"Why Make Trillions When We Could Make...Billions?"

In an effort to show that he is working on maintaining a balanced federal budget, the Lord Messiah, Barack Obama the Most Merciful (LMBOMM, for short) had told his Cabinet that they must cut $100 million in spending from the proposed $3.5 trillion budget (see the story here). For visual reference,

that is this many: $100,000,000

from this many: $3,500,000,000,000

Do you notice something strange about this? The amount to be cut is only 0.0029% of the budget! Apparently, our "articulate, bright and clean" president (per our vice president's description) either really sucks at math, or is a graduate of the Dr. Evil School of Economics, which is located on the same campus as the Joe Biden Institute of ABCs and 123s (and the Derek Zoolander School for Kids Who Don't Read Good, and Want to Learn How to Do Other Stuff Good Too). Maybe I'm being too hard on Obama. After all he may have meant to to say $100 billion, but the teleprompter technician miskeyed it.

All joking aside, though, even $100 billion would be a pittance compared to the size of this budget (it would only be a 2.9% reduction). Just think about it. Three. And One-Half. Trillion. Dollars. There is slightly over 300 million people in the U.S. That means that if they decided to divy this up to every man, woman, and child we would each get $11,666.67. Of course, that wouldn't happen because the people that make over $250,000 a year are included in that 300 million people. This budget is 60 times Bill Gates' estimated net worth. If you hear a peculiar sucking sound, that's the sound of your hard-earned money leaving your wallet. Don't worry, though. Obama is going to "spread the wealth around" and make things better for you...with your own money.

Real Change is My Cup of T.E.A.

A few things caught my attention about yesterday's TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties. First off, how very normal the attendees looked. If one were to believe Janet Napolitano, we should have been looking at a bunch of fatigues-wearing, gun-toting Aryan Nation and Ruby Ridge types. We should have also expected to see effigies of Obama being burned or hanging from a noose. Another thing that struck me was how the media coverage largely focused on reaction from elected officials (i.e. the targets of these tea parties), not what was being said at the rallies. Any attention that was drawn to the attendees contained the following: 1) these were all orchestrated by conservative think-tanks and talk radio, 2) attendees are nothing more than anti-government malcontents, and 3) the attendees fit the Department of Homeland Security's description of the "right-wing extremist". The drive-bys also had a penchant for referring to participants as "teabaggers". Use urbandictionary.com to look it up, because I'm not going to explain it here (this isn't a public high school sex ed class).

Now, I attended one of the the tea parties here on the central coast of California. There were anywhere from 1500 to 2000 people. This was just one of the seven tea parties held between Ventura and Monterey (that I know of). The crowd had people of all ages, ethnicities, and walks of life. Attendees were unfailingly polite, even when the event was over and everyone was trying to vacate the parking lot. There were no riots, no burning cars, and no one attacking the police detail. In short, we were better behaved than most California protesters (unlike the protests that followed the passage of Prop 8).

In addition to protesting higher federal taxation, we were also protesting higher state taxes and onerous environmental regulations based on incomplete or fake research. California has the seventh largest economy in the world. Why is it then that California is in tank with an ever-increasing budget gap, while we have the highest income tax rate in the nation (and the sixth highest per capita total taxation)? Our current legislators think that the solution is to increase our income taxes, our sales tax, the fuel tax, the alcohol tax, the tobacco tax, and our vehicle registration fees. On top of these increases are new taxes on services such as auto repair and veterinary care.

Why do we have regulations in our state that stifle economic growth in the name of "environmental preservation" when there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that these measures actually work? The last thing California needs is the tax base leaving for places like Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado. Or, in the case of some of my wiser friends, Texas. On a side note, can I adopt Rick Perry as my governor? Between that, and having Rudy Giuliani run for mayor of Los Angeles we could really clean up California. All I'm saying is think about it.

