I was talking to a guy the other day and he was bitching about the price of gas going up again so I suggested that if we really wanted to do something about it we could take the Brazilian path and make it economically attractive to run vehicles on biofuels that are from the US. He freaked on me and started talking about how that wasn’t possible and that was partly the reason food was so expensive. I’ve never been sure if those kind of people are neocons who want to keep their Big Oil cronies rolling in cash or liberals that aren’t very smart. I’ve heard Rush Limbaugh say the same sort of stupid crap (I’ll set aside for a moment that I lost any respect for him I may have had when he got caught with illegal prescriptions after saying anybody who used illegal drugs should go to prison. I agree, he should be in prison). Here’s the thing…. I’ve been all over and there is a lot of open space in the US that’s suitable for growing sugar cane or sugar beets or soybeans or any of the dozens of other plants suitable for use in biofuels.

My conspiracy theory craziness thinks it has a lot to do with Big Oil not wanting the competition and Big Government (and I include both the reds and the blues in that category) being terrified that they won’t be able to tax biofuels. Biodiesel and ethanol can both be brewed up relatively easy in your backyard. For Big Oil this means that they can’t manipulate the price of oil. I know, I know, they say they don’t already. It’s all “speculators” fault. But have you ever noticed that when the price gets really high and people start talking about windfall profits taxes the price drops for a few months until something new comes along — like say thieves at AIG raping the US Treasury– then they inch their way back up? For Big Government it means you lose the ability to tax fuels. How do you tax a gallon of something when you don’t have any idea how many gallons of it are being used?

Bad for Big Everybody. Of course it would also mean that we wouldn’t have to care what the Middle East was doing and they could go back to being camel jockeys.

So the House of Representatives passed a bill that would tax the shit out of the AIG bonuses. A similiar bill has been introduced in the Senate. My question is this: The House bill was passed 328-93. The vote breakdown was 243 democrats and 85 republicans in favor and 6 democrats and 87 republicans opposed. I understand that the republicans want to know why these bonuses weren’t stopped before the money was paid out but exactly what is the purpose of 87 of them voting against getting the money back now? If a mistake was made in paying it out, by all means point it out, but don’t then vote to let them keep it.

My personal opinion is that none of this outrage would be taking place at all in Washington if word hadn’t gotten out and the future ditch fodder from Washington weren’t worried about having to find real work at the end of their term.

And in a follow on to Jim’s series of moral outrage posts…. There are reports today that AIG, which recieved $170B (that 170 with 9 zeros after it, folks*) in TARP bailout money will be paying out $165M in retention bonuses today in addition to $55M that has already been paid. Edward Liddy, CEO of AIG, says that he’s been informed by lawyers that AIG could face lawsuits if they didn’t payout the bonuses. Now maybe it’s just me but these are some of the people that are responsible for the global economic meltdown and I dare the motherfuckers to find a set of 12 people as jurors anywhere outside the Financial District in Manhattan that thinks they’re entitled to bonuses instead of public flogging.

I can’t find it anywhere in print but while I was getting my coffee this morning, Liddy was on Fox News saying that, in addition to being contractually obligated to paying the bonuses, it would be impossible to work their way out the current crisis without being able to keep good employees**. Again, maybe it’s just me, but why are these people so complete unique in their ability to bring AIG out of the woods? Aren’t they the ones that caused the problems in the first place? Couldn’t you put the average 12 year old in charge and expect them to not lose almost $62B in the next quarter?

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*To put this number into a little bit better perspective…. If you and your 499 closest friends make $100,000 a year for the entirety of your 50 year working career you would need to find 680 groups just like yours to earn that kind of money in your lifetime.

**Here’s a link to a Boing Boing article by David Gillmor where he puts itoh so succinctly.