Redline
Many people in the US are really hurting from $4/gallon gasoline, but I’d be delighted to pay that much at my neighborhood station, which briefly hit $4.99 9/10. The US congress achieves nothing important in its rush to spend other people’s money these days, so could we please make it a national priority to raise taxes by 1/10 cent per gallon and eliminate this nonsense once and for all?! The extra 1/10 cent can help design the next-generation square-wheeled car, or fund a national self-esteem program (forget about the strategic oil reserve, which apparently is no longer so).
St il, as they say “no pain no gain”, and $4 gasoline ($6 by year-end perhaps) is by far the best way to wean this country’s drivers off their 5 litre V8’s—after all, those empty 12-pack cartons don’t really require a V8 to haul around, especially since they can be discarded before leaving the campsite.
As much as I don’t like the price, and cringe at filling my undersized 4.5L V8 SUV’s tank, it’s sure a darn sight better than having no fuel because the military has seized the oil supplies for its own use—which is where we’ll end up eventually—believe it or not.
Anyway, gasoline hasn’t actually risen in price very much. There are supply and demand issues, but what’s really happened is that the US has destroyed the value of the dollar by 40% or more over the last few years by “printing” (literally and electronically) mountains of paper money aka US dollars. As long as we can exchange ponzi-paper for intrinsically-valuable oil, we’re ahead of the game until the suckers catch on. Read The Creature from Jekyll Island.
Update: European readers of this blog report prices in the Netherlands and Britain at the dollar equivalent of $10 - $14/gallon. Rest assured, Americans, that Congress will not be so bold as to raise prices by taxing gasoline so massively as in Europe; the “cap and trade” charade will double gas prices just as efficiently while avoiding political blame and producing trillions in new looting...oops—revenue.
