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Kennedy is an idiot. (It doesn’t matter which Kennedy I am referring to!)

For those who are too stupid to understand economic issues about “Big Oil” - let’s try to give a few points to consider:

1. There is oil in the ground, but it is hard to get out, and there is risk in trying to do so. It is very expensive to drill wells.

2. States and the US Government could opt to set up their own “corporation” to drill oil, and they could sell it (or they could build their own refineries and try to compete with big business, but they would be assuming all the risks, and the costs that go with them.

3. States and the US Government make much more money that big oil does, and they do it in a nearly risk-free environment. They lease lands (or off-shore areas) for big money (auctioned to highest bidder), and the oil companies must win the auction and then spend more money to determine if and where the oil is, and if the risk of drilling a well is worth the investment. If the oil company does’t drill wells and start paying royalties on every barrel pumped out of the ground, the leases expire and revert to the state. If the oil companies DO develop wells in the lease area, they must now pay royalties on all the oil pumped out.

4. In the mean time, the governments merely tack on taxes to the finished product, and make more in taxes than the business makes in profit.

5. The stupid (or evil) politicians decry the “excess profits” - but their socialist attack is focused only on the oil companies. Why not excess profit taxes on Big Software Companies, Big Banks, or Big College Text Book publishing companies - all who make more profit (as a percentage of sales and infrastructure investments) than the oil companies.

So - I would love to see Joe Kennedy invest his family fortune in creating the “Kennedy Oil company” - and let him take the risks and still turn a profit (but take the smaller profit that he thinks that the big oil companies should limit themselves to ....)

There is more, but this is the general idea.

And let’s remember a few other basic things also -

a. The government has sold leases, and then refused to allow the oil companies to drill in the lease area (i.e. -they reneged on their contract.)

b. The government, through the courts, will, from time to time, engage in litigious activities against the oil companies, deciding that their hiring/firing practices are illegal, or their previous actions years ago violated certain standards that didn’t exist when the actions were done, and the oil company must charge a reasonable extra profit to cover the risk of litigation and run-away jury awards. (Think of the Exxon Valdez incident, where corporations that fire alcoholics can be sued for treating their “disease” as something other than a sickness, but then Exxon faces the risks of allowing Joe Hazelwood to continue in his job ..... and punitive damages that far exceed reasonable costs are a part of risk that must be planned for. Think of the company that had a drilling station in the arctic - where they fired 3 people that they had conclusive proof that the 3 were using drugs. A 3 judge panel affirmed a lower court decision that the firing was improper, and awarded big fines to the 3 individuals. The dissenting judge said that the courts sent a strong message to companies - “sued if you do, sued if you don’t” - because if the company had failed to fire the 3, and then there had been an accident that contaminated areas of the arctic, the company would have been held negligent for retaining the individuals, but the company was being held to an impossibly high standard with respect to hiring & firing, evidentiary rules, etc. that would make it impossible to fire anyone.

Businesses take the risks, and are entitled to a reasonable profit. Those that disagree can invest their own money and create an alternate business and then sell their product or services for less and undercut the “big bad businesses” ...that is the American Way!!