Think We're on to Something?

I think so but sadly most of America will turn a blind eye to this.

I quickly glanced over this headline during my jaunt through USAToday.com this morning.


Oil falls under $98 amid talk of supply boost from OPEC
Oil futures fell Monday on a widening belief that OPEC ministers will agree to raise crude production during a meeting next week.

Oil continued to flirt with $100 a barrel Monday. But after peaking at $99.11 per barrel during the day Monday, West Texas Intermediate, also known as light, sweet crude, for delivery in January closed Nymex trading in New York at $97.70. That's a 48-cent retreat from a record $98.18 Friday. It continued to slide in worldwide electronic trading afterward, and was $96.90 when the Monday electronic session ended at 5:15 p.m. ET.

As I pondered what I'm having to pay at the pump and how often I have to pay it, my mind started down a path of financial freedom.

It seems that if crude production is increased, the price of sweet crude will drop. Hmmm. What if we stopped buying crude from Middle Eastern interests and drilled for our own? This would relieve us from our dependence on foreign oil all together (a dependence that increased by as much as 60% under the Clinton Administration).

I started to make more sense. I was feeling brave.

How about coming to grips with the cleanest and safest form of energy known to man...nuclear power! The benefits to the country and her people would abound if a major push for nuclear energy was instituted by utilities producers.

Just as it was all beginning to click, enter the lemon-squeezing, tree-hugging morons on TV. Thanks for interrupting my inner-monologue, ya Jerkface!

Nah, why would we waste our efforts drilling for our own stash! There are better ways to channel that energy. We have a populous to scare! Remember, drilling generates massive amounts of irreversible environmental and ecological damage the likes of which the Earth hasn't known since the meteor impact that killed off the dinosaurs!

Oh, better yet. We can get all of our activist buddies in Hollywood to shame American corporations into making "green" en vogue business practices. What a great way to show that corporate America, "cares". Ah, just think of all the CO2 emissions we'd prevent!

No, I've got it! Let's tie up any and all efforts to build new oil refineries! The ones we have now have been running great for 30 years! What we need is LESS refining capacity! We'll show those greedy, Big Oil tycoons that we mean business. We'll take their profits and tax the living daylights out of them until they come crying on their hands and knees begging forgiveness from Mother Earth. Down with Big Oil! Up with Prius!

Role playing aside folks, oil prices are high for a myriad of reasons. Political unrest, increased industrial demand from China, OPEC mandates, national and state import tax, refining cost, stresses of a global market etc. all factor into what we're having to pay at the pump.

The best and most effective remedy I can see is for Americans to get off of this drug called foreign oil. Plain and simple. While no one resource will be the magic cure-all, alternatives to high-priced energy are within our reach. Heck, they are within our own borders!

If I have my own oil, I don't have to get it from someone else...

I Think I'm on to something!


Note: photo courtesy Scott Teven www.photohouston.com