Posted on 03/05/2011 6:20:06 AM PST by Son House
RUSH: As we pointed out yesterday, 15 stories, negative stories blaming Bush for the gasoline price rise in 2007 and 2008. One story on Obama for every 15 Bush stories.
So the question becomes: Will the media ignoring the rise in gas prices be able to keep that from becoming a major factor in people's minds over the economy and Obama's role in it? Remember, now, everything is focused on the reelection in 2012.
The regime is looking at 8% unemployment. That's what they're going to get if they could do it. If they can get there by manipulation they will, but that 8% unemployment number is the number they think takes the economy as a negative out of play. It either makes it neutral or a positive. But on the other side you got these rising gas prices. They know their buddies in the media are not gonna harp on that, but rising gas prices are real, nevertheless.
Whether the media is telling us every day how high it's going, and whether the media does stories on the pain and suffering, or not, remember during the Bush years we got all kinds of stories about the pain and suffering and people couldn't go visit family and single parents couldn't see their kids (or divorced parents), because of the high price of gas.
We heard about all the ancillary effects of the leisure industry, all of the destruction brought about by rising gas prices. We're not gonna get that with Obama in the White House, but will it matter? 'Cause the public's gonna feel it. There's no way you can it will 'em it's not happening. You can ignore that it's happening if you're the media, but there's no way you can tell people it isn't happening.
Because $4 was the tipping point. At $4 a gallon, people went nuts -- and, by the way, in order to get $4 a gallon, the oil price was around $147 a barrel. We're nowhere near that price now and we're still over four bucks in parts of the country, such as in Malibu.
In other parts of the country, the average I think here is that the gas price, gasoline price went up (national average) a nickel a gallon in the past 24 hours. Now, at this rate, if it continues, the national average price for regular unleaded gasoline will be $4 a gallon in 11 days, and I wonder if this rate of increase pleases the president.
Remember, the president is on record as saying he didn't mind $4 a gallon. He was a little disturbed about how quickly it got there. But for the regime, four bucks or higher, that's exactly what they want!
They hate oil, they hate anything to do with it, and there's their Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf -- all these electric cars that nobody is buying. We got the numbers in on that and even Dale Earnhardt Jr. has now joined the crusade of bashing the technology of the Chevy Volt. Yeah. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
He said it nicely but he still said it. He said, "The technology still isn't there." The number 8% is important unemployment because no president has ever been reelected with the unemployment rate over 8% except FDR. He's the one exception. So we know what the magic number is for the unemployment rate. We need to find out what the magic number is for the gasoline price and the reelection tipping point there.
And, remember, as we get the sales figures on the Volt (and it's like in the 200s) and the Nissan Leaf, even with these rising gasoline prices, SUVs and truck sales are still going through the roof. People want their SUVs and their trucks for whatever standard, traditional, American reasons.
RUSH: It's interesting, folks. For the record YouTube-Google seems to have scrubbed that clip of Obama saying he doesn't mind gas prices going up to four bucks; he just doesn't want them to go up too quickly. You can't find that. However, I think I've got a link for it here at CNBC. I'll have to send this up to Cookie and see if that's what this link actually is.
It was a question from John Harwood at CNBC: "So could the high oil price help us?" and Obama said, "Well, I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment, a gradual increase." So his preference (whether you can find it on YouTube-Google or not) for higher oil prices has come to pass.
Don't doubt me on this, folks. He has wanted this. And if you doubt me, if you do -- and we know here (there's evidence galore in recent months) that this program's audience is populated with an increasing number of Democrats and leftists.
If you're gonna doubt me simply because you've been told I lie -- you know, you're listening here for the first or second time and you've already got me figured out. You've been told that everything here is a lie and it's all made up and all that. If you're gonna doubt me when I claim that Obama's very happy with rising oil and energy prices, then simply examine what he said.
What is it that he wants? What is his nirvana? Green energy! He hates the coal business. He's told the people in the coal-fired electrical plant business, electricity generation plant (summarized), "Go ahead and do it but I'm gonna put you out of business. You're not gotta be able to afford the taxes I'm gonna charge you. I mean, you can do it, I'm not gonna shut down the business but you're gonna go broke doing it." He knows. He can look at sales figures. The number of Volts sold to date: 281. The number of Nissan Leafs sold: 67. His dream is a million, and he's only gonna be able to do that by subsidizing the sale.
He's gonna be paying people, essentially, to buy these cars. That means what? It means they don't want them. But that doesn't matter to him. Obama doesn't care whether you want one of these cars or not. He doesn't care whether you like petroleum-based energy production or not. He doesn't, and that's it -- and for whatever policy or wacko leftist reason, he wants to push this green stuff, and he knows he's not gonna get it done if he waits around for you to want it.
The only way it's gonna happen is if you are forced there: Ergo, rising gasoline prices, higher oil prices, all that, "Why, made to order!" Necessity, requiring somebody to go cheap, is much better than wanting them to do something they don't want to do. So it's all working out for him.
