Cleaver’s mea culpa

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s apology for voting to tax Wall Street bonuses was pathetic (3/29, Local, “Cleaver asks for forgiveness over AIG vote”). He states that they had a contract. Well sir, so did the autoworkers.

Corporate America has created two types of politicians — not Republican or Democrat, but those bought and paid for and those for sale. Cleaver just put his sign in his front yard.

We, the taxpayers of America, are bailing out a system that will destroy our country. Corporate capitalism is not the capitalism that made America great. The capitalism that we know rewarded hard work and invention. Corporate capitalism pays huge salaries and bonuses to people who have driven their companies into the ground.

Corporate capitalism (not world demand) brought us $4-a-gallon gas. That was three hedge funds (two of them American) playing pingpong with oil.

The list is endless. Just let them fail.

Dan Lopez
Kansas City

Comments

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

On the subject of petroleum, those that are so anti-petroleum should be required to not consume AT ALL any products that are derived from petroleum inclusive of any energy usage. Go live in hemp tents and eat leaves from trees. Stop being hypocrites.
We have billions of barrels of oil shale and crude untouched. We have trillions of cubic feet of NG yet dipstick states like California import 79% of their NG versus capturing it and creating jobs, hence stimulating their economy and tax base.
As for bonuses, I find it funny that government social worker receiving bonuses for reporting fraudulent numbers and GSEs like Fannie and Freddie are always an exception. WHY? Because they support the current administration. It's all about gangs and special interests. I hope Joe Biden gets his way and shutsdown coal and oil, then hope foreign entities get control of our grid and that will that. let's see how the VH1, hip hop, violent liberal crowd handles a real crisis.

[Engineer]

Of course these people did a great job:"The two companies lost $108 billion in 2008 and have survived only because of two government infusions of cash and loans totaling $400 billion".

[Engineer]

Jim
A few hours ago I heard on TV that Congress has approved something like $210 Million in bonuses for Freddy and Fanny people. This after all the uproar about the AIG bonuses. No information about contracts. The convolutions of Congress get harder and harder to follow.

[Jim]

Back on topic, though:

I think the bill taxing AIG bonuses at 90% was a shameless attempt to capitalize on a burst of fury and appear to be doing something about it. It was a stupid, shortsighted and probably unconstitutional bill.

[Jim]

I think you're right.

A bit off topic, but still interesting.

[Casady]

I do remember the DOE report saying that any real benefit from drilling wouldn't be seen for at least 15 years, and that benefit would be so slight as to be unnoticeable.

You are correct about that Jim. Like I said, the 128B figure is unproven reserves and would be subject to change based on further exploration. And even if the 128B figure is true, we would exhaust these resources in 17.5 years if Buddy has his way (drill baby drill and screw the rest of the world, me first!). Then what? That's not a long time, especially when you consider the lack of progress we've made in the last 20 years regarding our dependence on oil, I think that, at best, we can only home to abate further increases in demand.

I think we basically agree here. We are just discussing semantics at this point.

[Jim]

I'm not so sure, Casady. I seem to remember this discussion last summer, and discovering that the DOE report was outdated or taken out of context in some way. I do remember the DOE report saying that any real benefit from drilling wouldn't be seen for at least 15 years, and that benefit would be so slight as to be unnoticeable.

[Casady]

Believe it or not Jim, Buddy is right about the 60B barrels in ANWR and the OCS. I'm too lazy to dig up the DOE report but I posted here several times. The actual unproven reserves number is something like 128B barrels. Unfortunately, Buddy and others throw this number without an understanding of other factors and limitations that determine market prices. While I and more recently, our good and most thorough friend Marctnts have presented lots of data on this matter from an unbiased perspective, it seems that people like BuffyT just can't be bothered with facts. Note his failure to respond to Marcs questions regarding irrational price elasticities that we saw last summer. Some people just refuse to learn something new. It's quite sad, really.

[Jim]

"60 billion barrels off shore and in the Artic, enough to power 60 million homes and cars for sixty years.."

Speaking of inane comments. You're still clinging onto this debunked lie? This is pathetic, Buddy. Get some new material already.

[Kee]

BTW Rush has a better handle on this then some of the inane comments I have seen in the letters section.

[Kee]

60 billion barrels off shore and in the Artic, enough to power 60 million homes and cars for sixty years.....we are about to run out....right.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

So what should the price of gas and other petroleum products be? Determined by what?
I thnk sneakers are far too expensive and a fair majority of the very same hypocrites that target the energy sector do it while wearing Nike which are assembled with slave labor. So when all you yuppies and gangstas wear Nike, you are supporting the very same greed and corruption you rant about.
Unfortunately the average consumer is ignorant and does not even realize the extensive process involved in delivering petroleum based products. XOM for example had a 14% net margin. Guess who makes the most from a gallon of gas? The government.
Union had their place, they have now become nothing but an apparatus to extort companies and badger non-gang members.
Hard work versus working smart, they are not the same thing and hard work can often lead to getting out worked by someone that is more efficient. YOu wanna dig a ditch, get a shovel, I will get a backhoe and we will see who can get more done, hence make more money. That's not greed, that's capitalism.

[Marctnts]

Okay Kee, I'll play your weak game. Let's say I make 10,000 widgets a day. If I say that I'm now going to make 10,100 of them, but am going to do it about 7 years from now, what do you think it will do to the price of my widgets in the short term.

I'm not against exploration of domestic resources (though I'd like to see some sort of consumption initiatives attached to them), but to think that the market was or would be significantly affected in the short term by the "maybe, some amount, some time in the future" prospects of domestic exploration is nutty.

Remember, worldwide consumption went from 85bbl to 87bbl in two years, yet prices over doubled. Doesn't sound like a price shift caused by supply OR demand, does it?

Call Rush today and ask him what your answer should be. We'll wait for his explanation.

[Kee]

Yeah, a "myriad of issues" a "weak dollar", etc....The only time in economic histroy where increased production of a product would not lower prices. Amazing.

[Marctnts]

And yeah, Cleaver's flop was rather sad. He's desperately trying to make sure he's on the winning side of every issue, which makes it that much easier for him to get caught up in the kind of hype and furor that resulted in the House's bonus confiscation vote.

As much as everyone is deservedly criticizing the AIG and GM folks and their poor decisions and/or lack of planning, I'm really surprised more of a comparison hasn't been drawn to the "ready-fire-aim" approach of Congress as of late.

[Marctnts]

"Corporate capitalism (not world demand) brought us $4-a-gallon gas."

Uh, actually, rampant speculation and a weak US dollar brought us $4 gas.

Talk about your whipping boy issue. To the right, $4 gas was totally the fault of the "no-drill" crowd. To people like Dan, it was the fault of those evil capitalists. Both sides ignore the myriad of issues that actually contributed because it's easier to rest on your talking points than to actually examine an issue.