While I claim no expertise, I do have a general understanding of how the oil market works, which is more than can be said for ThinkProgress “investigative journalist” Lee Fang. A series of articles (notably here and here) has convinced the so-called Progressive community that Fang has blown the lid off a Koch Brothers conspiracy to control oil markets via speculation. For Mr. Fang, the | Read More »
The speakers for Day 1 of the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans included luminaries such as Mike Huckabee, Michael Williams, and Ted Cruz, along with our own Erick Erickson. I’ll confine my remarks to the presidential candidates. Newt Gingrich Newt has a vision and a plan that appeal to this fiscal conservative. President Gingrich would hit the ground running in his first week with | Read More »
“If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.” Judging from his comments regarding ATMs and unemployment, President Obama blames the better mousetrap for 400,000 out-of-work cats. Cats who are starving for the lack of mice. Creative destruction is a necessary and vital feature of a healthy and free capitalist economy. Business people intuitively know and embrace it (or | Read More »
The Daily Show looks at America’s #1 source of imported oil, Canada. Open thread.
ExxonMobil hits large Keathley Canyon discovery (Oil and Gas Journal, June 8, 2011). XOM announces the discovery of 700 million barrels equivalent (BOE) of oil and gas in 7,000 feet of water, 250 miles offshore Louisiana. Shell’s Cardamom to come online (Offshore247.com, June 9, 2011). Shell will bring on 50,000 barrels equivalent per day from its 140 million BOE discovery in 2,700 feet of water | Read More »
Yes, it was an easy quiz. Elementary, even. Yes, several of the questions are hardly “political”. They had to include certain questions (“Mark Zuckerberg”?) so that certain segments of the population would register with a pulse. But the results of our self-selected, non-scientific and adulterated test of the RedState community, is in: of over 1,400 participants, half scored a perfect 11/11 on the quiz. That’s | Read More »
There’s an online quiz at the Pew Research Center’s website: 11 questions to rate your political IQ. The quiz should take just a few minutes to complete. You can take the poll here: http://pewresearch.org/politicalquiz/ You’re welcome to comment, but please do not discuss specific questions so as not to skew the results. Better yet, use the online poll at my blog to register your score.
Lee Fang’s job title at the Center for American Progress is “Researcher”. Heh. Honestly, I’d never heard of this guy until about a month ago, when he made the mistake of thinking he knew something about oil trading, accusing the Koch Brothers of rigging the markets for easy gains. His evidence was, you know, contango. Koch Brothers. Today Fang attacked the freshman Republican from Arizona’s | Read More »
Left to its own devices, the oil industry is its own worst enemy. Relatively low barriers to entry have made the industry freely competitive. The reward goes to the quickest and the most efficient companies; just like in a Gold Rush, we remember the big winners and quickly forget the also-rans. Since the days of Colonel Drake, Patillo Higgins and Dad Joiner, twas ever thus. | Read More »
Democratic politicians once ruled the energy-producing states, but they are becoming quite a rare breed. Republicans scored strong electoral gains in the Congressional elections of 2010, particularly in Texas. Here in Louisiana, both houses of the state legislature have swung red, by a combination of election and defection; it’s no secret who owns the moratorium and a host of other energy-hostile policy initiatives. Sen. Mary | Read More »
Your President has been telling you things that simply aren’t true. Things like “We can’t drill our way out of our energy problems.” Or “Oil and gas are the fuels of the past.” Or, perhaps worst of all, “The U.S. consumes 25% of the world’s oil, but controls only 2% of the world’s reserves.” Well, that last one may be technically true, but it is | Read More »
This week, the Senate is set to consider the repeal of certain provisions of the tax code as they relate to the oil and gas industry. By styling these tax breaks as “subsidies”, the Administration and other opponents of the industry wrongly equate them with the benefits enjoyed by ethanol, wind and solar energy. But the tax credits for alternative energy production are true subsidies, | Read More »
There was an undeniable uptick in U.S. oil production in 2009 and 2010. But new DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) tried to take credit for it: Like I said, domestic oil production is at its highest point in recent years. So we’ve actually really concentrated on that. Democrats patting themselves on the back for oil production increases? Ba. Lo. Ney. With all due | Read More »
Everybody is asking that question these days. The average nationwide price for all grades this week is $3.96/gallon; Californians are paying on average $4.26, the highest in the nation. Why does it cost so much, especially considering that the price was below $2.00/gallon just within the last couple of years? Nearly seventy percent of the price of a gallon of retail gasoline is the price | Read More »
From Vladimir’s diary, dated December 18, 2009: Remember $4.00 per Gallon Gasoline? Just Wait. Well, here we are, less than 18 months later. A little context: Gasoline prices (national average, all grades) peaked over $4.00 per gallon for a couple of months in the summer of 2008. Prices bottomed in December 2008 at $1.66. By December 2009, at the time of the writing of the | Read More »
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