A few things that recently happened in the nation that shows the U.S. Congress fails in doing its duty to protect the American people's interests especially when the stakes are significant. Two of the big five major oil companies in the world decided to buy two large midsize American oil companies; specifically ExxonMobil decided to buy Pioneer and Chevron decided to buy Hess. These mergers are clearly to the detriment of the U.S. consumer over the long-term; contrary to the media manipulative buzz oil is going to be important to the American economy for the next thirty years and the media would have the public believe that electric vehicles are going to quickly replace the combustion engine ain't happening EVs use rare earth minerals whose supply and price is and will be unstable for the foreseeable future and the utility of these EVs has significant problems. So what is going on here is that these two big oil companies just secured a huge increase in their oil reserves with this merger these executives secured their good future income streams at the expense of the U.S. consumer. Stable oil prices for the American consumer depend on a good supply of oil in the market which depends on strong exploration and development. Exxon with its purchase of Pioneer purchased a large shale producer of oil and natural gas in America, shale fields deplete relatively at a moderate rate so it is in the American people's interest to have strong countries that will find and develop new shale fields. American is not likely to discover another Bakken shale field like that which was found in west Texas and New Mexico which had an ocean of oil and natural gas. America's future with oil and gas domestic development lies in small and moderate size fields; a huge mega company like Exxon won't explore, develop and buy such fields because it doesn't make economic sense for them to do so it isn't worth the management effort. But a stand alone Pioneer company would they would have no choice because they need to keep their earnings and profits stable and growing and so they need to pursue to significant revenue generators which would be small and midsize shale fields. Members of Congress should shut down this Exxon/Prudential merger as quick as one can say jackrabbit, if need be they should be passing a bill that says absolutely not to the Exxon/Pioneer merger. The Chevron/Hess merger is less a threat to future stable and good oil prices because Hess isn't a major shale producer but if Congress was really on the job they would be sending a message to the big major oil companies don't buy the mid-size energy companies only buy the small size energy companies because we need the mid-sizers to support supply! Also, Congress should be shutting down the Nippon steel purchase of U.S. Steel. Japan and Japanese companies are good but this is the key consideration Nippon executives like all executives are about maximizing profits so they will certainly eventually be expanding production of steel in their foreign plants because manufacturing costs are lower and dialing down production at U.S. STeel's steel plants. For the long-term this means the U.S. will have a smaller domestic steel industry meaning less good middle class manufacturing job plus even more importantly less domestic production of fundamental and critical commodity for the country that being steel. Exposing America to having to pay higher prices and having supply shortages for steel in the future; could members of Congress be any stupider to let this happen. Not to long ago, America had another accident on one of its military helicopters called the Osprey it is a tilt rotor helicopter that is it takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. There have been eleven accidents with this helicopter since 1992 with sixty-one deaths. This writer wrote several years ago they should rename this helicopter the vulture because that is the type of bird this helicopter will draw to it with its proneness to crashes. Not only is the problem with this helicopter if it is hit by enemy fire it quickly goes off balance and crashes if there is mechanical problem in the opposite rotating propellers where the force one creates becomes unequal the helicopter goes off balance and crashes. Congress is now preparing a helicopter just like the osprey called the valor to replace the work horse the black hawk; it will spin peoples head with how many soldiers and battles are lost with this stupidly designed helicopter. Congress should shoot down the valor program.
