If you ever wanted to know which side of the political spectrum the BC ‘Liberals’ fall, it’s pretty obvious by now it’s neither centre nor left. When a supposed centre-left political party hires a lobbyist whose previous tenure involved working as senior policy advisor and strategist to Stephen Harper and lobbying
Continue readingTag: Lobbyists
The Sixth Estate: Lobbyist Tracker Updated
Three days have now passed since the dishon. Peter MacKay threatened to sue his critics for libel, and Sixth Estate has not received any requests to take down posts “attacking his credibility.” I’m in the middle of revising and republishing another of my regular features, the Lobbyist Tracker, and offer
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: The Tobacco Subsidy Scandal and the Harper Government’s Lobbyist Ties
As you may have heard by now, the Auditor-General is not happy about the fact that the Harper Regime gave over $280 million in subsidies to the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers’ Marketing Board to pay off tobacco farmers to kick their habit, so to speak, only to miss the fact
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: A snail’s pace is quick by comparison
To emphasize that the Basi/Virk trial was merely meter-spinning theatre from the injustice system, I bring back a Northern Insights piece from almost 18 months ago. I think it captures reality, showing the trial was never about exposing truth. This week another insider of the Liberal government was caught reaching
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: It’s not just unions any more: Time to consider fiscal openness for professional associations, private companies, think tanks, churches
The board of the Fraser Institute meets to discuss their next dubious call for lower taxes on billionaires and the corporations they own. Who finances them, anyway? Secretive organizations may not appear exactly as illustrated. It’s not just unions any more. The more I think about this, the more the
Continue readingNEW MEDIA AND POLITICS CANADA: Big-Oil Monopolies Engage in Price-Gouging
Last week Exxon-Mobil announced their 2011 third-quarter earnings, reporting $10.3 billion in profits, which is an increase of 41 percent from the same period last year. So far, Exxon has earned over $31 billion in profits in the first nine months of the year. It needs to be noted that
Continue readingNEW MEDIA AND POLITICS CANADA: Big-Oil Monopolies Engage in Price-Gouging
Last week Exxon-Mobil announced their 2011 third-quarter earnings, reporting $10.3 billion in profits, which is an increase of 41 percent from the same period last year. So far, Exxon has earned over $31 billion in profits in the first nine months of the year. It needs to be noted that Exxon-Mobil is also one of the big five big-oil companies that spends the most money muddying climate-change science – to add to their long list of egregious behaviour.
The people at Shell are also onto good times. Royal Dutch Shell announced their 2011 third-quarter earnings, announcing profits of $6.98 billion, like Exxon-Mobil more than double their profits posted a year ago, bringing their total profits for 2011 to over $21 billion.
In fact he big 5 oil companies have made $102.85 billion in profits since January 1. The massive increase in oil company profits year in and year has nothing to do with market forces but with good old fashioned monopolistic price-gouging. A report from the CFA (Consumer Federation of America) says:
The spike in oil prices has not been caused by natural market supply and demand. In fact, U.S. demand for oil has declined since 2005, while global demand has grown less than 4 percent. In addition, global oil reserves have been growing faster than consumption and the reserve-to-consumption ratio now stands at a higher level than it has been in a quarter of a century. Today, OPEC spare capacity is almost three times as great as it was in 2008.
The CFA also estimates that crude oil is about $30 a barrel higher than costs or historic trends justify, which generates needlessly high prices for petroleum products that drains about $200 billion out of the US economy.
The reason for this is speculators buy and sell as much oil as possible to make quick and easy profits. Speculators might trade a barrel of oil more than 20 times before it is ever used – the price going up with each speculative trade, and consumers picking up the final tab.
And let me close by reminding you that this kind of unregulated speculation has everything to do with what the Occupy Wall Street movement is all about::
Lobbyists and special interests (have) used their influence in Washington, D.C. to weaken regulations on oil trading. For example, in 2000, Enron convinced Congress to overhaul 60-year-old commodities rules that formerly provided checks and balances on oil speculation. This loophole allowed speculators to manipulate and potentially corner the market.
Wouldn’t it be great if governments paid as much attention to consumer groups as to lobbyists from big-oil and Wall Street? Maybe if they could afford to ante up the same kinds of bribes they’d be listened to.
Continue readingNEW MEDIA AND POLITICS CANADA: Big-Oil Monopolies Engage in Price-Gouging
Last week Exxon-Mobil announced their 2011 third-quarter earnings, reporting $10.3 billion in profits, which is an increase of 41 percent from the same period last year. So far, Exxon has earned over $31 billion in profits in the first nine months of the year. It needs to be noted that
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Obama – Not Hillary Clinton – Will Decide Keystone XL Pipeline Fate
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In a clear sign that President Obama recognizes that Hillary Clinton is too conflicted by the web of crony tar sands lobbyists around her to make the decision on whether to app…
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: More Campbell associates break lobbying rules
In March 2008, Gordon Campbell intimate Ken Dobell plead guilty to violating British Columbia’s lobbying legislation. Dobell had retired as deputy minister to the premier in 2005 and then busied himself as a lobbyist and beneficiary of lucrative patro…
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: TransCanada Spent $540,000 Lobbying in Third Quarter For Keystone XL Pipeline
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TransCanada Corp, the company hoping to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, spent $540,000 on lobbying in the third quarter of 2011, according to lobb…
Continue readingMother Jones gives Ezra Levant a hot oil message
I don’t think Ezra will get it. With Mr. Levant any publicity, even when you’re being eviscerated, is what being a ‘gadfly‘ is all about.
Cross posted at Let Freedom Rain.
DeSmogBlog: Keystone XL Lobbyists Web of Corruption Infographic
Now that the web of Keystone XL tar sands industry lobbyists connected to Hillary Clinton has grown far beyond Paul Elliott, DeSmogBlog, Oil Change International, The Other 98% and Friends of the Earth have produced a new white board infographic t…
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Hillary Clinton’s Keystone XL Crony Lobbyists Problem
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Hillary Clinton and the State Department have the final word on whether to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, unless President Obama intervenes. The infl…
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: State Department Emails Reveal Cozy Relationship With TransCanada Lobbyist
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Friends of the Earth today released "deeply disturbing" emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request illustrating "pro-pipeline bias and com…
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Friends of the Earth Asks Justice Department To Investigate TransCanada lobbyist Paul Elliott
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Friends of the Earth today filed a request with the U.S. Department of Justice [PDF] asking the DOJ to investigate whether Paul Elliott, the notorious TransCanada tar sands lo…
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Lobbyist Watch 2: Ministers for Sale
A couple weeks ago I started tracking new registrations by lobbyists, professional political activists who make their living attempting to make sure that politicians and top bureaucrats are at the beck and call of whoever has the cash to buy them. The most interesting appearance in this update: Ian Brodie, Stephen Harper’s late chief of […]
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Former Harper Minister Monte Solberg Calls Layton “The Ax-Weilding Loon Who Lives Below”
The Conservatives, at their recent convention Blue Party, apparently played the “media hates us” card, something the Sixth Estate Media Bias Project conclusively disproved last month. More proof arrived today in the form of this deranged screed in the Ottawa Sun, in which former Harper Cabinet minister and 15-year Reform-Alliance-Conservative MP Monte Solberg refers to […]
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Environmentalists outgunned by oil industry lobbyists
Monday, April 18, 2011
An article in La Presse demonstrates that oil industry lobbyists get about …
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