Stein: Stop Whining And Blaming Oil Cos.

Worried About Gas Prices? Ben Stein Says Don’t Look To Government Or OPEC To Help

(CBS)  Like many of the rest of us this weekend, Contributor Ben Stein has his eye on the gas pump:

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Topic A on everyone's mind these days is the amazing price rise of oil and gasoline by historical standards.

Herewith, some good news and some bad news.

First, the bad news: Nothing - and I mean nothing - the U.S. government does can stop the rise in the price of oil in the short run.

Stopping buys for the emergency stockpile will have no effect at all. These purchases are less than one-tenth of one percent of daily worldwide demand.

Cancelling the purchases is precisely the same as not paying life insurance premiums when you're worried about money. It is nonsense.

Laws taxing oil speculators will do nothing. Most of the speculation is going on outside of U.S. jurisdiction anyway.

And if we stopped having a free market in oil, it would go back to being an OPEC-fixed price. Do you think they would be kind to us? If so, why?

Taxing the oil companies is the worst possible idea. We should be giving them tax incentives to pump more oil, not punishing them for pumping oil … and their profits have absolutely zero to do with setting the price of gasoline at the pump.

Zero.

Finally, the worst news: Oil has been going up a lot faster than gasoline. That means gasoline might possibly have far more upward movement in price. Be prepared.

Now for the good news: Oil is a commodity. Usually commodity prices go in cycles. That means they usually (not always) go down after they have gone up sharply. It could and probably will happen this time, too.

In other words, it sure looks like a bubble, although a bubble that might last a long time.

But here's even better news: You can get a more fuel efficient car; car dealers are very much in a mood to deal, and they will make it easier than you can even imagine to get a fuel saving car or truck.

And, you can drive less. Once in a while take mass transit. You have it in your power to save money on oil.

If everyone in the U.S. does this, it will affect the world demand for oil meaningfully, and will eventually move price downwards.

Or, we can just whine and blame the oil companies, - which will get us exactly nowhere.

[usbrit-2009]

By normal means (pressure), only around 30% of the oil in a resevoir is removed. There is technology available here and now that could not only allow another 30% of the oil to be recovered from abandoned wells but to double the output of currently operating wells. i.e. to obtain the same amount of oil that the US has recovered throughout history. It''s called Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) - Google it. EOR does cost money. It pays for itself when oil is above $40 - $45 a barrell - at $130 we should be doing this all over the country. Ask your congressmen why.

[usbrit-2009]

What little respect I had for BS went when he made that stupid creationist movie. He knows nothing about anything and his views are as exciting as his voice.

[taus007-2009]

Its idiotic for Stein to say that product pricing has "absolutely zero...Zero" to do with Oil Company profits. And it''s mighty stupid to say that me taking the bus to work, and hoping that everyone else in the world will do the same, will do more to lower pump prices, than freeing up strategic reserves. And, whining about the greedy Oil Company profits and fat CEO payckecks makes me feel better. The fact that they have so little regard for their customers is immoral!

[patriot12436]

Some of you may not remember but when Vietnam was shutting down the oil companies had big contracts with the govt. They realized they were going to lose huge profit margins. In order to keep those profit margins they decided to tell the people there was a gas shortage and our govt let them do it. There was never a gas shortage. WE had tankers bring in gas and oil and we had no place to store it. They were told to dump it into the Gulf of Tonkin. We had directives telling us to use as much gas and oil as we cound. The govt has been helping the oil conglomerates screw the American people for generations. Enough is enough. We have to fight back and we have to do it now. People who have worked hard all their lives are losing thweir homes and jobs daily. This isn''t right.

[patriot12436]

ifred
So you think it is ok for the Arab countries to have cheap gas and gouge us ?

[patriot12436]

dixielatino
I think you are right. He is sitting on a big pile of money just like his rich cronies and doesn''t give a damm about the working class people.

[patriot12436]

cmp271
If bush tries to implement directive 51 i am sure that would start a civil war in our country. The American people are on the verge of having enough and it wouldn''t take much now to push them over the edge. Then we could start the trials for war crimes and clean house.

[patriot12436]

mimick8
I also drive mthru Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas and see oil drilling wells sitting idle because the owners are allowed to only pump so much a day. This is ridiculous with the economic sate we are now in. Our govt is about t collapse economiclly, we have to do something and do it now.

[patriot12436]

mimick8
If we don''t do something now i think we will have chaos in the streets within months. I also agree we need t start drilling in ou own country so we can tell the arabs to go to hell. I like all the ideas about windmills, solar power, nuclear power, electric cars, conversion kits to increase mileage on the vehicles we have now. I am checking into one that is called water4gas.com. It costs about $200 to install and is supposed to increase your current gas mileage up to 50%.

[patriot12436]

brianbwb
Of course not you are just a part of the working class. Do you thik the rich are going to do anything for the people who do the real work in this country ? hailand had a protest yesterday against their new Prime Minister. As soonas he took office food prices doubled overnight and hav been going up steadily. Now he has been forced to resign so we will see what the new prime minister does with the economy.

[patriot12436]

rudy654
But the mid east has the cheapest gas prices in th world. they are gouging the rest of us. It is time we started matching their prices with our goods, then when they raise the price of oil we raise our prices. A bushel of grain for $137, just like a barrel of oil and so forth. When they start getting hungry they will come around and reason with us.

