Big oil’s crystal ball …

With gasoline prices spiking to new highs, the critics of “big oil” are pointing to the profits of oil companies, accusing them of deliberately not building new refining capacity in order to restrict supplies,  force an increase in gasoline prices – and therefore increase corporate profits at the “expense” of consumers. 

After 30 or more years of being regulated and litigated out of the refinery-building business by environmentalists and the anti-oil crowd, it would seem that the companies who do the business of extracting oil from the ground and refining it into a form that we all can use – from plastics to automotive fuel – are looking once again into their crystal balls and are becoming increasingly reluctant to invest billions in new refining capacity for a product that (environmentalists and glowarmers tell us) society is increasingly ready to abandon as a fuel source.

Since refineries take up to 10 years to plan and build, and once built, have an expected amortized life of 30 to 40 years, plus maintenance, upgrades, and the increasingly onerous and expensive requirements for environmental “protection” and remediation – why should companies rush now to build refining capacity that we are all telling them will be un-necessary (and un-welcome) by the time they were ready to go on-line?

Monopolies work for medicine but not for gas …

On another forum discussing how the concentration of oil refining and gasoline distribution in the hands of a few mega-oil companies is the cause of the current run-up in gasoline prices at the pump, I asked rhetorically – “Doesn’t competition and the duplication of services actually result in INCREASED prices?”

Another poster, who had been arguing for the imposition of a universal, national, single-payer socialized healthcare system in the United States, immediately took offense – reminding me that one of the basic tenents of capitalism is that competition and duplication lead to an increase in supply, and results in a decrease in price.

He continued to chastise me by asserting that “most people” would suggest that a monopoly (the absence of competition and duplication) leads invariably to poorer service and higher prices – as illustrated by local complaints regarding the rising price of cable TV service (a government-franchised service monopoly in our area).

Yep. Bingo.

The rise of Walmart … and the fall of Sears Roebuck

Mega-stores that supply everything from soup-to-nuts are really nothing new.

Not so long ago, the “Wal-Mart” of the era was named …. Sears and Roebuck.

They had everything. From soup to nuts to houses to stoves to plows to … well you name it, they carried and sold it at one time or another.

And don’t think that their catalog offerings didn’t give some local merchants real heartburn.

Global warming, Foxy Loxy, and the “glowarmers” …

 A reader elsewhere asks regarding the glowarming debate:  – Is it [global warming] real or is it not? What differance does it make?

 Whether the “planet is warming or not” (and the real question, whether human activity is the primary if not the only cause), and “what difference does it make”, is important in this critical respect:

If you are going to propose solutions that require fundamental, if not draconian changes to the status quo, which includes a (nominally at least) economic “system” of captialistic, private-ownership-based, free-market enterprise for establishing the allocation of resources, according to the unlimited needs and desires of individuals to provide for their wants, improve their well-being, and so act in pursuit of their own happiness as they define it – then you had better have a pretty firm and accurate understanding of both the “problems” that you assert, the actual underlying causes of the so-called “problem”, and the likely effects (or lack of effect) of the changes or actions you propose to “fix” the problem.

John Edwards – Sharing the Wealth …

Peter writes:
“John Edwards had the audacity to charge for his services [....] Edwards and other civil attorneys provide services. They’ve found a market for their services. Some of them, the good ones, earn a healthy living at it. Bad ones struggle.”

Quite right, and I will look for this same defense of wealth and valuable services rendered to be equally applied to businesses and wealthy individuals everywhere … large corporations, Republicans, and political conservatives included.

Strangely enough, however, Peter was only recently somewhat less forgiving of local landlords who took the opportunity of a promised tax increase to implement a rate increase of their own – an action which I believe Peter referred to (perjoratively and somewhat disgustedly) as “profiteering”.

Rental property owners, most of whom locally make less collectively in a year with hundreds or even thousands of rental properties than did Mr Edwards personally in a single legal “settlement”, provide a very real, and very needed service.

Alternative fuels … and things that go boom

A good point being made by OG, regarding using some ingenuity and creativity to develop the technology needed to replace the use of petroleum to power automobiles, etc.

Not that it will be free, or even cheap. Electricity may be “clean” at the point of consumption, but that often simply means relocating the discharge to where the generating facility is operating – not to mention the net energy losses involved in power transmission and storage.

Since nuclear plants use the heat of fusion or fission to generate steam to drive turbines to generate electricity, it’s unlikely to power anything smaller than a submarine for awhile. Then there’s the problem of the byproducts.

Freedom to risk …

When we give up or abdicate our freedom to choose to engage in risky, dangerous, or even potentially dangerous activities, there won’t be much left to life to be worth living.

There isn’t one activity in life that, carried to it’s logical conclusion, does not involve some potential and life-or-health-threatening risk to the individual, or by extention to the community, because of the “loss of productivity, the collective cost of healthcare, the early demise of a loved one and provider”, and so on.

Peter likes to camp, fish, and enjoy the out-of-doors. That’s dangerous. He could fall, hurt himself, stab himself with a fishhook, poke his eye out, start a forest fire, or get lost and require the expenditure of millions of dollars to locate and rescue him. It also degrades the environment, as his footprints compact the soil, kills the plants, and lead to erosion.

Rights vs entitlement and privilege

“True” rights are inalienable. They exist whether or not they are recognized, and whether or not the ability or the will to defend them exists.

True rights do not impose an implicit obligation upon any other person to provide them to us. In fact, rights exist in greatest measure when we are each simply “left alone”.

If something must be provided to us at the expense of someone else in order for us to have it, then it may be an entitlement, a privilage, or an act of charity – but it is not a “right”.

Socialism and the Right to Life and Property …

frd writes:
“A colonoscopy is a proven way to prevent colon cancer, a significant threat to life. Colon cancer presents no symptoms until it becomes almost impossible to cure. To get regular colonoscopies is an effective way tp preserve life. Life is an inalienable right and it is the proper role of government to protect that right. Should the government pay for colonoscopies for peole who are not able to pay for them themselves? [...]  Some people who don’t get them will indeed have their lives shortened by colon cancer. Isn’t it the proper role of government, as you have stated, to preserve their inalienable right to life? Or, is your inalienable right to your property, i.e. taxes, more important than someone’s else’s right to life?”

Defending or protecting your right to something, is not the same thing as providing that something.Nor is government “the solution” to defending and securing rights. That is simply it’s only purpose.

It is one vehicle by which individuals may collectively act to defend their common rights.  But like any tool, it (government) can be mis-used, and instead become part of the problem.

Evil pharmaceutical profits …

Without making light of anyone’s very real pain, or the very real struggles that they may have faced with issues of depression and thoughts of suicide, I wanted to make note that at least a few people have mentioned the role that modern pharmeceuticals played in the treatment of their condition(s) – albeit the need to make some “adjustments” to those meds from time to time to make them effective and to get the desired result(s).

I was wondering – are these the same meds researched, developed, and sold by those “evil, greedy pharmeceutical companies” under our system of marketplace-driven, free-enterprise healthcare and mostly private insurers?

Yes, I realize that many of these new drugs are very expensive, especially at first, and that this puts them effectively out of reach of many of those who could possibly benefit from them.

But at least they’re out there. They DID get developed, and it wasn’t easy OR cheap. Once the breakthroughs are made, newer and less expensive versions do follow.

Countless generations before now have lived and died in misery without any understanding or hope for relief, and without those very same medications now at our disposal.

Profit is a great motivator. We couldn’t live without it.