The Biggest Real Cause in the Drop in Oil Prices

The whole picture with the international oil industry has become a lot clearer to me after listening to Mike Papentonio today on Thom Hartman’s show.  People love paying just over two dollars a galling to fill up the tank, but they have to be wondering “Will this good thing go on forever?” and they are entitled to an answer.  Should people go out and buy SUV’s now that “happy days are here again”.  This is what the media would have you to believe is already occurring.  Well let’s look at the causes for the oil price decline.  It’s in part due to President Obama’s “all of the above” energy policy where pretty much environmental concerns such as with hydraulic fracturing have flown out the window- - and Sean Hannity for one says is a major cause of the price decline.  Another reason is the growing use of alternative energy sources such as electric cars and solar panels on the roofs of our homes.   Then there is the fact that the economy of the whole world particularly in China- - is in a slump, and people just aren’t driving as much or using as much energy.  And then there is the fact that OPEC is wanting to flood the market with cheap oil to stick it to domestic producers, and also Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.  But there is a cause that might outweigh all of these.  There was a change in the regulations in the Dodd Frank law that kicked in for big banks in March of 2014.  Since a lot of these are six month contracts we began to feel the effects of falling oil prices in a major way in September of 2014.  So the banks are not prevented from making the sort of speculative commodity investments they formerly did.  Thom Hartmann has stated that up to forty percent of the price of oil per barrel- - is due to this heavy banker speculation.  Now we hear that the profits on these big banks is falling in the past six months.  Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are amazingly down in the mouth about the current situation and looking to blame someone.  It is my contention “I don’t have any facts to back this up but - - “ I believe Sean Hannity is heavily invested in the oil industry- - and therefore talks about jobs starting at $75,000 per year for a life long carrier in North Dakota in the oil industry.  Now all of a sudden that is going out the window.   People were joking that maybe NOW - - these conservatives might be trying to make a deal with OPEC to raise prices.  It’s interesting that Bush was already planning the Iraq war before 9 – 11 and Sean Hannity came on the air on KABC the week 9 – 11 happened.  I’ve always wondered about that.   It was Jeb Bush or “Jebbers” as he’s come to be known now, who sent a memo in 1998 in the Clinton administration that “We really need some sort of a Pearl Harbor type event with the American people to drum up support for another Mideast War”.  If the media asked Jebbers about this memo of 1998 - - he would look really bad.   Now there are calls to investigate the Saudi government for their possible role in 9 – 11.  Rush Limbaugh the other day stated that “We should stop giving foreign aid to certain nations who don’t have our best interests at heart” and to me this means yanking all aid to Saudi Arabia right away.

Let's talk about this "National Prayer Breakfast" thing the President goes to and speaks at.  I didn't know till a few minutes ago that they were a cult.  They are in favor of jailing as well as killing gays in Uganda, and actively pursued that end.  The President made reference to acts the Christian Church has comitted in its nearly two thousand year history.  Sean Hannity would have you believe that the Crusades are the ONLY questionable campaign the Catholic Church has ever engaged in, and calls that "self defense" to "win back the Holy Land".  Well the Christian church never HAD the Holy Land and never CARED about the Holy Land if Sean will read his history, which of course he doesn't.  The church was GLAD when the Holy Land was laid waste by the Roman Empire.  John Calvin burned heritics at the state.  Columbus and Pizzaro raped and butchered native women galore.  Just take a look at the strife in Northern Ireland of decades past.  The trouble is Sean Hannity is the second worse Psychopathic Liar- - ever to grace the media air waves.  (Oliver North holds first place)  FOX news wants you to look at this ISIS video everybody regards as a "recruitment tool' for people to join ISIS, and no respectable outlet won't give them the publicity. Never mind the second amendment and persistent roomers President Obama is "coming after our guns" any day now, it's time someone mentioned grievous violations of the First amendment and "The government establishing religion".   Constitutionally we are NOT a Christian country, and of course most acts the fringe right wing does aren't Christian to begin with anyhow.

Rand Paul is stridently against “Common Core education”.  In an E mail to supporters “Common core is filled with Anti America propaganda “revisionist history” that denies the Faith of our founders”.   Clearly it is the right wing that would put forth “revisionist history” that would cut out of the curriculum ANY references to labor unions or sufferagettes, or dealving too deeply into abolitionist history- - and these people in the past have said “We only want history that instills respect for the civic authorities- - which people accept without question”.   If Hartmann is right- - then perhaps my fears about Common Core are not founded.  Because it was my belief that common core “taught to the test” meaning- - - a very limited curricula and DON’T teach people how to think or reason, but to memorize a few specific facts you are then immediately tested on.    Sir Edmond Burk- - said “It does me violence if a hair dresser or a candle maker- - in such a servile occupation- - is allowed to participate in government”.   Burke is a British conservative who was in a verbal sparring match with Thomas Paine.

