I'm old enough to remember when the 1972 Arab Oil Embargo pushed the price of gas over $1. And when the embargo ended, the price stayed above $1. Oil companies have been allowed to reap massive windfall profits for decades by regulations that allow them to set pump prices at a level dictated by the restock price, hence when crude goes up, pump prices immediately follow. But the regulation does not require the equal and opposite reaction. Prices only go down when enough Americans reduce their driving to reduce demand...or heaven forbid, shift to smaller cars or electric vehicles. When Exxon sees demand starting to fade, you will see the prices drop, and not a moment sooner. And Biden can't do a damn thing to change that. Congress could, at least, pass a windfall profits tax (as if Republicans and Manchin would allow it) and distribute that money back to low income people who are hurt by the price of gas. Drivers of large pickup trucks, monster SUVs other gas guzzlers should be exempted.
Not true. The price of oil down in Maryland and Virginia in 1976 was about 45 cents a gallon. The price of gas stayed down around 80 cents a gallon in NY for years after the embargo ended. I remember quite well because I owned my first car during that time.
We did lower those prices, though. Gas mileage became the thing that we cared about most when we bought cars. Car commercials featured gas mileage numbers and we began seeing diesel cars. The gas prices are high now for the same reason we're experiencing high grocery bills, etc. - high demand caused by consumers having plenty of cash.
My husband and I decided to buy a standard shift car even though neither one of us was very experienced at driving one. The test drive we did at the dealership was beyond hilarious!
As for the cause of higher oil prices there is good evidence the cause is oil companies deliberately restricting production in order to increase profits, not high demand/short supply as is the case for many products. Normally oil companies pump more when prices go up but now they are responding by doing more to raise prices to satisfy the desires of their investors, not the needs of consumers. There are things that can be done about that. A windfall profits tax is something that can be done but not likely to pass Congress. However DOJ is already investigating companies that appear to be price gouging.
I recall President Biden saying a few weeks ago his administration was going to look into the price gouging.
I think the oil business took a huge hit during the pandemic and is trying to make up for lost profits. I'm not excusing them at all but I think it's one reason they're so defiant about calls to increase production.
They're gouging because the repugs have their backs and probably getting big donations from the oil companies. The repugs don't care about WE THE PEOPLE only about getting re-elected and cash from big businesses.
No, the big oil companies were very clear about what they are doing and why. They said they are allowed to make profits no matter how large or small. They will continue as the they are now, because it is not against the law. Remember, they follow the GOP speak. I got mine, screw you. So, this means Congress needs to do something about it. And we all know there are too many O&G whores in both parties to ever accomplish anything in Congress
Off topic, but I was glad to see there was an uproar over the bizarre NY Times editorial claiming that shaming people for things they say is taking away their right to free speech:
“ For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.”
Apparently the Times’s editors don’t understand that the right to free speech is a guarantee against the government silencing us, not a protection against being shamed by other people if we say something others think is wrong, stupid or despicable. The Times editors don’t understand that people criticizing or shaming speech is also an example of free speech. Apparently they want to see that kind of speech go away.
Here is a link to comments by Jay Rosen and others on Twitter:
Most people do not understand the actual meaning in the First Amendment. They think it means anytime anywhere. Private corporations can do whatever and the First Amendment is not going to save your job. Same misunderstanding as the 2nd Amendment. People like to make it mean whatever works for them.
The American mainstream media is wholly focused every day on generating heat in whatever inconsistent form it might take, to get keep ratings up for their commercial enterprise. Evidently, spreading light just won't get that done for them.
That is why I spend a good part of my day watching and listening to FSTV. None of that corporate nonsense. Those people are not told what to cover and not cover. It is up the host as to what they cover and discuss. They happily take calls from trolls of just flat out ignorant people trying to put false info out across the air. The host lets them speak and then they are promptly shut down by the truth
Well, the American mainstream media has prioritized profits over public good to please their ownership (corporate, family, or both), boards of directors & shareholders.
Seriously, when was the last time they actually cared about the viewers, subscribers & readers they claim to inform with their print, TV & online reporting?
