Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Black gold, Texas tea

GDub has decided that it's time to launch an investigation to see if there's some sort of price gouging involved with current oil prices.

Gee, you think maybe there's something there?

After all, the oil companies keep talking about how much it's costing per barrel of crude oil, and yet, somehow, they keep posting record profits. Sure, there is an increase in overall usage, but the numbers still don't quite add up. Theoretically, given that cost per barrel is increasing, then yes, pass it along to the consumer, but don't pass it along at astronomical rates. Not to say that capitalism is a horrible evil, but there comes a point where, as a company, you need to worry about the consumer, or else you'll price yourself out of their already thin wallet.

This is also happening at the same time as GDub has decided to stop purchasing oil for the national reserve (potentially a good thing, but let's wait to see the long-term consequences before we make final decisions), and loosening environmental restrictions on the producers (sounds like a pretty bad thing, given the already shaky status of the environment in a few too many locations, i.e. Earth). No, humans are not going to destroy the planet (not without lots of nukes, anyway), but we are working on making it uninhabitable for ourselves, and letting companies out of the restrictions may just be speeding up the process.

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