Posted by
Always To The Right on Thursday, June 19, 2008 8:09:34 PM
Is knowledge or consistency too much to ask?
Barack Obama and John McCain are busy demonstrating that in close
elections during tough economic times, candidates for president can be
economically illiterate and irresponsibly populist.
It's not the profit margin, but the total number of dollars earned that
is the problem, Mr. Obama might say. But if that were the case, why
isn't he targeting other industries? Oil and gas companies made $86.5
billion in profits last year. At the same time, the financial services
industry took in $498.5 billion in profits, the retail industry walked
away with $137.5 billion, and information technology companies made off
with $103.4 billion. What kind of special outrage does Mr. Obama have
for these companies?
This past Thursday, Mr. McCain came close to
advocating a form of industrial policy, saying, "I'm very angry,
frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits
they've made, but their failure to invest in alternate energy."
But oil and gas companies report that they have
invested heavily in alternative energy. Out of the $46 billion spent
researching alternative energy in North America from 2000 to 2005, $12
billion came from oil and gas companies, making the industry one of the
nation's largest backers of wind and solar power, biofuels, lithium-ion
batteries and fuel-cell technology.