http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203750404577171291119729680.html

The Republicans had all voted to continue government subsidies for big oil companies, corporations who are making record profits and aren’t paying their share of taxes. Does that make any sense at all? Is that a free market economic principle? But the big oil executives say that by NOT giving them our money is “un-American”. (Is corporate welfare supposed to be patriotic in a free market?)

We hear a lot of rhetoric about “energy independence” and “Drill, baby, drill!” – but the Wall Street Journal recently reports, “Thanks to new drilling techniques, such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, the U.S. price of natural gas has plummeted, and is now among the cheapest in the world. The new drilling methods has unleashed a flood of cheap natural gas in the U.S. market. Now they’re looking to find new international markets for the surplus production [to export for corporate profits], which would raise natural-gas prices for U.S. customers.”

And according to the CIA’s World Factbook, the United States is already exporting 2 million barrels of oil a day. So why are we having a discussion about TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline if we have an oil shortage and/or need “energy independence” when we’re exporting oil and natural gas?

Simple answer: For corporate profits, at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

I proposed an idea about the Keystone Pipeline, funding a massive non-profit public works program to build an oil company that’s operated and owned by our government (the people) for our own use, buying oil at “cost”. But would anybody listen to common sense?

But instead, with the Keystone Pipeline, BIG OIL will sell the oil back to the American taxpayers for the highest bid through Goldman Sachs on the commodities market, or export it to places like China….where our jobs went.

Crony Capitalism vs. Free Markets
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2012/01/crony-capitalism-vs-free-markets.html

What part is private equity playing in joblessness? Are we in a private equity boom that is exacerbating the joblessness situation?

Thanks.