Those wacky oil prices and ports

When Oil hit a record $58/barrel, I stopped driving. I have a diesel automobile. It weighs thousands of pounds, and still gets better mileage than an SUV.

I stopped driving because, as a representative of Bush's jobless 'recovery (recovering from unprecedented plenty and prosperity)', I started my own business doing what I know how to do. And my family needs me to make good decisions. Like not paying $3/gallon for fuel or invading a country because I'm an asshole. Even though I'm an asshole, I won't invade your country without a reason, without a plan.

That's what happened that day. Fuel shot up in price to $3/gallon. Gasoline went up first, but then leveled off a little lower than diesel. Diesel fuel seems like simple unrefined petroleum to me. Certainly costs less to make. But $3. Overnight!

Now oil fetches a groovy $68/barrel, and the price of diesel in my market is back down to $2.65. Not a big deal, but certainly doesn't reflect economics.

How did the fuel companies make the record profits last year, even given the surge in raw material costs? I drove less. So did you. Demand went DOWN. Prices went up. A lot. I remember a cozy $1.25/gallon Clinton price. But when the world heard of the disputed US election in 2000 and foreign investment slowed, US operations of foreign companies like every drug maker on earth stopped research projects. And the oil companies represented by our President and his Men made big bucks.

It couldn't have been all the free real estate and mining rights passed out by the Republicans in government, that happened after all the bucks.

Perhaps there's an election dividend at work. They got their money, they're getting about the same per gallon, but it's a symbolic suspension of the raw rules of supply and demand working to keep our high fuel prices lowish while the Republicans run for cover under the smoke provided by the now-successful quagmire in Iraq and the kind blown up asses by the liberal media.