RUSH: Here it is, from June the 10th of 2008 -- CNBC's Your Money, Your Vote -- the chief Washington shill, John Harwood. Yes, I said "shill." This guy supposedly works in the media but wait until you hear the question. He's interviewing Senator "Barack-ay" Obama (as pronounced by Khadafy), and the chief Washington shill for CNBC, John Harwood, said to Obama, "Could the high prices help us?" President Bush, could the low unemployment numbers help us? What is this, "Senator Obama, could the high prices," oil, gasoline, could the high prices "help us?" What the hell is that? It's a shill. And here's what Bamster had to say.
OBAMA: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that, ehh, this is such a shock t'American pocketbooks is not a good thing. Uh, but if we take some steps right now t', uh, help people make the adjustment -- first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers.
RUSH: "I would have preferred a graaaadual increase in prices. I don't mind the high price, John, Mr. Harwood. I don't mind the high price at all. I just think we got there a little bit too quickly. But it actually could help us move into this worthless green technology area, which is nothing more than a slush fund money laundering operation for me."
“Remember, the president is on record as saying he didn’t mind $4 a gallon.”
Easy to say if you never have to drive to work or have a fleet of government vehicles to cart you around.
Incidentally, many federal employees in Washington DC get transportation subsidies so $4 gas won’t hurt them as much as it hurts other taxpayers.
“Under my plan, energy prices will ‘necessarily’ skyrocket!” ~ B.O.
That’s one of the reasons why speculators aren’t afraid of “speculating” on higher prices.
‘Perhaps 60% of Today’s Oil Price is Pure Speculation’
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread356365/pg1
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Speculator talk:
March 2nd, 2011
http://www.wealthwire.com/aqx_p/24277?gclid=CLyzkbnGsKcCFUbf4AodiEVHSQ
Triple-digit crude prices will make an appearance in 2011, you can count on it. The problem for investors, however, is how to capitalize on the growing opportunity in the oil markets. You see, while oil prices were running higher, reaching a record $147 per barrel in the summer of 2008, all an investor had to do was blindly point to a stock. Times were good. It took a massive global recession to bring the oil bull crashing down. Within a matter of months, fear drove crude prices to a bottom of $33 per barrel.
Now, everything is about to change. Why? Ever since reaching that price floor, energy companies – and crude oil players in particular [speculators] – have made an incredible comeback, rising to $90 per barrel in 2010. If OPEC is already preparing for a surge in demand, are you? How? By identifying where the oil markets will head in the future. Remember, it’s not as easy as throwing a dart against a board of oil stocks. That’s why I’ve written my new report, Oil Outlook: Investing in 2011. Inside, you’ll pick up trends that will lead the oil markets next year. Not all oil stocks were created equal, and it’s critical that investors recognize the truly profitable opportunities.
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This is one of the big reasons WHY they aren’t a bit afraid to “speculate” on the future high price of oil:
Rising Gas Prices: All Signs Point to Obama
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2681684/posts
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03/02/2011
Haley Barbour: Obama Is Deliberately Trying To Drive Up Energy Prices
Barbour says Obama cheers for higher gas prices
By DINA CAPPIELLO | Published: 11:22 AM 03/02/2011 | Updated: 5:27 PM 03/02/2011
http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/02/barbour-says-obama-cheers-for-higher-gas-prices/
WASHINGTON (AP) Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential presidential contender, accused the Obama administration Wednesday of favoring a run-up in gas prices to prod consumers to buy more fuel-efficient cars.
But the recent rise in gasoline prices has been primarily driven by unrest in the Middle East, particularly Libya, where protests have diminished crude oil production.
Barbour cited 2008 comments from Steven Chu, now President Barack Obama’s energy secretary, that a gradual increase in gasoline taxes could coax consumers into dumping their gas-guzzlers and finding homes closer to where they work. Chu, then a Nobel Prize-winning professor, argued that higher costs per gallon could force investments in alternative fuels and spur cleaner energy sources.
“This administration’s policies have been designed to drive up the cost of energy in the name of reducing pollution, in the name of making very expensive alternative fuels more economically competitive,” Barbour said during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce breakfast across the street from the White House.
In 2008, while the head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Chu told The Wall Street Journal that energy prices were the lynchpin to an energy overhaul.
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Chu said in September 2008.
The administration has boosted fuel economy and placed the first-ever greenhouse gas standards on vehicles in an effort to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming and wean the country off foreign supplies of oil. Those regulations will result in less gasoline being used, but should have little to no effect on gasoline prices.
Others have accused the administration of driving up prices at the pump by placing certain areas of the country off limits to oil production, and placing a moratorium on drilling in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico after the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Drilling in the Gulf a major source of U.S. production has been slow to restart. The first permit for a deepwater well was issued just this week.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar dismissed the notion that changes in oil production in the U.S. would increase the price of oil.
“What we do here in terms of production is not going to affect the price of oil, which is set on the world market,” Salazar told a Senate energy panel examining his department’s budget.
