Mark Andrew is a former Henco commissioner and former DFL chair. He also works in the “green energy marketing” biz. Since “government” is the primary target of green industry “marketing”, it’s fair to say Andrew is part of our nation’s ongoing green graft racket – by which the “green” industry tries to chivvy tax money from friendly governments.
And as yesterday’s Strib op-ed shows, he really really doesn’t like the Koch Brothers – their refinery (the Flint Hills refinery in Rosemount), them, or their business:
What make’s their businesses so dirty is not just what they do, but how they do it.
Koch Industries’ corporate ethos is to pollute the American landscape with impunity.
(Really, Mark? That’s their “ethos”? The Kochs base their behavior on the idea that polluting is a moral good? That seems a bit far-fetched).
After hours, they fuel a dark labyrinth of propoganda networks to spew out pollution of another kind-disinformation, defamation and denials. Their goal is not to gain market share–it is to rid the world of government oversight of their businesses and the nefarious groups that prop them up. This is how they roll.
Put another way – and in this case an accurate one? The Kochs use some of their fortune (in the tens of billions) to press libertarian solutions (some of their stances have angered conservatives and would probably have gotten Andrew’s support, if he were intellectually honest, which this article pretty much confirms he’s not).
Oh, yeah – they’re thought-criminals (emphasis added):
The brothers over the years have outspent ExxonMobil’s subsidies of shadow climate denier groups by a 3-1 margin.
But this piece isn’t just an attack on the Kochs.
No – it’s against those polluted by association – in this case, the Ordway Theatre in Saint Paul, which the Koch Brothers help underwrite (again, emphasis added):
It is not so curious then, that the Koch’s would want to align themselves with St.Paul’s Ordway Theatre, one of the nation’s leading non-profit live performance venues. The 14th Annual “Flint Hills International Children’s Festival, presented by the Ordway” opens this weekend, and is the perfect halo under which the conglomerate might dwell for a few days, basking in the glow of delighted children whose lives are put at risk by their business and political actions.
The Koch’s [sic] and the Ordway’s that birthed the theatre couldn’t be a starker study in contrasts…Bathed in a riot of color, the brochure captures multi-colored children carefully photographed and captivated by a phantasmagoria of dance, music, acrobatics and reverie. And not a refinery to be found!
The stagings are fantasy adventures as far removed from daily reality as the Koch brothers’ climate change denials.
One wonders if the Kochs slither about in black capes and top-hats and laugh maniacally as they twirl their waxed mustaches.
What Andrew is trying to do is “shame” the Ordway – and the rest of Minnesota’s cultural community – into putting the Kochs “beyond the pale”. Something like this:
Look for more of this; well-heeled liberals badgering Big Minnesota into dissociating with anyone who pushes back against Big Narrative.
Because to the Minnesota left, the only act that can be shamed any more is disagreeing with Big Left.
Epilogue: A local journo pointed out on Facebook that Andrew’s op-ed reads a lot like Andrew’s former boss at the Minnesota Daily – Nick Coleman.
I toyed with responding on Facebook “A badly-written hatchet job, long on name-calling, thoughtcrime-shaming and innuendo and short on fact? Yes, I see the similarity”.
But I don’t like it when people gunk up my Facebook page, either. But it never ceases to amaze me – journalists actually think Nick Coleman is a good writer and reporter.
maybe the Koch’s should mothball the Pine Bend facility and let the Peoples Democratic Republic of Minnesota limp along on the output from NTI in St Paul Park – the Dems could bring back gas rationing – a huge windfall for the unions and think of the opportunities for graft
I thought maybe the MOA mugging would’ve knocked some common sense into Andrew, then I read his comments about his assailants:
““They’re damaged kids, and maybe they’re too far gone, but I think there’s redemption for everybody,” said Andrew. “So we’ll try to find a way for them to get in a place where they can turn their lives around.”
He’s got miles to go.
If only the financial industry guarded against risks to the economy as carefully as the oil and gas or chemical industry guards against risks to the environment.
The market guards against bankers’ risks to the economy. Our problem is that the government’s perverse incentives negated any moderating market forces.
From the comments (which are pretty good overall): “Almost like if one wrote about Mark’s Smore and french fries stands at the state fair and said ‘Andrews corporate ethos is to pollute the American body with saturated fat and toxic sugar with impunity, contributing to obesity and heart disease, this is how he rolls.’ ‘”
Chuck – pow. Thanks for that.
The Koch’s would love to sell me gasoline for a dollar a gallon. The government would do anything to stop them.
In economic terms, an energy source is a substitute for human labor. The cheaper that substitute, the more efficient industry becomes — more value is output for each unit of input.
The Koch patriarch, Fred Koch, invented a means to turn the useless byproducts of oil refining into more gasoline. This means that more energy can be produced for each barrel of oil pumped out of the ground.
The Current Occupant and his minions have another mission. They want to make energy much more expensive.
In their ideal world, the Koch brothers would see you living in a well-lighted, large, single family home, with a sports car and an SUV in the garage.
In their ideal world, the Greenies would see you living in a cramped apartment in a high density urban housing unit (“nine square meters per adult, comrade, is the most efficient use of space!”), and taking public transportation or walking to a government make-work job.
It is not easy to find a working model of controlled growth. There are too many economic inputs and they would all have to be controlled by the State.
The plans of the Greenies would leave you starving and shivering in the dark.
“The Koch’s would love to sell me gasoline for a dollar a gallon.”