I'm guessing many of them are in denial that their supposedly noble profession has been corrupted so badly by greed, celebrity, and even their own personal ambitions that they've been swallowed into either the corporate money-making machine, or non-corporate profit centers.
As long as the marketing departments control the news departments, you’ll never see news stories unfriendly to the US’s biggest advertisers. The millions of advertising $ spent by oil companies, auto companies, big pharma, etc ensure that the MSM will push the big business angle of every story. Those executive editors make a lot of money, and they don’t bite the hands that feed them. The press, as the responsible 4th estate, is all but dead.
"There was a time when the mainstream media cast a constantly skeptical eye not only on Big Oil, but on Big Business in general. Today, they get a pass, while Biden gets the blame."
I'm a decrepit dotard but I can't remember tis happening more recent than than sometime before Reagan. Did I miss something??
They were though until 60 Minutes got sued. In my opinion that suit and the Food Lion lawsuit against ABC made journalists back off on investigations of corporate wrongdoing. Now 20/20 sticks to investigating — or more accurately reporting about investigations — of interpersonal, not corporate, crimes. I just looked at a list of 60 Minutes episodes for the past year and not one was about an investigation of corporate wrongdoing except for a rehash of the evidence against Elizabeth Holmes.
60 Minutes wasn't actually sued, they were THREATENED to be sued by Brown & Williamson for airing the Jeffrey Wigand interviewed, and chose to initially block it. ABC WAS sued by Philip Morris for reports on Day One about nicotine manipulation (and sued for libel, unlike Food Lion, who sued for fraud and trespass), and initially moved to fight it, but then settled, very shortly after Disney announced its purchase of the network. CBS preemptively moved to censor itself, but the continual howls of derision about that decision, as well as leaks of the contents of Wigand's interview as well as his Mississippi deposition, made CBS reverse course.
You are right that CBS didn’t actually get sued, they just dropped the piece after their lawyers said it could lead to CBS being sued for inducing Wigand to break his confidentiality agreement. Both Don Hewitt and Mike Wallace said publicly that just the threat of a lawsuit and the fact that ABC had not only settled their lawsuit by apologizing to Phillip Morris and had paid their legal fees had had a chilling effect on reporting about that industry because management had been scared off doing tough investigative reports.
I had forgotten about the tobacco suit again ABC. I was thinking about the Food Lion suit against them.
You’re talking exceptions to the rule of being cool with business. As for Theranos, while a relatively minor outlier, it’s hard to defend any aspect of it which says more about the lurid attraction of it than what it says about what can be called mindless financial speculation. And as that, falls short of criticism of Business.
Not denying that there was a time that the mainstream was somewhat, occasionally critical of business (especially tobacco), just that it was so far in the past that I can’t recall when. Certainly sometime before Reagan, but that’s the best I can do. Must have been sometime 60s-related as part of the vibe.
My question was and is when did the mainstream ever report on business critically in the normal course. The exceptions to the rule is not an answer, likewise the very occasional news magazine story.
Again, I cannot recall regular negative coverage. Tobacco was an exception that pretty much ended decades ago, and I can’t remember anything like it since.
Well there was a time when the press was an effective social check on the excess of businesses. But that dissipated with the implementation of the Powell Memorandum whose Golden Rule was that Corporations can do no wrong.
I think you’re greatly exaggerating the press’ restrictions on business excesses. Got examples? Can’t think of *any significant* push back against business excesses since government decided to support unrestrained capitalism in the late 70s.
Sunday Morning on CBS yesterday did a puff piece on the oil companies, reporting about the supply chain-reaction of the world boycotting Russian oil. At no point did they mention gas prices vs. oil prices as you would expect from a show who's main goal is to advertise Broadway shows. On another tangent regarding this story is the double edge sword we are dealing with. Do we really want more oil drilling while the earth is warming every year, while storms are getting more and more powerful, where the cost of storm destruction is reaching new heights annually? This is an opportunity for the US to rise to the occasion and push green energy by heavily subsidizing electrical vehicles, solar panels on our roofs, and to task NASA with Solar Power from Space which is not science fiction but a real possibility of 24/7 solar energy. But no, the Republicans and sadly Democrats too, will continue to stroke the balls of the oil billionaires.
