Analytical

Bill's Brain
"Damn the consequences, give me the pen!"
Lewis Morris, signing the Declaration of Independence

Creative

I’ve heard many Bush supporters say that he says what he means and means what he says, so that means that right now he must be busy “jawboning” away on those OPEC folks, right?

WRONG!!!

A recent Knight Ridder article says that at a recent public appearance “Bush suggested that he’s powerless to stop price increases that pushed the average price of gasoline to a record $2.28 last week.” Bush stated “I wish I could simply wave a magic wand and lower gas prices tomorrow, I’d do that.”

Well George, you don’t need a magic wand to release some oil from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and ease prices by making more oil available, as other presidents have done in the past. All you have to do is say the word.

Oh I forgot, you won’t do that because then your rich oil industry friends would make less money. For many years oil futures have been priced based on the expectation that if the cost of oil got too high the president would release oil from the SPR, and when you announced that you wouldn’t do that the value of oil futures soared, making your rich oil buddies even richer. Plus, while the American people are having more money than ever taken out of their pockets at the gas pump, the oil companies that are your big financial supporters are reporting record profits. I’m sure that they’ll say “thank you” and give Republicans a nice chunk of those profits in the form of campaign donations, and that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it George? Figuring out more ways to make your rich friends richer and gain even more power for the Party, even if it means fleecing the American public?

You also don’t need a magic wand, George, to stop driving down the value of the dollar with your short-sighted, self-serving, irrational economic policies that benefit the few, harm the many, and burden the country with enormous debt. The policies that you and the Republicans in Congress pushed through have significantly driven down the value of the US dollar, and that means you (yes George, YOU) have driven up the cost of oil for the American people.

I realize some readers might be wondering why that’s the case. Well, when the government runs a large deficit, as Bush has (he has not yet vetoed a single spending bill, even those that were laden with special-interest pork) it means that the government needs to sell a large amount of bonds to cover their daily expenses. Selling bonds is, in effect, selling US dollars and taking out a loan from the buyer. Currently the government has to “borrow” about $2 billion a day this way just to stay in business. When there are so many dollars (bonds) for sale on the market, the market tends to get flooded (there’s more supply than demand) and the price goes down. That means that the value of the US dollar goes down.

But what does this all mean to you, the humble reader? It means that you have to pay a lot more for oil (and consequently, for gas) when you’re buying it with US dollars. Here’s an example of the end result: From February 2002 through February 2004 the price of oil in US dollars increased by 51% (as did US gas prices), but the price of the same oil in Euros only increased by 4%. Big difference huh? Just to put that into perspective, let’s say that before the price increase you were paying $1.50 a gallon for gas (just to pick a round number). A 4% rise would only increase the price to $1.56, which is not bad at all, but a 51% increase pushes the price all the way up to $2.67 a gallon.

Every time I fill up it makes me want to say a big “thank you” to everyone who voted for Bush. I’ll just pull some more (and more, and more) money out of my pocket to pay for your inability to make informed, intelligent decisions. (Am I grumpy about it? Oh, a tad.)