Who's going to pay taxes to support welfare benefits and state employee retirement plans? Illegal aliens and welfare recipients don't pay income taxes and theoretically don't pay very many other taxes, either. Even supposedly recession-proof industries like engineering and health care are suffering here, thanks to an orgy of lawsuits and state-funded programs ruining any prospect of private sector survival. California, and other welfare states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York are prime examples of what the rest of the nation will become if people don't wake up and take action. The tea parties were a great first step...now we need the follow-through to bring about change that we can really believe in (without the aid of a teleprompter).

Price Check!

First off, I would like to apologize for my relative silence during this election cycle. My life beyond the blogosphere was chock-full of tasks and issues for me to address (busy at work, even busier social life, buying a house). Secondly, pretty much anything that I had to say was being said by those with voices bigger and more widely heard than mine. Now, on to the fun stuff...

Apparently, B. Hussein Obama and Joe Biden need to get someone to give them a price check on achieving the American Dream. One day, Obama is telling us that $250,000 a year is the height of achievement in the United States. Then, not more than a month later Obama sets the price at $200,000 a year. Right on the heels of that, his running mate lowers the bar to $150,000 a year. Clearly, achievement has a salary cap (and it's well below the MLB salary cap).

As a twenty-something, college-educated, single woman, I find the idea of limiting achievement repugnant. I thought the whole point of going through college, saving to buy a house, and working hard at my choosen career is so that I don't need to have the government or anyone else support me. I make a comfortable salary as an engineer (between $50,000 and $75,000), but I'm not content to just go on making the same amount of money throughout my career. I want to advance in my career and be compensated for taking on more responsibilities. It would be nice to have more disposable income so I can travel, donate more to the charities of my choosing (California's welfare programs don't count as a charity), and treat friends and family to a night out. I currently contribute to a 401(k) and would like to start putting money away in an IRA. After all, I don't plan on working forever.

I'm sure that I could do all of that and more on a $150,000 annual salary, but why should I be limited? Let's say that I decide to start a business with a couple of employees, and I clear $500,000 in gross income. My business would, therefore, meet the Obama-Biden definition of "rich". Keep in mind, that is gross income. If my business has employees, I'm required to pay them, payroll taxes, worker's compensation, and other associated overhead costs of having employees. The Obama-Biden answer to my complaint is, "Well, if you hire more employees, we'll give you a $3000 tax credit for each new employee." I'm not sure to which small businesses they've been talking, but $3000 would barely cover the cost of processing the new hire paperwork. Besides that, who starts a business with an upper limit on revenue? That's like playing a football game, but telling your team that they can only score 14 points (even if the other team racks up 51).

Isn't the whole point of America that the only limits we have are the ones that we place on ourselves? The truth is, the American Dream is priceless and should be without limitations. When success and achievement are penalized, what incentive is there for people to excel? Why would someone want to strive for success in their career or financial well-being if the government is going to come along and "spread the wealth around"? Why not wait around for someone else to be the sucker and put in all the hard work, while you kick back and wait to reap the benefits? Eventually, the golden goose is going to quit laying eggs and people will just quit working altogether...including the box boys (and girls) at the grocery store.

Hat tip to Christina, who provides some video links of the laughable-if-it-weren't-true.

Shall We Dance?

This past Sunday, the following interview took place on ABC's "This Week". Please note, that George Stephonopoulos gives her multiple opportunities to back out of the hole that she's digging for herself.



She refers to the rebellion on the Hill (GOP representatives remaining on the floor, in the dark, without C-SPAN cameras) to debate lifting the ban on drilling for oil as "the war dance of the hand maidens of the oil companies". Meanwhile, she and others who oppose drilling and exploration on our own territory are portrayed as stewards of the planet, defending it from evil, destructive human beings. This is in spite of the fact that the simple act of drilling for oil would actually create jobs and stimulate the economy. How noble and principled Speaker Pelosi is to sacrifice the livelihoods of others to save the planet. Or is she?

