Political Cartoon

Oil is Humanity’s Original Sin

The BP oil spill in the gulf has been the cause of an enormous amount of editorial. If you are a Democrat the villain is BP, Tony Hayward and “Big Oil” and if you are a Republican it is the federal government’s lack of oversight and more recently President Obama and his “Shake Down” of $20 Billion from BP.

I personally believe the villain in this story is all of humanity and that oil, for now, is our original sin.

Consider the morality of eating meat. Meat, being made from animals, requires the death of the animal to fulfill our consumption of it. Would it be productive to vilify the slaughterhouse, excoriate the butcher and resent the clerk at the deli counter but have no feelings of remorse or responsibility while eating that sandwich? The simple fact is the supply chain from rancher to grocer exists to deliver parts of dead animals for our consumption. In much the same way, the oil industry and the risks they take are one-in-the-same as the risks we take to have the oil available to us. Our standard of living is delivered to us by oil. When you see an oil covered albatross, that’s your oil covered albatross.

The reality is if it flies, someone will crash it. If it rolls, someone will wrap it around a tree, and if it floats someone will sink it. Technology, from transportation to chemical manufacturing to oil exploration is all done for the benefit of humanity and in the end, all of the activities that provide the conveniences of a 21st century life have risks. From a thirty-thousand foot view, the BP oil well disaster is still ongoing is just another industrial disaster. It may be worse than crashing a 747 loaded with people or better than hitting a school bus load of children with a freight train but in the end it is just another disaster that is the result of getting the products and services that humanity wants to the places they need to be. Underneath all the bluster and anger focused at BP is a denial that we are all to blame. It is counter productive to a boot on the throat of BP when the truth is, we all couldn’t or wouldn’t want to live without oil. To do anything less than take full responsibility for our own culpability in this accident is nothing less than hypocritical.

It makes much more sense to me to realize the best that man can do is find a harmony with nature where we are neither preservationists to the exclusion of modernity nor consumers to the exclusion of a healthy environment. To me, we should endeavor to be good stewards of the environment where minerals are mined, the earth is altered and animals are eaten with an eye to being responsible and yet with a clear understanding and personal ownership of the risks and responsibilities involved. After all, the most important animal on this planet is the human animal.

I Like the BP Guy More than the Clowns Who Grilled Him

Every time a bunch of congressmen get some capitalist “villains” in their cross-hairs – whether they’re  bankers from Wall Street or carmakers from Detroit or most recently Tony Hayward from BP — and take shots at them for hours on end on national television, I wind up rooting for the “bad guy.”

It’s not that I think the money boys from Wall Street are saints, or the guys who run the car companies in Detroit are so wonderful, or that BP should be nominated for a Nobel Prize.  It’s just that I have a hard time listening to a bunch of sanctimonious, windbag politicians who couldn’t run a lemonade stand put on their populist tinfoil hats and treat the poor bastards worse than they would treat Osama bin Laden if he showed up at one of their sub-committee hearings.

I watched the BP hearings and am wondering if I’m the only one who feels sorry for Tony Hayward. Look, if it turns out that what happened in the Gulf was more than a terrible accident, if it turns out that BP was cutting corners to increase profits, then it’s fine with me if the government brings criminal charges against anyone and everyone who was responsible.  It just irks me to watch a parade of nitwits who live in glass houses throw boulders at the guy.

One of my fantasies is to see the tables turned on those politicians who treat CEOs like war criminals.  Imagine if we could grill them they way they grill everyone else.

US: Congressman Waxman, is it true that you voted YES on Bill XYZ, a bill that ultimately cost American taxpayers $20 billion dollars when you told them it would cost $20 MILLION?

WAXMAN: It was George Bush’s fault.

US: Do the honorable thing, Congressman:  RESIGN!

US: Is it true, Senator Reid, that you voted for numerous laws that cost us billions of dollars knowing full well we didn’t have that kind of money to spend?

REID: It was George Bush’s fault.

US: The Capitol Police are coming down the aisle to take you to Andrews Air Force Base for a flight to Syria where you will be undergo further – let’s call it – questioning.

US: And is it true, Congressman Rangel, that you – and the other bozos that somehow keep getting elected – have spent this country so far into a hole that we may never get out?

RANGEL: Are you asking me that because I’m black?

US: No, we’re asking you that because you were the head of the powerful Ways and Means committee until you resigned under pressure because of your tax problems.

RANGEL: It’s George Bush’s fault.

US: Senator Boxer, How in the world could you get us $12 trillion dollars in debt and make us so dependent on the Chinese government to buy our bonds in order to finance your reckless spending?

BOXER: It was George Bush’s fault.

