Another Recession Keyed By High Oil Prices?

Another Recession Keyed By High Oil Prices?
America Afloat On An Ocean Of Domestic Oil!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet


If you are old enough, and wise enough, to remember the Jimmy Carter years then you remember the fiasco that was his administration. But mostly, you will remember the so-called gas shortage or oil crisis with vehicles lined up for blocks waiting to buy gas. Remember the days when you could buy gas and the days you could not buy gas?

Back in those days, I was a credentialed broadcast news reporter. And something did not “smell” right. After a few weeks of snooping, nobody was able to convince me the gas shortage was real.

I spoke to a propane gas dealer who told me, off the record, (when I asked about the shortage) that all his storage tanks were filled to capacity and he had rail cars sitting on the local tracks filled with propane and he had just been notified that more was on the way.

Around 5 AM, one morning, I, personally, pumped gasoline from a gas pump with a hand-lettered sign on it stating the station was “out of gas.” I knew the owner and had obtained the keys the evening before.

I heard of oil dealers renting storage space from farmers, in the tanks that would normally store the farmer’s fuel for his farm equipment. I was not able to verify that story, but I knew a number of dealers and I did not doubt it then -- and I do not doubt it today.

I also heard, and saw, tankers pumping gasoline into abandoned underground tanks at old, rural, (closed) filling stations in order to store their overflow of gasoline.

An area TV station filmed tanker ships lying low in the water and anchored just over the horizon from the near-by port. It was reported they were ordered to do so while the companies waited for gasoline prices to increase… then they would sail into port and off-load their precious cargo.

I was convinced then, and I am convinced today, that THAT gas shortage – THAT oil crisis – was manufactured. We were drowning in oil and gasoline. I saw too much, I heard too much, and I experienced too much to believe otherwise.

I have come to believe it was the first attempt, by the government, to force Americans to cut back on oil consumption -- to learn to do with less. See, America’s President was the DEMOCRAT, Jimmy Carter -- you know, another one who believes we must all learn to suffer equally, just like the current democrat in the White House, Obama.

The price of gasoline and other oil products is skyrocketing -- even as I write. The American consumer is being taken to the cleaners.

I don’t blame the oil companies for our current oil crisis.

Look. America is awash in oil. We’ve got more oil than the Arabs! But – our government won’t let us get to it -- and use it -- and flip the bird to the Middle Eastern Oil princes.

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. To our knowledge -- none has been extracted. With this mother load of oil why are we still fighting over offshore drilling?

Now. Consider this: The U. S. Geological Service issued a revised report in April of 2008 (It hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in the area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana. Take a look for yourself. http://bakkenshale.net/bakkenshalemap.html

“The Bakken,” as it is referred to, is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay, and it has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates the Bakken deposit at 503 billion barrels. This is light, sweet, oil that would be far, far, less costly to Americans than the oil we are importing today.

We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. We are talking more than 2 TRILLION barrels of untapped oil. Here are the official estimates: - 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia - 18-times as much oil as Iraq - 21-times as much oil as Kuwait - 22-times as much oil as Iran - 500-times as much oil as Yemen - and it's all right here in America -- in the Western United States.

Estimates tell us that that oil could satisfy America’s need for fuel for up to for 2,041 years!

You can read about this, yourself, at the US Geological Survey website HERE.

So what the deuce is going on? I mean, why the heck are we Americans sitting on our hands and not DEMANDING that our government “cut the cr*p” and allow the oil companies to dig, and drill, for all this oil? WHY is the US continuing to ship our treasure and our blood to the Middle East -- and to our unfriendly southern neighbors -- for oil?

We are on the cusp of back-to-back recessions with the second dip looming today. The cost to Americans for oil is threatening to push us over that brink and into a recession that will, most likely, become a depression even worse than the one or parents and grandparents experienced in the 1930’s.

Who’s to blame? First we blame the environmentalists and others (including the US government) who have blocked all efforts to aid America in becoming independent of foreign oil! And second: If we are truthful, we must blame ourselves, as well, for allowing those people so much power and influence in the first place!

I must ask: Why are we allowing a small group of people to dictate our lives and our economy, indeed, our future as a viable nation?

It is past time to fight back America. Demand that the US Congress defund the Environmental protection Agency right off the bat. Get rid of it.