Here's the latest from politico.com, regarding the re-election strategy that Speaker Pelosi has for representatives who are at-risk of losing their seats. She has accused conservatives in Congress of being "regional" in their support of drilling, implying that they are selfish for putting the concerns of their constituents ahead of the environmentalists' agenda. It seems perfectly acceptable, however, for Democrats to support off-shore drilling if it helps them keep their power in Congress.

I wonder if Speaker Pelosi's dance card is full.

Deportation: The Economic Boogieman (or, Why I Don’t Get My News from MSN)

This article is a shining example of why I refuse to watch “P-MSNBC” or take any MSN news article without the benefit of an entire salt shaker. To demonstrate how biased and just plain wrong this article is here is a paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttal (the italicized text is mine).

At least 12 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S. Most pick crops, wash dishes, build houses, cut lawns and do other jobs for between $6 and $15 an hour. They make up about 5% of the total U.S. work force. But …What if we threw them all out?

Lettuce and strawberries would rot in the fields. Dirty dishes would pile up in restaurants. Thousands of farmers and builders would go bust. Predator aircraft drones would prowl the Mexican border. And chunks of Los Angeles and Houston would look like ghost towns. (The assumption that increased border security will specifically target Mexicans features prominently in this article. We’re supposed to pretend that: 1) all aliens entering this country are from Mexico, 2) only Hispanics want to come to the USA, and 3) we haven’t actually captured Arabs impersonating Mexicans at border crossings. Also, completely disregard that we do have another border to our north, which if I am not mistaken provided the point of entry for several 9/11 hijackers.)

The biggest losers would be middle-class families with two working parents, living in high-immigrant states such as California, Texas, Florida or New York. Why? They would pay more for food, housing, entertainment and child care as a shortage of low-skilled workers drove up some wages, and therefore, some prices. Meantime, their own pay would remain the same. (Their pay might stay the same, but what about the need for less tax money to go to things like welfare, education, and subsidized healthcare? Perhaps with less withholdings in taxes, a middle-class family would not require two paychecks to make it in suburbia. One parent at home = free child care) What's more, the ripple effect of thousands of businesses shrinking or closing for lack of staff might put one of the parents out of a job. Not to mention the garbage collection going to pot and no one to polish the missus' nails.

The winners, for a change, would be the low-skilled unemployed, living just about anywhere -- if they were willing to move. Of the 12 million illegal immigrants, about 8 million are employed, mostly in low-skill jobs. The U.S., meantime, has about 22 million less-educated jobless adults, many of them blacks and legalized Hispanics, according to a 2008 report from the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group based in Washington, D.C. (And this is a bad thing? I thought we wanted to have a country where even the uneducated, low-skilled segment of our population could afford a living. Isn’t that the rallying cry of the amnesty crowd? After all, non-citizens theoretically cannot get a job that pays a living wage.)

Economists say if these people agreed to bone meat or install insulation, they could earn 6% to 10% more than the deported workers, as wages rose to lure new workers. That could mean $18,000 to $30,000 in pay a year. And the economy? Short term, the effect of lost manpower and spending by illegal immigrants would be "devastating" or cause "some temporary dislocation," depending on whom you ask.

Are Americans willing to do these jobs?

Ray Perryman, the president of The Perryman Group, an economic analysis firm in Waco, Texas, calculates our $14 trillion economy would suffer $652 billion in lost output -- a dramatic 4.6% slice off gross domestic product. He predicts tens of thousands of businesses would close. Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, predicts perhaps a 1% slip in GDP. (Please note that any other non-profit policy group is simply referred to as a “research group”. The Immigration Policy Center, later referenced in this article, is not referred to as an “amnesty think tank”.)

