http://news.yahoo.com/…

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.

The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.

“This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities,” said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.

The lawmaker said Americans “are at the mercy” of OPEC for how much they pay for gasoline, which this week hit a record average of $3.79 a gallon.

The White House opposes the bill, saying that targeting OPEC investment in the United States as a source for damage awards “would likely spur retaliatory action against American interests in those countries and lead to a reduction in oil available to U.S. refiners.”

The administration said less oil going to refineries would limit available gasoline supplies and raise fuel prices.

Foreign investment in U.S. oil infrastructure has declined in the last decade. But the state-owned oil companies of several OPEC nations are owners of U.S. refineries, and those investments could be affected if the legislation becomes law, said Arlington, Virginia-based FBR Capital Markets Corp.

The bill also requires the Government Accountability Office to carryout a study on the effects of prior oil company mergers on energy prices.

The Senate would still have to approve the House measure.

The Senate previously approved similar legislation as part of a broad energy bill. However, the OPEC-suing provision was removed after White House opposition in order to get the underlying energy legislation signed into law.

Speculation is an essential knowledge source for the market. Just like any other source it’s important for the market to function optimally. The speculation is wild because some group of jackasses in Congress and the executive branch of the USA government are waging wars on people who did us no harm. Because they are screwing up the value of the currency and attempting to carve the path for future energy sources. No bill can guarantee prices. They will likely cause shortages like the late 1970’s. As Mises said when the government interferes and screws things up… they know nothing else but to continue to interfere and to screw up.

I’m not sure how the hell they can enforce anything like this, I’ve not read the bill yet, but this sounds to me to be a declaration or war or at least an aggressive act.

If the government wants prices to drop stop the intervention. Leave the market alone. Leave the people and governments of the oil producing nations alone. Leave domestic energy production alone. Let them build refineries, let them drill for new oil sources, let them build nuke plants. Then will the costs normalize.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/…

I couldn’t stand to watch the whole thing… nor did I take notes this time but I’ve a few things to point out.

• The very first thing mentioned was the whole race/gender arguments going about. That they all wish to stop talking about it. That race nor gender matter and shouldn’t be part of their campaigns. The second thing mentioned is how the three on stage are qualified to be their. Hillary immediately brings up her gender and talks about what she has accomplished as one.
• They continue to make race and gender an issue throughout the first half of the debate and none of the candidates cared to stop the questions. Even after a member of the audience started yelling about how all the questions where referring to race/gender.
• Just like all the Republicans minus Ron Paul… the Democrats don’t understand economics. Their drivel about the economy was pathetic. It’s like a child’s ignorant view of the world. They speak of surface level issues.
• Hillary accuses all the Republicans of being prowar. Wanting to continue the Bush administration’s plans. Anyone who pays any attention knows that’s not the case. If Mr. Kucinich had been on the stage I’d hope he would have pointed that out along with how none of them on stage have a consistent stance on the war.
• None of the candidates attending obviously care much that others still in the race are ignored. NHGOP had the conviction to pull their sponsership when Hunter and Paul were left out of the forum in New Hampshire. Stereotypically the Democrats are supposed to be for equality even recently wanting to reenact the Fairness Doctrine. Yet Gravel and Kucinich are left out without even a mention.
• They spoke of universal healthcare. Unfortunately they lie and really mean compulsory health insurance. While they usually mean the same thing politically, conceptually they are very different. Universal heathcare as people generally think of is not possible and compulsory health insurance gives better rates and service to those who are worse off and hurts those who are healthy. It’s also a blatant infringement on a persons right to spend their money as they see fit. Throw it on top of workers comp, SSI, etc.
• Opposing Yucka Mountain is retarded. As is opposing nuclear power plants. They are the cleanest and most efficient forms of energy production we have available. I don’t care if opening a new nuke plant a week wouldn’t make a huge difference on CO2 emissions. It’d provide us with more and cheaper power so we can more easily remove coal plants. The nations fear of nuclear waste disposal is fairly unfounded by all accounts I’ve come across including my father’s who worked in the field for >15 years.
• They seemed to all support manditory civil service or at least encouraged it. I thought the 13th amendment stopped that kind of thing.
• I can’t recall much else. They all scare me.

One last thing. Bill Clinton the other day said something like: I don’t think race or gender has cost Hillary or Obama any votes… put it probably got them some. Is it really good to admit that your supporters are bigots and supporting you just because of your gender/race? I thought the Democrats were against that kind of thing. If a Republican had said that they were getting votes because they are male and white in contrast to the woman and the darky their would have been outrage.