Texas and Yet Another Failure of Privatization

Beto O'Rourke: Why Texas Oil & Gas Can't Keep Texans Warm

Greg Abbott Lies About Green Energy To Deflect On Freeze Fail - UPDATE: AOC Responds

The Texas grid got crushed because its operators didn’t see the need to prepare for cold weather

Why Does Texas Have Its Own Power Grid?

The failure of privatization in the energy sector and why today’s consumers are reclaiming power

A Cost Comparison ofPublic and Private Water Utility Operation

Privatization of Water and Wastewater Services

Has privatization failed Texas utility customers?

Natural gas, not wind turbines, main driver of Texas power shortage

Texas Mayor Tells Residents To Fend For Themselves

Feds Warned Texas To Weatherize Power Grid The Last Time This Happened

Fox News aired bizarre and wildly misleading claims about Texas' blackouts that pin blame on renewables and climate policies

Why on earth would right-wing people with connections to the fossil fuel industry lie about ‘frozen wind turbines’ in Texas?

How Corporate Welfare Hurts You

The "Free" Market Illusion

U.S. farmers to receive $4.7 billion to offset trade-war losses

As Foxconn breaks ground on Wisconsin plant, incentives hit $4 billion

Proposed Kimberly-Clark subsidies among largest in nation for each job retained

$500 million Green Bay Packaging project receives WEDC support

U.S. dairy subsidies equal 73 percent of producer returns, says new report

Friendly policies keep US oil and coal afloat far more than we thought

The U.S. spends $4 billion a year subsidizing ‘Stalinist-style’ domestic sugar production

US Cotton Subsidies Insulate Producers from Economic Loss

The Oil Industry Needs Taxpayers To Prop Up Nearly Half Of Its New U.S. Drilling

US-Iran Relations

Weekend Reading

Scott Walker, the John Doe Files and How Corporate Cash Influences American Politics
How Privatization Is Killing The Public Sector
Scaring Kids About The National Debt
Wall Street Journal Mourns The Growing Efficiency of the Banking Industry
Elizabeth Warren Asks Obama To Replace Wall Street Regulator For Brazen Conduct
Ruling Against Wall Street Watchdog Decried As Reckless and Partisan
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin Declares 'Oilfield Prayer Day' To Ask God To Protect The State's Oil Industry
Larry Summers Makes The Case For Higher Capital Requirements
Social Security Is Not The Main Driver of the Country's Long-term Budget Problem
Economics Has A Major Blind Spot
Wisconsin Among The Worst Places In U.S. To Start A Business
Talgo Coming Back To Milwaukee
Solution To False 'Benefit Crisis' Isn't Cuts - It's Better Fiscal Policies
America Isn't The Greatest Country On Earth. It's No. 28
The Undercover War Against The Parks
How The Oil & Gas Industry Awakened Oklahoma's Sleeping Fault Lines

Midweek Reading

Concept Of "Limited Government" Is Right-Wing Bunk
Move To Ghost Job & Back Gives Capitol Police Chief Big Raise

Chief Dave Erwin — who has overseen a crackdown on Walker protesters at the statehouse — received an overall salary hike of 11.7%, to $111,067 a year, the same rate as his predecessor. That amounts to an $11,680 annual raise... 

Walker officials took similar steps to skirt civil service salary limits for Deputy Police Chief Dan Blackdeer. His pay jumped by 14.6%, to $96,048, on June 16.

Why Pot Makes You Feel Good
A Texan Tragedy: Ample Oil, No Water
Social Security A Model For Washington Budgetmaking
How The State Borrowed A Billion Dollars To "Cut" Your Taxes
Billion Dollar Blunder
Five Facts About Household Debt In The United States

Weekend Reading

The Addiction
Inequality Is Holding Back The Recovery
Manufacturing Jobs Use To Pay Well. Not Anymore
More Bogosity From Michelle Rhee
This Is Why You're Fat, America
12 Scientific Reasons Humans Are Irrational
2nd Amendment Ratified To Preserve Slavery
What We Know About Video Games & Violence
When Public Outperforms Private In Services
Where The U.S. Imports Its Oil From
World Needs $57 Trillion Infrastructure By 2030

Drilling Won't Do It

Soaring Domestic Production Has Failed To Ease Pain At The Pump

Gas Prices

"Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the backbone of a market economy. Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand relationship. Supply represents how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price. The correlation between price and how much of a good or service is supplied to the market is known as the supply relationship. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand," according to Investopedia.

