GASOLINE

 It’s a gas, gas, gas! Prices are quoted in US dollars per gallon for regular unleaded:

Hong Kong
$6..25

Brussels, Belgium
$6.16

London, UK
$5.96

(2.) Hot Springs, Arkansas
Who Cares? Ain't going anywhere.

OPEC'S Last Laugh:

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

$0.91

Kuwait

$0.78

Why Big Oil hates Hugo Chavez:

Caracas, Venezuela

$0.12

Buenos Aires, Argentina

$2.09

Mexico City

$2.22

Nobody’s fooled. The gas cartels are pillaging America big time in the last days of the latest Bush/Cheney profit grab. Even with hundreds of billions of dollar quarterly profits at the old rates, our oil companies in collusion with our dear Bush friends, the Saudis and OPEC are in swindle redoux mode.

Why now? Before, big oil could manipulate the market by spike profit runs claiming that a lack of refineries prevented adequate supply from meeting need and thus raising the cost of supply. It doesn’t take a sixth grader to figure out that a trillion dollar industry employing some of the world’s most intelligent individuals deliberately reduce refinery potential to define artificial profit peaks.  It’s the old Enron game.

This time it’s on a colossal scale. With the dollar falling drastically against the Euro, OPEC wants to bring American costs in line with Europe even at a slightly higher rate, so that when the dollar eventually adjusts, gas prices will stabilize around the $4.00-$5.00 level. Gas may reach as high as $6.00 in the American market before the dust settles. Then, it will plunge, yes plunge, to around $4.00 just before election time next Fall. How convenient!

This single manipulative factor in the general ruin of the American economy is wreaking havoc with ordinary Americans dependent on fuel to make a living. Food prices are soaring. CNN listed the percentage increases in basic goods recently. They are totally out of touch. Perhaps their well-paid researchers don’t realize that the 12% percent increase in the price of bread is more like 50% here in Vermont. Home heating oil is now more than a hundred percent increase over last year.

The implications are staggering for the Northeast and northern Midwest. Many elderly will die, and many low income families and individuals will, of necessity, abandon states where survival in the winter months becomes impossible. There will be a new dust bowl phenomenon called the ‘Bush Bowl’ as desperate snow birds head south and west to start over. Drama? I don’t think so. It’s just a matter time, and that time will bring massive popular anger and civil unrest. New Orleans will seem like a picnic.

There is nothing more upsetting to thieving tyrants than property risk. Maybe it’s time to burn gas on the eve of  destruction so that the high and mighty join the rest of us in the New Depression.

"Gasoline"  Sheryl Crow

(feat. Ben Harper)

Way back in the year of 2017

The sun was growing hotter

And oil was way beyond its peak

When crazy Hector Johnson broke into a refinery

And the black gold started flowing

Just like Boston tea

It was the summer of the riots

And London sat in sweltering heat

And the gangs of Mini Coopers

Took the battle to the streets

But when the creed was handed down

For no more trucks and no more cars

They threw cans of petrol through the windows at Scotland Yard

Gasoline

Will be free, will be free

Gasoline

Will be free, will be free

When the Mounties stormed the palace of the Saudi family

They held them up for ransom

Without disturbing their high tea

But their getaway was shaky

They stalled in the Riyadh streets

Cause you can't make it very far

When your tank is on empty

The final can of gasoline was loaded on a truck

And driven through the streets of Agra to the palace aquaduct

You see, all the majesty of worship that once adorned these fatal halls

Was just a target to the angry

As they blew up the Taj Mahal

Gasoline

Will be free, will be free

Gasoline

will be free, will be free

Gary ran a market way down in Tennessee

Where all the farmers got together and talked about this great country

But when the government turned its back on farming

Man, what I hear

They dragged the pumps out of the ground

With a big vintage John Deere

I've got soldiers on my payroll

Standing guard on my front drive

Snipers on the roof poised at those

Who don't want me alive

Cause they audited my taxes

My family under threat

Cause I've got a message and a megaphone

And I'll scream it to the death

Gasoline

Will be free, will be free

Gasoline

Will be free, will be free

You got the farms in Argentina

Making fuel from sugar cane

You got the bastards in Washington

Afraid of popping the greed vain

Cause the money's in the pipeline

And pipeline's running dry

And we'll be the last to recognize

Where there's shit there's always flies