[BretLudwig]

((Note to Joe: Have you considered converting the vintage Olds to propane?
Bret.))



View From Lodi CA: The Sunday Night Drive Remembered

By Joe Guzzardi

"When I was a young boy growing up in Los Angeles, one of the summers
major events was the Sunday night after dinner family drive along the
Pacific Ocean via Highway1 to watch the sunset.

My mother and father, my two sisters and I all piled into the Oldsmobile.
Our route varied but one thing remained the same. Before returning home,
we stopped at the wonderful Will Wrights Ice Cream parlor.

For a host of reasons, few Southlanders today indulge in the family
drive.

For one because of traffic, driving€”or inching along until you
mercifully reach your destination€” isnt much fun.

Second, families dont eat meals together anymore.

Third, the Baskin-Robbins chain knocked Will Wrights out of business
decades ago.

And fourth and most importantly with gas prices at their record levels,
who can afford such a frivolous use of fuel?

Pump prices are Americas number one topic. At the beginning of the
Memorial Day weekend, I filled up for $3.93. Yesterday, ten days later, I
paid $4.33.

Every passing day, retail gasoline prices reach new record levels.

Whats going on? Who can we believe? When will it end?

Speaking from the perspective of someone who over the course of his
professional career has worked for three Fortune 100 companies, and has in
the process built up a healthy skepticism for corporate trickery, even I am
amazed at the skillfulness with which Big Oil deflects responsibility.

For months Americans have been told that the soaring price of oil is the
result of the Iraq War, market speculation, a weak dollar, insurgent
attacks on Nigerian oil facilities, Norwegian labor problems or the
current favorite excuse, high demand in China and other emerging nations.

Shell Oils president John Hofmeister repeated the mantra for the
umpteenth time during last months obligatory Congressional hearings
when he said: €œAs repetitive and uninteresting as it may sound, the
fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work.€� [The Same Old Song
on High Gas Prices, By David M. Herszenhorn, New York Times, May 23,
2008]

Oil companies know they can count on their friends in high places, the
White House, to continue to stick it to the American people.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gave Big Oil an assist when he declared
that the culprit is indeed supply and demand. [Paulson: Oil/Demand, Supply
Cause for Price Rise, Reuters, Emily Kaiser, Joanne Morrison, May 22,
2008]

Oil executives are united in their opinions on what is not needed:
nationalization, any new tax on corporate profits which, they claim, would
put American companies at a disadvantage and only further decrease oil
supply, a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax which would, they
allege, increase demand and only raise prices more and lawsuits against
OPEC nations that would do nothing to lower prices.

The one question that the oil executives refuse to answer honestly,
preferring instead to surround their already couched responses with smoke
and mirrors, is if are they guilty of profiteering.

Of the three major companies I worked for, two were major financial
institutions that were forever focused on their corporate clients
€œnet profit€�.

And Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil, Chevron and BP, the five
largest U.S. oil companies, registered an eye-popping 2008 first quarter
aggregate $36 billion net profit.

€œNet€�€”that means after meeting all the expenses for dousing the
ever-present refinery fires, reinvesting in gas and oil field exploration
and all the other sundry causes given for retail price increases.

Oil executives may not want to reply to the charges of price gouging.

But I will. Without any question, the multimillionaires who manage big oil
have raked us over the coals. No end is in sight.

By the way, let me offer a closing note on the evening sunset drive.

A couple of years ago, to my great pleasure, I resumed the practice. And
after a critical 2007 illness forced me to take a year off, I took it up
again this summer, gas prices be damned.

What I learned while I was sick is much more important than paying more
for your gasoline: you never know how many sunsets you may have left to
appreciate."

Joe Guzzardi [email him], an instructor in English at the Lodi Adult
School, has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently appears
in the Lodi News-Sentinel.
http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/080606_vfl.htm

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