My love affair with Nancy Pelosi continues unabated. She never, ever let’s me down.

Is she calling 241 years of economic theory “a hoax”? She is saying that “it takes a long time” and that energy companies “don’t have the equipment to do it”? Either way, she’s wrong as could be. The economic theory, of course, is the law of supply and demand,

The phrase “supply and demand” was first used by James Denham-Steuart in his Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, published in 1767. Adam Smith used the phrase in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations

And the notion that we don’t have the technology available is brutally uninformed. America is home to the greatest drilling technology in the world. One example, Nancy, is Transocean,

HOUSTON, May 21, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) — Transocean Inc. (NYSE:RIG) today announced that the Transocean jackup GSF Rig 127 set a world record for the longest extended-reach well ever drilled at 40,320 feet (12,289 meters) MD (measured depth) with a 35,770-foot (10,902-meter) horizontal section…

…The new record of 7.6 miles is also the first well in the history of offshore drilling that exceeds 40,000 feet (12,191 meters). The well surpasses by approximately 2,000 feet the prior extended-reach record of 38,322 feet (11,680 meters) MD set by another drilling contractor with a land rig drilling at Sakhalin Island earlier this year.

Of course, this well was not drilled along our coast, because it’s “protected“.

The well was drilled offshore Qatar in 36 days and incident-free.

The average American consumes 25 barrels of oil per year. The average Chinese is 2 barrels and the average Indian is less than 1 barrel. We have a supply challenge to meet this rising demand for decades to come. So what if we won’t see any oil years? We’ll need it when we can get it.

And on the subject of how long it will take, the Democrats have been throwing around “ten years”. Energy expert Eric Bolling, knew that was wrong, so he checked for himself,

A Congressman followed my segment and suggested that drilling wouldn’t help for 10 years or more. I know this is absolutely untrue, so I called Transocean, the biggest driller in the world. An officer of the company told me that depending on the location of the drilling, oil could be realized in as little as a year.

Ultra-deepwater fields might produce in 3-5 years. For the most remote locations, without any prior infrastructure support, that barrel may require a 4-6 year window. I suggested 8 years and he said that he could not envision a situation where it would require more than 6 years to bring a barrel out of the ocean floor.

Nancy Pelosi is ignoring the law of supply and demand, and she is ignorant of what today’s leading deepwater drillers, American drillers, are capable of. Meanwhile, places like Qatar and Brazil are exploiting their natural resources while America is stuck with no new supplies, increasing reliance on imported oil and higher gas prices for as far as the eye can see. More than 40 congressional hearings later and the only thing we have learned is that Congress is the biggest impediment to energy independence.

Disclosure: I own a few shares of Transocean in an IRA.

Stephen Moore in the WSJ,

..for the first time in decades, and perhaps ever, the richest 1% of tax filers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will have paid just 3%.

And this, despite the “Bush tax cuts for the rich!” Shouldn’t progressives, like Barack Obama, be hailing President Bush for soaking the rich? After all, Barack and the Dems see the government as the answer to all of our problems, and tax cuts bring in more revenue. Barron’s editor Thomas G. Donlan says the facts are clear,

Oddly, if you really want to raise taxes on the rich, you should cut their tax rates the way Congress and President Bush did in 2001, 2002, and 2003. It sounds like a joke but it’s the most sensible way to read the results of the Bush years in U.S. tax policy. After the Bush Administration and Congress reduced the top marginal `rates, the people with the highest incomes shouldered a larger share of the tax burden because they made so much more money….Of more importance, the expanding economy generated more revenue from income taxes, sales taxes, corporate income taxes, and social insurance taxes….By fiscal 2007, higher economic growth and lower tax avoidance covered the loss of revenue from lower rates.

Bloomberg confirms,

Individual and corporate income tax revenues are growing for a fourth straight year in spite of five rounds of Bush tax cuts totaling about $2 trillion from 2001 to 2006.

Conclusion:
1.) By any reasonable measure, the “rich” are shouldering a significant tax burden.
2.) Lower taxes = higher government revenue.
3.) Democrats demagauge the issue, prefer class warfare to real solutions.

