Congressional candidate misinformed about Big Oil

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I recently read some information that, even for political posturing during a campaign, is incredibly disingenuous and completely misguided.

Jill Morgenthaler of Des Plaines, who’s running as a Democrat in the 6th Congressional District, accused her Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam of Wheaton, of helping to protect the record-breaking profits of Big Oil while Middle America suffers at the pump.

“The numbers are in and thanks to Representative Peter Roskam protecting their profits, it was another record-breaking quarter for Big Oil, while Illinois’ middle class families are being squeezed by $3.97 gas at the pump. Big Oil profits are good news for Representative Roskam who accepted $100,865 in Big Oil contributions,” according to an article on Morgenthaler’s Web site.

The Web site quotes Jennifer Crider, communications director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as saying, “With another quarter of record profits, Big Oil owes Representative Roskam a big thank you for looking out for their bottom line instead of working on a bipartisan solution to high gas prices.”

Does Crider believe it should be the mission of members of Congress to make sure the bottom lines of private sector entities are hurt? By now we’ve all seen that when corporations lose money, we as consumers end up paying the bill.

A couple of points need to be made here.

The world price for oil is not set by oil companies. Oil is a commodity, and as such its price is set by those who trade it. The high price for oil is driven largely by the immense demand for it — particularly in China and India, whose economies are growing at a phenomenal rate — and partly by the wild trading that’s gone on.

As with many industries, the record profits earned by oil companies in specific quarters are often offset by huge losses in other quarters. Don’t scream about the profits realized by Big Oil until you examine how it did for an entire year.

And what do oil companies do with their record profits (or whatever they have at the end of the year)? Aside from paying their top executives ridiculous salaries, they invest them in new refineries for processing oil into gas and into new technologies that make drilling more efficient. They also use profits to pay their investors.

And who invests in Big Oil? If you have a financial portfolio (including many retirement plans and pension funds), chances are very good that you do. In fact, if your financial advisers aren’t investing your money in oil, fire them and find someone who knows a good investment when they see it.

So Morgenthaler shouldn’t jump on the Bash Big Oil bandwagon without all the facts. Doing so perpetuates myths that are easily dispelled, and this makes her look like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. This isn’t a good campaign tactic, if you ask me.

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Tags: Big Oil, Jill Morgenthaler, Peter Roskam, suburban shoutout