The Oil Bubble

This will be the last bubble but no more are needed. Having concentrated wealth into the top 1% of the people on earth we have economic feudalism  where the fight is over the ownership of the world's oil supplies.  The price of oil is not a reflection of supply and demand in anything even remotely resembling a "free market" . It is the hoarding and withholding of non-produced fixed supply resources in pursuit of power.  The ownership of oil is more concentrated than it has ever been in that the unregulated but enforced futures markets make it entirely possible and legal to exercise sufficient control over supplies to wage economic warfare for control of the world.

I know I sound like "Ming the Merciless" croaking "power the death ray" but I merely speak of the reality in which we find ourselves.  I do not claim any conspiracy of bad guys plotting the control of the cosmos (you could correlate to 1994 when the Republicans took control of the Congress but that is "indirect". And the proposition that any and all political parties are conspiracies is reserved for another diary). What we have is the result of unrestrained wealth accumulation into the hands that see wealth accumulation and power as the only redeeming fact of life.  And whatever it takes to protect and enhance each individual or familial position of power, that is what these individuals and families will do.  It does not matter if half the human race perishes in the process, each of these power centers are going to do what it takes to maintain and enhance their power. I hasten to remind you that there is no requirement that these egoist enclaves act in concert or in league one with the other.  As they COMPETE one with the other over the fixed supply of oil they are driving the price of oil to exorbitant levels.  And the higher that price goes the richer all of these competing interests will be when compared to the bottom 99% of the people on the planet. The ultimate "trickle down" and the "ultimate bubble". Oil is a FIXED NATURAL RESOURCE.  It is not the same as lollipops, trucks or backhoes.  There are no elves on H1B visas under the ground "manufacturing" oil.  Oil is not capital and we do not attack capitalism when attacking the private ownership of oil.

If you want freedom and equal opportunity to have any chance at all in this world then you had better address the question I asked in the last article:  Who owns the oil in the American commons like the offshore oil and the North Slope, and the ANWR.  AT present the oil companies, the Republicans, and the Alaskans intend to divvy up the power that remains.  The coastal states in the south are not far behind in this game.  No more Three Card Monty.  Who owns the Sovereign American COMMON oil?

And if you should decide correctly that it must be all of us then I will ask what you intend to do to prevent any further accumulation of raw power into unelected private hands?

I Would Suggest:

We need to go ahead and drill the Florida Straight before the Cubans and the Chinese steal our oil.

The "Strategic Petroleum Reserve" (provided the Republicans haven't stolen it all) contains about $80B in solid backing that belongs equally to every American taxpayer-voter.  That is solid backing for a venture that would nationalize the oil located off the shores of Florida. Much less than this would be required but the backing is solid as a rock.  The point is that the Florida oil is going to be sucked out by the Cubans and the Chinese with a lot less care about the environment than we would insist upon.  There is also the possibility that we would just buy out the current operation and "reform" it.  Why not employ the Chinese in the actual drilling and such. Just _**CONTRACT**_ that labor.  Or we could _**CONTRACT**_ Shell or Chevron or whoever...  We be globalized and labor is cheap :)

--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org/...