Why the big difference in opinion? Because people are hard to predict. Just how quickly would Americans fill the vacated jobs? And at what pay rate? Perryman points to Texas, where he says there are more than 1 million illegal workers, but only 450,000 unemployed residents. "If you do the math, it just doesn't work," he says. He doubts that many needy Virginians would move to Texas for often-grueling, low-paying jobs. (How has Perryman defined “unemployed residents”? If it is only individuals over the age of 18 who are seeking full-time employment, then his numbers are skewed. What about high school and college students who are only looking for part-time work…or not at all?)

Rector disagrees. He says it would take time for "Cousin Fred" in Texas to phone up his jobless mates in Virginia, but, "There are a lot of people who work for less than $20,000 a year." And they would move for a job.

Still, until the unemployed did jump in their Hyundais to head south, several industries in high-immigrant states would have a terrible time. Some are listed below. The figures in parentheses show the percentage of illegal workers in each industry's work force, as calculated by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington. The figures are nationwide; in some localities, they would be far higher.

• Home help (21%): Los Angeles would still have its sunshine, but there'd be far fewer helping hands to clean floors, cook dinner and shush the kids. Not to mention in New York, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Miami. Some working parents might have to quit their jobs to care for the kids or break the family piggy bank to attract a housekeeper from a neighbor. (Has anyone ever heard of hiring a teenager to do the yard work or sit with the kids? How about cleaning up your own mess? I grew up in southern California without the benefit of a housekeeper, nanny, or cabana boy. Plus, household chores are a great way to pry you or your kids away from the X-Box.)
  
• Farming (13%): "Agriculture would come to a screeching halt," says Nicole Rothfleisch, executive director of the Imperial County Farm Bureau in Southern California. She says El Centro, the county seat, has the highest unemployment in the state (18%). But farmers can never find enough local help. (Obviously, it pays better to be on welfare in Imperial County). Pay is $9 an hour, and the summer temperatures can hit 110 degrees. The locals, she says, "want cushy jobs with air conditioning." (Here’s a tip: Can’t stand the heat? Leave the Imperial Valley!) Economists say many farmers would go broke as billions of dollars' worth of crops lay unpicked. Farms would merge and switch to crops that can be picked mechanically, like round lettuce or oranges used solely for juice. (Why can’t the state prison system contract out inmates to work in the fields? We have them picking up trash on the highways and working in the state parks clearing brush and rehabilitating hiking trails.)
  
• Food manufacturing (14%): The big meatpacking and poultry-processing plants would slash production, increase wages (now $12 an hour in Texas) and send managers in helicopters to scour the countryside for workers. In 2006, when six plants of meatpacker Swift & Co. were raided for illegal workers, the company began offering $1,500 bonuses to Burmese refugees in Texas for each friend or relative they could recruit. (As someone who grew up around livestock, I can attest that meatpacking is messy work. I can also say that knowing a good butcher comes in handy when you’re planning a large family gathering. I would rather see higher prices in the grocery store and know that my money is going to stay in this country’s economy, not get sent to the homeland of whoever is getting paid less than minimum wage.)
  
• Construction (12%): If it looks bad now, imagine an economy where homebuilding is really crushed, says Rick Montelongo, owner of a building and remodeling company in San Antonio. "It would be a huge blow," he says. Workers' wages, which make up 30% of the cost of building a home, would have to rise "substantially," he says. That would make it more expensive to build new homes, resulting in even fewer sales for an industry already experiencing a sharp downturn. (Why do we have to all have brand-new homes? Why can’t people just settle in older housing tracts that have been revamped? It surely would cut down or eliminate urban sprawl. Isn’t the whole idea of the housing tract with a postage stamp for a backyard? Besides, there is always going to be people that want a custom built home, and will pay whatever it takes to get it.)
  
