Where is the Outrage?

I am very fortunate in that I have a very short commute to work. In fact truth be told I probably should ride a bicycle on warm, clear days, but that is another story. Because of my short commute I don't purchase gasoline for my car very often, once every three weeks or so. This makes me pretty sensitive to significant changes in the price of gas. I never pay the same price for a gallon of gas twice in a row. Just think about that for a minute. I go grocery shopping every week and except for sales, I pretty much pay the same price week to week for things like eggs, bread, milk, beef, chicken, etc.  Every once in a while something happens that causes a spike in prices. A harsh winter can cause produce prices to spike temporarily. A case of mad cow can play havoc on beef prices, and all food prices are subject to slow, steady, inflation. Nothing costs what it did 20 years ago. Then there is the price of a gallon of gas. The last time I bought gas, it was around $2.00 a gallon, roughly three weeks ago. Now the price of a gallon is around $2.40 at the same station. Assuming my math skills haven't diminished that would be an increase of 20% in three weeks. How is it that the price of food is stable and gas goes up 20% in just three weeks? We must have had a serious gas crisis recently right? This is a free market economy and prices don't just go up without some kind of market pressure do they? I haven't heard anything on the news about a gas crisis so I thought maybe I just slept through it. Thank God for Google right? I Googled "gas crisis". Here are the top three stories that came up: 1973 oil crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Natural Gas Crisis, Economists fear Katrina could cause a national gas crisis - Aug . The natural gas crisis story was about the gas crisis in California in 2000-20001. Out of the top three choices the most recent "crisis" was Katrina. So what happened to cause such an increase in the price of gas now? Nothing, zip, nada. It got cold for a couple of weeks. That is it. So as they are so prone to do the oil companies took this opportunity to screw consumers. This is not free market economics. It is market manipulation by big oil and they have been doing it for years and no one says a word about it. I remember several years ago when oil companies started raising prices during the "summer driving" season. I thought to myself at the time, why should I pay more for gas in the summer. There is just as much available to consumers as there is in the winter, probably more so since no one is have to buy heating oil so that means there should be more oil available to go into gasoline. Doesn't that make sense? And since there is more oil to produce gasoline there should be more gasoline causing prices to drop in the summer. But the opposite happens. I started tracking this phenomenon for a few years. The first time I noticed they were doing it prices went up in May at the start of the summer "driving season". Then a couple of years later they did it in April in anticipation of the start of the summer "driving season" and no one said a word about it. Then a couple of years later they did it in March in anticipation of the anticipation of the start of the summer "driving season" and that year Congress threatened to introduce windfall profit legislation and the price of gas dropped like a rock until May when the summer "driving season" started again. Once the oil companies figured out we were were buying the "driving season" crap they just started all kinds of market manipulation.  Flu season? That is good for a 5% increase since people are all driving to the doctor now. Hunting season? Let's say 10% since all of those dead deer weighing down cars and trucks are going to seriously impact fuel efficiency.  And we all saw what they did during Katrina. Speculating that a hurricane might  have a devastating effect on fuel supplies coming out of Louisiana they really jacked it up. Only thing was the crisis they were predicting never happened. We just got screwed. And this is not the only market manipulation going on with oil because big oil conspires with OPEC to manipulate production in order to artificially inflate the cost of a barrel of oil and nobody says a word about it. Nobody.  So where is the outrage? If your grocery bill went up 20% in three weeks wouldn't you be pissed? Aren't you tired of reading about the outrageous profits oil companies are making year after year? Haven't you had enough yet? I have. In fact I had enough a long time ago. If the government can regulate the cost of a bushel of corn they can regulate the cost of a gallon of gas and they should. Not only that, why are we giving tax breaks to companies generating that much wealth. When you have time, sit down one day and figure EXXON/MOBIL's income per employee. It will make you sick. Not that their employees are getting the money mind you. But you get a better frame of reference for the staggering amount of profits this company is making by intentionally manipulating the price of oil and gas. If they are not going to practice free market economics our government should practice price freezes or price adjustments indexed to inflation. Let gas prices go up in line with other prices. There is nothing special about oil that we should allow corporations to manipulate prices the way they do. Fuel is just as important to our survival as food and housing. And we certainly need to take oil companies off of corporate welfare. Of course as long as the oil whores Bush and Cheney are in the White House we can't expect the executive branch to act. But it is past time that Congress acted. They won't do it until we become outraged and demand it of them. So, where is the outrage?

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"I have no mouth and I must scream" Harlan Ellison