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TO: John McLaughlin, Moderator, "The McLaughlin Group" currently in production on PBS.
Dear Sir,
I am a long-time viewer--long time--but you had on a recent program (circa the 2008 Independence Day weekend) a panel discussion like I've never before heard on your program or any other. Clearly, the topic of Big Oil was far too big for them--way out of their *sage-Bush* minor leagues. But it was more than that. It was a maddening display of nescience usually reserved for the occupant of the seat upstage right, now being held down by Monica Crowley (just so it--the seat--won't get blown away by the giant wind machine in the background).
Okay, there may be more style here than substance, but there are some serious points to be made. Question: Is it (live) speculation?. . or is it a 70 u-sec, high-bias version of market capitalism? Well media types like those I saw on "le programme du jour" would certainly need high bias to get the spin right, so I'd guess that's why your panel picked "market.capitalism" as their favorite (make that their one-and-only) answer. That's right, the "free and unfettered" market which can do no wrong and speculation merely comes with the territory--or so it was said. It was also said on-air that speculators take huge risks, as we all learned in high school economics, and so speculators should be able to reap large rewards. Unfortunately your panel left it right there, all dimples and smiles for the camera. Next up. . .wait for the bell to ring, I guess.
Sadly, you agreed with them when there were in fact several things I expected of you. You see, speculation does not stand alone in this issue. In fact, speculation is not actually the issue at all. The issue is market manipulation. Now we're talking a horse of a different color, I believe. Have a staff member go to www.npr.org, the website of National Public Radio. Look for the daily segment called "On Point with Tom Ashbrook." I can't give you the exact date but a search of "oil and gas prices" which aired in June of this year will yield an hour's worth of program information that your panel could probably assimilate in. . .oh, I dunno, with eggheads working together, probably no more than ten minutes.
You could have jump started your abortive segment by redirecting the panel's attention to something called the "Enron loophole, or loopholes, to be more precise. The House is actually looking into the similarities between the oil and gas crisis and the Enron debacle that nearly bankrupted the state of California in, I believe it was 1999. A very sharp representative from Minnesota's 1st Congressional district--I don't recall his name--is leading the charge, of "collusion in the markets," between Wall Street and Big Oil, and from what I heard he has an excellent chance of making it stick. Engaging in conspiracies to manipulate the markets used to be illegal and there's a good chance that it still is. If you're not up on this story, you and your panel will be coming on with faces as red as beets sooner rather than later.
Bottom line. . .they're *gaming* the system. They were caught during Enron, and now they've simply moved on to the next target and the next game, which is oil. And when their "speculative" maneuvers in oil get exposed, they'll move on to the next big ticket item. Don't you think it strange that Wall Street apologists come straight out and say things like, "Go ahead and regulate us through all your 'transparency'. We'll just move offshore and do our thing in the global market place, cutting you, Uncle Sam, out of the game entirely?" This is hubris, Enron style. I've been writing on this for a while now, and I feel like I should send you some of my stuff from 3 or 4 months ago. It was obvious to me, and should also be obvious to almost any "free marketeer," that what we know as the supply-and-demand market force doesn't fluctuate up and down by 60 or 70 percent in the space of a few months. And China's role in this? Same thing. China's demand numbers are rising, but China is not experiencing shortages. China's demand quotient is being met. That's a fact. So to say that skyrocketing gas prices are the result of an overarching demand pull in the direction of China and other players in the game is just nonsense.
I just want to quickly remind you (all) that there are legions of heartbreaking stories connected with the ignorance that's going on here. People are having to choose between falling behind on their mortgages and the fuel they need to get to work. I ask you, what kind of choice is that? The next housing boom will be in *non-housing* as we begin to create massive numbers of the "nouveau" homeless. And for what?. . .a de-facto gas tax that's going not for taxes but straight into the pockets of sharpshooters on Wall Street, who, if you confronted them, would say, "Go complain to someone who cares?"
All of this reminds me of the Tom Friedman line, which I absolutely loathe, where he defends market capitalism by saying, ". . .it's the system that makes people unequally rich, just as others make people equally poor." There is a tough lesson for Mr. Friedman behind a statement like that--maybe not in his lifetime. He seems to be suggesting American Royalty, modeled after the sometimes interesting (and frequently rolling) European heads of state which were chiefly responsible for the founding of this country. It's a gimmick line of course--Friedman’s, that is--and one that would have fit into Marie Antoinette's lexicography quite nicely. Yet, if I remember correctly, she eventually found herself in a rather tight situation for her espousal of some very similar sounding elitist views.
Well, the Great American Experiment, sir, is failing. It was supposed to have been that through fairness and equal opportunity every American had the chance to get ahead, and I underscore the word fairness. Many of us realize that this was never actually the case--for the poor, minorities, the less well educated and even the handicapped due to monumental human greed--now as in the past and here just as it is in both the richest and the poorest nations of the world.
----
And now for my prediction: Oil will be back down to $70/barrel before the next President of the United States takes the Oath of Office, and soon after you will find gas at the pump in the $2.70--$3.10 range for regular unleaded.
I love your signoff, but it's iconically yours and I won't tread on it. But here's mine.
"The abyss awaits."
------
Fritzwilliam
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