Democrats just know more than the rest of us

That is what they think anyway. Two major examples here. In the legislation that did not muster the votes for cloture this week regarding the windfall profits tax, they would set up boards to determine what is appropriate profits. In the world of Wall Street these already exist. They are made up of people who know their craft. They analyze the public statements of companies and the guidance the companies provide to determine what their profits will be. They are fairly accurate but even they sometimes miss. When this happens we see huge spikes and valleys in Stock Prices.

I am willing to bet that any board setup by Congress to determine appropriate profit levels will not be industry experts. I expect they will be made up of patronage positions to payoff party faithful, also know as party hacks. Any industry expert will be someone who agrees with the Congressional Democrats. I don't think it would be any surprise that these boards would find that the entire mess of energy is to be blamed on evil corporations and their evil profits.

Profit drives business. This elementary but no less crucial to understand. When businesses make huge profits they expand. They hire more people, they do more research and development and they feed retirement plans with stock price increases and sometimes dividends (thanks to the Bush tax cuts). The idea that oil companies will make energy cheaper by being taxed heavier would be laughable if not so serious.

Another example of Democrat hubris is in ANWR. Unfortunately it is not just Democrats practicing hubris on this one. John McCain is a willing participant. He at least uses the ridiculous comparison to the Grand Canyon. I have heard quotes from several Senators saying that the research shows that it would not benefit the oil companies to explore there.

The shocking thing about this is that the public is not outraged. It is not the governments' job to determine proper risk for business to take. The companies will determine if they will commit their companies to that risk. If it is too great a risk, they have a win win situation. They pacify all of us by voting to open it up and the companies still won't drill. If the opposite is true, which is much more likely we would in a few years be reaping huge amounts of crude and drastically increasing supply which of course would be step 1 but only the first step toward bringing prices down.

Congress knows that they people will not explore the issue further than listening to the six o'clock news so they are safe to throw out whichever ridiculous explanation they feel and no few actual voters will hold their feet to the fire. Maybe we do deserve to be held hostage to these pirates.