplies in the Middle East, Kerry says "no young American in uniform ought to ever be held hostage to America's dependence on oil from the Middle East." He refers not only to Iraq but to the entire volatile and unstable region.
The Bush-Cheney TV ad that says Kerry tried to raise gas taxes by .50 cents a gallon is downright dishonest. The truth is, members of the oil drenched Bush administration are the ones who sought to raise the tax on gasoline in the 80s and 90s. And now in 2004, instead of coming up with a plan to help consumers, the Bush team remains intent on helping oil companies' boost profits and keeping America dependent on foreign oil.
In campaign 2000, Bush promised Americans an energy plan that would reduce prices at the pumps. But here we are 3 years later, saddled with the highest gas prices in US history. Bush's failed energy policies have already cost the average household $500 a year. And even though higher oil prices pose a serious threat to America's overall prosperity, Bush has not lifted one finger to stop the escalating costs.
The Bush-Cheney team now claims to be opposed to higher oil taxes. Well then, to use their favorite term, Cheney sure has flip-flopped since 1986, when he introduced legislation to create a new import tax on oil that would have dramatically raised gas prices and caused 400,000 American workers to be laid off.
On February 3rd, 1987, Kerry and 15 other Senators, from both parties, cosponsored a resolution in opposition to Cheney's bill. In support of that opposition, Republican Senator Heinz, cited a study done for the Federal Reserve Bank that showed a $5 per barrel fee could lead to the loss of 400,000 jobs and cause inflation to soar, while Senator Pell pointed out that "An oil import fee would impose heavy new costs on all who use oil and oil products in manufacturing and production. It would also impose higher costs on all who heat their homes with oil or use oil-generated electricity."
By all accounts, those predictions were accurate. According to an article in the NYT, the Congressional Research Service and staffers from the Senate Energy Committee, have since studied the effects of Cheney's bill and found it would have cost consumers $1.2 trillion had it been enacted.
The Bush Campaign refuses to comment on this issue. When specifically asked about Cheney's bill, Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel, completely evaded the question by saying: "President Bush and Vice President Cheney want to keep taxes low and keep the economy moving. They have proposed an energy plan that will provide for a stable, affordable and secure energy supply." How's that for a none answer?
Additionally, according to a May 24, 1999 article in Fortune magazine, Bush's present Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Gregaory Mankiw (not Kerry), did support a 50 cents a gallon hike as late as 1999.
Higher oil prices have cost consumers over $25 billion since Bush took office. That money has gone directly into the coffers of oil companies and oil producers, including OPEC. The big three American oil companies, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobile, and ConocoPhillips, have realized profits of $33.6 billion over the past three years.
The public distress over skyrocketing costs, translates into enormous profits for Bush, Cheney and all their oil buddies. According the Wall Street Journal and CNN Money, during the first few months of 2004, top oil companies have seen a gain in profits of close to 40%. For example, ConocoPhillips has made a whopping $1.62 billion so far this year.
While oil related companies are booming, rising energy costs have hurt other American industries. Farmers are now paying $1.3 billion more in annual fuel costs than when Bush took office. This year they will likely spend $7.2 billion on gasoline and diesel fuel for agricultural needs.
The situation is also creating a crisis in the airline industry. Every 1 cent increase in jet fuel costs $180 million a year. Prices are now $.42 a gallon higher than when Bush became president. Increased costs could potentially cost the industry $7.5 billion in 2004.
According to the American Trucking Association, the trucking industry is also experiencing major problems. Truckers use about 30 billion gallons of diesel fuel a year. Every 1 penny hike for fuel adds $300 million a year to operating costs. Since Bush took office, there has been a $0.21 increase per gallon. This will cost the trucking industry approximately $6.3 billion in 2004.
In 2000, Bush claimed he knew how to handle OPEC. He said Clinton had to "jawbone" OPEC members. "What I think the president ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots. One reason why the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven up. OPEC has gotten its supply act together, and it's driving the price, like it did in the past. And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the prices," he said.
