wrote in message
ups.com...

Harry Krause wrote:
Regular grade gasoline was $3.05 a gallon yesterday at several docks in
Annapolis. Diesel was $2.61 to $2.65.

Thanks, Dubya.


It's a real stretch to try to blame George Bush for five decades of
over consumption, five decades of refusal to seriously pursue
alternative energy sources, five decades of ass-kissing BIG OIL and THE
BIG THREE automakers. He can be held accountable for the things like
the gutting of CAFE standards during his administration. He can be
criticized for developing a national "energy policy" that concentrates
primarily on squeezing the last few drops of oil out of the ground and
excusing his family's (and other) oil companies from taxes in the
process. He can be resented, a bit, because he and his family are
getting filthy rich(er) every time the price of a bbl of oil goes up a
buck. He clearly has no personal incentive to wish for lower oil
prices, but it isn't fair to lay the blame for the current pricing on
Bush.

In all fairness, you really have to listen to the news reports when the
price jumps. Inevitably, they say things like "Oil rose to XXX per barrel in
Singapore trading, based on concerns about hurricanes, the failure of HBO to
produce a new season of the Sopranos on time, increased violence in Iraq"
.....blah blah blah. The hurricane fear also causes orange juice futures to
increase in price, even if the hurricane was a false alarm and never touches
Florida. Those prices tend to come down after the weather has passed. Same
with coffee, when strange weather affects Africa or South America. But, they
*never* seem to go down when oil is involved, and the latest round of fears
don't materialize.

See where I'm going with this? You *can* blame Bush for some of the fears
felt by speculators. He started a war and created instability. That DIRECTLY
affects speculation.

It's obscene for a product as important as oil to be controlled by people
who are no different than the mutual fund managers whose enormous trades
move the prices of stocks all over the place on any given day. Traders on
the oil markets make commissions regardless of whether they're long or short
in their speculative ventures. It's no different than traders in options on
the CBOE.

I'm wondering if it's time to either nationalize oil, or put laws in place
which require that the price be precisely pegged to how much is actually
shipped. But, Bush has personal financial reasons not to go for such a plan.
That is a real problem.