With Oil at Plus $90 Highs Where is the Outrage of the Press!?

It is quite incredible to me, with the price of oil at $90 a barrel plus, how benign the media has been in determining the cause of these vertiginous levels. Banalities abound. Its China and India (this even though China's oil imports have been the lowest in 20 months), it's the dollar, its production constraints, its peak oil, its lack of refining capacity (the interlocutor never being asked to explain why if refining capacity is constrained, thereby limiting the consumption of its feedstock-crude oil- that the price of crude should go up-Ecomomics 101?). And on.

I would like to share with you a comment message I received to my post "A Short Tutorial on the High Price of Oil and the Falling Dollar", 10.19.07. not for self congratulation but simply to highlight this incredible dilemma of comatose engagement:

Dear Raymond,
Thank you for your enlightened posts on the oil industry. As a former energy editor of Business Week, I understand only too well why you are nearly alone in pointing to the immense culpability of the oil industry when it comes to the skyrocketing price of oil. The industry has deftly avoided any responsibility for $90-a-barrel oil prices, thanks partly to our corporate-run media, and thanks partly to our oil-run executive branch of government. Please keep up the good work!
Log in | posted 11:33 am on 10/19/2007

I have not watched every discussion on the price of oil choking the airwaves these past days and weeks, but enough to get a sense of the game. Let me give you but one example.
On a CNBC segment just yesterday morning aptly entitled "Over a Barrel" a group of talking heads were asked to hold forth on the current oil market and its impact. With heart rending pathos we were enlightened to the current plight of OPEC. OPEC we were told, is in a difficult situation. They are tapped out. They are producing all they can. Even if they would like to help, they can't. Without going deeply into the patent nonsense of these observations here ( I have done so in numerous previous posts) one simple question could have been asked. "Why can not OPEC at the very least , reinstitute the total 1.7 million barrels of daily output they cut from their production quota earlier this year? How far beyond $90/bbl does their greed extend?" That question was not asked here nor have I heard it asked elsewhere, when and where I have had an opportunity to listen. What I have heard over and over again is how much OPEC is doing to try to accommodate the world's market needs with nary a hard question in rebuttal.

It is time the press and our government wake up to the grim realities of this issue.

Raymond J. Learsy is the author of "Over a Barrel - Breaking Oil's Grip on Our Future"

Comments

[leftLibertarian]

The MSM's advice to new reporters: Don't rock the boat, even if its sinking.

[Mormondude]

Commodities are worth what someone will pay for them, period.

Most of the oil price now is driven purely by speculation. If you think the speculators are wrong, then put your money where your mouth is and buy some futures of your own. Heck, Hillary is pretty good at commodities trading, perhaps she should weigh in with a few million of her own.

[nikto]

John Kenneth Galbraith deconstructed all the Bull about "free markets" (actually manipulated, behind-the-scenes), and he did this 50 YEARS AGO!

Oil "markets" are a perfect example.

The People are such Chumps!

This decpetive, manipulative crap will go on & on until the world economy breaks like a child's toy from China.

The resulting turmoil will not be good for Corporatists or Neocons.

[nomoredead]

I am seeing more people at the bus stops in the morning.
Don't think any miracle will come with ethanol......Archer Midland Daniels has hired Patricia Woertz as CEO after a 30 year career in Big Oil.

[Luv2Purple]

Two slimy oilmen get in office and the price of the commodity doubles or triples...­hmmmm....w­hat a coincidence. What other commodity prices have grown at such a rate over the past years? Why are the Bushies allowed to rape the economy and our treasury? When can we begin IMPEACHMENT for all GWB's crimes in office? God damn this administration - God Bless America! Peace

[Waubay]

Here is the solution to all these problems. 100% subsidy on plug-in hybrid batteries. Require auto manufacturers to build all of their passenger vehicles with a 20-40 mile all electric range. Our current grid could support 80% of Americans switching to plug-in hybrids. A large majority of all driving would be electric and would switch the pollution outputs to single point sources(power plants) where it would be much easier to do emmision control. Would greatly enhance our ability/capacity to use wind and solar power. Would vastly decrease the huge amount of our money going to the Middle East. Would increase our economic security as well as our national security. All the people that say that the batteries for these plug-in hybrids are years away are not intimately involved in the industry. Industry insiders say we have these batteries today - its just the cost. I would be more than willing to have my tax dollars used to remove the auto manufacturers excuses that the batteries are too expensive. A subsidy program such as this would be very expensive - but nowhere near as expensive as not doing it.

[mimsnpips]

Agreed. The subsidy would be very expensive but it would be an investment in our future. I saw on a MSM 'documentary' that the batteries were years away because of the size and weight vs economy.

