Northwest Indiana Discussion

Low information conservative morons hate facts.

The average price of gas is up more than 10 percent since the start of the year, a point repeatedly made during Wednesday’s Republican Presidential debate. Predictably, the four GOP candidates blamed President Barack Obama for the steep increase.

Actually, the President doesn’t have that kind of pricing power. The more likely reason behind the price increase, though certainly less compelling as a political argument, is the recent spate of refinery closures in the U.S. Over the past year, refineries have faced a classic margin squeeze. Prices for Brent crude have gone up, but demand for gasoline in the U.S. is at a 15-year low. That means refineries haven’t been able to pass on the higher prices to their customers.

As a result, companies have chosen to shut down a handful of large refineries rather than continue to lose money on them. Since December, the U.S. has lost about 4 percent of its refining capacity, says Fadel Gheit, a senior oil and gas analyst for Oppenheimer. That month, two large refineries outside Philadelphia shut down: Sunoco’s plant in Marcus Hook, Pa., and a ConocoPhillips plant in nearby Trainer, Pa. Together they accounted for about 20 percent of all gasoline produced in the Northeast.

This week, Hovensa finished shutting down its refinery in St. Croix. The plant processed 350,000 barrels of crude a day, and yet lost about $1.3 billion over the past three years, or roughly $1 million a day. The St. Croix plant got hit with a double whammy of pricing pressure. Not only did it face higher prices for Brent crude, but it also lacked access to cheap natural gas, a crucial raw material for refineries. Without the advantage of low natural gas prices, which are down 50 percent since June 2011, it’s likely that more refineries would have had to shut down.

The U.S. refining industry is being split in two. On one hand are the older refineries, mostly on the East and Gulf Coasts, that are set up to handle only the higher quality Brent “sweet” crude—the stuff that comes from the Middle East and the North Sea. Brent is easier to refine, though it’s gotten considerably more expensive recently.

But it becomes quite obvious the main reason is Obama's screw up policies with Iran.

So whats the big O'holes strategy...

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg is out with a must-read polling memo this morning, which offers some eye-opening advice to President Obama and his re-election team. After testing several of the president’s economic messages, he finds the argument that the economy is back on the right track polls miserably – and “produces disastrous results.”

“It is weaker than even the weakest Republican message and is 10 points weaker in intensity than either Republican message,” Greenberg wrote. “A third said this message made them less likely to support Barack Obama. Alarmingly, this message barely receives majority support among self-identified Democrats – and even less support among all other groups.”

The memo reads as a glaring wake-up call to the White House, which has been trumpeting improving economic figures lately. Greenberg notes that voters are reporting “no improvement” in their job situation since last June, and have experienced reduced wages and benefits and health insurance coverage. The picture Greenberg’s polling paints is an America public still deeply pessimistic about their future, and skeptical of Obama’s handling of the economy.

More Energy Lies From Obama
Power Line, by John Hinderaker

Barack Obama gave a speech on energy and gas prices to an audience of college students today, at Prince George’s Community College. He chose his audience carefully; the kids knew nothing about energy, and received him enthusiastically. But anyone even slightly knowledgeable about energy policy would have recognized Obama’s speech for what it was: one misrepresentation after another.

Let’s start, however, with an even more basic point: energy is one of a number of areas where reality has bitten President Obama in the hindquarters. He and his administration (most notably Energy Secretary Steven Chu) came into office determined to suppress oil and gas production in order to raise prices, and to substitute politically favored forms of energy for petroleum. That strategy bombed, as the American people predictably rebelled against a doubling in gas prices and other energy costs. So now, to hear him tell it, Obama is a disciple of Sarah Palin:

So that’s point number one. If you start hearing this “drill, baby, drill; drill, drill, drill” — if you start hearing that again, just remember you’ve got the facts — we’re doing that.

Read More:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2 ... -obama.php