The world market (demand) dictates the price of petroleum.
The great majority of the oil reserves are held by sovereign nations, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia, etc. The major oil companies hold a small fraction of the world’s reserves, and what they have are the most expensive to exploit. Nevertheless, the pace of exploration and exploitation had driven the price of drilling rigs and all oil field equipment to record levels. To say that the oil price is high due to United States government is laughable. What blame there is should go to governments under investing in their sovereign oil businesses, and the Chinese government for over investing in capital-intensive, energy-intensive industry.
Oil takes 2-4 years from first exploration to full-scale exploitation, in a risky and capital-intensive process. Sovereign oil companies manage that risk less well than the major oil companies, as their priorities are not entirely focused on profitability. As long as oil demand is increasing, the price will be volatile.
MBerg:
Chemical spills in the United States did not significantly decrease when they increased the fines. Spills greatly decreased when the plant manager was made criminally responsible for the prevention and the reporting of all releases at their facility, and quite a few went to federal prison, mostly for failure to report.
There is a useful lesson to be learned from that experience in the regulation of finance. The amount of money available and the likelihood of getting caught will always tempt underlings to cheat, no matter the level of fine. Throwing the occasional boss (and the underling) in jail ‘pour encourager les autres’ is the only way to convince bank executives to start hiring trustworthy and honest subordinates, rather than slick smart guys with few ethical encumbrances.
“To say that the oil price is high due to United States government is laughable.”
Who said such a thing?
“To say that the oil price is high due to United States government is laughable”
Obama refuses to issue permits to pump oil from leased federal lands
Obama refuses to allow a pipeline to import cheap Canadian oil
.
“The Koch’s would love to sell me gasoline for a dollar a gallon. The government would do anything to stop them.”
“The Koch’s would love to sell me gasoline for a dollar a gallon. The government would do anything to stop them.” ≠ “the oil price is high due to United States government”.
The U.S. government is not powerless to lower the price of gasoline. For political reasons many countries subsidize gasoline produced locally.
OPEC is a cartel. If it didn’t keep the price of oil higher than the market would naturally set it, it would have no reason for existence. As a cartel OPEC isn’t particularly strong, now, because it doesn’t have to be. Global demand is high.
Subscribing to The economist does not in and of itself increase a person’s knowledge of economics.
/What do I pay for in a gallon of regular gasoline?
The national average retail price of a gallon of regular gasoline in March 2014 was $3.53. The four main components of the retail price and approximate shares of the total price were
1. Crude Oil: 67%.The cost of crude oil as a share of the retail price varies over time and among regions of the country. Refiners paid an average of about $100.00 per barrel of crude oil, or about $2.37 per gallon.
2. Refining Costs and Profits: 12%
3.Distribution, Marketing, and Retail Costs and Profits: 9%
4.Taxes: 12%. Federal excise taxes were 18.4 cents per gallon and state excise taxes averaged 23.52 cents per gallon./
Last updated: April 24, 2014
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=22&t=10
So if oil was $20/bbl (a reasonable price IMHO, and close to what it was during the boom years of the 1990s), we’d have an average gas price of about $1.90/gallon.
Until Obama added a $2/gallon tax. For the environment!
It would be an entirely right and proper thing for the official policy of the U.S. government to be to break OPEC.
It would also be entirely right and proper for the goal of the U.S. Energy department to be to lower the price of energy. It is not.
Beat that straw man, beat it good.
The world market sets the price of petroleum.
“Crude oil production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an important factor that affects oil prices. This organization seeks to actively manage oil production in its member countries by setting production targets. Historically, crude oil prices have seen increases in times when OPEC production targets are reduced.”
http://www.eia.gov/finance/markets/supply-opec.cfm
“The world market sets the price of petroleum.”
Why do you say that? What is your epistemology? It is true in the same sense that the market sets the price for a copy of Windows 8 (but it would a lot cheaper if there weren’t IP laws). The price of a cartel (or monopoly) good is limited by several things, esp. the price of a substitute good.
The world market sets the price of petroleum.
Reduced petroleum supply raises the price of petroleum.
The US Government reduces the supply of petroleum by refusing to allow pumping of oil from federal lease lands.
The US Government thereby raises the price of petroleum on the world market.
The US Government is not powerless to lower the price of petroleum – all it must do is issue the permits.
The US Government doesn’t WANT to lower the price of petroleum – it still wants $5 per gallon gas to cut consumption which reduces greenhouse gasses and prevents global warming so the oceans halt their rise and Obama wins another Peace Prize.
On the one hand, PM and Mr. Doakes argue that by putting more oil on the global market it would help push the price of oil down. Which would help lower gas prices because much of what consumers pay for gasoline is linked to the price of oil. http://www.api.org/news-and-media/news/newsitems/2014/mar-2014/study-crude-exports-an-economic-win-for-us-consumers-workers
On the other hand, the refining and distribution sector, would argue that U.S. oil is already cheap and it’s a better idea to export refined products in the current market rather than increasing crude exports. Some of which are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade their refinery.
I guess it depends on who you ask.
$20/bbl oil would boost the US GDP by about 2.5% simply by reducing export of US dollars. You can do the math yourself, we import about 275 million barrels of oil each month.
“I guess it depends on who you ask.”
what do you mean by “it”?
I will repeat myself:
“In economic terms, an energy source is a substitute for human labor. The cheaper that substitute, the more efficient industry becomes — more value is output for each unit of input.”