[patriot12436]

nonayaBiness
This could be dangerous for you. There are a lot of nut cases out there who would run you off thre road and even shoot you for just being in "their way". You need to be cautious about what you do when driving. Americans have a tendency to suffer from severe cases of road rage.

[patriot12436]

Spoken like a true politician. He is rich so he doesn''t care what gas costs the American working family.We need to cut off foreign aid, start selling our products to the arabs for the same price they are charging fo gas. Why should they have gas for 12 cents a gallon while we pay $4 a gallon. End the illegal war in Iraq and bring our troops home. Our govt needs to address our own problems and stop worrying about the rest of the world. It is time we stopped trying to be the world police. Other countries hat us because we try to push our way of thinking on them. Let them choose how they want to live.

[noloyalisti]

I actually agree with a representative of the corporate media. We are the ones who bought into the unsustainable lifestyle of SUVs and suburbs and shopping malls.

We, the consumer have the ability to bring the big corporations and their selected government official to their knees. Start conserving, organize boycotts and if the government doesn''t start regulating them we start doing general strikes. Until the government starts working for us again.

[omega39-2009]

That would mean today that at least $50 to $60 or more of today''s $115 a barrel price is due to pure hedge fund and financial institution speculation. However, given the unchanged equilibrium in global oil supply and demand over recent months amid the explosive rise in oil futures prices traded on Nymex and ICE exchanges in New York and London, it is more likely that as much as 60% of the oil price today is pure speculation. No one knows officially except the tiny handful of energy trading banks in New York and London, and they certainly aren''t talking.

By purchasing large numbers of futures contracts, and thereby pushing up futures prices to even higher levels than current prices, speculators have provided a financial incentive for oil companies to buy even more oil and place it in storage. A refiner will purchase extra oil today, even if it costs $115 per barrel, if the futures price is even higher.

As a result, over the past two years crude oil inventories have been steadily growing, resulting in US crude oil inventories that are now higher than at any time in the previous eight years. The large influx of speculative investment into oil futures has led to a situation where we have both high supplies of crude oil and high crude oil prices.

[arj4031]

There''s more than one factor in current prices, but this is just a taste of what''s to come if we don''t get our butts into gear. That doesn''t mean drilling in ANWR, which would likely take a decade to have a negligible effect on a globalized oil market. Or resorting to expensive, carbon-intensive tar sand processing. It means conserving what we can, continuing with the expansion of existing refinery facilities, building an efficient society, and transitioning to alternative energy sources. We''re still nowhere near getting off the oil teat. American usage alone, for gasoline alone, is somewhere around 388,000,000 gallons a day. God help us if another half decade passes, the global economy heats up, and tens of millions more Chinese have bought gas guzzlers. Things will have to change, one way or another.

[joycalifor]

Economy 101: Drill in Anwar (an arctic wasteland that Russia dumped on us because nobody wanted it), develop the fantastic new find in North Dakota, and prices will come crashing down. It''s called supply and demand. We have enormous natural resources. The environmental arguments are getting more and more far fetched with modern technology. Stop the political agendas, stop suppressing news of new energy finds, stop distorting scientific findings and start discussing this issue rationally and allow America to solve our energy problems.

[jimfinster]

You have some valid viewpoints, but name calling like that won''''t do anyone much good. Believe it or not, he''''s more of a moderate; on an interview with Bill O''''Reilly a few months ago, he did put Bill in his place. (or at least came up with some *** good responses.)

Posted by hypnotoad72


Ben is a relentless huckster for the Iraq war, supports corporate interests at every opportunity, and just released an anti-evolution movie.

Moderate? No.

[omega39-2009]

In the US, stockpiles of oil climbed by almost 12 million barrels in April according to the May 7 EIA monthly report on inventory, up by nearly 33 million barrels since January. At the same time, MasterCard''''s May 7 US gasoline report showed that gas demand has fallen by 5.8%. And refiners are reducing their refining rates dramatically to adjust to the falling gasoline demand. They are now running at 85% of capacity, down from 89% a year ago, in a season when production is normally 95%. The refiners today are clearly trying to draw down gasoline inventories to bid gasoline prices up. "It''''s the economy, stupid," to paraphrase Bill Clinton''''s infamous 1992 election quip to daddy Bush. It''''s called economic recession.

[taxguydave]

The price of oil is up for many reasons, but big contributors are the falling dollar (oil is traded for in dollars), which is a direct result of Republican borrow and spend policies, and the war in Iraq, which has successfully kept most Iraqi crude from reaching the market, and further contributed to the national debt. The national debt is now around $11 trillion, almost double what it was at the end of the Clinton administration.

Also, too much attention is focused on the Arabs. Arabian peninsula oil accounts for less than 1/4 of our oil purchases. More than a third comes from Canada and Mexico.

"Environmentalists" are NOT why more refineries haven''t been built. The last new refinery in the US to come online was finished in 1972. Since then, only 2 refinery building permits have been applied for (1 in Texas, and 1 in California), and both permits were approved. Neither refinery was ever actually built. The oil companies have no interest at all in increasing US supply of gasoline.