Big Oil has got Your Back….

Big Oil has got Your Back….

In 2009 Hillary Clinton warned in a secret memo that “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban … and other terrorist groups”.  – The Guardian

By J.M. Hamilton 10-4-14       

Recently J.M.H. wrote in a piece entitled, History is written by Winners, about the amoral, anti-social, and sociopathic tendencies of the board of directors, and management teams, running some major corporations.

To that end, and in the interest of expanding further upon the topic, today’s editorial.  Specifically, on the topic of Big Oil, the Exxons and Koch Industries of the world have your back.  Let us count the ways:

$$$  Let’s be abundantly clear, Big Oil is a global cartel, and has nothing to do with either capitalism or the free market.  When one nation state, The Saudi regime, can prop up global fuel prices or let them enter into free fall, by cutting or increasing production, that is monopolistic power in action.  (See OPEC).

$$$  Exxon, with the voting rights and more of any U.S. citizen, along with the Koch Bros, owns the GOP.

$$$  Exxon doesn’t care three bits about the U.S or its citizens.  When asked why not expand the number of refineries in the U.S. to help out our citizens, and the American economy, a former Exxon CEO responded as follows:  “Why would I do that? I’m not a U.S. company, and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.” 

Indeed.

$$$  Exxon operates in and supports some of the world’s nastiest dictatorships, who's records on human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the treatment of women, are both repugnant and abysmal. 

$$$  Exxon partners with Dictator Putin in the former Soviet Union.  Exxon recently struck black gold for the Russian dictator in the Arctic, despite orders from the U.S. government to cease operations.  Koch Industries, namely one Fred Koch, got its start backing Joseph Stalin, the former Soviet dictator.  Mr. Stalin’s record on mass murder made Hitler look like an amateur.  Thanks to Exxon, Mr. Putin’s resource rich country will have yet more natural resources – which will further secure his hold on power, and fuel his expansionist aims.

$$$  Exxon, along with Qatar (an Arab monarchy), wants to export U.S. energy independence, and natural gas, offshore, so as to keep fuel prices up here in the U.S. and to obtain a more attractive price, globally.  In the process, a prospective U.S manufacturing renaissance will be cut off at the knees, destroying jobs and opportunity. 

$$$  Qatar finances and funds terrorism, as does the Saudi regime.  Exxon supports both regimes, with its technological prowess.  Koch Industries, up until recently, traded with Iran’s -nuclear hungry - theocracy, through a foreign subsidiary.

$$$  The global price on a barrel of crude is dropping steadily, but prices remain stuck at the pump.  Your U.S. cartel in action.

$$$  Exxon purchased the largest independent natural gas producer, XTO Energy, for a record sum of $41 billion, and holds one the largest global natural gas positions in the world.

$$$  Every U.S. recession, from the 1970s forward, was precipitated, or accompanied, by an oil price spike.  In the most recent recession, Exxon reported record profits in 2008.  The country crumbles and Exxon makes a killing.

$$$  Exxon, and Koch Industries, per a recent Rolling Stone article, are the biggest polluters in America, in terms of air, water and climate change.  This comes from a study conducted by U. Mass – Amherst.

$$$  While many in the GOP, sponsored and owned by Big Oil, still deny climate change, Exxon already admits climate change exists and is in play.

$$$  Koch Industries, and Exxon, are notorious for fighting regulation of their industry, often sighting the potential for job losses; and yet, Big Oil employs very few Americans, only a couple of million, and half those jobs are low paying gas station attendant positions.

$$$  Like any monopoly or cartel (enjoying vertical integration), Exxon and Koch report billions in profits, quarter after quarter, and yet demand tax breaks and tax subsidies from our Federal government.  These Big Oil tax breaks are paid for by the middle class and the upper middle class, who cannot escape paying taxes or afford to buy the GOP to protect their interests.   Meanwhile, with the GOP set to take over both houses on Congress in 2014, tax reform is already considered DOA, by many members of the Republican establishment.  How convenient.

$$$  Koch makes much of its money now through speculation and unregulated and under-collateralized derivative products.  It’s why David and Charles Koch are estimated to be worth $40 billion apiece.  Some now believe that the next financial crisis may not come from the banks, but from unregulated trading and speculation, like that generated by Koch Industries (outside the purview of regulators).  The next major Federal bailout maybe for Koch Industries.

$$$  Per Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, at least $1.00 per gallon of gasoline pumped in the U.S. goes to financial speculators, like Koch Industries, who prey upon the American consumer.  That’s pure profit skimmed right out of your purses and wallets.  Think of it as yet another tax you pay at the pump.

$$$  This means like the Wall Street banks themselves, Big Oil is an extortionist racket.   Keep the tax subsidies coming our way, leave our industry unregulated, let the pollution continue unabated, and nobody – including the economy – gets hurt.  Profits are privatized, while pollution, tax rebates, and the tremendous drag on the economy are socialized.  And thanks to SCOTUS, Big Oil has the power to make and break Presidents.

$$$  The technology exists or soon will exist to power the world by solar energy, making Big Oil obsolete.  Meanwhile, Koch Industries lobbies the Arizona utilities and U.S. legislatures to tax and surcharge homes with solar energy.

$$$  In the last presidential election, Koch told its employees in writing, at Georgia Pacific, to vote Republican.  The letter threatened and utilized fear tactics, and painted a picture of a dystopian future, should President Obama remain in power. 

$$$  With chaos, malaise, and human rights abuses globally, the U.S. foreign policy establishment and MIC have a strange fascination with Iraq.  Since 1990, the U.S. has fought three wars in that country.  Iraq, of course, has one of the largest proven oil deposits in the world.  Halliburton, VP Cheney’s former company, and Exxon have business operations in that country.  Is the U.S. fighting major wars (sending America’s finest) to protect commercial interests and big oil operating in the region? 

If you answered “yes,” you’d be 100% correct.  Meanwhile, the estimated cost of the last failed adventure in Iraq is now north of $2 trillion, and the Fed is still smoking up the printing presses to keep up…. So Exxon and Halliburton can continue operating in Iraq.

So yes, indeed, Big Oil has your back, except…. Your back has rather large knife sticking out of it.  Big Oil placed that knife there.  Exxon is already obsolete, but until solar and alternative energy takes over, this cartel is going to take Americans and the American economy for a ride…. A predatory ride in which you pay, and they manipulate and hold unseemly sway over our economy, our environment, our government and courts, and U.S. foreign policy. 

As for those Saudi and Qatar monarchies?  Well they lobby our government too.  They spread fundamentalist religion and sponsor terror.  And the U.S. government/Congress doesn’t do a thing, and we wonder why when one terrorist group in the Middle-East is eliminated (like Qaeda), another one springs up.

With friends like Exxon, the Koch Brothers, Qatar and Saudi Arabia…. Who needs ISIL.

Perhaps we are fighting the wrong enemies?

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2014