Reply #23: What you say is true. [View All]

[vickitulsa]

Unfortunately, as others have mentioned here, those at the top in Big Oil do NOT in fact believe Americans are smart enough to understand the complexities of the bizness, and will buy almost any excuse as legitimate when it comes to rising crude prices these days.

I recall when I was working on the construction of the TransAlaska Pipeline in 1974-75, there was so much hoopla over the way U.S. citizens wanted cheap gas but they didn't want oil companies drilling in pristine Alaska. There were bumper stickers on our yeller pickups that said, "LET THE BASTARDS FREEZE IN THE DARK!" Do you remember those?

And does anyone recall what it took to overcome the delay of SIX YEARS in the startup of that mammoth project which the environmentalists had successfully managed to achieve? It was the OPEC embargo of 1973. When lines at the pumps were very long and tempers were flaring (as tempers are doing even now in some places), when Joe Blow USA found that there was nothing his congresscritters or the prez or anyone else could do to get those in charge at the Big Oil giants OR the sheiks of Araby oil in the Middle East to "fix" the problem ... THAT's when it all got kinda crazy.

And the construction project that had been stopped in its tracks for six years and showed no signs of getting anywhere soon SUDDENLY was back on track with votes in Congress that had us building fly camps to build the pipeline camps for the thousands of workers that would be needed to drill, pump, and deliver via 56" pipeline that Alaskan crude to the port at Valdez. The Seven Sisters learned then how to get their way, and it's a lesson they haven't forgotten....

It's true that the lag time from when the stations paid for the gas in their storage tanks should be obvious, but it's just not to most people. We have grown accustomed just in the last few months to hearing that the price of crude on the market has jumped a few dollars per barrel and then seeing that gasoline prices at our local pumps rise within a day or two.

I worked for CEOs and CFOs and presidents and many VEEPs at companies like Bechtel and Amoco and Occidental, and also at the engineering companies that support them which are centered right here in Tulsa. I was an executive secretary and I took minutes at meetings (which were always altered to basically LIE to the public) between execs at the oil giants and oil ministers from Saudi and other nations that are sources for crude. I saw decisions made that were almost stunning in their blatant disregard for the welfare of the average U.S. citizen (or anyone else) who has to pay for gasoline and other fossil fuel products that are *necessities*.

There is no business on the planet, as far as I'm concerned, that plays as DIRTY and has so much power to do harm to all of us. I'm already worried about what my friends in the Northeastern U.S. who depend on fuel oil for heating in the winter are going to do in the next six months. Many folks I know live on fixed incomes and have been struggling in recent years to keep their homes warm enough to survive in them! What's gonna happen THIS winter? ... to them and so many others?

Nope, they're not rational, the excuses the oil companies use to rob us blind. But who can force businesses that powerful to change their ways? :shrug: I'm not even sure our Oil President and his Oil Administration people like Dick Cheney could do that....

~VV

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