Friday, April 21, 2006

AMERICAN MIDOL AND THE OPEC GAS ATTACK

Okay, so by now you’ve heard the rumors that gas is expected to climb to $24/gallon or something ridiculous like that. Or was it $4? I can’t remember. Either way, that’s more than I’m comfortable paying without cutting back in other areas like beer and pizza. Unfortunately, consumers at large remain largely powerless to do anything about it. And that’s despite all of these e-mails telling us to boycott certain gas stations or to prevent buying gas on certain days. All that’s managed to do so far is inconvenience me while the price of gas drives higher and higher.

One thing we CAN do is be smart consumers and buy gas where it is the cheapest.

Thanks to AG for the above link – it lists all of the prices at all of the gas stations in your ZIP code so you don’t have to drive around the neighborhood comparing them all (which would cost you about $7.34 to do on today’s prices).

Didn’t Exxon just post the biggest profits in the history of the world?

My guess is someone in the oil industry got word from Acting President Dick Cheney that plans to strike Iran are in the works. Funny how we invaded Iraq looking for nuclear weapons, and in the time we spent digging around in the sand over there (and finding nothing), the industrious Iranians next door managed to whip up some nuclear power of their own. Now we DO have a problem. What we feared would happen has happened: nukes in the Middle East.

“Yoo hoo! Mr. Bush man! Looking for THESE?!?!?!”

Hey – let’s cut the Iranians a break here. They say they need nuclear energy to create electricity. They must be having a hard time finding access to oil.

Bush's Axis of Evil has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Iraq has become a terrorist breeding ground and military quagmire - a black hole that sucks away vital American resources hour after deadly hour. And while we've been busily trying to get Iraqis to get along with each other, North Korea and Iran have gone on to join the nuclear club. And just when you think things can't get any more fucked up you realize that Bush's contract doesn't expire for another 2 1/2 years. Is there any way we can offer him a buyout? Then we could throw some money at Parcells or Belichick and put a proven winner in charge.

When you're done checking out cheap gas stations near you, you've got to snap your fingers to this bad boy, created in the spirit and style of a Jib Jab Production.

Thanks Jay!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess the silver lining to the current oil "cloud" is that Exxon's bottom line remains untarnished! (Keep those gears of the capitalism engine, well, oiled...) They were able to offer their retiring, fearless leader, Lee Raymond, a $400 million retirement package. Not bad, on top of a $51 million salary in 2005 alone.

Lest folks think that astronomical executive compensation might have something to do with prices at the pump, Raymond assured Congress last year that global supply and demand is driving gas prices.

"We're all in this together, everywhere in the world," he testified. Well, with all due respect to the warm and fuzzy nod to solidarity, WE are not exactly in this together. As part of Raymond's retirment package, he gets a car and driver and use of a company jet for two years. That should provide some breathing room before inflated gas prices start eating into the mammoth fortune he's made during his tenure of fleecing the American public.

For an appraisal of that tenure, check this out:

http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/08/05/roberts-raymond/

Anonymous said...

BF, it does seem suggestive that the dynamic duo piloting our ship of state has deep ties to the oil and defense industries... industries which, lo and behold, have prospered immensely in the post-9/11, war-on-terror landscape.

I SEE YOU!