- Forget the isolated looters. The real villains of the
New Orleans tragedy are the oil executives who have chosen this opportunity
to gouge us all and put the nation's economy at risk in order to rake in
the bucks while the getting's good.
-
- In a crisis, there are always those who will obscenely
take advantage of the situation for personal gain.
-
- I'm not talking here about the looters in New Orleans,
as ugly and mean as some of their actions have been.
-
- I am talking about the oil industry.
-
- The evidence is clear:
-
- Ten percent of American oil production is off line because
of Hurricane Katrina. That has led to a nominal increase in the per-barrel
world price of oil, since 10 percent of U.S. production represents only
a single-digit portion of world demand. Yet gasoline prices in the US have
soared, from about $2..40 per gallon before the hurricane hit to over $3.00
a gallon now nationwide?a jump of 25 percent.
-
- Local gas station owners say that they have to raise
their prices immediately because they only keep a few days' supply on hand
and need to have the cash to pay for the next delivery, which will be priced
at the new higher wholesale rate. I am inclined to believe that, if their
new price is only around 20-25 percent higher than before.
-
- But clearly, somewhere between the oil coming out of
the ground or into a port terminal, and those retail pumps, some businesses
are cleaning up at the expense of the public.
-
- Read that: the oil companies are gouging and profiteering
on disaster.
-
- All you need to do is look at the stock pages. Haliburton,
the oil services company, is up from 28.69 to 62 over the year. Exxon/Mobil
is up from 45.09 to 64.37 over the year. Sunoco is up from 30.26 a year
ago to 73.22. The list goes on and on.
-
- Back in World War II, there was an agency--led by a man
named Harry Truman--which aggressively prosecuted companies that tried
to profiteer on the war. Now profiteering on war, and on national tragedy
it seems, is simply seen in Washington as good business, to be rewarded
by investors.
-
- Americans are now paying the price for handing all branches
of the government over to one party. Even with the Democratic Party little
more than an opposition in name only, if it had been in charge of even
one of the two houses of Congress, you can bet that the dynamics of competitive
politics would have led to hearings into price gouging and disaster profiteering,
but with Republicans in charge in both chambers, the odds of that happening
are zero. Likewise, with free-market zealots being appointed by President
Bush in droves to the federal bench, don't expect any relief in the courts.
-
- The impact of the oil companies' incredible greed will
be profound. It's not just that they are picking our pockets at a time
of national crisis; their short-term profiteering is likely to send the
national economy into a tailspin as higher oil prices stunt consumer spending
and push up all energy costs.
-
- So far, the media coverage has focused on the actions
of individual looters in the destroyed city of New Orleans. To the extent
that gas prices have received attention, the focus has been at the retail
end.
-
- Nobody's talking about the middlemen, and especially
about the giant corporations that are really raking it in.
-
- When you think about it though, you have to say that
the cold, calculating effort by some corporate executives to take advantage
of a national tragedy is far more vile and reprehensible than the actions
of desperate or even criminally opportunistic individuals in a city that
was essentially abandoned for days by federal authorities.
-
- The inaction of the Bush Administration and of the Republican
Congress to challenge, or at least investigate, this outrage is equally
disgusting.
-
- _____
-
- For other stories by Lindorff, please go (at no charge)
to This Can't Be Happening! .
- homepage: homepage: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
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