How soon everyone forgets that during the 1970's oil embargo, energy efficiency boomed. Fuel efficient cars, solar panels, wind energy, people riding bikes instead of driving, the whole shebang. We need to revive this spirit. I remember turning down our thermostats to 68 during the day, and 62 at night. Businesses left fewer lights on overnight. We began turning off the lights in unoccupied rooms. We carpooled. Now all we do is complain that the oil companies should increase their drilling. For shame, Eric.
It's disappointing & frustrating that the people who edit, write & report the news don't want stability because it isn't profitable, they want chaos because it's easy for them to report despite the possibility that they'll end up in prison or dead because America has become an authoritarian nightmare run by mostly old & middle-aged white men who are afraid of change & don't want to share power with anyone who doesn't look like them, love like them, and think like them.
To be fair blaming high gas prices on Russian is an improvement over the way the media was blaming that and all of inflation on Biden spending too much on the pandemic stimulus bill. Now they just keep carp about high food prices and keep giving a platform to people who criticize Biden for not instituting a no-fly zone over Ukraine, usually with little or no discussion about what the actual risk of doing that is or that it would take the agreement of all the NATO countries to put one in place.
As Mittens Romney infamously intoned at a campaign stop in 2012: "Corporations are people, my friend." It's a patently ridiculous notion that is a product of a series of even more ridiculous rulings from the right wingnuts who dominate the U.S. Supreme Court. So, if corporations are people, this recurrent phenomenon proves that they are nothing more than common criminals, or as they are known in psychiatric circles: Sociopaths.
Sociopaths who are never held to account for price gouging, either by attorneys general in every state in the country or the guy who runs the DOJ (the one who's still "mulling over" a criminal contempt citation by the Jan. 6 committee after 100 days); and certainly not by the hyperventilating press that never misses an opportunity to parrot GOP talking points dumping this on Biden.
Sure, drill for more oil. Spoiled Americans in their $50,000 SUVs are crying about paying more at the pump. What's wrong with you people? Ever hear of global warming?
Have you not looked at the cars next to you in traffic? Most have no passengers, only the driver. And look at the buses - half to mostly empty even though they're the cheapest transportation you can get. I took a bus to work every day for 5 years. I brought along something to read and never had to drive in the snow, which I hated.
We need to straighten out the price gouging and stop clamoring for more drilling.Stop being selfish children and work together. At least share a ride.
And just this evening Catherine Ramped has issued another press release to the effect that Dems are totally lost in determining why federal government is permitting these high gas prices. Oil Company profiteering is ruled out, it's what companies do, silly. Profiteering is just the fact prices are higher than politicians want them to be. Nothing about a lack of competition allowing these high prices to continue.
Given the incestuous nature of Boards of Directors, I would not be surprised to learn that the directors of the giant telecoms (who currently own most of the US media “brands”) also sit on the boards of some of the oil companies.
Follow the money, I say.
This out of date chart (2018) shows some of the connections between assorted boards:
I'm old enough to remember when the 1972 Arab Oil Embargo pushed the price of gas over $1. And when the embargo ended, the price stayed above $1. Oil companies have been allowed to reap massive windfall profits for decades by regulations that allow them to set pump prices at a level dictated by the restock price, hence when crude goes up, pump prices immediately follow. But the regulation does not require the equal and opposite reaction. Prices only go down when enough Americans reduce their driving to reduce demand...or heaven forbid, shift to smaller cars or electric vehicles. When Exxon sees demand starting to fade, you will see the prices drop, and not a moment sooner. And Biden can't do a damn thing to change that. Congress could, at least, pass a windfall profits tax (as if Republicans and Manchin would allow it) and distribute that money back to low income people who are hurt by the price of gas. Drivers of large pickup trucks, monster SUVs other gas guzzlers should be exempted.
all excellent points and all ignited by press during hysterical gas price coverage
Not true. The price of oil down in Maryland and Virginia in 1976 was about 45 cents a gallon. The price of gas stayed down around 80 cents a gallon in NY for years after the embargo ended. I remember quite well because I owned my first car during that time.
