Imagine, if you will, you're
the CEO of a company that does manufacturing. You produce widgets.
There are several other companies who produce widgets as well, but
we'll get to them later.
Your profits are good, but you want them better. The last thing you'd do is call your factories and tell them, "Stop making widgets." After all, in a free market economy, what one company fails to produce, another will produce more and reap more profit. The company which fails to make enough loses business and profits. The natural thing to do, when wanting more profits, is to make more widgets. Lower the per-unit cost of manufacturing the widgets. Or make a better widget that everyone has to have.
Now, take that philosophy and add one thing to it: Collusion.
You and all the other Widget makers get together and they say, "Look, we have our boy in the White House now, so we can pretty much do what we want, but we have to make it look good to sell it to the public. So, we'll be sure to have breakdowns, 'routine maintenance' and other interruptions in the overall market supply of widgets, and we can all raise our prices on the widgets and make a ton of money."
"Wait a minute, " you ask, "won't people just stop buying widgets?"
"That's the beauty of the plan," you're told. "Everyone has to have widgets. And we're locking out everything else that can replace widgets. If we act together, we can control the widget prices for the whole country."
"Isn't that illegal?" you wonder.
"Sure!" you're told. "But with our boy in the oval office, and controlling the widget policies, who's going to stop us?"
Now, while the above scenario is fictitious, one can't help but wonder about the way gas and oil prices are manipulated. Instead of one company increasing production, or stockpiling gas, or helping people find a way to use less gas (as IF!), the gas companies are spending billions of dollars trying to find more gas. If one tenth the amount invested in finding more oil is instead spent on finding and developing alternative energy sources, the dependency of the people all over the world on gas would be cut by 20% every five years.
But this assumes a long-term plan and philanthropic (or at the very least ethical) motives on the part of the oil companies. Unfortunately, all companies in America operate with a quarterly profit mentality. That is, if it's not going to make a profit this quarter, fuck it. If it will make a profit this quarter, do it. Ethics and, in many cases legalities, be damned. This, by the way, sums up the whole Harvard Business School course.
So, with this mentality, of course, everything will be done to boost profits without regard for the consequences.
How to combat this egregious raping of the world's resources?
Two ways: First of all, nationalize the entire energy production industry in the US. With America as wired and dependent on energy as we are, it's a matter of national security that the energy flows properly. Next, set the prices at wholesale plus 10%. Prices will continue to fluxuate, but not to the extremes we've seen during the Bush administration. Finally take that 10% and use it to finance research and development of alternate energy sources, starting with decentralizing energy production.
Let's face it, if an entire town can be darkened by snipping two wires, we are way too vulnerable to terrorist attack. But if every house and business was independent of the energy grid through the use of fuel cells and solar/wind/hydrogen, etc, then it would be utterly impossible to take down a power grid. With energy of that nature available, electric cars become economically viable, and the pollution and lust for oil - especially foreign oil the profits of which still are the number one contributor of terrorist acts and states in the world - will whither and die.
If no one wants widgets, the prices will fall regardless of how many widgets are or aren't being made. If the demand for oil drops, so does the flow of money to fund terrorism. And if the power grids go away, even replacing the oil production with solar energy production won't alleviate the hemorrhage of profit from oil sales.
The only thing free about the 'free market' is the reign the oil companies have in screwing the rest of the world. And it isn't going to stop until they're made to stop.
Your profits are good, but you want them better. The last thing you'd do is call your factories and tell them, "Stop making widgets." After all, in a free market economy, what one company fails to produce, another will produce more and reap more profit. The company which fails to make enough loses business and profits. The natural thing to do, when wanting more profits, is to make more widgets. Lower the per-unit cost of manufacturing the widgets. Or make a better widget that everyone has to have.
Now, take that philosophy and add one thing to it: Collusion.
You and all the other Widget makers get together and they say, "Look, we have our boy in the White House now, so we can pretty much do what we want, but we have to make it look good to sell it to the public. So, we'll be sure to have breakdowns, 'routine maintenance' and other interruptions in the overall market supply of widgets, and we can all raise our prices on the widgets and make a ton of money."
"Wait a minute, " you ask, "won't people just stop buying widgets?"
"That's the beauty of the plan," you're told. "Everyone has to have widgets. And we're locking out everything else that can replace widgets. If we act together, we can control the widget prices for the whole country."
"Isn't that illegal?" you wonder.
"Sure!" you're told. "But with our boy in the oval office, and controlling the widget policies, who's going to stop us?"
Now, while the above scenario is fictitious, one can't help but wonder about the way gas and oil prices are manipulated. Instead of one company increasing production, or stockpiling gas, or helping people find a way to use less gas (as IF!), the gas companies are spending billions of dollars trying to find more gas. If one tenth the amount invested in finding more oil is instead spent on finding and developing alternative energy sources, the dependency of the people all over the world on gas would be cut by 20% every five years.
But this assumes a long-term plan and philanthropic (or at the very least ethical) motives on the part of the oil companies. Unfortunately, all companies in America operate with a quarterly profit mentality. That is, if it's not going to make a profit this quarter, fuck it. If it will make a profit this quarter, do it. Ethics and, in many cases legalities, be damned. This, by the way, sums up the whole Harvard Business School course.
So, with this mentality, of course, everything will be done to boost profits without regard for the consequences.
How to combat this egregious raping of the world's resources?
Two ways: First of all, nationalize the entire energy production industry in the US. With America as wired and dependent on energy as we are, it's a matter of national security that the energy flows properly. Next, set the prices at wholesale plus 10%. Prices will continue to fluxuate, but not to the extremes we've seen during the Bush administration. Finally take that 10% and use it to finance research and development of alternate energy sources, starting with decentralizing energy production.
Let's face it, if an entire town can be darkened by snipping two wires, we are way too vulnerable to terrorist attack. But if every house and business was independent of the energy grid through the use of fuel cells and solar/wind/hydrogen, etc, then it would be utterly impossible to take down a power grid. With energy of that nature available, electric cars become economically viable, and the pollution and lust for oil - especially foreign oil the profits of which still are the number one contributor of terrorist acts and states in the world - will whither and die.
If no one wants widgets, the prices will fall regardless of how many widgets are or aren't being made. If the demand for oil drops, so does the flow of money to fund terrorism. And if the power grids go away, even replacing the oil production with solar energy production won't alleviate the hemorrhage of profit from oil sales.
The only thing free about the 'free market' is the reign the oil companies have in screwing the rest of the world. And it isn't going to stop until they're made to stop.
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