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A Gentle Reproof for Bill O'Reilly (oil prices)
The American Thinker ^ | February 25, 2012 | James G. Wiles

Posted on 02/25/2012 2:27:09 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

Litigation isn't poker. It's chess. You have to think three or four moves ahead.

Economics is like that, too.

Nothing is ever actually ceteris paribus. All the little economic variables are always moving and changing. The world's largest economy (ours) is all interconnected. Touch one gizmo, and you affect several other gizmos. All the little widgets talk to each other.

It's even more so with our even larger, globalized economy.

[GREAT BIG IMPORTANT SNIP]

Do you have any idea where this leads? There won't be another refinery built in the United States. We will end up importing all our refined products to escape the controls. If the only way U.S. oil companies can reap the world price is to sell overseas, then you'll see this entire industry migrate out of the United States.

And almost all the high-paying jobs will go, too.

In twenty years, the U.S. petroleum industry will have moved overseas, corporate headquarters included, because the U.S. laws and regulations which Bill O'Reilly is suggesting will handicap them vis-à-vis their competitors. Their American shareholders will support these moves. All the high-paying jobs which used to be in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma -- not just the headquarters jobs, but also technical services as well -- will be in Dubai, Singapore, Holland, and all sorts of havens.

Maybe Brazil.

Natural resources is a global industry. The natural resource companies headquartered in the United States don't need to be headquartered in the United States. It's that simple. Controls always have this effect.

Bill O'Reilly is a thinking man, a well-educated man, and a highly intelligent man. Last night's Talking Points Memo was not his best effort.

I'm sure Bill O'Reilly will think this through.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: economy; energy; jobs; oil
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Bill O'Reilly is a thinking man, a well-educated man, and a highly intelligent man

Now that's funny right there!

21 posted on 02/25/2012 4:38:09 AM PST by exit82 (Democrats are the enemies of freedom. We have ideas-the Dems only have ideology.)
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To: TigersEye

I look at Bill’s issues as more a result of his environment. (I am speaking from personal experience) New York Micks have some of the thickest heads and largest prejudices in the entire world.
No matter how much education you give them hereditary factors play a bigger influence than anything else.
.....and Bill’s ego know no bounds....


22 posted on 02/25/2012 4:38:23 AM PST by Recon Dad (Gas & Petroleum Junkie)
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To: wita

The answer is simple, just like the one who’s desk has the sign “the buck stops here”. (No pun intended)

....BINGO, we can beat this thing from here until the cows come home, but until we remove this commie bastard nothing will change.

I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about Zero getting a second term.


23 posted on 02/25/2012 4:42:48 AM PST by Recon Dad (Gas & Petroleum Junkie)
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To: BTCM

Not sorry for his wife. She knew what she was getting. I feel sorry for his kids!


24 posted on 02/25/2012 4:43:28 AM PST by FES0844
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To: TigersEye

“I have never seen anyone work so hard to be so ignorant on a subject as Bill 0’Reilly has on the oil industry.”

Yes - yes - yes.

O’Reilly is actually really good on things he *knows something about* - like public education (since he spent some time in the trenches as a high school teacher).

But when he takes that same certainty to things on which he is completely ignorant, the result is embarrassing, even sad.

My favorite is when he rails about “record profits” for the oil companies, cited in absolute dollars. That’s like screaming how much money my local McDonalds makes relative to my kid’s lemonade stand - in itself it means nothing because of the difference in scale. Oil companies are enormous in size - any year they make a profit it’s likely to be huge in absolute terms. The only measure that really means anything is profit margin, and even that has to be averaged over time since the price of crude (and the economy) oscillates so much.

O’Reilly also seems to be of the impression that the oil companies set the price of crude. Someone needs to introduce him to OPEC.

O’Reilly has a lot of influence - if the wanted to do something “for the folks” he’d actually get off his high horse and try to find out how economics actually works in the energy sector.


25 posted on 02/25/2012 4:51:07 AM PST by Stosh
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

O’Reilly has been on a crusade defending Obama from oil prices, and going after oil companies and speculators.


26 posted on 02/25/2012 4:52:12 AM PST by nhwingut (Sarah Palin 12... No One Else (Maybe Tim Thomas))
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To: Recon Dad

“I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about Zero getting a second term”.

I sleep peacefully, but that may be a function of my age. During waking hours, the second term issue is going to say so much about America, that the mere thought of it causes me great concern. We know who wins this war, but in the meantime it is up to us to live with the consequences, and I for one do not like certain consequences. Take for example TSA...Please.

Bill Clinton’s second term was tolerable for many reasons. This president’s second will be an intolerable Hell IHMO! I have to ask just how high a gas price could I tolerate to insure he doesn’t get a second.


27 posted on 02/25/2012 5:12:23 AM PST by wita
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To: Recon Dad
That may not be too far off: U.S. House sets date to discuss Northeastern refinery closures
28 posted on 02/25/2012 5:17:57 AM PST by epithermal
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To: Stosh

Part of O’Really’s problem is he can’t separate crude oil and refined product during his thought process. Last night he actually said oil is America’s number 1 export.


29 posted on 02/25/2012 5:23:43 AM PST by csmusaret (I have kleptomania, but when it gets too bad I take something.)
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To: wita

For a real waking nightmare, consider the possibility that his supporters do not care about oil prices, consider oil dirty and live in cities w/public transport. They receive food stamps or have public pensions. They are already on Medicare, Medicaid or receive union medical benefits. Their life goal is to feel good about themselves. They equate collective control with being *good*.