We did lower those prices, though. Gas mileage became the thing that we cared about most when we bought cars. Car commercials featured gas mileage numbers and we began seeing diesel cars. The gas prices are high now for the same reason we're experiencing high grocery bills, etc. - high demand caused by consumers having plenty of cash.
My husband and I decided to buy a standard shift car even though neither one of us was very experienced at driving one. The test drive we did at the dealership was beyond hilarious!
As for the cause of higher oil prices there is good evidence the cause is oil companies deliberately restricting production in order to increase profits, not high demand/short supply as is the case for many products. Normally oil companies pump more when prices go up but now they are responding by doing more to raise prices to satisfy the desires of their investors, not the needs of consumers. There are things that can be done about that. A windfall profits tax is something that can be done but not likely to pass Congress. However DOJ is already investigating companies that appear to be price gouging.
https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/594696-doj-to-investigate-companies-that-exploit-supply
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/06/973649045/hold-that-drill-why-wall-street-wants-energy-companies-to-pump-less-oil-not-more
I recall President Biden saying a few weeks ago his administration was going to look into the price gouging.
I think the oil business took a huge hit during the pandemic and is trying to make up for lost profits. I'm not excusing them at all but I think it's one reason they're so defiant about calls to increase production.
They're gouging because the repugs have their backs and probably getting big donations from the oil companies. The repugs don't care about WE THE PEOPLE only about getting re-elected and cash from big businesses.
No, the big oil companies were very clear about what they are doing and why. They said they are allowed to make profits no matter how large or small. They will continue as the they are now, because it is not against the law. Remember, they follow the GOP speak. I got mine, screw you. So, this means Congress needs to do something about it. And we all know there are too many O&G whores in both parties to ever accomplish anything in Congress
I lived in Massachusetts...
Off topic, but I was glad to see there was an uproar over the bizarre NY Times editorial claiming that shaming people for things they say is taking away their right to free speech:
“ For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.”
https://presswatchers.org/2022/03/the-new-york-times-editorial-board-should-retract-and-resign/
Apparently the Times’s editors don’t understand that the right to free speech is a guarantee against the government silencing us, not a protection against being shamed by other people if we say something others think is wrong, stupid or despicable. The Times editors don’t understand that people criticizing or shaming speech is also an example of free speech. Apparently they want to see that kind of speech go away.
Here is a link to comments by Jay Rosen and others on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/1505627645039501316?cxt=HHwWiICzqbaXiOUpAAAA
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch has a good opinion piece about this, too.
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/new-york-times-free-speech-editorial-20220320.html
Most people do not understand the actual meaning in the First Amendment. They think it means anytime anywhere. Private corporations can do whatever and the First Amendment is not going to save your job. Same misunderstanding as the 2nd Amendment. People like to make it mean whatever works for them.
The American mainstream media is wholly focused every day on generating heat in whatever inconsistent form it might take, to get keep ratings up for their commercial enterprise. Evidently, spreading light just won't get that done for them.
bingo
That is why I spend a good part of my day watching and listening to FSTV. None of that corporate nonsense. Those people are not told what to cover and not cover. It is up the host as to what they cover and discuss. They happily take calls from trolls of just flat out ignorant people trying to put false info out across the air. The host lets them speak and then they are promptly shut down by the truth
Well, the American mainstream media has prioritized profits over public good to please their ownership (corporate, family, or both), boards of directors & shareholders.
Seriously, when was the last time they actually cared about the viewers, subscribers & readers they claim to inform with their print, TV & online reporting?
I'm guessing many of them are in denial that their supposedly noble profession has been corrupted so badly by greed, celebrity, and even their own personal ambitions that they've been swallowed into either the corporate money-making machine, or non-corporate profit centers.
Which is a good reason to spend more time with PBS and NPR. They're not perfect, but better.
Try FSTV.
