On The Third Hand

During the last two US presidential elections two of the most common memes retailed by leftists, Democrats and moonbats of many stripes were the “No War for Oil” and the Cheney/Halliburton connections. Bear with me a minute and imagine this scenario for a moment:

What if Bush had made television, radio, or newspaper advertisments for one particular oil company? Suppose Cheney did a TV spot for Exxon stations or Havoline motor oil? The obvious answer is they never would have been elected or impeached if in office.

What that in mind, why is it Philippine President Arroyo is pimping for Petron oil corporation?

A DAY after a nationwide transport strike crippled public transport in key cities, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urged the public to buy petroleum products from the quasi-government Petron Corp.

“We’re calling on everybody to buy from Petron rather than from rival firms because this is a deregulated environment. It’s demand and supply,” the President said yesterday at a news conference in Malacañang.

Petron, which is 40-percent owned by the government and has a market share of 38 percent, has not raised its prices the past few weeks.

‘Splain something to me. How does the theory of supply and demand work if, 1. A company is partially owned by the government, and 2, that company is under undue pressure not to raise prices due to item number 1. And last but certainly not least, what is the Filipino definition of “deregulated” if the President can pimp one company over all others in the press?

It should be noted President Arroyo has a doctorate in economics. She must have been ill on “supply and demand” day. The “deregulated environment” she refers to is Republic Act No. 8479, the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998. A section of that act allows oil firms to raise prices without seeking government approval.

Eeegads, just like a free market supply and demand system.

As if this absurdity wasn’t enough, the other oil companies are threathened with jail sentences for not reading their mail.

Officials of oil firms may face two-year prison sentences if they refuse to explain to the Department of Energy (DoE) by 5 p.m. today why they raised fuel prices by 75 centavos a liter over the weekend despite dropping world oil prices.

Energy Undersecretary Peter Anthony Abaya said the DoE yesterday sent another letter to the oil firms, seeking an explanation for the price increases, as the first letter went unheeded.

He said Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla had asked oil companies, through a letter sent Monday, to explain under oath their latest price increases, which came at a time when world prices had gone down by more than 10 percent from all-time highs.

Let me preface this by saying, I in no way defend any oil company. To believe their pricing methods are on the up and up is delusional. But these idiots are about a liter short of a full gallon of gas. Do they really believe as the Mid-East oil ticks raise or lower the price of oil - as a result of world demand - it would by some type of petroleum magic be reflected at the pump? Have they never heard of the futures market? Have they no understanding that the gas pumped today was bought at a price set months ago and is unrelated to what is quoted in today’s papers?

I don’t believe it for a minute, I don’t believe they are as dumb as a box of rocks. This is just another case of knee jerk politics practiced to perfection by the Arroyo administration.

Not to be out done by the Palace, members of Congress have weighed in with proposals to cease purchasing oil from OPEC and only buying oil from China and Russia. The most incredulous idea comes from a militant transport group (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan) and one of the organizers of Monday’s transport strike that crippled Manila. The groups secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said “scrapping of the Oil Deregulation Law and the nationalization of the oil industry were the solutions to the crisis.”

Yea that’ll work. The government owns the biggest electric producer in the country that is billions of dollars in the red and charges the highest electricity rates in Asia,. These children need to go back to their sandbox and fight the real issues of the country. Over population, a sky high unemployment rate, and federal deficit reduction.

Cross posted within the Cranial Cavity