I heard something on the Fox morning news show that made my eyebrows pass my hairline (thank you, HBW, for that visual). One of the genius experts on the economy was talking about the success of certain proposals in the field of energy costs. He said that we could conceivably see gasoline prices at $3.50 per gallon by the end of summer and that that would be a great victory for the American consumers. Far past the capacity for surprise in this area, I mean we are spending more than $4.00 per gallon for the good stuff up here in the colorful state. That is down from about $4.80 a few weeks ago. I know...many of you are spending more and some of you will tell me I don't NEED hi-test. But here in the Swirling Epicenter we sit above the Mile High City by over a thousand feet. We can find ourselves crawling along the shoulder of a mountain pass while our autos wheeze and ping and try to keep going. Wvery little octane bump is appreciated. And the colorful state is the only one I know of that calls your low grade our medium grade. How many of you could even find 85 octane? If you check, you will see that for most of the country, 87 is the lowest they sell. Go figure. And as for the 91 octane that serves as our hi-test...my '68 GTO is not impressed.

So anyway, $3.50 a gallon will be a great victory for American drivers. Why? Because we held off the mighty oil companies? We kept them off that $5.00 mark? This time? (Well, not in California and a couple other places). What did we win? Follow the history of this for the last twenty years and the pattern is always the same. Some thing happens to shoot the gas prices sky high. Panic and speeches. Threats of Congressional investigations, new laws, etc. The prices slowly come down to some level significantly above where it was when the whole thing started. But we sigh in relief because we don't have those monster gas prices anymore. The scam has worked so well the oil companies don't even try to pretty it up anymore...after all...what are WE gonna do about it? Each crisis is answered with promises to wean us off of "foreign oil". Problem with that is that in terms of corporations, we are "foreign oil". Every time there is another promise to further the cause of "alternate" energy solutions. That is so much crap. When I was in high school, long enough ago for me to politely decline an exact year, Chrysler, GM, and Ford all had working models of turbine powered cars that were being driven on the public roads. Chrysler put one in each state during a year long test. The one that came to California was in San Diego County for a few weeks. I saw it on the road with my own four eyes. They even featured it in a movie about road racing. The thing about the turbine was that it would burn almost any fuel and do it cheaply and the emissions were mere fractions of an internal combustion engine.

Over the years there have been any number of innovations that have not been popular enough to win over the public. But the technology to ease our suffering has existed for LONG time. People laugh at the little cars that are showing up now, hybrids, electrics, natural or propane, solar, whatever. But you notice that the prices of these cars are not competitive with the old standards. They tell us that is because of the cost of the new technology.

New drilling. What a thought! Use our own oil instead of the rest of the world's. There is one little problem. Even if we could increase the amount of crude we bring out of our own fields, where we gonna refine it? We haven't built a new refinery in decades, thank you to all you green yankers out there. The refineries we do have are at near capacity now. And the argument that slays me about new drilling? It will take ten years to make an impact on the market. OKAY! But the same people have been making that argument for more than ten years! If we had gone ahead with some of the relaxations we are looking at now ten years ago, we would be arguing about something else now.

And finally for now, EXXON announced a new record in its quarterly profits this last quarter. And no sooner was the announcement aired then the big capitalist protectorate, Limbaugh, Hannity and that ilk, are defending the oil companies because they are in the business of making money and they have high costs of operation, and they have to pay for leases, and they have to explore and on and on and on and puke. They didn't say "Earnings"...they said," Profits". When you pay your bills, your explorers, your chauffer, your cook and bottlewasher, what you have left in your pocket is "PROFIT". Limbaugh has a perfect solution whenever anyone tells him they can't afford something. He tells us to find better jobs...make more money...like he did. He was fired seven times (eight if you count last year when I fired him again). See, when you make 12 million dollars a year, you can adjust your budget to accomodate a little extra fuel cost. I am not a communist, I believe in the American way of life, I like to make a buck myself, now and then. The oil company take on a gallon of gas in in the pennies, we are told. The Government, that evil entity that raids our pockets every April, doesn't spend a penny on drilling or refining and yet they make more on a gallon of gas than the oil companies do. So What!!??? The oil companies are still raking in record PROFITS. Out of my pocket.

Yeah, a great victory. We should have a ticker-tape parade. Of course we'll have to car pool, those parades are slow and hot and eat up a lot of gas.