Posted on 02/29/2012 4:36:19 AM PST by Kaslin
I’m normally a fan of Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, but he is not a fan of oil companies. This is where he loses me.
It’s not that I’m a big fan of oil companies, or any particular company, really, except maybe Apple (can we get the new iPad already?). I rarely think about companies, let alone whole industries. But Bill does.
I don’t know O’Reilly’s politics, mostly because he’s all over the place. But his anger toward oil companies is misdirected and he ultimately misleads his audience.
Last week, Bill did one of his “Talking Points Memos” on high gas prices, blaming oil companies for the price at the pump. He opened up by paraphrasing Lou Dobbs, saying, “…because of the mild winter, there is plenty of oil and gas in the U.S.A. So supply and demand here should dictate lower prices. But of course, they are not lower. They are much higher because the oil companies are shipping their products overseas. Measured in dollars, oil products are now America's largest export worth $88 billion a year to the oil companies.”
That sounds great, and seems logical – more gasoline around means there should be lower prices, supply and demand. Only it isn’t that simple.
Were gasoline not manufactured, but pulled out of the ground ready to go, it would make sense. It would also make sense if for an iPad to cost $20 if they grew on trees and Apple simply picked them. Unfortunately on both accounts, it doesn’t work that way.
An iPad must be manufactured from countless parts, and the materials to make those parts cost money. Similarly, gasoline has to be refined from oil, and oil, particularly right now, is very expensive. And it’s costing more every day.
In other words, the amount of gasoline has no impact on the price at the pump. The cost of oil does. In fact, crude oil accounts for about 80 percent of the cost of fuels. As oil prices rise, gasoline prices rise. As gasoline prices rise, demand for gasoline drops, particularly in a sluggish economy. That’s why we have gasoline to export to the rest of the world, not some black helicopter conspiracy to drive up prices at the pump.
What O’Reilly doesn’t tell his audience is that exporting refined oil products is actually a good thing for our economy. When American manufacturers, like oil refiners, export their products, they create and sustain good-paying jobs, lower America’s trade deficit, and increase revenues for our Federal Treasury.
To be clear, refiners will only manufacture as much fuel as they can sell. They can’t store millions of gallons of gasoline that no one in the U.S. wants to buy. So if fuel exports are banned and taxed heavily, as O’Reilly suggests, refiners will manufacture less fuel. That could lead to refinery closures and worker layoffs.
If our federal government is serious about lowering gasoline prices, it should first start by eliminating EPA’s overreaching regulations on refiners, which make it more costly to manufacture fuels. We must also support policies that drive down the cost of oil. The only way for that to happen is to increase the supply of oil AND the stability of that supply.
O’Reilly and Democrats would have you believe that in addition to colluding oil companies, the price of oil is high because of “Wall Street speculators,” traders on the commodities market. They seem to think “speculators” are able to manipulate the price of oil. Commodities traders take large risks, and it’s called “risk” for a reason. Were they able to control the price of oil they’d be called something beside “speculators.”
But O’Reilly and Democrats need a boogeyman.
O’Reilly needs it because he fancies himself the champion of “the folks,” average Americans who he seems to think can’t figure things out for themselves.
Democrats need it to distract from the fact that high gasoline prices are something they’ve wanted and advocated for years. They’d prefer we’d have gotten to $5 per gallon gas through high taxes, rather than unrest in the Middle East, but this is where they want them to be.
President Obama wants high gas prices to drive consumers Americans to embrace alternate “green” sources of energy. The only problem with his plan is there is no “green” alternative readily available now to counteract high gas prices. The only result of his anti-domestic energy plan (denying new drilling permits, killing the Keystone XL pipeline, etc.) is to harm the wallets of all Americans, particularly low income Americans, those he claims to want to help.
But the President doesn’t seem to mind that. Instead of working to lower gasoline prices, he’s working to distract people, to shift the blame to Democrat’s boogeyman and Republicans while insulating himself. Bill O’Reilly and his irrational, illogical crusade against “big oil” is helping him in that quest.
