MADER'S 'BRANTS Gas Prices May 21, 2004 - I was riding around town with my buddy Mike for lunch Thursday when all of a sudden he screamed like a little girl. “What’s wrong?” I asked. After all, the man has had a liver transplant. I don’t need him dying on me - certainly not while he is driving. He points out the windshield and with a hushed, almost awe struck voice he says. “Gas is at $1.95 a gallon.” You would have thought the angel Gabriel herself had come down and personally given Mike a blow job. My fellow Americans, when did we get so whipped that we thought this was a good deal? To say that $1.95 is a bargain is like having some one rape you with a baseball bat but because they like you they only use the 4-inch diameter bat with lube and not the 5-inch diameter one without it. Thank your lucky stars that you got off so light! You clap with glee and cheerfully grab your ankles as they start the excruciating process of shoving it in. It never occurs to you that you shouldn’t be raped at all! When did we become so docile and easy to abuse? What’s the impact? Regardless of what Allen Greenspan thinks, fuel prices affect everything. He recently raised interest rates because he feared deflation. He did the same thing in 1999 as he and other expert economists proclaimed that we had a new information-based economy and that the price of petrol was irrelevant. You may remember that we then went head long into a recession, the stock market crumbled and the economy basically went into the crapper. I may not be an expert on economics, but I do know that the price of gas affects everything - from how much liquid cash I have to spend to how much I have to pay to purchase something. It has always been this way and always shall be because nothing gets made or shipped without burning fuel. However, a senile 78-year-old man that doesn’t drive and earns large sums of money tends to ignore the fact that raising fuel costs will more than compensate for deflation. So you get higher gas prices and higher interest rates and, as a result, inflation. In short, expect what looked like a recovering economy to slow down yet again. What caused the prices to spike? Greed. People claim there is a shortag, but best estimates today state we have over 40 years of fossil fuels left. Know what they claimed back in 1985 and 1990? We only had 40 years of fossil fuels left. Guess what they will claim 10 years from now. Don’t get me wrong. There is a finite supply, but based on the math the suppliers use they will have priced them selves out of the market long before we use the last drop of crude. That logic is irrelevant, however, as long as they make a profit in the short term. It’s also about politics. Funny how we went from 20 something a barrel before Bush was elected to over 40 today. Part of what we are seeing is foreign powers trying to influence our electoral process by hitting us in the wallet. How better to get rid of the “Great Satan” then slash oil production, cause economic turmoil and get the current administration bounced out because they can’t control the world’s oil supply. How to fix it? Well we could go invade a large oil-producing country, take over their oil reserves and lower the price. Ummm, no, wait. We have been accused of that every day for the past year, and clearly that hasn’t worked. We could find alternative fuels. We have been talking about that since the 70’s. Thirty years later, you see the progress we have made. Not much. We could try a boycott. Errr, no. We tried that Wednesday the 19th, and that didn’t work. Do you remember it? Neither do I. We could abandon our cars and walk. No. Can’t do that. We’re too fat as a nation for that kinda exercise. Awww, screw it! At some point, rape becomes inevitable, so ya might as well just lay back and enjoy it... ...and pray they use the smaller bat! Later, Mader