Vegas Sculptor’s Blog

Sometimes you look at the news and you have to think the world is falling apart. High fuel prices, high food prices, rising unemployment, political scandal, the list goes on and on.

But it’s an election year so we’re starting to hear how the politicians and the political parties plan to deal with the pressing problems facing us.

So it was with great amusement, and some amazement, that I read an article in the Dallas Morning News about a platform meeting of the state’s Republican party. Now I don’t mean this to be an attack on the Republicans, the article just happens to deal with their meeting. Don’t write in and attack me please. I’m just the reporter here.

According to the article, “Robert Hurt went to Washington and didn’t like what he saw – nudity in the nation’s capital.”

“Mr. Hurt offered statistics: He’d heard that 20 percent of the art in the National Gallery of Art is of nudes.” (Gasp!)

“He offered detail: On Arlington Memorial Bridge overlooking the famed national cemetery, ‘there are two Lady Godivas, two women on horses with no shirt on and long hair.’”

“Actually, they are classical sculptures about war – one called Valor, depicting a male equestrian and a female with a shield, and Sacrifice, a female accompanying the rider Mars.”

“The GOP platform will be presented today to the full convention. Like all platforms, it’s a statement of principle and a political document to rally the troops.”

“In this, a presidential year, it advocates prayer in school, getting out of the United Nations, teaching intelligent design with evolution in science classes, repealing of the minimum wage, declaring illegal immigrants criminals and outlawing abortion with no exceptions.”

“Last week, the Texas Democratic Party decided not to call for a federal Department of Peace and Nonviolence in its platform for fear Republicans would use it against the party in the fall campaign.”

Luckily the “war on nudes” didn’t make it into the final platform, but neither apparently did anything about fixing gasoline prices or a host of other problems that one would think might be addressed.

Some of the “planks” in the platform like prayer in school and abortion are the same old issues that have been brought up every election year for decades now. These laws came about because of Supreme Court decisions and there is very little that politicians can do about them. Why keep bringing them up year after year?

And when people are having such a hard time keeping up with rising prices, what sense does it make to repeal the minimum wage? At least we don’t have to worry about more bureaucracy with a new Department of Peace and Nonviolence. If the police can’t keep us safe from violence in the streets, what hope would a bunch of bureaucrats have?

But seriously, don’t we as citizens have a right to demand more from our political parties than this? Shouldn’t we all be writing to our delegates to let them know that we expect the platforms adopted at the conventions to address the real problems facing us? Is this a reflection of the apathy that is evident in low voter turnout in state and local elections? Can we expect any improvement in our government if we don’t get involved on a local level by writing letters, attending open meetings, or at the very least voting?

I was having trouble finding something to write about, so I thought I would ask the readers for some help.

You see, I don’t know much about economics so I am having trouble understanding the current gasoline prices. I’m hoping that some of you will explain it to me.

First of all we have the oil companies reporting record profits. Now it seems to me that if I manufacture a product and my costs of raw materials, production, and transportation costs $1.00 and I sell my product for $2.00, I make x amount of profit. Now if my costs goes to $2.00, I sell for $3.00 and demand stays the same, I make the same amount of profit.

If the cost of a barrel of oil has gone up and the oil companies are simply passing this increased cost on to us, how are they making record profits?

I think I might know at least part of the answer to this one. Back in the late ‘80’s I worked on contract at a large oil company. At that time oil was going up and was about $15 a barrel. I remember hearing some of the people who worked there say that if oil ever reached $20 a barrel it would be profitable to reopen some of the wells that didn’t produce enough to make it worthwhile to keep them open. They were of the opinion that there would be plenty of oil at that price.

Now if the oil companies are pumping oil that cost them $20 a barrel to produce and selling it for $135 a barrel they would be making record profits wouldn’t they?

Of course we are being told that high prices are a result of supply and demand. Supply is down so price is up.

I went looking for an answer to this and discovered a few interesting things. First of all, according to MasterCard Advisors, a unit of MasterCard Inc., the demand for gasoline is down 5.2% from last years levels. I also discovered a site called This Week in Petroleum. The site is run by the Energy Information Administration, part of the Federal Department of Energy.

According to the various charts and graphs presented there, it appears that supply is up and demand is down, yet prices are at record levels. Demand for gasoline is 9.411 million barrels a day (mbd) compared to 9.487 mbd one year ago. Total supply is 210.1 mbd compared to 201.5 mbd a year ago. This equates to a 22.1 day supply whereas the supply was 21.3 days a year ago.

Production is down this year compared to a year ago. Producers are only producing 8.974 mbd today compared to 9.326 mbd a year ago. Why is this? Have you heard of any refinery problems that would cause them to curtail production? I did read a couple of weeks ago that there were plans to curtail refinery production in order to stop prices from falling.

So in the U.S. at least supply of gasoline is up, demand is down, and price is up. Please explain how this can be.

So what about worldwide oil prices? A source at OPEC says (at bottom of article), “Based on present supply and demand, he said it should be fetching $60-$70 a barrel.” As a matter of fact Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi says that the high prices are a result of investor speculation. It would appear the market is being manipulated in order to profit at our, the common persons, expense.

In order to bring oil prices back down Saudi Arabia is planning to increase production 200,000 barrels a day next month. This in on top of a 300,000 barrel a day increase last month, something I don’t remember hearing anything about in the media. I also didn’t see oil or gasoline prices going down in response to this either.

So what’s going on here? Simple greed? Some economic “fact” that I don’t understand? Is there anything we can do?

I’m beginning to hear some people call for a general strike by the citizens of the world. Would this get the attention of the oil companies? Would this finally get the governments of the world to take some kind of action? Would you take part in such a strike?