The problem is the disconnect between supply/demand and price

As always, the reactionaries are pounding the drum to increase oil drilling in environmentally fragile regions, claiming that somehow, this will lead to lower gas prices. I'll tell you what it will lead to: increased oil company profits and without lowering prices.

We already give the fossil fuel producers billions in sweetheart leases, subsidies and tax breaks. How's it working out so far?

Yes, taking steps to increase our domestic oil supply "should" lower the oil futures market.

Ah, but if you look up "should" in the dictionary, it says "ought to, but not necessarily will." It is the very disconnection between stable supplies, falling demand and yet soaring prices that is the problem.

To quote the president of the largest independent gasoline distributors in our nation, in recent Congressional testimony: The cause of rising oil prices is "excessive index speculation by institutional investors." He went on to state that if, in fact, oil prices were based on supply and demand, they would be GREATLY lower than they are now.

Just yesterday, Saudi Arabia announced that they were going to significantly increase output. Did prices drop? Ah, no. (In fact, they rose.)

As in the credit crisis, lax regulation and unfettered greed allows the mega-rich to create their own market trends and consumers can't do anything to stop them.

NPR aired a great piece featuring Dr. Robert Reich who laid out a spot-on comparison between current oil futures speculation, the pre-1929 stock market and the housing credit debacle.

Basically, traders are allowed to make their own market trends, in part by buying oil futures with money they don't have. Reich argues (convincingly) that one major solution to our current situation would be raising margin requirements to some level closer to reality, which would reduce the ability of these institutional traders to set their own prices.

Dr. Reich also mentioned how speculators circulate "news stories" that seem to foretell higher prices, from which they benefit. One way that oil traders have inflated prices is by constantly circulating PHONEY dire predictions of some impending supply crisis ("Some refinery somewhere needs some work, and it's gonna be a disaster!) Of course, since our news media sucks, they never come out and say "This is bunk." Instead,they just run the stories and never expose the use of these self-fulfilling "predictions" to help drive up oil futures prices.

Also, if one assumes that lowering demand would lower prices, there is one very quick remedy: Get the heck out of Iraq. First, our occupation forces consume INCREDIBLE amounts of petroleum. And second, the STAGGERING deficit spending in Iraq puts huge pressure on our financial markets, which helps to destabilize the value of our dollar and THAT really DOES effect the price of oil futures.

There are exactly two ways to lower the deficit and raise the value of the dollar: Get out of Iraq and/or tax the rich. Obviously, the Shrub won't do either.

The Fed was far too slow to start lowering interest rates as our country headed into recession and now they have completely over corrected and have sent us into 1970's style "stagflation." The Shrub and his neocon cronies ignored all of the warning signs, failed to take REAL action to help the economy, and now, we're in deep doo-doo.

American consumers are voting with their feet. Over the recent Memorial Day holiday, nobody (and I do mean NOBODY)in my neighborhood went ANYWHERE. On the other other hand, I can show you a half a dozen RVs for sale within a few blocks of here.

And one really SWEET looking Corvette...