Functionally ReTodded

Yesterday I took the girls to spend the week with their Nanna. At pretty much the last second, my dad called and said "Hey, you want some company?"

"Sure dood. Come on over."

On the way the kids watched Dora (with headphones on) so pops and I could talk.

I enjoy talking with him a lot because he doesn’t get heated or let hot-button issues pull him into fights. He is a mechanical engineer by education and a commodities broker / compliance guy by trade.

Since I’m functionally retarded and the political and stock market knowledge equivalent of an 8 year old, I like to pick his brain about stuff in the news.

Yesterday’s topics included:

Hillary and Barack’s claims that they will "take" the "record profits" of big oil.

Why gas prices are high.

Being an ACTUAL compassionate conservative (he really is), what factor(s) do you use to decide how you’re vote?

Me being the opposite of mein papa when it comes to media snippets and hot button issues and talking points, I was curious what he’d come up with for me.

As for the Democratic candidates saying they’d "TAKE" big oil’s excessive profits, his answer was "don’t worry about it."

I countered with "How could they anyway?"

He replied, "Well, if they wanted to make a contest out of it, congress could repeal the 28 or so percent tax break Big Oil gets for getting the stuff out of the ground. It’s a different way of taking but it’s taking nonetheless.

"But," he said "beyond that, it’ll never happen. There is zero chance of anything like that getting thru Congress. Ever. So even though you may find it deplorable or disgusting, you shouldn’t think about it twice. That stuff simply can’t get done. Congress is a big and expensive machine that moves INCREDIBLY slowly and carefully."

Additionally (I made this point and he agreed), I think one of the Big Oil guys should have stood up and pointed at the panel and said "Do ANY of you know the difference between profits and profit MARGIN?"

Exxon’s profits have grown immensely in the last 30 years. Their profit margin hasn’t wavered a tenth of a percent in those 30 years. Why? BECAUSE EVERYONE IS USING MORE GAS!!!

If folks really want gas prices to go down, walk or ride a fucking bike. Bitching while you’re driving does nothing. It’s simple economics. If you sell more widgets than you used to, you’re going to have bigger profits. Your margin can stay the same, but yelling at the provider for our consumption is retarded.

I brought up the issue of every state having different EPA regulations for gas and no new refineries built in 30 years as reasons for high gas costs.

Among his replies were these:

While no NEW refineries have been built, the existing refineries have been modified and reworked to increase productivity, so it’s not as bad as everyone thinks.

A bigger issue is that people think oil is oil and gas is gas. Neither of those things are true.

There are different oils, but the biggest two are the sour black nasty stuff and what’s called light sweet crude (the stuff traded on the commodities markets).

A plant built for refining light sweet crude can’t handle or process the other stuff, and vice versa. Also there is the issue of what a barrel of oil produces. There are a variety of products that come from a barrel of oil: crap for making roads, diesel, aviation fuel, motor oil type stuff, gas, and other junk.

If you are heavy into needing diesel but not road crap, you have an exce have to store it or not make it, and not making it results in higher prices for diesel like we’re seeing now.

As for how he decided upon which candidate to cast his vote, his answer was simpler than I expected and a little shocking:

"I vote for someone from the party that ISN’T running congress. Besides, there’s less difference between conservatives and liberals than ever before. Step a smidge outside of everyone’s comfort zone and you become unelectable. So every candidate drops a couple of never can pass ideas and a couple of ideological ones that are palatable, and the rest is basically the same."

That made me think too, so I asked "Then would it be smart to try to vote and take the possibility of putting supreme court nominees into consideration?"

He liked that, but repeated that candidates can’t get confirmed if they’re "too" anything (besides ugly like that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, whom he said reminded him of that lady on Laugh-in. I told him it was Ruth Buzzie and he laughed because they had the same name).

We also discussed the Bear Stearns "non-bailout." What irked him was the invoking of the Federal loan program on the Monday AFTER the Bear imploded. If that had been done five days prior, not only would Bear Stearns still be in business, but much like JP Morgan, the note for the 30 billion probably would never have been called. I could see that didn’t make him very happy either.

So a three plus hour drive with Dora blaring that could have been miserable turned out to be educational, entertaining and it went by in a snap.

Thanks poppy.