Remember this next time you hear Barack Obama talking about the rich “paying their fair share”.

The leading liberal newspapers in the country have been croaking Barack Obama on housing issues in the past few weeks. Good for them. The most recent is a Washington Post article that reveals Barack Obama was a friend of Bill (Osborn, CEO of Northern Trust). He got a similar deal to Friend’s of Angelo (Mozillo, CEO of Countrywide). The Dems have foreclosed, so to speak, on housing as a great campaign issue for them. They’ve given up the high ground.

Washington Post: Obama Got Discount on Home Loan
Campaign Defends Lower Rate as Lender Competition for Business

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a “super super jumbo.” Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Even the New York Times can’t ignore the Dems housing hypocrisy,

New York Times: With Friends Like Angelo . . .

Time and again, the Senate is bedeviled by its own clubbiness, its lost sensitivity to how ordinary people live their lives. So it is with Christopher Dodd and Kent Conrad, who turned up on the “Friends of Angelo” V.I.P. list at Countrywide Financial Corporation.

Our own Boston Globe has published an article about Obama’s housing related work as a community organizer. Mickey Kaus called the Globe article, “The most damaging article about Barack Obama I’ve read…”

Boston Globe: Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy

The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.

Obama’s camp must be wondering why these liberal newspapers are being so mean spirited. I’m wondering why this isn’t a bigger campaign issue.

So much for a “different kind of politics”. Barack Obama is just like every other politician, he ain’t new or fresh. In fact, his ideas are as old and musty as Jimmy Carter’s sweaters. As Hub Blog noted today, Obama is pushing “phony populism economics”. I’ll add that he is completely ignoring, or simply does not understand, the root cause of the current energy crisis.

Obama says he would impose oil windfall profits tax

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Monday he would impose a windfall profits tax on U.S. oil companies as he sought political gain from Americans’ pain over high gasoline prices.

Launching a two-week focus on the economy after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama drew a sharp contrast between his economic policies and those of John McCain, his Republican rival in the November election.

“I’ll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we’ll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills,” the Illinois senator said.

A few inconvenient truth’s for Barack Obama panderomics proposal,

For starters, Big Oil profit margins are less than 10%. CNN Money’s Paul LaMonica puts these “windfall profits” in context,

Government, in fact, makes SIX TIMES what Big Oil makes off a gallon of gas!

Big oil profits and taxes are already in a photo finish, without Barack Obama’s “windfall profit tax”

Exxon Mobil is the equivilent of a mom and pop store in the global oil market

With 94% of the world’s oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, Exxon Mobil, a small oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e, mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge Exxon Mobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up.

When you add this all up it is clear, either Barack Obama doesn’t understand the economics of the global energy markets, or he doesn’t care because he can score cheap points trying to fool the public. That is the old kind of politics that he claims to detest. This guy is just another shameless politician. There is nothing new or fresh about him, just more of the same.

For more on Barack Obama’s foolish, insulting, old politics, click here.

UPDATE: Powerline wonders about a windfall profit tax on authors, heh,

Think about it: it takes as much work to write a 300-page book that sells 1,000 copies as to write one that sells 1,000,000. Yet the former author is paid almost nothing, while the author who happens to write a best-seller gets rich. Where is the fairness in that? Besides, the oil companies need their profits to make huge capital investments in oil drilling equipment, ocean platforms, pipelines, and so on. What capital investment does an author need his windfall profits in order to make? A new pencil? An author could easily pay extra taxes on his windfall profits and have plenty of capital left over for his next book.

A windfall profits tax on authors seems like a no-brainer. Coincidentally, Barack Obama’s 2007 income of around $4.2 million came almost entirely from book royalties. Now, that’s what I call a windfall! If authors’ windfall profits are taxed at 90%, Obama can write a check to the Treasury for around $3.2 million. What do you say, Barack? Why not a windfall profits tax on authors?

