Let Us Ponder

I was reading this article where old T Boone, I love him if only for his name, Pickens was talking about oil etc.
He says that we have shut down about 500-600 oil rigs because the low price of oil. He says this has put a bunch of people out of work.
My first question is why are we shutting down oil rigs? Remember last year when oil was so high they made Bush quit filling the Strategic Oil Reserve which was not full at the time as it was? Is it full now? If not why aren't we stockpiling now when there is such a glut of oil on the market and it is so cheap?
If we want to really stimulate the economy, and keep people working why not crank up production and really drive the price of oil down here at home, keeping everyone in the oil industry employed? Here is the real kicker though;

Pickens, who was at the Wall Street Journal’s Economics Conference, also revealed that the U.S. imported 62 percent of its oil in February. This means that $13 billion, or $328,000 an hour, was sent overseas to foreign governments.

Does this make sense? We are shutting down oil rigs laying off people and importing oil? I am sure there are long term contracts involved here to consider, but it really is way past time to start using our Energy Department for what it was sold to us when it was created in the 70's for, to get us off foreign oil.
I know the PC thing is to go all green and all, but our country is hemorrhaging economically and all these silly games with our economic life blood, energy, is going to sink us if we don't quit this nonsense.
Oh in a totally unrelated item from Reuters today;

UPDATE 1-Rare China crude oil stock data shows 34 days cover

...China's crude oil inventories jumped 30 percent over the past year to stand at 37.20 million tonnes, or near 272 million barrels, by the end of January, data published by China Oil,Gas and Petrochemicals, a biweekly Xinhua publication showed. Chinese oil demand runs at about 8 million barrels per day(bpd).
While the data appeared to refer only to inventories held by oil companies, with no specific mention of strategic stocks held in the government's newly built 100-million-barrel reserve tanks, it offered rare evidence of long-suspected stockbuilding.

Why don't we put some people to work expanding our Strategic Oil Reserve, maybe a few refineries and get serious like the Chinese and every other country in the world with half a brain. Instead we let a bunch of washed up hippies, socialist leaning politicians and college kids wipe out the United States economy with a bunch hair brained pseudoscience. God help us.
By Jer


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