As long as the marketing departments control the news departments, you’ll never see news stories unfriendly to the US’s biggest advertisers. The millions of advertising $ spent by oil companies, auto companies, big pharma, etc ensure that the MSM will push the big business angle of every story. Those executive editors make a lot of money, and they don’t bite the hands that feed them. The press, as the responsible 4th estate, is all but dead.
Thank goodness for Pro Publica. And most of the time, the Intercept (especially after Glenn Greenwald got booted out).
"There was a time when the mainstream media cast a constantly skeptical eye not only on Big Oil, but on Big Business in general. Today, they get a pass, while Biden gets the blame."
I'm a decrepit dotard but I can't remember tis happening more recent than than sometime before Reagan. Did I miss something??
Oh I think press was quite skeptical of Big Tobacco for instance, once the veil began to fall
They were though until 60 Minutes got sued. In my opinion that suit and the Food Lion lawsuit against ABC made journalists back off on investigations of corporate wrongdoing. Now 20/20 sticks to investigating — or more accurately reporting about investigations — of interpersonal, not corporate, crimes. I just looked at a list of 60 Minutes episodes for the past year and not one was about an investigation of corporate wrongdoing except for a rehash of the evidence against Elizabeth Holmes.
60 Minutes wasn't actually sued, they were THREATENED to be sued by Brown & Williamson for airing the Jeffrey Wigand interviewed, and chose to initially block it. ABC WAS sued by Philip Morris for reports on Day One about nicotine manipulation (and sued for libel, unlike Food Lion, who sued for fraud and trespass), and initially moved to fight it, but then settled, very shortly after Disney announced its purchase of the network. CBS preemptively moved to censor itself, but the continual howls of derision about that decision, as well as leaks of the contents of Wigand's interview as well as his Mississippi deposition, made CBS reverse course.
You are right that CBS didn’t actually get sued, they just dropped the piece after their lawyers said it could lead to CBS being sued for inducing Wigand to break his confidentiality agreement. Both Don Hewitt and Mike Wallace said publicly that just the threat of a lawsuit and the fact that ABC had not only settled their lawsuit by apologizing to Phillip Morris and had paid their legal fees had had a chilling effect on reporting about that industry because management had been scared off doing tough investigative reports.
I had forgotten about the tobacco suit again ABC. I was thinking about the Food Lion suit against them.
You’re talking exceptions to the rule of being cool with business. As for Theranos, while a relatively minor outlier, it’s hard to defend any aspect of it which says more about the lurid attraction of it than what it says about what can be called mindless financial speculation. And as that, falls short of criticism of Business.
Not denying that there was a time that the mainstream was somewhat, occasionally critical of business (especially tobacco), just that it was so far in the past that I can’t recall when. Certainly sometime before Reagan, but that’s the best I can do. Must have been sometime 60s-related as part of the vibe.
Actually the corporate lawsuits that stopped that kind of reporting happened in the mid to late 90s.
My question was and is when did the mainstream ever report on business critically in the normal course. The exceptions to the rule is not an answer, likewise the very occasional news magazine story.
Again, I cannot recall regular negative coverage. Tobacco was an exception that pretty much ended decades ago, and I can’t remember anything like it since.
Well there was a time when the press was an effective social check on the excess of businesses. But that dissipated with the implementation of the Powell Memorandum whose Golden Rule was that Corporations can do no wrong.
I think you’re greatly exaggerating the press’ restrictions on business excesses. Got examples? Can’t think of *any significant* push back against business excesses since government decided to support unrestrained capitalism in the late 70s.
Sunday Morning on CBS yesterday did a puff piece on the oil companies, reporting about the supply chain-reaction of the world boycotting Russian oil. At no point did they mention gas prices vs. oil prices as you would expect from a show who's main goal is to advertise Broadway shows. On another tangent regarding this story is the double edge sword we are dealing with. Do we really want more oil drilling while the earth is warming every year, while storms are getting more and more powerful, where the cost of storm destruction is reaching new heights annually? This is an opportunity for the US to rise to the occasion and push green energy by heavily subsidizing electrical vehicles, solar panels on our roofs, and to task NASA with Solar Power from Space which is not science fiction but a real possibility of 24/7 solar energy. But no, the Republicans and sadly Democrats too, will continue to stroke the balls of the oil billionaires.
