The Answer

In the last blog, the big question was: why are gasoline prices so high and rising, with a glut of domestic oil and declining demand?

Newt Gingrich has a simple plan for what to do about it: price controls. Taking a page out of FDR’s playbook, Newt is now promising to hold gasoline prices at $2.50 a gallon if he gets elected. It’s the same approach used in North Korean economics. Stalin used a similar strategy.

Is Newt ashamed of this economic pedigree? Seems not.

The McClatchy newspapers analysts examined the gasoline price increase from several angles and concluded that it’s a big riddle.

 In a closed-door meeting earlier this month, Speaker John A. Boehner instructed fellow Republicans to embrace the gas-pump anger they find among their constituents when they return to their districts for the Presidents’ Day recess. Boehner is quoted here.

The problem has become so worrisome for Obama that he has gone into full bore defense mode, realizing his opponents have a winning strategy: blaming his failure to support the drill-baby-drill approach (regardless of whether oil supplies have anything to do with the prices of gasoline or not). 

According to the Washington Post, a panicked Obama said that the United States is producing more oil now than at any time during the last eight years, with a record number of rigs pumping and the White House was prepared to open new areas in the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico to exploration.[1]

National Public Radio has been hosting all kinds of experts who claim that the price rise is due to a shortage of refineries or to increased demand in the international market for refined gasoline, and gaslone can now be refined in the US cheaper than elsewhere because of our glut of cheap natural gas. (Natural gas is used “crack” crude oil into gasoline.)[2]

These are not the answers.

The answer to the question is price manipulation.

Some non-mainstream news sources have explained how this is happening. The Truth2Power website described clearly how the “contango” strategy works by storing huge quantities of oil in anticipation of future price increases.  Read their explanation for a real eye opener: here.

And just who is doing this price manipulation?

This guy:

This is an unretouched photo one of the famous Koch brothers, owners of America’s second largest company.

By controlling the price of refined gasoline using the contango strategy and other means, the Koch brothers can kill three birds with one stone: 

• make billions for themselves
• make the public think its all Obama’s fault, and 
• continue to dump gazillions into the Romney campaign.

The description of what the Koch boys do with all the money made from your gasoline dollars is really mindboggling.

The Koch brothers are true masters of the universe. These lying, cheating, and stealing billionaires have been manipulating commodity prices for decades, completely free of transparency or oversight by anyone, thanks to the exemptions from regulation they got from Phil and Wendy Gramm. 

Koch Industries have become the second richest company in American by pulling this scam. Every time you pull up to the gas pump, you pay a big fat tax to the Kochs.

Anyone interested in the details of how the Koch’s pull this off should take a look at the excellent Think Progress website or, better yet, the Koch Industries own slide show explaining in detail how they do it. 

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1. Mark Landler,” In a Nod to Gas”,Washington Post,  Feb 23, 2012

2. All Things Considered, "Energy Fuels Newt Gingrich’s Comeback Plan", Feb 26, 2012.