Tornado Alley (PROG)

[sortagreen]

"since Obama became president unemployment is up 25%"

Unemployment is at the same level it was in the first month after Obama took the oath of office.

"the debt is up 35%"

What's the interest on just Bush and Reagan's part of it? Maybe 35%.


"What initiative was filibustered that caused this?"

The stimulus plan was filibustered until it got cut down to nothing. And 1/3 of that was tax cuts.

The health care plan was filibustered, until it got watered down to nothing.

Windfall taxes on oil company stocks... non starter.

Expiration of Bush tax cuts? Non starter...

Never mind which initiative has been filibustered or threatened, which one hasn't?

As of March 1:

In the 110th Congress of 2007-2008, with Republicans in the minority, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the current session of Congress – the 111th – for all of 2009 and the first two months of 2010 the number already exceeds 40. The most the filibuster has been used when Democrats were in the minority was 58 times in the 106th Congress of 1999-2000.

So whether you're capable of understanding it or not... and we all know you aren't, they've pretty much filibustered everything. They've made the country essentially ungovernable... and now they're trying to convince the electorate that it's Obama's doing.

"a gallon of gas is up 104%"

It's common knowledge that a refinery hasn't been built in 30 years. Of course neither have any of the hundred that are now shuttered been brought up to code and reopened.

Here are a few points to consider:

• Rather than compete with each other to provide cheaper gasoline, oil companies cheat together to withhold needed gasoline supply from the market. Consistently, the companies artificially pull back refinery production of gasoline in order to reduce supply coming in during periods of peak demand so they can increase prices.

• Oil companies failed to build ample refining capacity to meet demand. Over the last 20 years, America’s demand for gasoline increased 30 percent and refinery capacity at existing refineries increased only 10 percent. No new American refinery has come on line during the last 30 years. Internal memos and documents from the big oil companies show they deliberately shut down refining capacity in order to have a greater command over the market.

• The big oil companies have their own crude oil production operations and control substantial foreign production of crude oil. They profit wildly when the price of crude oil skyrockets, so they have an interest in driving up the price, despite the fact that they blame OPEC for those crude oil increases. The crude oil producers can even drive up the price of crude by restricting gasoline production and trading crude oil among their own subsidiaries to drive up the price paid for crude by others. Traders with connections to the oil companies can also make big bets on the opaque crude oil futures market to drive up the price and also drive up the value of their Exxon shares.

• The crude oil that big integrated oil companies use in their own refineries is mostly bought on long-term contracts or through their own production, so the oil companies don’t pay the world price for crude oil when it’s high. Their raw material costs are much lower than they would like us to believe. So when the companies raise the price of gasoline in tandem with the run-up in crude oil prices, they are making big profits because Exxon’s crude oil unit is charging its own refining unit a higher price for crude than is necessary. The accounting shenanigans result in an overall windfall profit but show the companies’ gasoline refineries making little profit, and “upstream” crude-oil production divisions making the lion’s share.

http://my.firedoglake.com/consumerwatchdog/2011/04/14/whats-causing-the-gas-hole-in-your-wallet-youve-got-to-see-this-movie/

They drop prices when they want and they raise them when they want. And you blame whomever you're told to. Like a good little toadie.