If O’Reilly truly were interested in informing people as to why prices at the pump are high, he’d put his emotions aside, look past the oil companies, boogeymen and political spin and take a look at what’s really going on. When it comes to “big oil,” he hasn’t done it in the past, so there’s little reason to think he’ll do so now. But we can always hope.
Lost me right there.
I only watch (or record) the Miller segment any more because O’Idiot has gone off on these tantrums to smooth over where the blame lies. ODumbo will grant him another “exclusive” since how now tows the line
Stopped watching long ago. His constant interruption of his guests was rude and annoying.
O’Reilly has the intellectual depth of a mud puddle.
BOR can be stunningly stupid at the top his voice.
I happen to catch that opening segment looking for something else to watch....
I thought to myself.....BOR simply cannot be that stupid....then it dawned on me....he thinks we are that stupid....
Then I remembered why i stopped watching that blowhard years ago...
Because oil, like gold and many other commodities, is a globally priced commodity. As long as the cost of transportation is significantly less than the cost of the material, it will be globally priced.
Globally, demand has risen.
He is a liberal, independent with semi-conservative fiscal leanings, until he invents a "new solution for the good of the folks".
His solution for gas prices is a combination of Henry Waxman, Maxine Waters, and Hitler and if you disagree with facts, he will just talk over you and change the subject.
O'Reilly is an arrogant, self promoter with no real political groundings, loves to be fawned over by his courtesans, and since his show has been #1 for over ten years, he can get away with most any thing on FOX.
I liked him better when he played Ted Baxter and had Mary Tyler Moore next to him. He made more sense. LOL
BOR is stone cold stupid on this subject. Adding insult to injury, he won’t listen to people who try to explain it to him. HE truly thinks he is “maintaining” control of the interview. In reality, he is stomping all over the explanation. His problem is that he wants a one sentence explanation for a very involved question that can NOT be explained in one sentence.
Really, if somebody strapped him in a chair and stuck a sock in his mouth, forcing him to listen, he might actually be able to get it.
HA-HA, I had to stop watching BoR's CRAP about 5 years ago.
He tells his audience there is one guy in the world setting oil prices.
He strongly pushed for ethanol on his show about 2005, his gullible viewers really believe his snake oil sales antics claiming ethanol would make us ‘energy independent’. Well here we are again arguing about the next ethanol type scam-disaster electric cars.
BOR is just another liberal who doesnt want his taxes raised, much like a con-man Trump. He just tells his audience what he thinks they want to hear.
And everything he knows about economics, he learned in Kindergarten.
Bill O is dead wrong on this issue. The government makes more profit on a gallon of gasoline than the oil companies do and they don’t even lift a finger to do it . . . much less explore for it, negotiate leases, drill, transport, refine and transport yet again . . . and all done for you conveniently at the service station around the corner or down the block from you.
Compare that to a gallon of milk. Or a gallon of coca-cola.
I still watch the Factor and will probably keep watching because there are segments I do enjoy. As for the rest, thank God for the mute button
This is how con men like BoR and Dobbs appeal to their gullable viewers, making the US exporting oil out to be a negative. I got news for you Factor morons out there watching his show:
1) We import MUCH more oil than we export.
2) Since when is creating jobs here by producing and exporting a product for sales in other countries bad? That is called EXPORTING
WAKE UP, WE HAVE A HUGE TRADE DEFICIT!
With all the talk of corrupt politicians, the fact the so many Americans that believe such idiotic premises just BECAUSE THEY WANT TO is another reason we are screwed.
As I said, 5 years ago BoR was pushing ethanol on his show claiming it would make us energy independent. Well we are stuck with ethanol now!
BoR is such an A$$wipe.
Neil Cavuto did his final word the other day on the same subject, he pointed out that we are devaluing the dollar that we buy oil with. That is why I watch Cavuto and not BoR.
Bill O’Reilly is a very lazy commentator. As soon as he heard Dobbs saying we export oil, he assumed he had found the villains. He is remarkably dumb.
Bill O would rather run down the middle of the road to increase audience share, than stick to any particular set of principals.
Let the rest of the world buy from the shieks and diaperheads. They are able to control the price through OPEC but with so much oil being discovered here we should get a break!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.