Gas Prices: Oil Execs Again Tell Congress; "Forget About It!"

For the twelfth time in the past few years the Congress of the United States of America sent out the posse to round up a band of dirty, rotten, rustlin' cowboy oil executives for a lynching.
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Above: Evil Oil Boss....

And for the twelfth time, during the "show trial" that is Congressional Committee testimony on C-SPAN, the Congressmen (or in today's case, Senators) got a lesson in good old fashioned economics.
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Above: BP America Chairman Robert Malone, left, and Shell Oil President John Hofmeister, are sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 21, 2008, prior to testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oil prices. Several other oil executives participated in today's hearing.

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee took a crack at the Big Oil Bad Boys.

Asked what the price of oil should be, several of the oil executives were all over the map. 

But Stephen Simon, senior vice president of ExxonMobil, declined to give a price estimate.

“I have no idea what the price should be today,” Simon said. “I think the market determines that, senator.”

What a concept!  The price of oranges, milk, meat and lettuce is determined by the market.

Might also the market determine the price of oil?

Try as we might to hate and demonize the American Oil Establishment, those dirty, rotten scoundrels who actually make money for their stockholders (EGAD!), there are a few simple facts that always seem to rear their ugly heads:

a) America is not the only customer that OPEC or any other oil producer has....We are only about 25% of the world market....

b)  We keep demanding more for less while India and China will pay more than us so they, not we Yanks, set the price of oil....The President of The United States even asked the Saudis for more with less money last week and the answer was "No."  We can pretty much expect that the answer will always be "no," especially when the House of Representatives (as it did yesterday) decides to sue OPEC....

c)  Since we Americans are so enamored with environmental purity that we have laws that make drilling for oil or building new, more efficient refineries a crazy economic idea for any company.... we are at the mercy of OPEC and the other suppliers....

d)  And finally, you can forget about the summer sojourn on Route 66 that took you across American on a lark in 1955 because your kids probably won't be able to afford it....

We are in a new world, at least for a spell, of higher oil prices and inflation over all.

And there isn't a lot Barack Obama, John McCain or anyone else will be able to do about it as long as the House and the Senate act like a gang of childish morons....

Related:
As oil tops $133, execs again blame supply and demand

Oil Buys Now Fear Shortage, Driving Up Futures Prices

http://johnibiii.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/sue-oil-suppliers-congress-says-go-for-it/

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A protester holds a sign while Chairman and President of BP America Inc. Robert Malone, President of Shell Oil Company John Hofmeister, Vice Chairman of the Board of Chevron Corporation Peter Robertson, Executive Vice President of the ConocoPhillips Company John Lowe, and Senior Vice President of the Exxon Mobil Corporation Stephen Simon, testify about the rising cost of gas prices before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, May 21, 2008