Gas Gougers Galore

Yes, it's a scam from top to bottom. $75 a barrel oil; $3 a gallon gas. You don't have to be paranoid, although it helps.

My old habit in another city was to go to breakfast with a business friend at 7 am every Monday. We began to notice the same group meeting at a table in the back room each time. The group was made up of owners of about a dozen local gas stations. I knew one of them quite well, and I asked him why he meets with his competitors. Without any hesitation he answered, "To set our prices for the coming week."

Yet, you hear the man-on-the-street defend the local dealers by insisting that prices come from the top down. The truth is the gas and oil folks avoid competition at all levels.

The industry finds reasons to raise prices all along the line. If we read of an oil tanker sinking 500 miles from our coast this morning, the gas and oil fuel wholesalers will raise their prices tomorrow, in anticipation of higher prices.

How can anyone still believe the market determines the price of oil and gas when there is an OPEC which restricts the production and distribution of the products?

They're all fixers! Producers, distributors and retailers. Exxon, Texaco, Chevron and Freddies' Fuel and Fast Food.

The market - like you - is not free.

The corporations, by their lobbies, are in virtual collusion with the guvmint. They have violated, abrogated, revoked, and buried the law of supply and demand. The market is controlled and managed. A free market delivers competitive prices. These prices are set.

Then we have the obscene, special tax breaks for the oil giants. Plus, the favored treatment in any number of applications. For instance, Exxon pays no royalties on the gas and oil resulting from these natural resources taken from the Gulf of Mexico. Outrageous.

Promise yourself that you'll learn the facts and get to the bottom of this ripoff. Then you'll pressure your public servants to reestablish competition and exalt the law of supply and demand. It's the American way.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Moderate to heavy smog again today. Watch out for particulates. Pass it on to friends in Ohio.

* We invite Bunker Buster Bob Bennett, our senator who has so much enthusiasm for advancing our military capabilities, to attend a picnic in St. George at Pioneer Park on June 2nd. That's the date of the planned explosion at the Nevada Test Site. Try to be there by nine in the morning, Bob. You might be the only one in the park, or outdoors, because you know we won't be there. Orrin will be under his desk at the Senate Office Building in Washington, so it's up to you, Bob. You'll be the only public servant to be sacrificed. Your failure to attend the event might bring charges of hypocrisy, which we - of course - know to be untrue.

* Not far from St. George, a cowboy watches over his herd while riding his horse and talking on a cell phone. The stunning sight flung me into the new century. Willie Nelson might write a country hit: "I'm a Cell Phone Cowboy."

* What's our leader's middle name. Does the W stand for War?

* Here's my solution to the alien (notice that it's not illegal immigrants) dilemma. Congress must write this new draft bill: All male aliens, without visitors' visas, between the ages of 20 and 45 must serve in the U.S. Army for two years. An honorable discharge would earn automatic full citizenship. All other aliens must follow the existing laws.

* Overheard in a cafe: "Never let friends teach you a foreign language. They'll teach you all the bad words first."

* Did you know aliens were bussed into New Orleans to work in post-Katrina clean-up and rebuilding, to take jobs Americans won't do?

* The Iraq venture is good for yet another reason: If we pump oil there, we won't have to pump it at home.

* The late, great Ayn Rand suggested that citizens challenge every new proposal with the question: "At whose expense?" This should be interpreted to mean cost in liberty, not just dollars.

IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.