• Hotels and restaurants (11%): There'd be a triple whammy here. Latino staff and customers would both be lost, while the price of fresh food would be driven up by shortages. (I live in a community where more than half of the population is made up of Hispanics working in the ag industry. I don’t see them going to the local fine dining or family style restaurants. Where do they go out to eat? The taquerias and Little Caesar’s for the 2 for 1 cheese pizzas. Again, when it comes to wait staff, hire part-timers. We have no shortage of teenagers that could use some character-building.) Distraught restaurant owners would pin up job ads at colleges, when they weren't up to their elbows in dish soap. The billions of dollars spent annually by illegal immigrants would disappear, bad news for small restaurateurs and fast-food joints. (Where did this figure come from? There is minimal economic stimulation coming from the illegal immigrant population. For starters, many of them live in the same house with more than one family. This is to save money to send back to their home country. Then there’s the added bonus of illegals using fake IDs to obtain welfare benefits because their employers pay less than minimum wage.) But over time, the industry would adapt. Self-service cafés would pop up. And more restaurants would serve chicken parmesan prepared in a factory and warmed up in a microwave. Yum. (There were no restaurants before the 20th century? Aren’t their any aspiring Emerils out there that want to learn the restaurant business from the ground up?)

As for the middle-class family in California or Texas, there would be some upside. Getting Johnny into the emergency room when he broke his arm would be easier with fewer uninsured Hispanics crowding the lobby. (How about when you’re appendix has burst and you’re on the brink of death? It’s called an emergency room for a reason! It’s not the place to go if you have the sniffles.)

Some schools might even offer smaller classes. Steven Camarota, the research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, calculates that 3.3 million children, or 6% of school kids, have at least one undocumented parent. It costs about $10,000 per year to educate a child. So if all these kids left the U.S., too, it'd save $33 billion, Camarota says. "It could take a lot of pressure off the school system," he adds. Of course, some near-empty schools would have to close. (The last time I checked, people are still having babies. Our population growth hasn’t exactly come to a halt. Near-empty schools, indeed.)

What about taxes? Would the average American family get any relief? That's hotly debated. Camarota reckoned in 2004 that the federal government would save $10 billion net a year if all illegal immigrants were expelled. That's the difference between what the illegal workers pay in income and payroll tax and what they and their kids collect in federal benefits. (What payroll tax? If you don’t have a Social Security number, how does the government collect taxes from you? The whole reason that illegal aliens get hired is because they are willing to work for less and their employers don’t have to pay into things like Social Security and Medicare.) However, some economists insist that just the opposite is true. (And their insistence is based on what? Because they are the economists and they say so? Sorry, the “I’m the Mom” defense quit working on me when I was six.)

At the state level, there's more agreement. Places such as Arizona, Texas, California and Nevada, which fork out billions for education and health care, would probably be ahead -- though not by a lot overall. So, American family tax relief? Maybe a little. (It would be a whole lot more if the afore-mentioned states stuck to their budgets and didn’t find new ways to spend tax money each year.)

And then there's the neighborhood. Critics of lax immigration policies say that drug running, traffic accidents and crime would go down with the illegal immigrants gone. But The Immigration Policy Center, a Washington research group, argues that studies show that immigrants in general are less likely to commit crimes or to end up behind bars than native-born Americans. (This number does not include the “anchor babies”, the native-born children of illegal immigrant parents. Overwhelming numbers of criminals in our prison systems are either illegal immigrants or the children of illegal immigrants. These first-generation Americans are not brought up to assimilate into our society. They are raised to identify with the sub-culture of illegal immigrants.) The debate goes on.

How likely is it that this will happen? Politically, it's highly unlikely. Logistically, it would be a nightmare. (So we can track a Canadian-born cow with Mad Cow Disease or a guy who cheats the IRS a couple hundred bucks, but we can't find out who's here illegally?) Although polls show that most Americans want stronger border enforcement, deporting the illegal immigrants already here is not popular. A CBS News poll found 33% of Americans favored deportation, while 62% preferred offering legal status. In a Gallup poll, 13% favored deportation and 78% favored offering citizenship. (Polls are meaningless unless one knows how the questions were worded or how the sampling was done.) Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama leans toward deportation.

