For a Silent Majority, They Sure Talk a Lot
The Sunday Night Reader for July 10, 2022
No newsletter next week. Week after that is a maybe. Vacation!
They are the Media. And the Oil Industry.
Earlier in the week, local radio host and station owner Stevie Jay Khachaturian and his brother Jon did their weekly down-home oracles of common sense routine on the morning show on 93.5 FM. They lamented the “assault on truth” by the left. They slammed cuts to police funding (which absolutely have not happen and claiming that they have is, well, an assault on truth).
Several times, they complained about a “loud, loud minority” that engages in “this constant down-beating of everything we know worked” back in the good old days. They worried over “the media and the big tech and the rhetoric that is the minority screaming” and how it influences Democratic politicians and the social fabric.
They delivered this hate-the-media, silent-majority patter from the multimillion-dollar radio station group that they bought together with The Atkins Group more than a decade ago and named after Stevie Jay. (Jon sold his portion to The Atkins Group last year for one dollar, which then immediately sold the combined stake to Stevie Jay, making Stevie Jay the sole owner.)
I don’t have any beef with local boys making good, but it was more than a little much.
Then they decided to go off on how dumb it is to think that oil companies’ astounding profits are somehow linked to gas prices. That’s where they really got to me. (For the record, Shell's profits tripled in Q1 of 2022 compared to Q1 of 2021, when they still managed to clear $3 billion. BP’s more than doubled, and were at a 10-year high. Exxon’s doubled, and Chevron’s went up by four times.)
Here’s what the Brothers Khachaturian had to say:
SJ: We’re supposed to be excited at $4.75 [per gallon]. The evil oil and gas people, still being evil and out there.
Brother Jon: It’s nothing to do with that. We just aren’t producing energy because chose not to.
[Again, for the record, the United States’ crude oil production is well over double what it was a decade ago, and it’s expected to increase in the coming years. Combined, we produce more crude oil, other liquid petroleum products, and biofuel than any other country — about 80 percent more than our nearest competitors, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Could we produce more? Sure. Are we “not producing energy?” Rubbish. We produce a lot of fossil-fuel-based energy and a lot more than anybody else. It’s still about 10 percent less than we consume.]
SJ: Well it’s just an evil industry because that’s what Joe Biden suggests. ‘Why don’t you just drop the price?!? Just lower the price!’ He has no idea how economics works.
Brother Jon: There’s evil out there, but I wouldn’t start focusing on oil and gas right now.
It’s a weak argument, to the degree it’s an argument at all. But I’m sure they could talk circles around me on the economics of the oil and gas industry.
You know why I’m sure of that? Because they are the oil and gas industry.
Jon is founder and CEO of Versabar, Inc. Versabar builds heavy equipment like winches and crane systems that are used almost exclusively to build off-shore oil rigs. Stevie Jay is CEO of a related company called Versabuoy, which makes other equipment for off-shore oil production.
By pointing this out, I’m not saying we seize the means of production or nationalize the media. Versabar is based on a good idea, hard work, and the courage to try. Jon earned the right to buy his brother some radio stations, and Stevie Jay obviously knows how to run them profitably.
What I am saying is: 1) They should disclose such large financial interests to their audience when they’re discussing things related to those interests and 2) be careful which “everyman” you let sell you “common sense.”
‘Sanctified, not Sanctimonious’
When David Remnick describes Mavis Staples’ stage presence as “so unfailingly joyful,” he’s spot on in my experience. We had the pleasure of seeing her a few years ago at a — woefully underattended — show at The Virginia. She took the stage on the arm of a young male attendant, did a loose hour and fifteen minutes, and radiated a five-hour show’s worth of lovingkindness. Such a gift to all of us.
Today’s her 82nd birthday, so read the article.
Heavy Rotation
You Love to See It…
Say It Plain…
I'll go ahead and opine that the Versa Bros' ideas are terrible. Entrepreneur-y and "successful" by capitalism's standards, perhaps, but based on extracting a finite fossil fuel from the earth whose use by humans is destroying our climate "faster than expected".