Oil, being a finite resource, is subject to supply and demand. 

"What the commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices. And America is, for the most part, just a bystander in this story," explained Paul Krugman.

Put That In Your Pipeline & Smoke It

We're broke.  We're drowning in debt. We must sacrifice.

We don't have money for living wages, improved transportation infrastructure, or green energy projects.

But we have - seemingly unlimited - money for continuing tax breaks for the wealthy, corporate giveaways, continued building of new roads to nowhere, and billions for filthy energy sources.

To help the already heavily subsidized fossil fuel industry, we (along with TransCanada) are now planning on building a pipeline to deliver crude from Canada down to the Gulf Coast.

"There will be jobs!"

Indeed. But not nearly the amount the boosters claim.

And, wouldn't green infrastructure jobs be a better investment for the future of the U.S.? Wouldn't such a green investment place the U.S. and our industries in a better competitive position? Couldn't such a green initiative be the leap forward (which the U.S. needs) to positioning America as an attractive place to live and work versus our global competitors?

We can continue subsidizing old, obsolete industries and maintain our steady downward spiral into insignificance. The other option is to actually put our money where our mouth is by building sustainable, efficient infrastructure and assuring the relevance of the U.S. into the next century.

For Further Reading:
Economic Value Of Green Infrastructure
Dirty Oil From Canada To Texas
Green Infrastructure
Green Water Infrastructure
Pipeline Bad For Environment

Fake Messiahs

Articles thoroughly debunking the effectiveness and honesty of Mitt Romney and Rick Perry:

As Bain Slashed Jobs...

Bain Record of Job Cuts

Biggest Hypocrite in Texas

Eight Things to Know About Rick Perry

Mitt Romney: The Huckster

Perry Rides An Energy Boom

Rick Perry, closet Keynesian?

Rick Perry's Texas Miracle

Rick Perry: The Texas Miracle That Wasn't

Romney's Fortunes Tied to Business Riches

Texas is a Complete Disaster

The Texas "Miracle"

Snow Day Reading

Disconnect Between Economic Growth & Median Income

Koch Brothers Earned Billions, Laid Off Thousands

Obama's Bid To End Oil Subsidies

Obscene Bonuses For Execs

There's No Such Thing As The Free Market

Wall Street Pay Hits Record High

Weekend Reading

Health Care:
U.S. Ranks Last In Health Care

Real Estate:
Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages Are The Rich

Oil:
As Oil Industry Fights A Tax, It Reaps Subsidies
What Oil & Gas Companies Extract - From The American Public

Corporate Loopholes:
Will The Carried Interest Loophole Finally Be Closed?
Loopholes For Subchapter S Corporation Will Not Help Small Businesses

Income & Taxation:
All Americans Pay Taxes
Art Laffer: Make Up Your Own Facts Here
CBO Data On Taxes And Income

Budgets & Unemployment:
What Is Driving State Budget Woes? Unemployment
Unemployment, Not Budget Practices, To Blame For State Woes

Science:
The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries

Urban Issues:
Downtown Population Boom
Foreclosures Point To Waning Of The Suburban Era
Sprawling Cities Experience Hotter Summer Temperatures
Suburban Population Growth Slows

One Man, So Much Evil

Looks like the numero uno evil curmudgeon - Dick Cheney - has his imprint all over the BP disaster. Not only did he formerly run Halliburton (with a record of shoddy work and fraud), which cemented the deep water drill hole improperly, he also decided precautionary oil well shut-offs were too expensive and allowed oil companies to ignore this safeguard.

Seems as though the, "It's Bush's fault" mantra still holds.

For Further Reading:
Beyond Petroleum or Beyond Preposterous?
Halliburton
Halliburton Corporate Crimes
Halliburton/Cheney Chronology
Halliburton Exec on Fraud Charges
Halliburton Get $70 Million Despite Fraud
Halliburton Scandal
Halliburton Sex Slave Scandal
KBR Linked to $13 Billion in Fraud
Making of Halliburton
War Profiteering

"Inexplicable"

A lawmaker blocking a vote on raising the liability cap pertaining to oil companies?

Time Is On Our Side

Time is not on anybody's side.

Oil's Slippery Logic

Bush, as usual, is blaming his incompetence on Congress, alleging gas prices are their fault. Congress is actually doing the American people a favor by not allowing such misguided policies to continue, and finally doing what Jimmy Carter recommend we do during the oil crisis of the 1970s – trying to get off oil!

