I'm thinking of trying to get this editorial published, but first want your comments. It's a rough draft, and may need some polish. I probably need to tone it down a little. I should make it more concise. If it could be heard in the right ears, maybe action could occur, and things could improve long term. Any ideas? Feel free to try and get it published in your own local newspaper if you want. Add your own ideas or delete some of mine and then send it to the editor for publishing in the Sunday paper if you think it may help get things sorted out. We have problem that keeps getting worse. Lets try and help by offering solutions.
Editorial - GAS SHORTAGE AND INFLATION PROBLEMS - Editorial
The gasoline shortage is ridiculous. The oil companies are creating an economic crisis by refusing to build more refineries. They do this to make their NYSE stock prices higher, and executives do this simply to increase their executive compensation. With 'shortages' came higher prices, and this inflates the price of gas, generating higher price per share earnings. Escalating the cost of per barrel pricing inflates the value of oil companies "in the ground" oil reserves, increasing the per share value of NYSE stock, and all for the purpose to increase the oil company executive's "performance bonuses." Greed at the executive level is causing an economic crisis. We certainly do not want a Depression. Inflation will most hurt retired people on fixed income and low income people, exactly like in the 1970s.
We've all been experiencing corporate fraud in recent years and in fact, throughout history in America, remember Standard Oil of Ohio? A Monopoly. Remember Enron?
We can fix this. Corporate profits at oil companies should be reinvested to expand refining capacity, or this inflationary trend will continue. Hurricane Katrina simply magnified the exposure to our vulnerability. Laws should be changed to encourage the development of refineries. Increased competition is desirable, and the oil companies are not competing for corporate profits, instead they are playing monopoly to generate more profit.
We can ban incentive bonuses for executives based on inflationary profits. We can sue for corporate fraud and antitrust. We can nationalize the oil companies as vital to U.S. economic and national security interests. We can expand competition to decrease prices, or we could regulate prices. We could limit corporate profits for oil companies by reclassifying them as Public Utilities. We could mandate reinvestment of cash flow into refinery expansion if they won't. We can regulate all of this if and when it becomes necessary.
We cannot allow monopoly and self interest of oil executives to cause an economic crisis. We can change this at the government level to make the system function properly again. Our legislators, our judiciary and our executive branches of government have to deal with this serious threat and problem now. Not later. Now. And we the people have the power to make our government do what we want. What ever it takes to solve this big problem is what we must make happen. Take action, develop this plan of action and execute it.
Intel competes and so does Walmart, and they expand and lower costs to make more profits. Why shouldn't all the oil companies like Shell or Exxon be required to compete? Is it because we allowed them to all merge and increase the ease of committing antitrust and agree to not expand production? Or is there less competition, less supply and vulnerability problems because we have discouraged competition by mandating 100 different "blend" specifications for gasoline in each and every state?
At the very least, Congress could set a Federal Gasoline Standard "Blend," and define it's chemical composition, and let anyone anywhere sell that one blend of gasoline in any state of the United States. That way, even Saudi Arabia could compete by shipping refined gasoline to the USA instead of crude oil. That may make global demand easier and more efficient to supply. Let any country or company anywhere compete for our business. It's baloney for state and local governments to set gasoline standards when it leads to less competition and narrowing the number of suppliers. In this way, our government is hurting us. All of us. Intel doesn't have to have a distinct and separate computer microprocessor for each computer in each state. It's not wise to make the oil suppliers refine separate blends of gasoline in each state. And the environmentalist who disagree, well they are simply outnumbered and it's majority rule, their goals are in competition with our survival, and we have been paying too high a price for the desires of the few for too long already, so step aside. I'm sure environmental groups have their own special interests and financial incentives, like their own investments and projects to protect. Everyone has self interests, but the rule is "majority rule" and the majority are being hurt by all this legal baloney right now. Increase competition, deregulate gasoline "blend" specifications to one standard for the USA. And push environmentalists or corporations out of the way if necessary.
This needs to get fixed, now. Let's pull out of "Panic Mode" and start "Thinking Clearly Mode" right now.
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