The Marxists are After the Oil Companies Yet Again

So Obama is out there again on these tax "subsidies" for oil companies. And it's only a matter of time before we hear about those evil "speculators" again. Well let's deal with the first one first, shall we?

It's already been shown that the big oil companies like Exxon-Mobil do not receive these so-called "subsidies" anymore. And they haven't for decades. A former Democrat Congressman is on the record as confirming this, even.

Secondly, let's talk about the oil commodity market, and the commodity markets in general.

The Marxists would have you believe that these boogey-man speculators are always driving up the cost of oil on some magical market where they are always making tons of money at the expense of the consumer. This is probably what the average Joe gets from the propaganda. "Speculators" drive up the price on the market, and the money they make comes directly from you when you fill up your vehicle, right? Wrong.

The oil commodity market, and any commodity market works just like any other market. There are buyers and sellers. The buyers bet that there are more people buying to increase the cost so they can sell the contracts of oil (corn, wheat, whatever) for a higher price than they bought it. Who are the sellers? The sellers are either people who sell contracts for a profit to the new buyer, or are selling on a bet the price will go lower instead of higher. I've been in the currency and commodity markets. And let me tell you through firsthand experience you can make money. Or at anytime if you bet the wrong way, you can also lose your shirt off your back. People who are buying oil contracts today could very well lose big time if something fundamental were to happen to suddenly cause more sellers than buyers to come into the market and in turn cause the price to dip. (Less demand, more supply -- you just can't get away from that supply and demand fundamental thing, can you?)

Say, for example, if our Marxist President were replaced and the new President actually stopped obstructing domestic oil production. Long before the first drop of oil was extracted, more sellers would come into the market just because of the perceived major shift in supply to come in the market. In the markets, prices always are reflective of policy and future events, such as in the stock market. The price of a stock isn't based on what a company has done in the past quarter, but what it is expected to do in the next quarter and beyond. The same holds true for a commodity market as well. Except in this case, the quarterly earnings/cash flow becomes how much of that product is expected to be produced.

So in other words, the buyers driving the market aren't making money off of you. They're making money off the losing sellers in the same market. And the opposite would hold true if the price of oil were falling. And you cannot, no matter how much you propagandize, get away from fundamental concepts like supply and demand.

Tweet

Justice Kennedy sounding like Mark Levin

In at least one very important statement, the swing vote of the Nine said "[the individual mandate]changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a fundamental way."

Perhaps there is some hope Justice Kennedy has a sense of freedom and liberty after all.

Audio here

UPDATE 3/28 0900: Levin indeed confirmed on his radio show last night that this question came directly from his legal group's brief to the court.

The Obsession over National Polls

The obsession over national polls for President needs to stop. Why? Because they mean nothing. No, really. They are meaningless.

Anybody who knows how the process even works knows that the President isn't elected by national popular vote. It was designed that way on purpose to make sure one or two areas of the country didn't have the whole say in who the President would be. The candidate can lose the national popular vote and still win office because he wins the bi-polar states that can't decide if they like freedom or not.

Instead of looking at national polls, we should be concentrating on individual states that matter. Florida, Ohio, and states that went for Obama that shouldn't have, like Virginia and North Carolina are where polls matter. Pennsylvania, which elected conservatives to both the U.S. Senate and their governor's office in 2010 also could play a key role. And the last time I checked, Obama was getting shellacked in Ohio and wasn't doing very well in the other states mentioned either.

The point is we know California and New York state are going to go for Obama. We know Texas is going to go to the Republican nominee. The question is, what are the so-called swing states and aberrations like North Carolina going to do? The answer at the moment is kick Obama's rear to the curb come November.

EDIT: So apparently some, including Mark Levin have found updated polls showing Romney trailing Obama in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. I've never been comfortable with a Romney-Obama contest because of Romney's weakness when it comes to socialized medicine. I'm still holding out the hope for a brokered convention.