The oil companies have millions of acres of land already, federal land leased to oil/energy companies, which they are choosing not to explore nor drill for oil. The latest claim that they must be given more land and allowed to drill in ANWR is ridiculous .

As Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader, details: 33.5 million outer continental shelf acres are not being drilled; 34.2 million onshore acres under lease are not being drilled; there are 7,740 active leases in the outer continental shelf and only 1,655 in production; there are over 41,000,000 acres in the outer continental shelf that have been leased for drilling, yet only 8,123,000 acres are in production.

The answer isn’t more tax breaks for oil companies based on the lame excuse that they need such for competitive reasons or because they need such for exploratory purposes, nor is it spending more money drilling every possible piece of land on the planet. The answer, sorry to say, is a lifestyle change for much of the planet (walking more, driving less, consuming locally, etc.) and investment in alternative energies. Jeff Rubin informs, “For the past half century, America has spent the bulk of its infrastructure money on building highways.” This has led to us sprawling outward and driving more, subsidized by cheap gas. Part of the solution to our problem is denser living and public transportation.

Jeff Hooke and Steve Wamhoff declare, “Among the largest five oil companies, less than 8 percent of profit goes to exploration for new oil fields. In the top five oil companies, managers have actually directed most of their excess cash to dividends and stock repurchases, both of which drive up the companies’ share prices and the executives’ stock option values.” And, the claim by the oil industry of an interest in alternative energy – from 2000 to 2005 the industry spent $1.2 billion on alternatives to fossil fuels; the industry earned $383 billion over this same period.

Subsidized (regarding oil companies) implies that gasoline prices paid by consumers do no reflect the full economic cost to society. Some direct and indirect public subsidies are reduced corporate income taxes, lower than average sales taxes on gasoline, government funding of programs that primarily benefit the oil industry or motorists, and hidden environmental costs caused by motor vehicles. As Doug Koplow asserts, “Tax subsidies are the result of selective tax legislation that benefit particular groups of people or industries in the economy.”

States using combined reporting are capturing more of their fair share of taxes from oil companies. Otherwise, companies shift costs and profits between subsidiaries in different states to avoid taxation or lower their rate as much as possible.

A Union of Concerned Scientist's report lists a battery of oil industry subsidies:

• Oil industry taxed at 11 percent ($2 billion per year benefit)
• Low state and local sales tax rates on gasoline, indirect subsidy exceeding $4 billion per year
• Direct government funding of oil and motor vehicle infrastructure and services costing $45 billion a year
• Oil-related health and environmental damage, roughly $232 billion annually

Douglas Koplow and Aaron Martin of Industrial Economics found:

• Maintaining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve costs $5.4 billion
• Tax break for domestic oil exploration and production $2.3 billion
• Support for oil-related exports and foreign production $1.6 billion

The Alliance to Save Energy detail that state and local governments taxed gasoline at about half the rate as other goods resulting in an estimated $2.7 billion revenue loss from gasoline sales.

Mark Zepezauer and Arthur Naiman explain how oil companies are also allowed to deduct 15 percent of the gross income they derive from oil and gas wells from their taxable incomes (the oil depletion allowance), and continue to do that for as long as those wells are still producing. Other shameful tax allowances include the enhanced oil recovery credit and the percentage depletion allowance, among many other tax breaks.

Citizens for Tax Justic further note, “Oil companies can write-off so-called intangible drilling costs, that is, much of their investments in finding and developing domestic oil and gas wells, immediately, even for successful wells.” Another gimmick is passive income limitations, whereby, “the working interest holder who manages on behalf of himself and all other owners the development of wells and incurs all the costs of their operation, may use oil and gas losses to shelter income from other sources.”

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy observe that the oil and gas sector is the nation’s lowest-taxed industry, paying an effective income tax rate of only 5.7 percent.

And, comparatively speaking, the U.S. still has some of the cheapest gas on the planet. Of 155 countries surveyed for a CNN Money article, U.S. gas prices were the 45th cheapest. Most of Europe has prices hovering around $8 a gallon. Our cheap gas prices are primarily responsible for our love affair with SUVs, our oversized McMansions, and our unnecessarily long commutes. The U.S. federal tax on gas is 18 cents per gallon, low by global standards. Since 1980, oil use in the UK has stayed flat, in France its dropped 17 percent, but in the U.S. it’s gone up 21 percent.

For Further Reading:
Oil Slickers: How Petroleum Benefits at the Taxpayers Expense.