The Great Dissembler

OK, want to know why I detest Chuck Schumer?:

NY Times, 1999, on releasing strategic reserves...

Mr. Schumer said the United States should begin selling a few hundred thousand gallons a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which now contains 571 million gallons. ''A relatively modest amount of oil released from our oil reserves will keep prices flat and actually reduce them,'' he said.

April 30, 2008

Senator Schumer, responding to Bush’s ANWR proposal: ““And what does the President do? He takes out the old saw of ANWR. ANWR wouldn’t produce a drop of oil in 10 years, and its estimated that if they drilled in ANWR in twenty years it would reduce the price one penny.

You should know ANWR will produce 1 million barrels a day.

May 14, 2008

“If Saudi Arabia were to increase its production by 1 million barrels per day that translates to a reduction of 20 percent to 25 percent in the world price of crude oil, and crude oil prices could fall by more than $25 dollar per barrel from its current level of $126 per barrel,” Schumer insisted during a speech on the Senate floor.

“In turn, that would lower the price of gasoline between 13 percent and 17 percent, or by more than 62 cents off the expected summer regular-grade price – offering much needed relief to struggling families,” he added.

It doesn't matter what the truth is, only what it should be.

Of note, you won't have read in the news, President Bush recently contacted Saudi Arabia and asked for an increase in output. The country said it will increase 300,000 bbls a day.

Schumer made the recent comments in the current show trial of the oil industry. Exxon said it takes $22 million to run the largest company in the world (equal to, what, three Representatives). Just to put things into perspective, if the entire company waived its costs and salaries, gas would drop something like .001 cents.

Who owns Exxon? We do - 42% is held by mutual funds as part of IRA's, etc. What an outrage, we are shoring up our retirements. Big Oil is the teacher's fund.

We need to stop thinking like simpletons.

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When Schumer was in Congress in the 1990s, he was on the committee looking into President Clinton's actions and comments. (The impeachment) He howled on TV, it was for the Senate to look into all the detail, not part of the House's role; that the information was part of mud-slinging (the context). A few months later, he became NY's Senator.

After being sworn in and put on the Senate judicial committee hearing the case against Clinton, he protested the Senate should not be hearing (on TV) all sorts of damning evidence because it was the House's job, i.e. that all the bad information was mad-slinging.

That is when I lost interest in him. I guess Brooklyn likes this sort of dissembling. For some, honor means getting what you want.
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Today's Tidbit: Our strategic reserve is 702 million barrels, plus 90 days of oil from private companies, purchased at an average of $28 per barrel. (I would sell it, now, surreptitiously. When it gets out we are selling the price will collapse in confusion and we would have made billions - but that is not how bureaucrats think.)