Apparently in 1982 at the time the Reagan tax cuts were first passed- - the "average rich person" in the Forbes 500 or whatever had an income of 200 million dollars.  After the 1986 tax "reform" this same group had an average income of five hundred million dollars.  At the time of Thom Hartman's writing of "Unequal Protection" this same group owed one eighth of the gross national product.  Today this same group controls half of the gross national product.  In Victorian England they had MAXIMUM wage laws- - so that by law the capitalists were "protected" from workers, which somehow might otherwise gain a little power.  If Sean Hannity were honest- - he'd admit he'd like to go back to this sort of system.  The idea of people like Sean Hannity and Mitt Romney actually caring for the concerns of the lower class - or income inequity- - is completely absurd.  It was so absurd Romney got out of the race.  Today a lot of control "The Man" has over you are from these huge and growing data bases where they know every last thing about you from prying into your "private" Facebook account.  The laws seem to suggest that workers have no "private lives" that can't be pried into by their corporate employers.  Of course in knowing every last thing about you they are in a position to blackmail you in any number of ways.  I would just add this.  People think they are exercising "free choice' in picking from the many Presidential candidates on the ballot.  However if Barock Obama could be so easily "taken over" no matter WHAT initially attracted his supports to his campaign (as opposed to Hillary for example) then ANYTHING is possible and ANY candidate could be subverted.

There are two rather “leftist” laws that have just kicked in in California that’s likely to give Limbaugh and Hannity conniption fits.  One is the granting of drivers licenses to illegal aliens- - and they have been lining up at the DMV in droves- - and 56,000 have already taken the written and driving tests and are legally driving now.  The other is this proposition 47 provision where you can petition the state to have your Felony convictions reduced to Misdemeanors.   Needless to say if this is the case- - then it clears the way for a lot of professions that bar felons such as the medical profession- - and also will reenfranchise a lot of people with the Vote.  You may be putting yourself at risk for disenfranchisement- - even being arrested for participating in Protests- - if they jack up the charges high enough.  Many people don’t think it’s far that so many states bar Felons from voting- - for life.  Thom Hartman claims that the rich want to bring back “debtors prison” where the poor are locked away and be barred from participating.  One caller states “They already have all the Money they could possibly use- - what they lack is direct control over the democratic process itself.”  It’s funny how people can like their state health insurance exchange like “Covered California” and may even like “The Affordable Care Act”, it’s just “Obama Care” they have a problem with.  This was a major marketing failure by those of us on the left to ever let the Media get away using the term ‘Obama Care” as though it was some government socialist program, which is just what the right would have you to believe.  

 Here are other timely thoughts for today.  The best part of the Bill Press show was that thing on how importing Wolves to Yellowstone has worked wonders for the environment.  The deer and such are kept in check, and the foliage isn’t eaten bear and the deer are confined to the high country.  Because of the foliage, beavers and hedgehogs and the like have returned.  Even the river banks are more sound.  I had Thom Hartman on and he only reviewed the six or more warnings the Bush administration received about what Bin Laden was planning in America.  Thom believes that President Bush was almost afraid to return to Washington DC because “they might be after him there”.  This would make an interesting movie if we could show what was going on in the President’s mind.  I like the period in late 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell through into l990 partially because things in my own life were looking up - - and partially because it was the very last time we weren’t flooded with any kind of anti Islamic or Mideast news.  And likewise the first eight months of 2001 were golden in this one sense that- - Bush back then was a nobody, and he wasn’t even controversial enough to cause divisions or anything that would make the news.  I need to go back and check the writings of this fabled pre 9 – 11 period to see what I WAS saying- if anything.  There was a blog saying the whole idea of drug addiction is over blown and contrary to what we’ve been indoctrinated to believe since films in the seventh grade, most people don’t get instantly and hopelessly addicted to a hard drug, and many are able to try crack cocaine a few times and then leave it, or if they are in a war setting, when the drugs are not around, this posting would have you to believe they can easily withdraw without going through cold turkey.   Pre 1915 addiction wasn’t that big of a problem.   This author ties addiction into the notion of having a traumatized childhood, which I don't buy into.  But I didn't become addicted to alcohol right away.  It took a lot of CURRENT events following hard on fast on one another- - to induce me personally to lean on alcohol in a way that proved to be too much.