In a New York Times story (8/24/12) about Mitt Romney’s energy proposals, reporters Eric Lipton and Clifford Krauss make this observation:
With gasoline prices again approaching $4 a gallon, Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, is also trying to merge energy and economic policy in a way that will make voters see increased energy production as a pocketbook issue.
Note that Lipton and Krauss don’t say that increased U.S. energy production will actually affect the $4-a-gallon price of gas and hence the voters’ pocketbooks; that would be inaccurate, since oil is a global commodity and it’s impossible for the U.S. to increase its production enough to change it substantially. In fact, with the formulation “in a way that will make voters see,” the Times reporters suggest that they are well aware that increased oil drilling will not actually alter gas prices—that this is a matter of changing public perceptions, not economic realities.
Photo by Charles Crosbie.
But then, Lipton and Krass don’t do anything in their piece to let the reader know that the implied connection between increased drilling and lower gas prices is fraudulent. They’re like savvy audience members at a magic show, able to see how the tricks are done but choosing not to give away the secrets to those who are taken in.
“In a way that will make voters see” is the wink, Lipton and Krauss’s way of showing that they don’t actually believe rabbits can magically appear in hats, even as they allow most of their readers to persist in that delusion.
I see Romney as less of a magician
And more of a three card monte dealer.
That, of course, goes for his major party opponent, as well.
No one loses at a magic show.
We all lose no matter the outcome come November.
When will the press go back to reporting and stop just doing PR for the elites?
Romney has a curious way of thinking about North America. I think I heard him say that all our oil would come from N.America and I think he also said that the US would be independent of foreign oil. Anyone wonder exactly what he’s planning? Or is it possible that he is as deficient in geography as he is in diplomacy?
“I see Romney as less of a magician
And more of a three card monte dealer.”
The posting does not assert that Romney is a magician. It says Lipton and Krass are “like savvy audience members at a magic show.”
Memo to Doug Latimer: Why don’t you at least read the posting before you fire off your inane comments?
What bothers me is not Romney playing the magician, nor that the reporters see through the trick and are taking fun at the expense of the watchers, but all the rubes in the audience standing around thinking ‘how clever, he is ripping off them dum leeberals’ and never once question the actions of the Magician or his assistants in the audience who picking their pockets while they stand and watch the show.
Oy …
John, first off … didn’t your momma teach you anything about respectful disagreement? Or is your pissantry a product of your own inability and unwillingness to socialize?
Secondly, the metaphor concerns a magic show. In that metaphor, Romney perforce is the magician.
Two plus two equals four in my world.
But perhaps that qualifies as inane in yours.
Lastly, anal retentiveness is a debilitating social disease. I implore you to seek immediate professional help.
That corn cob’s got to be a real pain in the ass.
There is a difference between conjuring and chicanery. I’m sure that The Great Ballantine is rolling over in his grave.
Bullshit.Bullshit……Bullshit.To actually believe that arriving at the happy fact that we sit on a veritable ocean of energy.Enough to serve all our needs for hundreds of years.And that tapping that resource will have no effect on our energy policy ,and the cost of gas here,because gas is a global commodity……Do you take us for complete fools?Does the left actually believe they can get away with such moronic statements?Obama cant “FEED” himself because he doesn’t believe in the food,and his followers dont like how the food is taken.Little like a vegan starving on a deserted island loaded with goats.Well when Mitt gets in-we will in effect ,to quote a lovely lady ….”drill baby drill”.And children……thats a good thing all around.
You’re right that Romney perforce is the magician. My mistake.
As for respectful disagreement, though, I don’t think your comment qualifies.
@michael e: It’s not BS. It’s not even far-fetched. Several reports on the subject say that opening up all currently off-limits oil reserves to drilling will impact gas prices by about 8 cents per gallon 20 or so years from now.
Unless you nationalize all the oil and refinery companies, they’re gonna sell their product on the global market to the highest bidder.
If you think that’s inaccurate, cite to a study that says otherwise. Because the notion that “more US oil = lower gas prices,” while sounding pretty appealing, doesn’t have a lot of proof backing it up.
John, when you shit on someone, you shouldn’t expect them to wipe your ass, wouldn’t you agree?
“Inane” is a pejorative term, stating the bleeding obvious, and you need to think hard about what motivated you to use it, and make such snarky remarks in general.
That is, if you have any aspiration to menschiness, which I have to deeply doubt from what I’ve seen.
But if I’m mistaken, an apology would be welcome, and in turn, I’ll rescind my comments, as you will have then shown the respect so profoundly lacking previously.
How’s that sound to you?
And please use some variant of my name when and if you respond. I search on “doug” and “latim” for replies to my posts, and might miss one missing same.