Well, Bush sure is singing a different tune nowadays. On February 10, 2004, OPEC announced its intention to cut its output by 1 million barrels a day. By Mid-March, crude oil had reached a 13-year high of $38.18 a barrel. Its now 2 months later, and there has been no "jawboning" by Bush.
In the Democratic weekly radio address, Kerry pointed out the dangers of the current crisis, "First, soaring energy prices are putting our economy at risk and second, our dependence on Middle East oil is putting our national security at risk," he said.
As part of the solution to this problem, Kerry thinks the US should temporarily divert the oil being used to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and bring it to market to drive down prices. He also believes that our leaders should be making demands on Saudi Arabia, and other major oil producing nations, to increase the supply.
The SPR, it is the largest stockpile of government owned crude oil in the world. It provides a powerful response capability should a disruption in oil supplies threaten the US economy. Bush is mismanaging the SPR by diverting oil to fill it, at a time of extraordinary tightness in the market. Kerry would temporarily suspend that process until oil prices return to normal.
Once Kerry takes office, he will immediately pressure OPEC to increase supplies. And he will engage in meaningful diplomacy with OPEC members to ensure that US consumers are not held hostage to their price fixing tactics.
Kerry's long-term strategy for breaking our dependence on foreign oil, includes investments in alternative fuels and new technologies that are more fuel efficient. He understands the dilemma we are facing. "We're at war and families are struggling to make ends meet, especially with rising gas prices," Kerry said. "For our security, our economy and our environment, we must make America energy independent."
Kerry believes vehicles can be made cheaper to operate and manufactured more efficiently. He will offer tax incentives to companies who are willing to convert factories to build these vehicle. This plan will not only strengthen the auto industry, it will also create and protect jobs.
Kerry will set a goal to create renewable fuels that will ensure that 5 billion gallons of renewable fuel is part of our supply by 2012. In reference to our troops being forced to protect oil supplies in the Middle East, Kerry says "no young American in uniform ought to ever be held hostage to America's dependence on oil from the Middle East." He refers not only to Iraq but to the entire volatile and unstable region.
The Bush-Cheney TV ad that says Kerry tried to raise gas taxes by .50 cents a gallon is downright dishonest. The truth is, members of the oil drenched Bush administration are the ones who sought to raise the tax on gasoline in the 80s and 90s. And now in 2004, instead of coming up with a plan to help consumers, the Bush team remains intent on helping oil companies' boost profits and keeping America dependent on foreign oil.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Bush-Cheney and Big Oil's Big Summer
November 2005
Evelyn Pringle
or those with short memories, during campaign 2000, the Bush-Cheney team promised voters an energy plan that would lower gasoline prices and here we are 5 years later, paying the highest prices at the pumps in the nation's history.
With soaring energy prices putting our economy at risk, and dependence on oil from the Middle East putting our national security at risk, Americans are still being held hostage to price fixing schemes and Bush has not made a single move to remedy the situation.
In campaign 2000, he lead voters to believe that he knew how to deal with OPEC. In fact, the little twirp told President Clinton to get on the phone and "jawbone" OPEC.
"What I think the president ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots," he told reporters.
"OPEC has gotten its supply act together, and it's driving the price, like it did in the past," Bush said. "And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the prices," he advised.
Bush ended that little speech with this brilliant remark: "One reason why the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven up." Duh-----really?
I guess phone service at the White House must have been cut off once Bush took office because on February 10, 2004, when OPEC announced its intention to cut its output by 1 million barrels a day, and crude oil reached a 13-year high in mid-March 2004, there was no "jawboning" on phone to OPEC by the blabber-mouth president.
By the end of 2004, higher oil prices had cost consumers over $25 billion since Bush took office. The big three American oil companies, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobile, and ConocoPhillips, realized profits of $33.6 billion during Bush's first three years in office.
According the Wall Street Journal and CNN Money, during the first few months of 2004, top oil companies saw a gain in profits of close to 40%. And its been all downhill for Big Oil this year.
On October 27, 2005, Reuter's reported that Exxon Mobil posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion, "the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices." Exxon's record earnings topped the $9 billion net profit previously reported by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Reuters said.
