No Runny Eggs

(H/T - Jim Hoft)

No, I’m not going to apologize for the language. This is some seriously fucked-up repugnant shit.

By a vote of 324-84, including the entire Wisconsin delegation in the aye column, the House of Representatives passed a law designed to do two things that will do everything but reduce gas prices:

- Allow anti-trust suits against OPEC.
- Demand the 932nd investigation into price-fixing by Big Oil.

I’ll briefly take the second item first. Because of the jackasses in Congress, including the fucktards in the Senate that refused to open up the Colorado oil shale fields, we’re at the extreme high end of the supply-demand curve. OF COURSE there’s going to be massive speculation when demand outstrips supply, and said speculation is going to leverage prices beyond what it would if there was a better balance between demand and supply. I will point out the 931 previous investigations all found that there was no collusion between the traders to keep the price high; what the fuck is gong to be different with the 932nd?

Berry Laker pretty much predicted the response of the market to this piece of horseshit. I missed the intraday charts, but oil closed at $133.17/barrel and wholesale reformulated gas closed at $3.3965/gallon. I’d say that’s a shot across the bow.

Now to the suing OPEC item. There’s a slight problem with that; they’re sovereign nations not subject to territorial law. When the Justice Department comes a-knocking, what do you suppose the reaction of Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC is going to be? If you think they’ll boost production just because a couple lawyers threatened them, I’ll point out that Saudi Arabia brushed off a friendly request from President Bush a couple weeks ago. When some judge decides to try to seize those countries’ assets in the US, what’s more likely; a capitulation from OPEC or a complete shutoff of the spigot and a “FUCK YOU!”? I’ll remind you that we’re more-dependent on OPEC now than we were the previous two times they shut off the spigot, and they shut it off for more-trivial reasons than all of them having their assets seized.

Then there’s the whole question of enforcement. If we’re serious about forcing the OPEC spigots open, it’s going to take a military operation that makes both theaters of WWII look like a training exercise. Talk about your blood for oil. Oh yeah, that’s going to cost a lot.

I do have to take a moment to ask Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner, two Congresscritters who usually know better, “What the fuck are you thinking by signing onto this smelly piece of shit?” There is nothing, I repeat, nothing that could possibly make this worth voting for.