Emphasis now is on deterrence, which is proving costly. Estimates for the construction of a 15-foot-high double fence between the U.S. and Mexico range from $1 million to as much as $70 million per mile. The border is 2,000 miles long. (This is the biggest canard of them all. The Department of Homeland Security has already allocated the funds for the construction of the border fence. Why is it not yet done? Pro-amnesty groups have the enviro-wackos on their side, screaming about affecting environmentally sensitive wilderness. This is in spite of the fact that illegals camp out in these same sensitive areas, leaving trash and destroying wildlife along the way. The cost of building a secured border pales in comparison to the amount of extra money paid out in welfare benefits, inmate housing, law enforcement, judicial proceedings, and education.)

The blatant disregard for facts, impartiality, and common sense leads me to conclude that does Ms. Skeel have an agenda: insult the intelligence of her readers and portray anyone in favor of securing our borders as reactionary, xenophobic buffoons. She excels at the former and fails miserably at the latter.

I'll Bet Hillary Doesn't Like this One

I remember a whole lot was made of Forbes magazine publishing a favorable article about Mrs. Bill Clinton, a.k.a. "The Senator formerly known as Rodham-Clinton". Well, Forbes has just put out it's list of 100 of the world's most powerful women. At the top of the list is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who happens to be a -- brace yourself, gentle reader -- a conservative. That's right. The first woman Chancellor of Germany was a member of Helmut Kohl's cabinet. Why is this significant?

Well, from post WWII to 1989, East Germany was part of the Soviet bloc. When reunification took place, there were two very different socio-economic structures that had to become one again. West Germany had a healthy, capitalist economy. East Germany, under Soviet control, had a failing command economy with its citizens dependent on the government for subsistence. With the two halves put together, you had the former East Germans wanting a government safety net for their day-to-day needs, and former West Germans wanting their eastern compatriots to rise above their situation and assimilate into the western lifestyle. The government's process of reunifying took a couple of years. The socio-economic reunification was much slower, as evidenced by the Christian Democratic Union getting voted out of power in 1998.

The election of 1998 led to Gerhard Schroder, a member of the Socialist Democratic Party, becoming Chancellor. The SPD (the initials in German) ideologically embraces Marxism and the nationalization of industry, the very same economic theory that drove the Soviet Union into the ground (actually, it was that and the fact that Reagan wasn't a pansy). The rise of the SPD was a setback to the economic recovery of reunified Germany because they expanded government programs, and increased taxes to support this expansion. Look what happened when Germany joined the EU; on paper, they looked stable enough to be members without dragging the Euro down. Upon closer inspection (without the rose-colored glasses), one could see that a nation with a 30-hour work week and 40% income tax rate was not going to be as healthy as it let on. Seeing their lots unimproved, the German people spoke with their ballots and returned conservatives to head the government.

With all of the limp-wristed, weak-kneed featherheads we have in charge on this side of the pond, we may have to go through what Germany experienced before we as a nation get our heads back on straight. A lot of people don't how good we really have it. Does that mean there's not room for improvement? Hell no, it doesn't. Read my previous posts if you think that I'm satisfied with the status quo. The changes we need to make are not for the faint of heart; they require leadership, not focus-grouping. The initiative needs to come not just from our elected officials, but from each of us. We need to quit waiting on somebody else to make our decisions and stop buying into the idea that concensus makes everything alright. I would hope that after electing liberals to power in Congress, and seeing the aftermath, the American people wouldn't make the same mistake twice. It is time for there to be more strong men and women, both in government and in our everyday lives.

My High School Econ Teacher Would Have Kittens!

Aside from the fact that my high school economics teacher was a human being, he was also, well, a he. In other words, it would be quite a feat for him to literally have feline offspring. However, if he had tuned in to the Rush Limbaugh show today, I am sure it would have happened. The discussion was spawned by the news that Halliburton is moving from Houston to Dubai. A caller named Barbara stated the following: "The government needs to put a stop to corporations leaving the country!" On its face, it's not a bad idea. After all, why would we, as a nation, want businesses to take their employment opportunities elsewhere? But then, Barbara kept talking.