Exxon reported third-quarter net income up 75 percent from the year-ago period. "It was among the biggest quarterly profits of any company in history, and amounted to a per-minute profit of $74,879.23 during the quarter," according to the October 28, 2005 Wall Street Journal.
"Shell, the third largest oil company by market value behind Exxon and Britain's BP PLC, said its third-quarter net income rose 68 percent to $9.03 billion, on $76.44 billion in revenue," the Journal reported.
These record profits are scandalous at a time when Americans are being squeezed dry at the pumps and heating costs are set to go through the roof in the coming winter months.
According to the Federal Energy Information Administration, the price of a gallon of regular gas in the same week the profits were announced, was up 28% from a year ago. Natural-gas prices have almost doubled in the past year and the EIA predicts that owners of gas-heated homes will see a 48% hike this winter over last year's already inflated prices, and homes heated with heating oil could see a 32% increase.
While Big Oil keeps raking in the dough, rising fuel costs are taking a heavy toll on other US industries. The added expense is creating havoc for the airline industry. For every 1 cent increase for jet fuel, the industry spends an additional $180 million a year. In 2004, increased costs for the airline industry were estimated to be more than $7 billion.
According to the American Trucking Association, truckers use about 30 billion gallons of diesel a year and for every 1 cent hike in price the industry incurs about $300 million more in operating costs. The increased cost to the trucking industry was over $6 billion in 2004.
Farmers are battling with much higher operating expenses since Bush took office. In 2004, farmers combined spent an additional $7 billion for gasoline and diesel fuel for agricultural needs.
During the dynamic duo's reelection campaign, Bush-Cheney spokesman, Scott Stanzel, told reporters: "President Bush and Vice President Cheney want to keep taxes low and keep the economy moving. They have proposed an energy plan that will provide for a stable, affordable and secure energy supply."
To that I say, then where the hell is it?
By now, the administrations policies and tax cuts are having trickle down adverse effects on the average family's everyday life as well. During their 2004 campaign, a Bush-Cheney campaign slogan was "results do matter." Lets compare overall "results" on families since Bush moved to Washington.
When Clinton left office, life was much better for the average American than when he took the reins from the first president Bush. The nation's record of economic success was unprecedented. Budgets were balanced, family income was up by 17%, 23 million jobs were created, nearly 8 million Americans had moved out of poverty, there was record homeownership, and Clinton left a huge budget surplus.
In comparison, the Bush-Cheney record is atrocious. While it is certainly true that corporate profits are at an all-time high, average wages for American workers haven't even kept pace with inflation. Millions of jobs have been lost, there has been a continuous increase in poverty year after year, household debt is at a record high, college tuition will soon be unreachable for many families, over 3 million people have lost their health insurance, and family insurance premiums have increased by an average $2630 a year.
The $397 billion surplus, previously projected by the Congressional Budget Office for 2004, has been frittered away through $2 trillion worth of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the war profiteering scheme that was launched 3 years ago could end up bankrupting the whole country before its all over.
In hindsight, I say give me a guy with an overactive libido who cares about average Americans any day, over our current president, who at best is completely incompetent, and at worst is a greedy, self-centered control freak who doesn't give a damn about anybody besides himself and his rich cronies.
Evelyn Pringle
or those with short memories, during campaign 2000, the Bush-Cheney team promised voters an energy plan that would lower gasoline prices and here we are 5 years later, paying the highest prices at the pumps in the nation's history.
With soaring energy prices putting our economy at risk, and dependence on oil from the Middle East putting our national security at risk, Americans are still being held hostage to price fixing schemes and Bush has not made a single move to remedy the situation.
In campaign 2000, he lead voters to believe that he knew how to deal with OPEC. In fact, the little twirp told President Clinton to get on the phone and "jawbone" OPEC.
"What I think the president ought to do is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots," he told reporters.
"OPEC has gotten its supply act together, and it's driving the price, like it did in the past," Bush said. "And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the prices," he advised.
Bush ended that little speech with this brilliant remark: "One reason why the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven up." Duh-----really?
