Man, you guys are lame posters...

Seriously... does anyone read this rag anymore? Anyone?

Anyway... I work all week this week in the poker room, and I'm surrounded by big screen TVs. Nice for sports coverage, but on slow days between Stanely Cup games and MLB matchups... there isn't much to watch. Today I was forced to watch nearly six hours of MSNBC because of a customer request... and it was like being tortured.

People say Fox News is biased and one-sided? Has anyone seen this channel? My God... its so mindless as to rival E! for unwatchability.

I watched pundit after pundit today come on and say that should America DOUBLE its domestic crude oil production, we'd only see a $0.03 reduction in gasoline prices at the pump. Wow... really?

That being fact, what then is causing the hike in prices at the pump? Why are there cities all across this nation with pumps charging more than $5 per gallon for regular unleaded? It's not because we are running out of crude, obviously...

So then it must be the manner in which that oil is priced on the "open" market. Right?

I mean, we certainly shouldn't expect something as vital to our nation's livelyhood as crude oil to be traded with sure and certain knowledge that the price paid is for supply available, should we? Why would we, when we can "guess" at what it will cost tomorrow, and price it accordingly? Trouble in Libya? I bet the price goes up. Unrest in Egypt? That's gonna drive that price up. Demand for petroleum products in China is expected to rise over the next 24 months? Add another $25 per barrel, please... but not on TODAY'S prices. No, no... add that to NEXT MONTHS prices.

Obama and the Liberals want no more drilling in the Gulf, offshore in Florida or California, the North Slope of Alaska... anywhere, basically. They don't want to see an increase in domestic energy production. Why? Because the taxes that are applied to every level of that industry are so vital to their "big government" plans that they can't find the ways or means to do what they want without them. Imports on crude oil have tariffs and duties just like any other import... we can't lose those!

Why is it so difficult to see that by simply rolling back Bush's opening of the trade markets in crude oil to speculation pricing would (at the very LEAST) stop the roller coaster that gasoline and other petroleum products have been on for the last four years? Why has no one explained to me what benefit that move made the US economy, and why Bush hasn't been crucified for it years and years ago? Look at the price of gasoline over the last 30 years... from 1980 to right now, and tell me where the "spikes" begin... never mind, I'll do it for you: 2001, when Bush threw out Reagan's curbs. Prior to 1980, the same spikes... same ups and downs... as 2005 and beyond. Between 1981 and 2001... the price of gas never jumped more than $0.21 EVERY QUARTER! Yes, it trended upwards... just like every other commodity on the market during that same twenty years... but no spikes that might have upset or slowed down a booming economy, which is what we had from 1989 to 1999.

I'm honestly beginning to think neither side wants to seriously address the problems with our national economy. Perhaps the GOP has as much to gain from being seen as "the SOLUTION" as the Democrats do... and thus the seemingly driving notion that avoiding the PROBLEM will benefit the nation as a whole by getting them elected... again.

How is our national economy supposed to "recover" when even the mildest piece of "bad news" from the Middle East (and when was the last time we got a string of GOOD NEWS from the region? Honestly?) can send the price of crude oil up as much as 70% overnight? Just last week we went from $91 to $121 in less than an hour... with no appreciable (or even measurable) change in supply of the oil. How is that OK?

I'd love to see someone show me I'm wrong...