Looks like unfettered capitalism is working exactly as it’s supposed to in Texas.
Texas billionaire Jerry Jones is, of course, best known for somehow making me hate the Dallas Cowboys even more than I used to (in case you’re not a football fan, he owns the team), but in the past few days he’s morphed from shitty NFL owner into a straight up old-timey robber baron.
It’s not enough that Jones somehow hoodwinked local taxpayers into paying for the stadium his team plays in; now he’s gouging them senseless as they face one of the biggest crises they’ve encountered in decades.
The Dallas Morning News:
The Frisco-based natural gas producer owned by Dallas billionaire Jerry Jones is cashing in on a surge in prices for the fuel as a brutal freeze grips the central U.S., leaving millions without power.
Comstock Resources Inc. has been able to sell gas from its Haynesville Shale wells in East Texas and northern Louisiana at premium prices since Thursday. As demand jumps amid the cold, gas at some regional hubs has soared past $1,000 per million British thermal units.
Yeah, why don’t poor and middle-class Texans pull themselves up by their bootstraps and realize they could all be doing this? Step 1: Buy an NFL team that shits gold doubloons no matter how awful it is. Step 2: Become a player in Texas’ dangerously deregulated energy market. Step 3: Rake in the cash like it’s a forest floor in Finland.
Easy-peasy, you layabouts. Now show some initiative! Jerry Jones doesn’t owe you anything—except for 39% of the cost of his massive golden goose of a stadium.
Needless to say, Comstock CFO Roland Burns was simply giddy about his customers’ dire outlook, the Morning News reports.
“This week is like hitting the jackpot with some of these incredible prices,” Burns said. “Frankly, we were able to sell at super premium prices for a material amount of production.”
Good for you, Roland! And all it took was large-scale human misery the likes of which we haven’t seen in years! Pop open some Champagne! And remember, it’s not really Champagne unless it comes from the Champagne region of France. Just like it’s not really a margarita if Ted Cruz has to order it at an airport Chili’s on his way back to Houston.
So shouldn’t these captains of industry be punished when they fail instead of, I don’t know, being richly rewarded?
Jerry Jones’ football team has aggressively sucked for much of the past three decades, and yet he gets free money to build a colossal shrine to himself. Meanwhile, his energy company reaps the benefits of everyone else’s hardship.
Something’s rotten in the state of Texas, and it’s not just Ted Cruz.
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