How soon everyone forgets that during the 1970's oil embargo, energy efficiency boomed. Fuel efficient cars, solar panels, wind energy, people riding bikes instead of driving, the whole shebang. We need to revive this spirit. I remember turning down our thermostats to 68 during the day, and 62 at night. Businesses left fewer lights on overnight. We began turning off the lights in unoccupied rooms. We carpooled. Now all we do is complain that the oil companies should increase their drilling. For shame, Eric.
Yep, we still keep our thermostat at 68/62.
Another well-crafted piece…👏
Thanks
Unless the news puts the president and democrats in a bad light, media just isn’t interested
It's disappointing & frustrating that the people who edit, write & report the news don't want stability because it isn't profitable, they want chaos because it's easy for them to report despite the possibility that they'll end up in prison or dead because America has become an authoritarian nightmare run by mostly old & middle-aged white men who are afraid of change & don't want to share power with anyone who doesn't look like them, love like them, and think like them.
The media are poster people for the mindset of "it can't happen to me."
Really well said!
That’s it in a nutshell and only aggressive voting will change the landscape
Damn.✔️
To be fair blaming high gas prices on Russian is an improvement over the way the media was blaming that and all of inflation on Biden spending too much on the pandemic stimulus bill. Now they just keep carp about high food prices and keep giving a platform to people who criticize Biden for not instituting a no-fly zone over Ukraine, usually with little or no discussion about what the actual risk of doing that is or that it would take the agreement of all the NATO countries to put one in place.
American mainstream media believes its readers, listeners, subscribers & viewers are idiots.
The bigger question is whether they intended to turn the consumers into idiots or did the 24-7 breaking news format "dumb down" serious journalism?
As Mittens Romney infamously intoned at a campaign stop in 2012: "Corporations are people, my friend." It's a patently ridiculous notion that is a product of a series of even more ridiculous rulings from the right wingnuts who dominate the U.S. Supreme Court. So, if corporations are people, this recurrent phenomenon proves that they are nothing more than common criminals, or as they are known in psychiatric circles: Sociopaths.
Sociopaths who are never held to account for price gouging, either by attorneys general in every state in the country or the guy who runs the DOJ (the one who's still "mulling over" a criminal contempt citation by the Jan. 6 committee after 100 days); and certainly not by the hyperventilating press that never misses an opportunity to parrot GOP talking points dumping this on Biden.
Sure, drill for more oil. Spoiled Americans in their $50,000 SUVs are crying about paying more at the pump. What's wrong with you people? Ever hear of global warming?
Have you not looked at the cars next to you in traffic? Most have no passengers, only the driver. And look at the buses - half to mostly empty even though they're the cheapest transportation you can get. I took a bus to work every day for 5 years. I brought along something to read and never had to drive in the snow, which I hated.
We need to straighten out the price gouging and stop clamoring for more drilling.Stop being selfish children and work together. At least share a ride.
And just this evening Catherine Ramped has issued another press release to the effect that Dems are totally lost in determining why federal government is permitting these high gas prices. Oil Company profiteering is ruled out, it's what companies do, silly. Profiteering is just the fact prices are higher than politicians want them to be. Nothing about a lack of competition allowing these high prices to continue.
Boys of Summer:
Lyrics: Don Henley
Music: Mike Campbell
Will The Centrist institutionalist status quo Establishment Democrats give us another whitewashing committee?
Given the incestuous nature of Boards of Directors, I would not be surprised to learn that the directors of the giant telecoms (who currently own most of the US media “brands”) also sit on the boards of some of the oil companies.
Follow the money, I say.
This out of date chart (2018) shows some of the connections between assorted boards:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-largest-u-s-companies-board-members/
Did anyone expect the press to pick on those poor innocent oil companies?
Today's tune is still reverberating for me. Thanks Eric.