Hat Tip: Crossing Wall Street

Look at how much the price of oil has risen versus the price of gasoline. Oil’s gain is far outpacing the gain in gasoline. Doesn’t this raise a few questions for Barack Obama, who loves to vilify “Big Oil” and has been talking about a windfall profit tax.

Obama proposes oil companies be taxed on windfall profits from oil sold at or above 80 dollars a barrel, and the revenue be used to help relieve the burden of rising prices on working people, according to his campaign.

The price of the commodity that “Big Oil” relies on has risen nearly 7X since 2002, yet the price of the product they deliver to the consumer is only up 3X. Seems to me they must be very well run businesses to pull that off. After all, it is not as though “Big Oil” is making consumers pay so they can have massive profit margins,

CNNMoney.com’s editor Paul Lamonica,

The average net profit margin for the S&P Energy sector, according to figures from Thomson Baseline, is 9.7%. The average for the S&P 500 is 8.5%. So yes, energy companies are more profitable than many others…but not by an inordinate amount.

Google, for example, reported a net profit margin of 25% in its most recent quarter. Should we have an online advertising windfall profit tax?

As it is, without Obama’s windfall profit tax, “Big Oil” profits and taxes are already in a photo finish.

This notion that “Big Oil” is gauging consumers unfairly is ignorance at best. Deceitful and shameless pandering is more like it.

What is obscene is not Big Oil profits, it’s that they are forced by environmentalists and liberal politicians to do business in places like Nigeria instead of places like Alaska, North Dakota and the Gulf coast. Next time you hear Obama talking about Big Oil, remember who is truly making an obscene amount of money every time you fill up your tank,

Here is the news,

Interpol confirmed documents today showing that US Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the Colombia free-trade deal has been working with a go-between, who has been offering the FARC terrorists help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government.
Colombia is America’s closest ally in South America.

Wow. Unbelievable. A local congressman undermining our staunchest ally in Latin America, AND, working with terrorists to do it. This is big local news, right?

WRONG

0 articles for “congressman jim mcgovern and farc” from Boston Globe
0 articles for “congressman jim mcgovern and interpol” from Boston Globe
0 articles for “Raul Reyes and Jim McGovern” from Boston Globe

Ditto for the Herald. Nothing. Not a word.

So, his constituents are in the dark, at least if they rely on the local papers for their news. Wouldn’t you want to know if your congressman was undermining democracies and working with terrorist organizations?

What is their excuse? Other MSM outlets have reported on this story in the past few months, including the WSJ,

A military strike three weeks ago killed Raúl Reyes, No. 2 in command of the FARC, Colombia’s most notorious terrorist group. The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the free-trade deal. Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government.

Mr. McGovern’s press office says the Congressman is merely working at the behest of families whose relatives are held as FARC kidnap hostages. However, his go-between’s letters reveal more than routine intervention.

The always excellent Gateway Pundit has been following this story from the start, when reports indicated that Democrats may have been cooperating with FARC against the elected and popular government of Columbia.

Today, Gateway Pundit has an update, with Interpol’s confirmation of the story. Click here for the details.

May 09, 2008: Gore: No cabinet position for me

“I won’t accept a cabinet post regardless of which of the three candidates wins the presidency,” Gore said yesterday. “I am looking for a way to bring about change in other ways,” the former vice president and former Democratic presidential candidate said.

One place Al could start to look for “a way to bring about change’ is at Apple Computer, where he serves on the board of directors. Instead of enriching himself on stock options and covering up for the misdeeds of Steve Jobs, Al should take a look at the environmental record of the company whose cash he is so happy to pocket.

May 09, 2008
Apple slammed on climate change
ClimateCounts survey on climate friendliness rates Apple far behind other computer companies

Apple is once again being pilloried on the strength of its green credentials, taking last place among computer firms rated within a recent ClimateCounts survey on climate friendliness.

Apple achieved just 11 points in the survey, far behind other computer companies rated in the annual list. IBM, Canon and Toshiba took first, second and third place with scores of 77, 74 and 70, respectively. The maximum score was 100 points.

