Another Cartoon

The caption, by the by, says "Recession? What recession?"

And in other I'm-so-glad-that-our-President-is-on-top-of-things news, President Bush finally came out and said that the economy is going through "challenging times."

People, this is the 21st century. The kind of data that economists need to determine the current state of affairs is READILY AVAILABLE. And, seeing as this is the US Government, I'm willing to bet that they have access to this information BEFORE ANYONE ELSE DOES. Yet, for some reason, they are still always two steps behind.

Why? I'll tell you (you knew I was going to, didn't you?). Because the big companies that are REALLY running the Government are the ones making money here. The oil companies (that the Bushes have a direct interest in, of course), to start with, are making money hand over fist. Vinnie told me yesterday that ExonMobile holds the record for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th largest profit gain in a quarter. Why? BECAUSE OIL IS OVER $100 A BARREL!

And there is argument within the Government as to whether or not the interest rate should be lowered again because the Dollar is losing value faster than you can even blink. But what's being done about it? Nothing really. I don't know what can be done about it, I'm not an economist, but I do know that there has got to be something that we can do about it! For one, stop producing money. Less money in circulation means more demand, yes? Supply and demand. Not just for products. The law holds true for money too. If there is less money circulating, then there will be more demand for it and the value will increase.

That's exactly what they are doing for gold and diamonds. Raise of hands. Who actually thinks that gold and diamonds are as rare as they are perceived to be. Perceived demand is what makes these "rare" commodities so expensive. It's the exact same scenario with oil. OPEC is "slowing down" production in a "transition from winter production to summer production." Blah blah blah. It's a cover up for "we can raise the prices, so we will. AND! As we have been meticulously raising the gas prices every summer for the last 50 years, we're going to make you all believe that the extra increase in prices is normal."

Gas prices are being manipulated from all sides. The methods of productions have not change significantly since the beginning. Subsequently, production costs have perhaps increased due to inflation, but the method and the production costs are essentially the same as they were 20, 30, 40 years ago. Yet we're paying twice as much for gas today as I paid for gas merely 3 or 4 years ago. It's ridiculous. We are supposed to have the brightest minds in the world working on a solution for our addiction to oil, but nothing has been done yet? That just doesn't add up.

Something should be done. Something drastic. Something really, really drastic.