Can anyone convince the gov't on this? I doubt even the next POTUS will move on it.

[StillAmused]

Supply and demand?

When was the last time you saw an abandoned gas station, a two-block-long gas line or a "No Gas Today" sign?

... and what was that little ditty about record, astronomical oil company profits?

When the press is asleep at the switch, you can pretty much fool all the people -- all of the time.

[Horst]

There are too many people in the world. World population has nearly doubled over the past 50 years while oil production has levelled off. This also the main driving force behind climate change. Seems obvious but no one wants to discuss it.

[WilliePilgrim]

I think the press is a little "non-plussed" over what to do. Any attention they draw will only confuse the minds of their viewers (I'm presuming "press" means the people from shreiking star stalkers to wannabe politicos, all with big hair and rollng eyeballs, that put together the parade of celebrity scandal and gorey roadside tragedy that passes for news these days). In many ways the price of oil hasn't gone up, the value of the dollar has gone down. How long can our oil allies continue to accept our de-valued dollar in exchange for oil that up until now we US consumers had been squandering in such profligate manner? What? You say our dollars arent worth enough to buy that oil...just a moment I'm turning on the printing press at the mint right now so you can have more of these little pieces of paper and our empty promises....How much longer before the greenback is no longer the monetary standard? Soon, and I'm guessing and they'll blame it on Clinton.

[Overd0g]

Why should they be outraged? Didn't Al Gore, the patron saint of HuffPo, once write that gas prices should be set at $5/gallon to force people to switch to other sources. The media should be applauding expensive gas, the more the better!

[Fuji]

OK, fine. It's oil industry manipulation. But what can we do about it?

[nomoredead]

Buy a bike, walk, bus, car pool, train, electric mowers, mopeds, grow a garden, no bottle water, less plastics, bring your own bags to grocery store, solar panels, wind power...........

[suki21693]

This is the same media that has dutifully told us for years that:

A.) the economy was sound (despite of the fact that all our manufacturing jobs were being shipped overseas) and
B.) we had no inflation (in spite of the fact that prices kept rising and the government manufactured zero inflation figures by simply removing anything from the equation that inflates)

The media is right where they have been: in the pockets of the ruling elite.

[givemycountryback]

I am so sick of this discussion. It goes on and on and nobody does a thing about it. It is all based on greed by the oil companies making their outrageous profits. Its time for a Boston tea party. We the consumers are blamed for this mess. Everybody I know is trying to conserve as best they can, but we HAVE TO DRIVE to get to work, school, church, etc. Not everyone lives in a city with mass transit so get over it. It will take time to develop alternative sources, but in the mean time I don't think we should be penalized for their greed. And isn't it convenient that this is happening right before the cold months in some areas so we can be gouged again for our heating sources. I guess we could burn our furniture for heat. What a bunch of heartless crooks. And here is a crazy idea, the oil is inside the earth so why does it just belong to whoever is above it. I think the oil belongs to everybody. I certainly do not want the government we have now to take over. Not until we get the heartless nitwit out of the white house.

[Overd0g]

The Boston tea party was a tax revolt, not a revolt over commodity prices. Besides, you don't really want to dump crude oil into Boston harbor, do you?

[FearlessFreep]

One thing you could do is get serious about carpooling.

[opines]

If the media is not outraged at Pentagon and related military expenditures crowding out infrastructure and social programs in the Federal budget, why would they be disturbed by $90 per barrel oil?

We are nearing the point where Pentagon and 'black box' military expenditures plus interest on the debt represent over 75% of our national budget.

Borrowing from Social Security to feed the dogs of war does not seem to interest investigative reporters. And it is not the best way to impress one's corporate boss.

[ZenJu]

It's simple. Humans, as a mass, are SHEEP...compliant, easily-pacified sheep, ready to be lead and mollified with the most inane propaganda, lame excuses, and banal entertainment. The five percent of our species who are NOT sheep stand little or no chance of improving the lot and I predict our demise as a species by around 2100, give or take a couple of decades. My primary reason for sticking around is sheer morbid curiosity and the entertainment factor of watching humankind self-destruct.

[Overd0g]

Be careful. At some point you might become cynical.

[ZenJu]

Actually, I'm quite cheerful and find much of interest in the world around me, moment-to-moment, and there are the occasional pleasant interactions with some others. To ask me to be an "optimist" about humanity, though, is to ask too much if we're going to base the argument on observation and reason. Sorry, I just don't see it. As they say, talk is cheap; let's see actions that would prove the viability of humankind. There's too much baggage that humanity is unwilling or unable to shed.