There is a headline just up at Yahoo which says: "Obama Strikes Back At High Gas Prices!" When I saw this, I was intrigued. After all, much of the blame for high gasoline prices falls squarely on Obama's energy policies, so I wanted to see what bold stroke the president had done to overcome the earlier damage he inflicted on the markets. Let me tell you about it, but first, let me warn you to sit down and hold on to something. It is THAT BIG!!!
Okay, here is Obama's strike at high gas prices. Obama is asking Congress to appropriate an additional $52 million in order to upgrade the computer systems at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and also to hire additional personnel at the Commission. According to Obama, once this modification is completed, it will increase both surveillance and enforcement of regulations in the oil markets. (If you were holding your breath, I suggest that you let it out now.) That's right! Obama's answer to high gasoline prices is to get new computers for the CFTC. Forget for the moment that the new computer systems will not make any difference in the price of oil, the change will take between six and nine months to complete. By that time, the price of oil could be up 50% from here or way down. Obama's actions will have no effect whatsoever in the interim.
Obama is also asking Congress for tougher penalties for improper manipulation of oil markets. Of course, there is no evidence that the current high price of oil is at all due to improper manipulation of oil markets. In fact, there is a rather great consensus that the current high world price of oil is due to three factors: 1)rising demand from China and India; 2)worries over possible disruption of oil supplies as a result of the Iranian crisis; and 3)reduced production in the USA due to Obama's anti-oil energy policy. Some also say that oil is up due to the devaluation of the dollar and other currencies. No one is blaming high prices on improper manipulation of the oil market.
So Obama is asking for steps to combat a "problem" that does not exist. He is asking for action which will take months or years to complete, even though the oil price problem is happening NOW. In other words, Obama is doing something meaningless just so that dupes and toadies like Yahoo can write headlines that announce that Obama is striking back against high oil prices. Sadly, there is about as much reality to Obama strikes back as there was when it was "the Empire Strikes Back". Perhaps a Jedi discussed the actual steps that Obama could easily take to bring down the price of oil and told Obama, "These are not the steps you are looking for."
The saddest thing of all is that Obama and the Obamacrats understand that these moves will have no effect on the price of gasoline. Here is how Yahoo News put it:
"None of these steps by themselves will bring gas prices down overnight," the president said in the White House Rose Garden. "But it will prevent market manipulation and make sure we're looking out for American consumers."...
On a White House-organized conference call to preview the announcement, senior administration officials refused to say how much improper or illegal manipulation added to the per-gallon price at the pump or when, if at all, Americans could start seeing the policy reduce the cost of filling up.
"You won't find the administration making projections about the particular impact, or the particular price impact, of any particular policy," one official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "We would leave that to outside analysts to disentangle."
Obama has got to go!!!!
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