Much obliged.
“”To actually believe that arriving at the happy fact that we sit on a veritable ocean of energy. Enough to serve all our needs for hundreds of years. – MichealE””
Really? Would like to share where this veritable ocean of energy is? On Mars where you seem to live because you have zero clue about this planet. The fact is that those ‘resources’ you believe are so readily available require far more to extract and process than the current costs would allow; so even if they start tapping those resources, it won’t do shit because the only way the corporations are going to try and process that oil is when it becomes ‘cost effective’, meaning the price of gas and fuel oil will have to increase even further and stay there; otherwise the profit margin isn’t there, and no corporation in american today is going to go spend a dime unless it’s guaranteed produce a dollar in the next second.
“”And that tapping that resource will have no effect on our energy policy ,and the cost of gas here,because gas is a global commodity…… Micheal””
Apparently you have no clue about economics either – 1) if there is a commodity being produced and you decide to open a factory to produce an additional 10%, your output will have little effect on the price of the commodity, regardless of how cheap you can produce it.
2) It will take some time to set up the equipment to process that supposed commodity, which means that even though if your going to produce enough to significantly effect the pricing, its not going to happen in the next week, month or even Year.
So, yes all the supposed oil that you believe you have found somewhere, even though most oil companies and exploration companies wouldn’t agree with you, will take more money than it’s worth, and would not have any effect for a long time.
Wait I just realized, you don’t understand Economics, Science, Engineering, or Manufacturing – Mitt aren’t you supposed to be talking at your Convention in Florida today, you shouldn’t be here playing around.
@ Doug Latimer: You drive me nuts because you know what’s going on in the world, but you respond, here at least, by getting here first with fatuous comments — not always fatuous to be sure, but often. Also, you use junior high school naughty words. How do you expect adults to take you seriously? Maybe you don’t.
I also find it odd that you have never responded (unless I’ve missed some postings) to michael e, who obviously does not know what’s going in the world. And he, bless his tiny little reactionary heart, has attacked many comments here without ever having had anything to say about yours. It has occurred to me that perhaps you and he are the same person, invented by FAIR to stimulate other comment.
But in any case, this blog is not about me, you, or michael e, and at age 82, I’m out of here due to an acute and apparently incurable case of typographical errors. I wish you all the best. Go get ’em, Doug!
I failed to enter my name on the comment above. Now you see why I’m out of here.
Yuo’re wrong, John Q, but whatever . . . .
That’s “you.” Speaking of typos . . . .
Much obliged, Tim.
And my offer stands, should John ever wish to take me up on it.
Romney claimed he would have us drilling for oil in all the protected areas, ANWR, East coast etc. Of course that is never going to happen. If there was ever a magic trick, it is the big oil lie of Drill Baby Drill. This isn’t about oil demands, it is about securing federal lands into the hands of the few, locking those leases in so they will be unavailable to anyone else in the future. It is about fooling around on these lands exploring and having the taxpayer foot the bills.
There is already drilling going on, did it lower gasoline prices? People! The price of oil is set by OPEC, not by the US government. But it would make more sense to have our largest oil trader, Canada, set the price of oil, since we trade with them, have consumer prices and material prices in shared reality.
Do we need to drill? Every above ground oil storage is full, the National Reserves are full, they are building more storage tanks to hide more oil above ground. The US is using less oil & gasoline, fuel for cars has been dropping 3-5% a year with better economic engines, millions not commuting to jobs, transportation slowed by less consumer sales. People! Big oil is shutting down refineries, not building more. They are running the ones that have 70-80% below production that they could be refining.
This country is covered in drilled & capped oil & gas wells. I own one, the Texas firm capped it about 5 years ago, and pays me royalties to let it set there. California has more oil than most European country’s, it oozes out of the ground from the North to the South. Let me explain oil. Oil is free. It has been free for a billion years. It is like water, always been here, plenty of it. Free. And all that oil on federal land belongs to YOU!!!! From Alaska to the tip of Florida, it belongs to YOU, and it is absolutely FREE. It costs .17cents to fill a barrel of oil using an oil pump, and it cost .17 cents to refine 2 gallons of oil, into 1 gallon of gasoline, with 1 gallon of by products left over. So there is a reason that many country’s who have National Oil can sell it to themselves for less than a $1.00 a gallon. So why are you paying $4.00? Capitalism people!! And I mentioned there was 1 gallon of by product from the 2 gallons, it is worth more than the free gallon of gasoline!!! It is jet fuel, diesel, for industry, etc. In the end, National oil would cost us nothing.
