We Are Tired

Hillary was in Chicago yesterday, pushing her presidential bid, courting the union vote, now largely composed of those on the taxpayers' dime. Short video on CBS2.

She predictably attacked the president and Republicans, but saved most of her ire for big bad oil, and of course, she wants a "windfall profits" tax. Sun Times:

"BP should use some of the billions of dollars in excess, windfall profits to fix that pipeline without passing on the cost to the rest of us," Clinton said to thunderous applause. "I am tired of cleaning up the messes of oil companies that are making more money than they know what to do with."

Hillary is tired. Well forgive us if we are too. Tired of this same old luddite lefty mantra that we've heard for 30 years, tired of government and posturing politicians getting in the way of the market, and we are already tired of hearing Hillary's monotonous, hectoring voice.

Has it occurred to Hillary, one of the smartest women in the world, that, when they have them, businesses necessarily plow profits back to maintain and upgrade their facilities? Not to mention paying their workers and dividends to widows and orphans. Ronald Bailey in Reason points out:

Since there is essentially no excess global oil production capacity, prices rise rapidly in response to any disruption or possible disruption. For example, oil prices rose last week when tropical storm Chris looked like it might spin up into hurricane and shut down oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. As late as 2002, the world enjoyed a production cushion of 6 million barrels per day. Today, excess capacity has fallen to less than 1 million barrels per day. What happened? In the 1990s oil sold for around $10 per barrel, so cash-strapped oil companies effectively ceased to develop current fields or explore for new fields. They are now playing catch-up to try to meet burgeoning demand.

According to our Energy Secretary the Saudis, among others, are stepping up to fill the gap, so the immediate gap in supply will not have a huge impact on consumers, but we need longer term solutions now.

It is no wonder BPs pipes have started corroding, they are old. Unless we open ANWR, production in Alaska will decline further. American domestic oil production peaked in the 70's, and the NIMBY bunch has blocked building new refineries for over 25 years. That takes us back to Hillary's Marxist-sympathizing days, which she still retains in her approach to the oil markets.

Washington Times, via Powerline, highlights a study by Ernst and Young on oil company "windfall" profits:

Big Oil's record profits attract attention and outrage, but an independent study has found that oil companies do exactly what economic textbooks say they should do with all that money: They invest it in oil exploration and development efforts that eventually should relieve pressure on prices.

The top 20 U.S. and Canadian oil companies actually invested 50 percent more than they earned in the past 10 years in efforts to produce more oil, but adverse geopolitical developments conspired to give them fewer opportunities to expand production while fading oil fields in the U.S. and elsewhere forced them to spend substantially more just to maintain current production, according to the study by the Ernst & Young accounting firm.

The oil companies are doing their jobs, despite the contraints imposed on them by politicians. We need Congress to approve drilling in ANWR, for our economy and our national security, and Hillary would do better to retire the tired old class-warfare rhetoric.