Maybe in three...

One more thing occurred to me after writing my last...

Ryan is, perhaps, advocating a deregulated petroleum market in the hopes of increasing domestic crude production... and THAT I can support 100%. However, I don't think that Bush's efforts helped at all.

By giving in to environmental pressures and allowing such vast areas of production as ANWAR, the Gulf shelf, and the Pacific rim to be removed from the list of oil producing areas of this country, the US has allowed foreign sources of oil to be more economically viable on the market than any domestic oil we can now produce. No one drilling in LA, MS, FL, TX or OK for crude is going to be able to do it at a price that can compete with such producers as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Mexico or Venezuela... where the national economies are GEARED to subsidize the price against consumer demands in places like Europe and the US. The disaster that was the BP Gulf oil leak will only make that problem a thousand times worse, too.

However, allowing speculation pricing to continue only makes this problem WORSE. It feeds fears and hopes that might never materialize beyond the paper they are printed on, and passes those on to the consumer when they never need exist in the first place. A harsh winter playing hell with a wheat crop certainly can impact many, many people here in the US (even more abroad)... but it won't bring the entire nation to its knees the way a $100 increase per barrel of oil will, when that increase is based solely on the speculative ramblings of someone know one really knows anyway. So, spending millions to cash in on a "perceived" glut on the winter wheat market is one thing... but contributing to a spike in crude prices when the entire nation is utterly dependent on the commodity based on nothing more than a whim or rumor is NOT good for the nation or the economy.

Am I clear here? What about this am I still being vague about?