Another proposal initially backed by the President Barack Obama would have put a price on carbon dioxide pollution, the chief gas blamed for global warming. The legislation failed in Congress last year, in part because it would have made it more expensive for industries that burn fossil fuels.
Barbour said higher energy costs already hurt workers in his state and any increase would cripple Mississippi’s economy.
“In 2008, $4 gasoline brought my state to its knees before Wall Street melted down,” Barbour said. “We’ve blown through $3 gasoline all the way to 4.”
Barbour said Obama’s energy team wouldn’t be happy until gas prices reached $9 a gallon.
Barbour is still weighing a presidential campaign and plans to visit Iowa twice this month. Barbour’s advisers say he won’t make a decision before the Mississippi legislature ends its session in early April and it could be May before he announces a decision.
In the meantime, though, he has honed his criticism of the president, particularly on economic issues. With pocketbook issues poised to dominate the 2012 election, prospective presidential candidates are focusing their messages on Obama’s stewardship of the economy and are seeking to cast his re-election as a referendum on the economy and jobs.
“We don’t have a $1.5 trillion deficit this year because taxes are too low,” said Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman who helped the Republican Governors Association make major gains in November’s elections as the group’s chairman. “It’s because we spend too much.”
He then turned his criticism to federal spending, a key concern among the conservatives who have great sway in picking their 2012 presidential nominee.
“This administration spent $7 trillion in the first two years and lost 7 million jobs,” Barbour said, then joked it was a good thing the government didn’t spend $12 trillion to lose 12 million jobs.
“The fact is: a bigger government means a smaller economy,” he said.
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Newt Gingrich in 2008 talked about how to handle the “speculators”:
3 Ways to Lower Gas Prices
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOpcPfAarjY&feature=related
bttt
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I wonder if reduced domestic drilling doesn’t also play an increased role in the price of gasoline regardless of the price per barrel of oil?
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Not really, what does howeverp lay a significant role is the FACT that the left in congress have repeatedly refused to allow more oil refinery plants, and have steadfastly refused to allow cheap alternatives like coal and natural gas drilling which, if allowed, would reduce our dependence on oil, and drop prices of gasoline eventually if there was more competition in domestic energy. We do infact have enough natural domestic oil reserves to become energy independent from foreign oil, however, from what I understand, because of congress’ refusal to allow more refinaries, we’re at peak oil refinary production already, and can’t handle more oil coing in, which means that because con gress is forcing us to produce less refined oil because we don’t have the faciklities to refine it, keeps prices artifically high. This is the basic reason why the Saudis are able to manipulate world oil prices, because they control howm uch oil is sent out, and how much our country can refine- Congress, in cahoots with the saudis, have made sure supply doesn’t meet demand- and congress has made sure of htis by refusign to allow enough refinaries to handle more oil
[[Incidentally, many federal employees in Washington DC get transportation subsidies so $4 gas won’t hurt them as much as it hurts other taxpayers.]]
Hell- most govenrment employees get $160 ‘allowances’ PER DAY for ‘expenses’- this is ABOVE AND BEYOND their exhorbitant salaries which MOST don’t even earn- beign absent from office almsot half the year-
I get $10 per day on my fixed income- it’s a damn good hting I don’t have to drive anywhere really- this $10 has to go for food, there’s NOTHING left over for Gasolin e these days- and prices of food is skyrocketing due to higher delivery charges bwecause of hte rise in gas prices
Congress didn’t give out Cost of livign increases for 2 years now- but they damn sure gave themselves raises- Yep- their motto is ‘screw the poor- we’re gettign ours while we can’
$160 per day ‘allowance’? I only WISH I had such a luxury!!!
[[This is another case where government intervention (drilling ban) creates problems that it takes more government intervention (raising gas-mileage mandates, dishing out electric car subsidies) to solve!]]
I forget who said it, but it’s apparapoe here:
“Never underestimate the ability of the left to create a crisis out of a non crisis situation”
That sounds about right...
Response: Of course, he and his apostles want to inflict the maximum damage on the middle class.
“Obama Wants Higher Gas Prices”
Of course he does. Just like he wants the coal industry dead. And the zombies just lapped it up.
The Republicans and the tea party need to make ads that show Obama saying this stuff. Hammer away on it and never let people forget that he is for high gas prices.
Good question, it’s almost as if you could wish you have to ask it rhetorically.
RUSH: As we pointed out yesterday, 15 stories, negative stories blaming Bush for the gasoline price rise in 2007 and 2008. One story on Obama for every 15 Bush stories. So the question becomes: Will the media ignoring the rise in gas prices be able to keep that from becoming a major factor in people's minds over the economy and Obama's role in it? Remember, now, everything is focused on the reelection in 2012.Not to pee in the punchbowl, but higher gasoline prices will do two things to benefit Zero -- number one, it'll give his proxies in Congress a pretext to blame oil companies, in particular BP with its Gaddafi connection; and number two, because rising prices means more money from the same margins, there will be a bit of a employment increase rippling through the economy. Oh, and number three, sales tax receipts (in states which have sales tax) will increase, which will be of indirect benefit to Obama.
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