Why National oil? To make America competitive globally, by lowering our energy costs, putting more money in workers pockets, reducing the price of goods using oil, transportation costs, etc. And if we sold ourselves $2.00 a gallon gasoline we could pay for 100% National Health Care for everybody. Amazing, but true. And that my friend is the big secret of big oil.
John thank you for the respectful reply.The global market is part of a market system that- it is true will register price increases based on to a greater or lesser extent supply and demand.As configured now the immediate impact on our gas prices would be small.Due to several factors.Our industry(demand )is far down.As is the worlds.An expanding economy would of course be helped in a growing margin to available supply.Thus need and supply would by necessity grow exponentially with a growing national AND international economy.Also our national reserve would be safe….and expanded.Also …..the geopolitical stress of choke points like Iran would be less of a point of contention as its importance was minimized.The danger of hot heads bringing on conflict would be lessoned.We could finally deal in ways with these countries in a way free of the constant worry of protecting our supply lines to energy.My guess is that countries that have had us dancing their tune for many years would find themselves in less of a happy place.Lastly since when is bringing in billions/trillions into our treasury a bad thing?
Now some on this sight have actually said that by stating ( as i have )that having a massive supply of our own energy is a great thing….makes me a person who does not understand the way things work.To those people I simply say you are stone cold knuckle- heads.But I like you.I want to treat you like a brother.Now lets talk about other commodities you may have.Things that turn your fingers green.Things that have never done anyone any good.Things that despoil the earth.Things like gold or silver ……or money(made from sweet wittle trees).Or even land.I will(because im a nice guy)take them off your hands free of charge.Then that will leave you free to commune with nature.Maybe someday you will remember what it was like to have a full refrigerator.A warm car,and house.A supply of firewood.Or maybe I will be wrong.And you will of proven that you don’t need any of those things.Just like we dont need the gas and oil and coal that abounds beneath our feet.Stone cold knuckle heads.How in Gods name can we carry on any dialog with you?
@michael e: There could be countless good reasons to increase domestic oil and gas production. But the one reason Romney is harping on is that it’ll lower gas prices. There’s no good evdence to suggest that. You yourself acknowledge that any impact would be small.
So this article is more about how Romney can keep trotting out that little canard and never be called out on it by anyone in the media.
No John i think Mitt is completely right.It will massively effect everything.Just not short term.I think he is on a scale of 1 to 10- actually playing this at about a 2.I wish to God that he would go at this whole hog.Political considerations define that he play this low key I suppose.Also….It will just not be this year,or maybe even the next that things will change,market forces working as they do..But then ,I think you will see as our refining(down about 50%)capacity is rebuilt, and industry rebuilds -the “fuel” of industry will be there waiting .Instead of wanting.To believe that oil companies will simply use our energy as an offload to make money is naive.That is a canard.And to believe that being energy self sufficient will not help us is just simply not true. And remember oil is part of our national defense.A key link.So maybe Mitt has not been clear enough on all the benefits that will come with development.I grant you that.But his belief that prices will go down are simple eco101.
FAIR, although a little too partisan, does a good job of ferreting out baloney. What is disappointing is that the same people comment on every piece. This discourages thoughtful commentary. Too bad.
michael e wrote: To believe that oil companies will simply use our energy as an offload to make money is naive.
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Ummm… last I checked, oil companies were in business to make as many bucks as they can by whatever means legally-permissible. So I don’t think it’s naive of me to think they they would sell their commodity they produced in a manner to ensure the highest profit. In fact, their shareholders could cry foul if they failed to do so.
You can gauge Romney’s hard-sell on a 1-10 scale if you want. But the point still stands: Why isn’t the media calling him out on the easily-refutable claim that more drilling in the US will equal lower prices at the pump? That’s the pitch he’s making; if he was a mattress salesman trying to hawk his wares with such misrepresentation, he’d be engaged in false advertising.
Unless there is some kind of government intervention or unless there’s some domestic highest bidder, either public or private, then the US-produced oil and gas will be sold along with all the other oil and gas already in the international market. And it’ll be sold to the various bidders at the market rate.
My last post’s paragraphs are out of order. The middle one should be the final one.
If anybody should happen to care…
Well john maybe i did not make myself clear.Of course oil companies will sell their goods wherever they can.As they should beyond national interest considerations.What is naive is to believe that their best way to sell that oil will be anything but domestic.Supply side economics and transfer as well as refining price points make it so.
Today it was reported that due to the hurricane hitting expect gas prices to surge.So what…. does this only work one way?Refining and production is interrupted prices rise.Refining and production increases and…..nothing?I have heard numbers as low as gas back to one dollar a gallon if we were to really go at this.Of course it is stupid to try to guess what free markets and a glut will do.My belief is it will be like anything else.More supply = less price.