Just as important is the necessity to elect a President with the cajones to override the environmentalist and open up America to drilling and digging for our own vast reserves of oil sloshing beneath our feet and just offshore and under the tundra.

Understand this: The fantasy of wind turbines and solar panels is just that – a fantasy. The hard truth is – America needs OIL, and lots of it, to sustain our economy -- and us.

The time is exceedingly short. America is facing ruin in a depression, which lies just over the horizon. We have to act now just to insure our survival as a viable nation. Even now, we may have waited too long.

J. D. Longstreet

Will Raising Taxes On The Rich Threaten Your Job?

Will Raising Taxes on the Rich Threaten Your Job?
Poor People Don’t Provide Jobs!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Rich people provided every job I have had in my life. I expect the same is true of your work history.

One of the truisms in life is this: “If You Bought Something, Someone Worked to Make It; If You Have Something that Requires Service, Someone Is Servicing It; If You Have A Lot of Money, It Is Working Somewhere.” (SOURCE)

Today in America unemployment is hovering near the ten percent mark. Well, that is the figure supplied the public by the government. Honestly, I am not comfortable with the unemployment figures provided us by the government. I have heard reports from private organizations that the REAL national unemployment figures are closer to 22% than 10%.

How can that be? Because the government plays all sorts of “tricks” with the numbers to get a, shall we say-- more favorable figure for the administration in power at the time. A true accounting would very likely result in a figure closer to 22% than that ten percent we have been offered for sometime now.

Let’s say we split the difference and agree that the real unemployment rate in America today is around 16% to 17%. That is still a whopping chunk of the American workforce out of work.

Why are there no jobs, then? Well, that takes us back to the point I made at the beginning of this piece. Wealthy people provide the jobs in America.

Yes, the wealthy still have money. Maybe not as much as they had before the recession hit us so hard, but they still have an ample supply. But they are not spending it on plant expansions, new operations, purchasing new equipment, building up their inventory, etc, etc. When that money they are sitting on is static, when it is not working, then it is not creating jobs. As a result, Americans can’t find jobs.

For the most part, rich people are not fools. They did not get rich by doing stupid things. Risking their fortunes on an American economy on the threshold of being regulated into oblivion by a President and a government on the cusp of completely embracing socialism and fascism would, indeed, be stupid.

Wealthy Americans are nervous. They are sitting on their money waiting, and hoping, for better times, when they can again put their fortunes to work creating jobs for the American work force and making lots more money for themselves. That’s the way business works.

I don’t know where the idea that -- business is in business to do you and I a favor -- originated. But I tell you as strongly as I can, that it is untrue. Business is in business to make money, to make a profit, for the owners and the stockholders of that business.

Bludgeoning the wealthy with even more taxes is certainly not going to make them take what’s left of their fortunes and blow it on “make work” jobs creating “stuff” the public doesn’t have the money to buy because they don’t have the jobs with which to earn the money it takes to purchase that “stuff.”

If anything, increased taxes will result in the wealthy holding even tighter to their fortunes and spending even less of it. It will also result in corporations looking for countries around the globe that have a ready workforce, willing to work for much lower wages, and a government that is willing to provide a tax friendly environment within which that corporation can operate at a substantial profit. The latter is happening even as America is beginning the long road back from the recession.

Corporations have seen where the American government is going with their regulations and taxes and they are not stupid enough to sit here on American soil and allow the new American socialism to take over their corporate investments. They are getting out – sooner, or later -- and they are taking their companies offshore to countries that welcome the jobs they bring to that country’s people with open arms.

So, the answer to the question I posed above is – yes. Higher taxes, on the rich, do threaten your job. There is no question about it.

We haven’t even touched on the whether, or not, the government’s taking over half of what a wage earner makes to redistribute to those who make less, is even moral. I didn’t bother to spend much ink on that topic because the answer is so obvious. NO, it is NOT MORAL. It is, in fact, thievery. When a government does it -- it is called taxing. When an individual does it, it is called robbery.

In the next few weeks, we Americans are going to hear and see a lot of debate about raising taxes on Americans, and on American business. Raising taxes will prolong the recession, and make the unemployment figures continue at unacceptable highs. It will also drive many large corporations away from America and stop those considering locating in America to look elsewhere. In short, higher taxes will crush what is left of the American economy.

With Election Day approaching we ask that you observe which political party is pushing those higher taxes, and remember them when you cast your vote in November.

J. D. Longstreet