History Forgotten within Thirty Years

So for my first post, I have decided to focus on stupidity in the American market. Once upon a time in the 1970's, the OPEC nations decided to create a fuel embargo against America. This and other radical changes in the world created high gas prices and a recession that lasted into the 1980’s. In the early 1980’s, maybe even late 70’s, the Big 3 Auto makers began losing sales to Japanese car companies. The reason was that the smaller Japanese cars got much better gas mileage than the GM and Ford gas guzzling metal monstrosities. They even spoofed the situation in the movie “Gung Ho.”

Flash forward thirty years and here we are again. This time American de-regulation of energy companies is to blame instead of OPEC. Ford and GM are once again announcing HUGE losses while Toyota and Honda sales are up. My question is where in thirty years did GM and Ford forget what had happened to them before (and who owns Chrysler now:)? Why did they switch so many lines to large trucks and SUV’s in the 90’s when just 20 years prior they were re-aligning to smaller cars? Did they really forget those reasons, or were they working together with oil companies to make large profits - fast?

So many say the answer is off shore drilling. Sure, that will add a good 1-2% to our supply. Wow – is that really worth environmental disaster? Once the shore is polluted, it is never the same, and the oil companies will never pay for the spill. Just ask the victims of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. It happened twenty years ago, and Exxon has yet to pay.

The oil companies will swoon you with promises that they are safe and spills won’t happen. Today, John McCain has cancelled a news conference from an offshore oil rig due to "high winds" and an oil spill in the Mississippi gulf yesterday. Apparently McCain advisers did not think it would be smart to put the spotlight on a company that had just spilled some oil. I’m sure MoveOn.org, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club were all ready to jump on that one.

And to conclude with my own personal bitch about gas prices - $50.50 to fill up a 13 gallon Escape Hybrid! Highest oil profits in history. Let’s talk regulation.