US: Two words, Senator:  Carly Fiorina.

US: Congressman Frank, would you resign here and now to make amends for your role in the financial meltdown – a meltdown that almost plunged this nation into a second Great Depression?

FRANK: It was Bill O’Reilly’s fault.

I don’t care if Bill O’Reilly grills these pinheads or if Chris Wallace or David Gregory or Candy Crowley subjects them to tough questions.  I just can’t take it when the very people who have left us on the brink of financial disaster thanks to their reckless spending, go on national TV and pretend to be holier than everybody else.

Sorry,  but I like the guy who runs BP more than I like any of the clowns who knocked him around the ring for six hours  — even though  I don’t care if he gets fired for what his company did.  I just hope the voters come to their senses this November and fire the mob that is demanding his head.

Incompetence Abounds

Amidst all the political jockeying over the BP catastrophe, the main players are missing what is really uppermost on America’s mind: It’s the spill rate, stupid. It’s jobs, stupid. It’s the economy, stupid. And none of it is happening.

All eyes in Washington, Wall Street, and Main Street were turned this week to the congressional show trial featuring beleaguered BP CEO Tony Hayward. Hayward was a disaster. He played dumb. He stonewalled. And he never got honest about the colossal failure of human judgment at BP that caused this catastrophe.

But folks, seriously, what did you expect? Before this thing is said and done, Hayward and others at BP may very well be criminally indicted by the Justice Department. Hayward could eventually do hard time for all I know. So, of course, he stonewalled. Thank Eric Holder.

What Hayward should at least have done is talk about the progress being made in capping the spill rate, which is gradually going down. To most Americans, and especially those in the Gulf, it’s the spill rate of capture that matters most. Hayward also should have talked about the new BP relief well, which could be up and running in less than a month, to end this disaster. That would be great news for America, and her economy and stock market. Plus, he could have mentioned that BP is hiring thousands of workers to fill new jobs in the cleanup effort.

BP CEO Tony Hayward

But Hayward was lawyered to the gills, which doesn’t make anyone happy, including me. And that’s precisely why these congressional show trials leave me bored, tired, and depressed.

And oh, by the way, what’s the role of Congress in this catastrophe? What exactly is it doing besides presiding over these show trials? Doesn’t it have oversight authority when it comes to the Minerals Management Service that utterly failed to regulate the safety of BP’s deep-water drilling operations? Why aren’t more people talking about this?

And why in the world hasn’t Congress suspended the Jones Act, thereby allowing foreign-flag tankers into the Gulf area? What is it waiting for? We’re basically two months into this never-ending disaster. The Gulf cleanup could have been greatly aided by at least 15 foreign countries that were instead spurned after offering their tankers and other equipment. Why aren’t we accepting these offers of help?

And where, really, is the president in all this? Speaking to the nation from the Oval Office earlier in the week, he failed to declare a Jones Act waiver, and he made no call for a task force of hands-on oilmen from the likes of ExxonMobil and other big oil sisters who actually know what they are doing.

Another problem with Obama’s address was his arrogant announcement that he would inform BP’s CEO “that he is to set aside” an asset amount ($20 billion) for the government-run escrow fund to pay for the spill damages. Trouble is, there are no laws to permit our government to force such financial retribution. Not even a new TARP, at least not yet. Did someone say nationalization?

The government has no right interfering with the financial decisions of a private, shareholder-owned corporation. This sounds like GM and Chrysler all over again. Or maybe health insurers, pharmaceuticals, private investment funds, and multinational corporations. And it could end up having a serious and chilling effect on corporate investment.

Look, at least BP already agreed to pony up. Why should the government control this? Isn’t this another case of the Obama administration bullying, taxing, and regulating business as part of a social agenda to redistribute income and power from private enterprise to government? It’s a war on profits and capital.

Consider this: American companies are sitting on an astonishing pile of $1.5 trillion in unused cash. Why aren’t they investing to create new jobs? Well, it’s because massive tax and regulatory threats coming out of Washington have created a tall barrier of disincentives and uncertainty that is blocking the normal efficiency of the free-market capitalist system.

The instincts of our free economy are to promote growth. But when government blunts these instincts, the system ceases to work efficiently.

Americans do not want a cap-and-trade system. What they do want is a full-throated and comprehensive energy plan conducted on all fronts — carbon and non-carbon — that would unleash energy entrepreneurs and existing businesses to create more power and more jobs and more economic growth. Besides stopping the spill, this is the key point that Obama misses.

So, if BP is dirty, and if BP is incompetent, then so is Congress. And so is the White House, as far as I’m concerned.

The BP story is a total outrage. Once again America is not getting what it needs.