I have the misfortune of knowing a confirmed statist who is about to see their property values decimated by high voltage transmission lines that may not be needed and will transport coal-produced energy from the West to the urban Midwest. This project is being fast-tracked by the administration. The *reasons* and goals presented to the public have all been fallacious. This person has done the research, knows the facts and can still state: “We must control the use of coal because it is dirty”, even though that has nothing to do with issue, coal will not be controlled and is, in fact, the production method being benefited by the project.

On every aspect of their life, zer0 has had a negative influence. They are not unaware of these impacts. Try to enlighten them about the causes, however, and they get this terrified look and literally moan:”I have to leave, now.”

Bottom line: they will vote for the tyrant. It is truly a mental disorder. We must outnumber them. We must vote and it must be against zer0.


30 posted on 02/25/2012 5:32:02 AM PST by reformedliberal
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To: nathanbedford

Excellent post, and your last sentence, especially, is spot on. I believe it is the only purpose that O’Rielly serves; to demonstrate how not to engage in debate. I can’t watch him any more because he is incapable of learning anything from a guest. He goes into every interview KNOWING exactly what he believes is 100% correct.

The best illustration is his interview with Wafa Sultan about her book, A God Who Hates. This Muslim woman, born and raised in Syria, tried to explain that hatred of Jews and abuse of women are cultural and faith-based beliefs, supported by the Koran. BOR told her she was wrong. He is neither Muslim, a woman, nor raised in an Islamic country, but HE knows what Islamic religion and culture teach. Unbelievable....I haven’t watched him since that interview except to see Dennis Miller.


31 posted on 02/25/2012 5:34:21 AM PST by Regina (pax78)
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To: Stosh

“like public education (since he spent some time in the trenches as a high school teacher).”

add, while evading the draft.


32 posted on 02/25/2012 5:45:30 AM PST by Mouton (Voting is an opiate of the electorate. Nothing changes no matter who wins..)
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To: Voter#537

I was in college during the first oil crisis in 1973. My econ prof said that the reason for the price increases and shortages was that bot supply and demand were inelastic. He was a proponant of free enterprise, and yet he didn’t see that it was government regulation that was making it so. A little deregulation in the late seventies and early eighties showd that both supply and demand for petroleum were quite elastic over time, and would be if the government stayed out of the way.


33 posted on 02/25/2012 5:48:33 AM PST by Daveinyork
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To: Recon Dad
You go back to his childhood days I will bet you find Bill surrounded by a family of NYC union employees
Not just his childhood but the childhoods of all his ancestors since they fled Ireland.
My roots are NYC Irish 1850 (including a gg-grandmother O'Reilly), with ancestral links to labor unions as teamsters, printers and coopers.
34 posted on 02/25/2012 5:53:43 AM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife; mickie; flaglady47; seenenuf; Bob Ireland; ExTexasRedhead; Chigirl 26
Krauthammer demolished BO'R last night.....at which point the weasley Bloviator completely backtracked, denying he had been urging Obama over the airwaves to use fascist tactics to control the oil industry.....which, of course, he had been doing.

Kraut recognized this backtracking and revision of history, and graciously let O'R off the hook.

The other night, little Mary Katharine Ham tried to inform O'Reilly some real facts on the oil industry's "obscene profits", but, as usual, she was interrupted, over-talked, outgunned and drowned out by the pompous big mouths of the host and Alan Colmes.

The statist O'Reilly doesn't want to hear any facts when it comes to his off-the-wall attacks on big corporations.

I always find it fascinating to observe the disrespect, verbal abuse and insults to their intelligence that the Factor's regular contributors constantly endure for the great privilege of being on his show....and, of course, the public exposure and regular stipend they garner is probably a factor, also.

Leni

35 posted on 02/25/2012 6:02:35 AM PST by MinuteGal
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To: Regina
I can’t watch him any more because he is incapable of learning anything from a guest.
Not just learning, but his tacit agreement with some guests whom he allows to spew their hatred and bias unchecked.
Best example is Marc Lamont Hill. BOR's lip prints are all over this guy's butt and 0bama's too.
36 posted on 02/25/2012 6:03:55 AM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: eCSMaster

No, on many matters, O’Reilly is not just a pinhead, but an ARROGANT pinhead....


37 posted on 02/25/2012 6:09:26 AM PST by Arlis (.)
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To: nathanbedford
with apologies to Ted Knight

Find O'Reilly

.

38 posted on 02/25/2012 6:10:47 AM PST by Elle Bee
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To: reformedliberal

For a real waking nightmare, consider the possibility that his supporters do not care about oil prices, consider oil dirty and live in cities w/public transport. They receive food stamps or have public pensions. They are already on Medicare, Medicaid or receive union medical benefits. Their life goal is to feel good about themselves. They equate collective control with being *good*.

Believe me, even in SD such people exist. Some are citizens of a sovereign nation, within our borders, that do not live in cities w/public transportation. Many others are move ins, that strangely enough bring there statist ideas with them to a land somewhat removed from the ideas given birth in the large population centers of the land.


39 posted on 02/25/2012 6:25:00 AM PST by wita
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
The White House has CZAR B.O.

FOX has Bag O'Rocks B.O.
40 posted on 02/25/2012 6:37:03 AM PST by leprechaun9
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