Suspending Reality

After Katrina the Dunce in Chief responded to a spike in petrol prices by suspending environmental requirements that reduce pollution. Facing another run up in prices, he's doing the same thing again. In some ways it's not so stupid, one of the reasons prices are so high is that these environmental controls are increased in the summer to protect our environment--the oil companies for some reason are struggling to comply this year. (I can assure you that in neither case were the oil companies upset this barrier was removed. They would do it as routine if it saved them money, whether they could charge for it or not.) However, this is a cynical response to high prices. With record profits, Bush manages to find a way to increase them further at the expense of the environment. Just as the American people (if not the government) are catching on to global warming, Bush finds another way to damage it further. Speeding up global warming will only increase the economic impact of storms like Katrina.

A better way to approach the current cost of oil would be to address the route causes. The primary one is instability in the Middle East. The latest increase was caused directly by the Dunce's threat to nuke Iran, one of the world's leading oil producers. And of course the continued debacle in Iraq isn't helping any either. The cynical side of me is beginning to wonder if this is all a happy coincidence for the oil companies.

What really happened in those secret energy meetings with Dick and the oil barons back in 2001? Were they plotting this whole thing? Use the might of the US military to destabilise the Middle East and drive up oil prices? That way Bush's oil buddies in Texas and Saudi Arabia can back up their money trucks to our ATMs and start shovelling. It's brilliant! This latest move even gives further handouts to the oil companies by again threatening to open up AMWAR (which is owned by you and me) to the oil companies, with all proceeds going to big oil rather than the US treasury. This is a cynical explanation for what we are seeing, but it explains so much.