I guess phone service at the White House must have been cut off once Bush took office because on February 10, 2004, when OPEC announced its intention to cut its output by 1 million barrels a day, and crude oil reached a 13-year high in mid-March 2004, there was no "jawboning" on phone to OPEC by the blabber-mouth president.
By the end of 2004, higher oil prices had cost consumers over $25 billion since Bush took office. The big three American oil companies, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobile, and ConocoPhillips, realized profits of $33.6 billion during Bush's first three years in office.
According the Wall Street Journal and CNN Money, during the first few months of 2004, top oil companies saw a gain in profits of close to 40%. And its been all downhill for Big Oil this year.
On October 27, 2005, Reuter's reported that Exxon Mobil posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion, "the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices." Exxon's record earnings topped the $9 billion net profit previously reported by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Reuters said.
Exxon reported third-quarter net income up 75 percent from the year-ago period. "It was among the biggest quarterly profits of any company in history, and amounted to a per-minute profit of $74,879.23 during the quarter," according to the October 28, 2005 Wall Street Journal.
"Shell, the third largest oil company by market value behind Exxon and Britain's BP PLC, said its third-quarter net income rose 68 percent to $9.03 billion, on $76.44 billion in revenue," the Journal reported.
These record profits are scandalous at a time when Americans are being squeezed dry at the pumps and heating costs are set to go through the roof in the coming winter months.
According to the Federal Energy Information Administration, the price of a gallon of regular gas in the same week the profits were announced, was up 28% from a year ago. Natural-gas prices have almost doubled in the past year and the EIA predicts that owners of gas-heated homes will see a 48% hike this winter over last year's already inflated prices, and homes heated with heating oil could see a 32% increase.
While Big Oil keeps raking in the dough, rising fuel costs are taking a heavy toll on other US industries. The added expense is creating havoc for the airline industry. For every 1 cent increase for jet fuel, the industry spends an additional $180 million a year. In 2004, increased costs for the airline industry were estimated to be more than $7 billion.
According to the American Trucking Association, truckers use about 30 billion gallons of diesel a year and for every 1 cent hike in price the industry incurs about $300 million more in operating costs. The increased cost to the trucking industry was over $6 billion in 2004.
Farmers are battling with much higher operating expenses since Bush took office. In 2004, farmers combined spent an additional $7 billion for gasoline and diesel fuel for agricultural needs.
During the dynamic duo's reelection campaign, Bush-Cheney spokesman, Scott Stanzel, told reporters: "President Bush and Vice President Cheney want to keep taxes low and keep the economy moving. They have proposed an energy plan that will provide for a stable, affordable and secure energy supply."
To that I say, then where the hell is it?
By now, the administrations policies and tax cuts are having trickle down adverse effects on the average family's everyday life as well. During their 2004 campaign, a Bush-Cheney campaign slogan was "results do matter." Lets compare overall "results" on families since Bush moved to Washington.
When Clinton left office, life was much better for the average American than when he took the reins from the first president Bush. The nation's record of economic success was unprecedented. Budgets were balanced, family income was up by 17%, 23 million jobs were created, nearly 8 million Americans had moved out of poverty, there was record homeownership, and Clinton left a huge budget surplus.
In comparison, the Bush-Cheney record is atrocious. While it is certainly true that corporate profits are at an all-time high, average wages for American workers haven't even kept pace with inflation. Millions of jobs have been lost, there has been a continuous increase in poverty year after year, household debt is at a record high, college tuition will soon be unreachable for many families, over 3 million people have lost their health insurance, and family insurance premiums have increased by an average $2630 a year.
The $397 billion surplus, previously projected by the Congressional Budget Office for 2004, has been frittered away through $2 trillion worth of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the war profiteering scheme that was launched 3 years ago could end up bankrupting the whole country before its all over.
In hindsight, I say give me a guy with an overactive libido who cares about average Americans any day, over our current president, who at best is completely incompetent, and at worst is a greedy, self-centered control freak who doesn't give a damn about anybody besides himself and his rich cronies.
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