She went on further to suggest that there is a legislative solution to this problem. In summary, she would like corporations that outsource and/or relocate to be penalized in some way. Many people who have a protectionist gut reaction fail to understand the fundamentals of economics and how, despite liberals' policies to squelch the workings of the free market, they still apply. The most basic of economic principles is at work: supply and demand. Rather than showing you some graph with lines that have little meaning, I give you a readily seen example...the Playstation 3.

When the Playstation 3 first came out, men and children (and the women in their lives) were lined up around the block several times over. What brought about this phenomenon? If you think back to this past Holiday season, not only were these things spendy (suggested retail at around $600, without taxes), but they were in limited supply. Unless you pre-ordered or took a couple of weeks vacation to camp in front of EB Games, you had less than a snowball's chance in hell of getting your mitts on one. Some enterprising individuals purchased the game system with no intention of taking it out of the box. Instead, these guys and gals took their purchased PS3's and sold them on eBay. The highest bid I saw on eBay was $4000! That is a gain of $3200 for doing very little, but there was a buyer that was willing to pay the price.

Now, if you were anything like my boyfriend, you did your product research and saw that the first generation of PS3 had problems with the Blue Ray technology and with reading discs from the previous two systems. In other words, you waited for the price to decrease and for the technology to improve. Perhaps you're like me and don't see a difference in graphics and gaming capability big enough to justify the cost of getting a new system. This, in combination with the "newness" being worn off, has caused the price to drop. You can go to bestbuy.com and find the basic PS3 system for $500. The lesson to be learned is that as long as you have consumers willing to pay the asking price, the price will stay there. Once consumers either have their fill of goods or find a better alternative, the price will have to come down to stay competitive.

Let's take the economics lesson and apply it to, say, the price of gasoline. You have people all over the world, not just the U.S, driving their vehicles. Most notably, China has an increasing number of drivers. There are only so many oil producing regions in the world that are actively pumping; there are places like ANWAR, the U.S. Gulf Coast, and unexplored regions of the world. Here in the U.S., the cost of obtaining construction and operating permits (not to mention the cost of labor and materials) is such that, depending on where you live, it could take around 5 years before you start turning a profit, if all you're doing is pumping oil. The stuff coming out of the ground isn't the only thing driving the price.

Petroleum has to be refined to a useable form. There hasn't been a new refinery built in the U.S. in the last 30 years. In addition, existing refineries are in dire need of upgrades to refine more petroleum, more efficiently. In order to upgrade equipment, parts of the refinery must shut down. This cuts back the supply even more. We haven't even delved into the cost of labor for the petroleum industry.

The recent increase in the minimum wage means that the cost of skilled labor, such as mechanics, welders, and refinery operators, must also increase or else the company runs the risk of losing their labor force to someone willing to pay prevailing wage. The petroleum industry, like any free-market industry, will pass its expenses on to the consumer. Thus, because of demand and increases in production cost, the price at the pump will rise. Since the major petroleum companies are publicly-traded corporations, decisions are made with one goal: maximize profit for the shareholders. That means everyone from the recent college graduate with a 401(k) portfolio to the member of the board with a twenty percent share in the company.

Any company's decision to leave these shores can be easily attributed to a failure in domestic policy. The education system has failed its students by not preparing them for careers and telling them that the guy who makes his living swinging a hammer is less important than the guy sitting at a computer. Legislators have seen private industries has a cash cow, free for the milking. "Nature Nazis", whose real agenda is to make everybody equally miserable, have seen to it that we are unable to build on existing technology, both in petroleum processing and nuclear power generation. The same people who complained that the Vice President was a former member of the board for Halliburton are now whining about their departure. Somebody call the "waaaaa-ambulance"! I think my econ teacher has gone into labor!