If climate change is indeed the most serious threat mankind has ever faced, how can Gore be on the board of a company with such a shoddy record on environmental issues? Al’s fellow environmentalists have been urging him to act and influence Apple for a more than a year.

In fact, Gore has been on the Apple board for more than five years now! He has had plenty of opportunity to insist that the company live up to the standards he demands everyone else follow. What could possibly explain his refusal to do so? I wonder…

60,000 dead or missing in Burma and what does Al Gore see? Opportunity.

Speaking of eco hypocrites, here’s a list of Hollywood’s biggest Green phonies.

Troop trasher Stephen King isn’t happy with the “right wing blogs”. The feeling is mutual.

Have you seen Roger Clemens new commercial for AT&T?

Why Hillary stays in the race. Why she won’t..

Mrs. Obama’s Gospel of Bitterness

Lowering the drinking is a legit issue, but this is ridiculous.

How much ugly can you buy for a billion dollars?

They deserve everything they get.

The unspoken issue, judges.

Jews for Jihad in Boston?

Somebody in his immediate circle needs to set John McCain straight on the non-existent “problem” of “global warming.” It is pathetic that a so-called “conservative” continues to parrot the left’s shibboleth about the exigent need to “drastically reduce man made carbon emissions.”

Recently I saw McCain on Fox and he was asked what his proposed solution would be to lower the cost of energy and he rambled on for 10 minutes about “alternative energy” and the salubrious effects of the oil embargo on R&D in the 1970s and never once mentioned new refinery construction and domestic drilling in ANWR and the outer-continental shelf. His recent proposal for a “gas tax holiday” is not a viable solution.

Now I am all for development of “alternative energy technologies” that are more economical and environmentally friendly. However many of the most promising technolgies are many years away and we need to come to grips with the fact that the world’s economy depends upon OIL and natural gas. Yes, let’s fund R&D for new sources of energy, but in the meantime let’s bring as much oil on line as possible in the most environmentally friendly way as possible to increase supply and lower cost. Good for American consumers. Good for the global economy. And great for America in that we decrease our dependence on “foreign oil.” It’s what we in sales refer to as a “win-win.”

Kevin and I have had Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Professor Dick Lindzen from MIT, and Bjorn Lomborg on our show to discuss this issue in depth and these are the major pts I would emphasize with McCain:

1. There is no scientific “consensus” or proof that anthropogenic carbon emissions affect the earth’s temperature.
2. Full compliance with Kyoto would have a nugatory (negligible) effect on the earth’s temp with major adverse economic consequences especially for developing nations.
3. “Global Warming” is a hoax and a way for the American Left to push America into some type of international government. Nothing more. Nothing less.
4. Spending billions on “climate change” siphons our limited capital resources for other more pressing global problems (e.g. Malaria, HIV/AIDS, clean water, etc…)

McCain should be brought up to speed on the facts surrounding this issue and set straight immediately. The economic costs of “cap and trade” or any involvement in a global energy rationing scheme would be disastrous for our economy and our sovereignty. When asked about what he would do to make energy more abundant and affordable, McCain should respond thusly:

1. Drill here in the U.S. and dare the Democrats to stop you
2. Build more refineries here in the U.S.
3. Abolish or drastically cut the federal gas tax
4. Call for more nuclear power plant construction nationally and offer tax credits
5. End the economically and environmentally deleterious corn-based Ethanol subsidies (you have already taken initial steps in this direction)

From The Tax Foundation,

Tax Freedom Day will arrive on April 23 this year, the 113th day of 2008 (ignoring Leap Day). That means Americans will work nearly four months of the year, from January 1 to April 23, before they have earned enough money to pay this year’s tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels.

Americans, as a whole, work a significant number of days each year to pay for things other than government, but nothing else is so expensive. Americans will work longer to pay for government (113 days) than they will for food, clothing and housing combined (108 days). In fact, Americans will work longer to afford federal taxes alone (74 days) than they will to afford housing (60 days). As a group, Americans will also work longer to pay state and local taxes than they will to pay for food.